The Enlightenment Dbq Essay

During the Renaissance people began to stray away from the Catholic Church, and began thinking for themselves. While doing so people began to reconnect to old Roman traditions. Subsequently, the Enlightenment was born soon after. The Enlightenment was a new way of thinking also known as The Age Of Reason. John Locke and Thomas Hobbes are two famous philosophers from the Enlightenment that are known for having two different view on government. John Locke believed in a democracy and expressed that humans have the ability to govern themselves. However, Hobbes believed that humans are selfish and need a single leader(king) that should govern all affairs. Post French Revolution people lived under Hobbes theory, but wanted to become a democracy.

Even though he third estate was the biggest group making up 98% of the population they had little to no rights. They were the only groups being taxed and holding up the France economy(document 2). The inequality gave the third estate an opportunity to connect with the ideas of John Locke during the Enlightenment. New views of government began to spread through the third estate. With the American Revolution being another factor, they were able to create a constitution similar to the Ten Amendments. In the constitution freedom of speech, freedom of press and equality were some of the rights given to all people. These set of rules would be a change as to where in past government they were being killed for doing these things.(document 4). Even though these rules were not set in place idmently, it opened the door to more rights. Later in 1791 the final France Constitution was displayed. The rights given in The Declaration of Man and Citizen and the France constitution had similarities. In the Constitution freedom of speech, press and equality was given also all citizens having a right to office, and equal taxes across estates were more laws that give rights put in(document 9). Giving more rights to all of France citizens gave them a courage to speak up and gave them cause for Revolution and made this part of the Revolution a

Monarchy was one of the berdons holding France back at this time. From 1770-80 under the ruling of Louis the 16th France found itself in a large amount of debt. HIm and his wife Marie Antoinette excessive spending habits were the cause of the debt being repaid by the third estate. In 1793 when The Convention found him guilty of treason and sentenced him to death by guillotine. After being decapitated, the executors showed his severed head to the crowd saying ¨Long live the Republic¨(document 5). This showed that the citizens of France was tired of Monarchs and wanted change. However this did not last for long when Robespierre, one of the Jacobin leaders, came into power. He ruled as a dictator and wanted to wipe away France past. His time in power became known as ¨The Reign of Terror¨. During this time he stepped on the toes of democracy. He formed the committee of public safety and took away rights such as freedom of speech and press. Speaking out against him was cause you to be put to death in the morning by guillotine( document 10). Robespierre justified these killing by calling the people radicals and his enemies. To him he feels that the killings were making people scared to connect back to the Revolution(Document 7). When the committee was in place 2 639 Paris citizens died by guillotine and 11 361 people died outside of Paris. Most deaths from the