Complete the following short answer questions THOROUGHLY and THOUGHTFULLY. Insufficient answers will not receive full credit. Answers should be in another color. Be sure to choose a color that readable! 1.
Throughout the American Revolution the colonists in America wrote many documents to declare their independence and establish the United States as a sovereign country. Despite the fact that they are all great, the US Constitution is the most influenced by the Enlightenment. The Constitution had countless ideas that express this. For instance in the first three articles (I- Legislative, II-Executive, III-Judiciary) the Founding Fathers made sure that the new government had separation of powers.
Founding Fathers: James Madison The writing of the Constitution was one of the most monumental changes in the United States government. There were many men who wrote this document; fifty-five to be exact known as the founding fathers. One man that had some of the most influential ideas is a man by the name of James Madison.
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson was a founding father of our nation. In a time of turmoil and tyranny, Jefferson freed our country from the rule of British Parliament, expanded our boundaries, and unarguably laid the economic foundation for our country by opening trade in the west. Jefferson, a patriot was a Visionary Leader with the betterment of the country in mind when seeking an exploration west. He was an Ethical Leader when freeing the people from an oppressive monarchy, and laying the foundation for civil rights by attempting to end slavery.
Essential Questions: It seems almost impossible to think what the world would be today without the enlightenment thinkers, they are responsible for some of the most important documents today. I think John Locke had the most impact on the writers of the constitution John Locke: Who: John Locke
(Q4) As a scholar in 1789, looking at the United States Constitution I would see many ideas from the Enlightenment. There would be ideas from both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke reflected within the document. There are parts in the Constitution that explain how to build a powerful government to maintain control and keep the people in line. Thomas Hobbes believed that a strong government was a necessity. There are also parts that reflect classical liberalism however, which pushed for individualism and the government only having power that people allow it to have.
• Thomas used Aristotle’s view of natural law to justify the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in political as well as religious matters. For the purpose of explaining the fundamental reasons of law he used Aristotle’s philosophy and added the use of an eternal ruler. John Locke • John Locke had a distinct influence on the writers of the American Constitution by advocating for human rights and liberty through democracy. In saying so, he believed that the mass majority of ordinary people can be capable of giving consent to their governor/ruler as opposed to the Monarch government. However if the ruler did not comply with the needs of the people, Locke believed that the public had the justified right to rebel.
The Constitution of the United States of America has been an eminent document in our country’s past, present, and future. More than any other document, it has shaped our country today. The Constitution was not, however, just written out of someone’s own thoughts, rather there were documents, bills, ideas, and people from near centuries of the Constitution that guided the Constitution to become the illustrious transcription it is in this era. The Constitution was formed from ideas John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, the English Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta, and the English Parliament; who combined had the key ideas that the Constitution has held for centuries. John Locke John Locke was an English philosopher of the 17th century who had key propositions to establish a new way of governing.
During 1787, there was major controversy over the Articles of Confederation. To fix the controversy, the founding fathers of America came up with the Constitution to help resolve the issues. The Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788; it provided a new central government, laws, and certain basic rights for the American people. Many of the ideas in the Constitution were influenced by French Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and John Locke. Thomas Hobbes influenced the American Constitution in many ways.
The philosopher that had the greatest impact on the U.S. Constitution would be John Locke. Many of John Locke’s philosophical views align with what has become the U.S. Constitution. His believes that align with the U.S. Constitution are: religion, natural rights, and education. The first one that I will discuss is his belief in religion. John Locke believed that everyone needs to have the right to follow any religion they wanted to.
The Constitution was and still is a very important document in American history. It began the strong central government that America has today. However, the document had a lot of trouble getting to where it is today. Federalists and Anti-Federalists debated what should and should not be in the Constitution. Federalists had more valid points to what should be in the Constitution, such as limited powers and not having a bill of rights in the Constitution.
The United States Constitution consists of the essential principles and laws for the nation. It is the framework for the government of the United States, exemplifying the citizen’s rights and duties as well as the system of how it’s governed. The Constitution was established according to the fundamentals of federalism as well as the separation of powers. The United States Constitution was written during the Philadelphia Convention which is also known as the Constitutional Convention in the year 1787. It was written by a variety of people including Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Paine and John Adams under the supervision of George Washington.
One idea which writers used in the United States Constitution was the idea of popular Sovereignty. John Locke discussed that government representatives gain their authority through the people, and not through hereditary succession. He wrote that the people who are governed should be the ones to elect their leader. The Constitution allows people to vote and the people give authority to the government. When Britain was in control the people did not have a voice and the writers did not want this to happen again.
There were many philosophers in the 17th and 18th century that influenced and inspired the founders of our country. For instance, John Locke believed that life, liberty, and property should be our natural rights as humans and if the government could not secure these rights then the people could get rid of them. That idea impacted Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. This was the perfect time to develop different theories and contradictions because this was right around the time of the printing press and protestant reformation where people started to question the catholic church. Other philosophers like Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau impacted founders like George Washington and James Madison who have positively affected this country in many different ways.
When comparing the two different accounts of English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke we must take into consideration a number of things such as the age in which they lived and the time in which they produced their philosophical writings. We will however find out that these two philosophers actually have a couple of things in which agree on even though most of their opinions clash. On one side we have Thomas Hobbes who lived in the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651) who provides a negative framework for his philosophical opinions in his masterpiece Leviathan and who advocates for philosophical absolutism . On the other side we have John Locke, living during the glorious revolution (1688-1689) he presents a positive attitude in his book The Second Treatise of Government and advocates for philosophical and biblical constitutionalism. It is important that we know that the state of nature describes a pre- political society prior to the social contract.
