How Did The Enlightenment Influence The Government

Influence of Enlightenment Philosophy There comes a time where man must not mindlessly follow their current government and way of thinking. The time arises were men must create change and birth innovative ideas on how their society and government should function, the Enlightenment was one of such times. The Enlightenment was a period of time where man began to question his government, and to try to reform it. The Enlightenment gave rise to great philosophers who can be considered as trailblazers, going ahead of the Framers and laying out the basis for a new kind of government. The Framers drew heavily on the ideals of the enlightenment when drafting the U.S Constitution. This essay will highlight the influence the Enlightenment and its philosophers had on the creation of the U.S Constitution.

During the Enlightenment, there were many uprisings, rebellions, and revolutions as people began to question divine right and reform their government. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “We owe to this period the basic model of government founded upon the consent of the governed; the articulation of the political ideals of freedom and equality and the theory of their institutional realization; the articulation of a list of basic individual human rights to be respected and realized by any legitimate political system; the articulation and promotion of toleration of religious diversity as a virtue to be respected in a well ordered society; the conception of the basic political powers as organized in a system of checks and balances; and other now-familiar features of western democracies.” Had it not been for the Enlightenment and its ideals, the U.S Constitution and America's government would not be the way it is