Compare And Contrast Enlightenment And American Revolutions

America’s founding fathers used enlightenment to justify their freedom from British rule. American ideals clearly reflect themes from the enlightenment movement such as toleration, natural rights of men, and enlightened leadership. “Enlightenment encouraged thinkers and activists to question the social, political, and economic order around them, and offered concrete ideas about how societies could be reordered more effectively.” (Bentley 471) Ideas from the enlightenment era laid the foundation for the justification of the revolutions that took place in the Americas during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The American identity has evolved over time. During the 1700’s, the Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, occurred. It spread rapidly across Europe, and then to North America. This revolutionary way of thinking was crucial to the development of the American identity. The Enlightenment was the period for cultivation of science and human reason.

The Enlightenment and American Revolution resulted in the people believing that their government, or ruler, should protect the people’s rights, including the right to overthrow a government that fails to do so. Enlightenment thinker, John Locke, contributed considerably to the growth of the U.S. by influencing the founders in their making of the constitution, which supported John Locke’s and other Enlightenment thinkers’ ideas for government guidelines. One of the two compromises was the Great Compromise, which created a bicameral government with equally represented states in the senate and by population in the House of Representatives. The second was the Three-Fifths Compromise. The Three-Fifths Compromise served to allow the government

The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. By the early 1700s, European thinkers believed that nothing was beyond the reach of the human mind. The Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and the 1600s had transformed the way people in Europe looked at the world. The Scientific Revolution caused reformers to begin studying human behaviors and try to solve the problems of society. This new surge of learning led to another revolution in thinking known as the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was a period of time that stressed the importance of reason and individual ideas. Many philosophers published works criticizing a country’s monarch or divulging the flaws they saw in a system within the government, such as the justice system. The Enlightenment also stressed the importance of education, and as a result of this, literacy rates experienced a major upward trend. Now able to read the philosopher’s works, a larger sum of people now were educated on the corruptions within their government. This caused a questioning of traditional practices, and people began to believe they could revise their government.

Enlightenment was created by the English philosopher John Locke. The ideas that were influenced by enlightenment were life, liberty, and property. This also gave to the idea of natural right. Enlightenment influenced the way people finally realized that divine right wasn’t right and start to doubt it. Throughout time enlightenment has influenced a lot of important events in history.

The years 1750-1900 are better known as the Revolution Era. During this time period, there were several revolutions that occurred throughout the developing world. Two of the main revolutions were the French Revolution and the Latin American Revolution. Both revolutions followed the anatomy of a revolution and had comparable causes, however the French Revolution politically better outcomes, whereas the Latin American Revolution resulted in poverty and lost territory.

The American and French Revolution are both remembered in history as two major changes that would shape what we know today. Every child learns of the American Revolution at least once in their lives. Both these revolutions had the similar cause, effects, and stages that resulted or started them. Just like in every warring country, it is inevitable that there will be some change that occurs whether it be for the better or for worse. Although the American and French revolutions were very similar in the actions, there were many differences leading them into ultimately different paths and states of rest.

The ideas of the Enlightenment influenced the American Revolution and the formation of the American Government. Firstly, The Enlightenment was a philosophical evolution that emphasized the aged ideas of the Greeks and Romans. In addition, the major philosophers of this time period were Voltaire, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau, Adam Smith and Isaac Newton. Their ideals include having an absolute monarch as a government (T.H), the separation of powers (Mont.), the government should not interfere with a free market economy (A.S), the freedom of speech (Volt.), the government could be overruled (J.L), and the government should rule according to the will of the people. Nevertheless, these ideals are important because they shaped the government that we have today.

Thomas Jefferson in particular wrote the Declaration of Independence, which stated “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator

Unit 2: Absolutism and Revolution Portfolio In this unit, you examined the American and French Revolutions. The American Revolution, sparked by conflict over British rule and influenced by Enlightenment ideas, broke colonial ties with a monarchy and yielded a new nation. The French Revolution, inspired by the American Revolution as well as the Enlightenment, freed French citizens from an absolute monarchy and secured equality before the law for all male citizens.

The American Revolution set the background for the modern nation state as well as molding the modern Army. Both countries have many differences and similarities, ranging from the individuals fighting these wars to tactics and strategies they used to win. These countries shared the same idea of freedom and independence, the difference is they used different methods of accomplishing this goal. It’s difficult to pin point which country chose the best method, but we compare some of the facts and take a deeper look as to what was transpiring in both of these Revolutions. In the 18th Century the main problem the Army had was manpower.

The American and French Revolution both had similar stages that a revolution consists of having a normal stage, widespread dissatisfaction, and the transfer of power and effect. The Americans and French both had a normal stage in which they were ruled by and monarchs were chosen in a traditional way. They both had a time when both sides oppressed the French and British government. Lastly, both parties got power in the end from whom they wanted to be free from. All revolutions have many stages which they go through, these three stages are the main bits of a

Enlightened thought presented by Locke outlined the formation for a new government that served the people of the nation, restoring their rights and liberties, rather than just the

“God, who has given the world to men in common, has also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience” (Locke, 35). The Scientific Revolution concentrated on understanding the physical world through astronomical and mathematical calculations, or testable knowledge. The Enlightenment focused more on “Spreading of faith in reason and in universal rights and laws” (Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 535). While the Scientific Revolution preceded the Enlightenment, both time periods sought to limit and challenge the power of the Church, through the spread of science, reason and intellect, and political philosophies. The Scientific Revolution began with Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1542) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) wanting to understand the movement of the planets beyond what they authorities had told them.