Enlightenment Influences on America's Founding Documents

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The founding documents of the United States of America have persisted to prevail a message to Americans as models of excellence in their fulfillments of perfection to the best of their abilities. The instruments that shaped The United states of America are merely products of fragments composed together to produce a foundation in which the United States stand on. These fragments include ideologies from the European Enlightenment in the age of reason which prompted an American Enlightenment to start beginning in the 1700’s. Events surrounding the American Revolution were lessons for the authors of these founding documents to show the effects of they had upon being introduced to the citizens. Together The European and American Enlightenment …show more content…

Along with these ideologies came opposing figueres during the Age of Reason deemed “the enlightened thinkers” who opened a new outlook in systems of government which were later adopted by various revolutionary documents including the Declaration of independence. Those from whom most influenced the revolutionary documents of America were European the philosophers John locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire. The founding fathers of America examined varieties of government models and their final conclusion “The Constitution” particularly resembled the writing of the European philosophers. For example John Locke's basis’s, life, liberty, and property is best familiarized by the famous quote "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" from the Declaration of independence and a more evident proof is presented by the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution stating “Governments cannot deprive any person of "life, liberty, or property" without due process of law.”. Montesquieu can also be credited extending the ideas of John Locke and for providing America the with a unique entity, separation of powers which was a neglected ideology by all European powers during the eighteenth century. The Declaration of Independence States “Governments …show more content…

These events started new ideas on how to keep government stable and best suitable to its citizens. An example of America's unique circumstance that helped fuel the fire of the revolution is the Quartering Act of 1974 opposed on the colonists by the British government. The quartering Act forced the colonists to accommodate the British soldiers in their homes, this event caused the Constitution to state in the third Amendment “No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” The uprising of farmers who refused to be taxed resulting in a bloody confrontations known as Shays Rebellion cause George Washington to rethink the confederation because of its weak stance on the matter. The opening words of the constitution “We the People …do ordain and establish this Constitution” addressed rebellions against the government and condemned them because of the events like Shays Rebellion. The unique events surrounding the Revolutions embedded there traces in the founding documents which are still in effect today. It took allot to create a country with a governmental structure that has stood for over two hundred years. The founding documents of the United States of America were built on extensive searches for which would be most suitable for Americans.

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