Pros And Cons Of The Enlightenment Era

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While we go on with our daily lives, we often forget to think about how and why our country is like the way it is today; however, learning about the beginnings of the country we are living in may allow us to understand our nation’s present state. Before the United States became an independent country, a plethora of events had to occur. An important era leading to the American Revolution was the Enlightenment Era. Before the era, religion was used as a guide to make decisions in people’s lives. Philosophers of the era argued the common people had a moral sense which they could use to make their own decisions and should celebrate the power of human reason and scientific information to progress and advance their knowledge. These ideologies …show more content…
The enlightenment ideologies established in the founding documents were the people had natural rights, the separation of church and state, and the tripartite system of checks and balances.

The ideology created by John Locke that people were born with natural rights of life, liberty, and property contributed to the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Declaration of Rights. As a king ruled, he believed he was chosen by God to rule the people, so if someone challenged the king’s power, the individual was also challenging God. Locke believed as long as the Crown had absolute power, there would be no legitimate government. He thought a solution to a corrupt government was it should be appointed by its citizens protecting the rights of the people. These ideologies influenced the creation of the Declaration of Independence as it was made to send to the king to show why the colonists were breaking away from their corrupt country. “...all men …show more content…
He urged for a government to be separated into three branches: judicial, legislative, and executive; he fought for the distribution of power since an absolute government in power would fall apart due to corruption. Since one of the three branches could usurp the power, Montesquieu also made a system of checks and balances. The Federalist Paper #51 made a document implementing ideas for their new government using the tripartite system of checks and balances. “In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government...essential to the preservation of liberty...each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others.” Madison, the writer of the paper, made sure the new government had a system which the power would be distributed and protect the freedom of its citizens. As the Constitution was made after the Federalist Paper, the Constitution could have been influenced by the Federalist Paper as it included a system of checks and balances. The Articles in the document explained the roles each branch performed and limited the powers among them. “All legislative
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