The Effect that the Enlightenment had on the American Revolution

The Declaration of independence, document declaring the US to be independent of the British Crown, signed by the congressional representatives of the Thirteen Colonies, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, and ratified on July 4, 1776. This was just one of the first set of foundation to the united states. Second came the constitution. The Constitution of the United States is a document that embodies the fundamental laws and principles by which the United States is governed. It was drafted by the Constitutional Convention and later supplemented by the Bill of Rights and other amendments.

The beginning of the bill of rights states, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, ratified in 179, guaranteeing such rights as the freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship. John Locke was an English philosopher who believed all people have natural rights to life, liberty and property, independent of any man-made laws. He is a man that very much would agree with the bill of rights. This is in contrast to claims that people are naturally subject to a monarch, as he asserted in his 1689 work “Two Treatises of Government.” Locke’s argument for natural rights served as his basis for defining the legitimacy of a government. In his view, the state of nature entails the temporary transfer of rights from the people to their government, which is responsible for protecting the people’s enjoyment of these rights, through a social contract.

If this contract is broken, the government may be replaced (2018 IAC Publishing, LLC). Ultimately, The United States government is best categorized as a constitutional federal republic (2018 IAC Publishing, LLC). This means that the United States is governed primarily by elected representatives and an elected leader, and that power is balanced between the federal government and the governments of the states. Rather than having virtual representation in any form of government, the united states now has actual representation in government. This allows our nation to thrive and survive. Soon there was the american enlightenment.

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