Enlightenment Influence

Jake Fischer

Back in the 17th century, during the enlightenment era, the great minds of philosophers

had ideas that they thought would create the perfect government. Some proposed ideas were

obscure, but some were well thought out and adopted by our founding fathers. I argue that

enlightenment thinkers greatly influenced our great country. I will prove this by looking at

natural rights, which was thought up by John Locke. I will also evaluate separation of power, this

idea was created by Montesquieu. Finally, I will consider the will of the people which was a

popular focus but make philosophers had different views on it.

America adopted the ideas of enlightenment thinkers, John Locke said that natural rights

are those that do not come from law or from any particular form of government. They are

universal and unalienable rights to which every human being is entitled. This is the embodiment

of what it means to be American. We are born with the same rights that every one American has,

we did not have to earn it, we were not given it, we were born as an American citizen and that

was reason enough to have unearned dignity and natural rights. During the enlightenment, John

Locke spoke out, saying “A man’s natural rights are life, liberty, and property”. Life: Everyone

is entitled to live once they are created. Liberty: Everyone in entitled to do what they want as

long as it does not conflict with the first right. Finally, property: Everyone is entitled to own all

they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights.

Considering the United State’s government follow these ideas, it is safe to say America adopted

them from the great enlightenment thinkers.

 A second enlightenment idea that the American government enforces is separation of

power. Montesquieu's idea for a separation of powers was called tripartite. He called for a

separation of government power with a legislative, executive and judicial tripartite. This was

done to assure a political entity such as a monarch could not exist. Ironic enough we have

separation of power for the same reason that was stated nearly 600 years ago. In history, without

separation of power, we have seen a few avoidable wars and mass genocides. Montesquieu lived

in a time period where execution was a possible and fairly common form of punishment for

speaking out against the government. He solved the problem with his proposed but America was

among the first to put this idea into place and run a fair government where one person could not

ruin the life of others through unfair leadership.

Finally, the will of the people. This was the thought of how people would act toward each

other is their was not an authority figure in charge. Hobbs thought people would be naturally

bad, he thought they would fight and nothing would get accomplished. Locke on the other hand

believed that through something called a “social contract” everyone would work together, there

would be a peaceful and harmonious environment, everyone would be naturally good. This idea

is easy to link to the United States government because it is on our constitution, “the will of the

people”.

It would be hard to argue that the United states did not adopt enlightenment ideas. Our

form of government is modeled after what the great philosophers thought up. It is fair to

everyone and no one is naturally better than the other. Everyone has the same rights, those rights

are earned at birth. Although flaws are present in our government, we do our best to follow what

was left for us, what the enlightenment left for us.