The Enlightenment and Democratic Revolutions

REWLUllON Enlightenment ideas hdpd bring about the American and French revoluaions.

t0.21 Compere the majw ideas of philwo- phen and thelr effects on the demomatic r w o t u t h In England, the United States, Frencs, end Min -ria (e.g, John W e , Ch~r lWuis m i e u J e m - l a q ~ Rousseau, S l m h Bollvat, Thomas Jefferson, J a m Madiron). 10.24 Explain how the Ideology of the Freoch M u t i o n Isd France to devaiop f ~ c O d t d o d ~ r r h y t 0 ~ ~ despotEPm to the Madewrk emplm. i0.9.8 D i m s the stablMmmt end work af the United M a t h s and the putpses and functi of #e W a r n PbEt, SEATO, NATO, and the Orgmitath of American St-.

24 Prologue

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Theserwrdutionsdthe * ~lightemnsnt representative ~ ~ t ) l e y produced have * scTdal mtmd government inspired other demoaatic natural righis federal movements separation of United Natioms:

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SEfflFlC THE STAGE The Renaissance continued to affect Euro throughout the 1 7th century. The Renaissance emphasis on the indi expanding human potential w e ~ e especially influential. At the Europeans began to explore their physical world. They extended the of the lcnown wrld in what came to be called the Age of ExpIodon. N and discweries had a great impact on Europeans' understanding of the and the world.

Enlightenment Thinkers and ldeas Wlrrng the 17th and 18th centuries, an intellectual movement ca

developed. Enlightenment tttinlaers tried to apply the of reason and the methods of science to all aspects of society. They the long b r y of Western thought.

The philosophers of ancied Greece had established the idea of natural that could be discovered by carehi obmvation and reason& in Christianity conmbukd the belief in the equality of all buman kings. (Tbis would hter lead to the principle of equal rights in sdty, ) Wiring the Remi thinkers had focused on worldly concerns. They criticized mediwal phi for coocentrating on questions that seemed unrelatd to b

The Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s was ate source of Enlightenment thought. It stimulated new k h s about government. The Scientific Revolution caused tbinkers to reiy thought rather than just accept tmditioml beliefs. Enlightenment t both Isaac Newton's discoyry of the mechanical laws that gcwe and the scientific method that made such a discovery possible. wanted to apply the scientific method, which d i e d on obscwatio theories, to human affairs. They hoped to use reason to discwer natural goverrned wiety just as xientists had used it to &cover physical laws. Whes and -e The English pbilosophers Thomas H O W and Jo were imporhat Enlightenment thinkera. %ah considered hbuman role of government. In his masterpime of pal i t id &wryt k v H&bs stated that people were by nature %fish and ambitious. He type of government needed to control selfish ambitions was h l u t

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chid, his idea of a locial cwmd &as important for the d&lopment of democracycy Loclce held a more positive view of human nature. His book ZW %ulises of

Gownmen1 was published in 16W, the year a h the Glorious Revolution. b k e argued that the EngM pcople had been justified in overthrowing James ll. The gov- enunent had failed under James to perform its most fundamental duty-pmhxthg the rights of tbe people. Lmke said that all buman beings had, by mtm, the right to life, liberty, and property. In der to protect these &dl@& d q formed governments. The people had an W u t e right, he said, to m M against a govern- men! &at viohted or failed to protect their rights.

Locke believed that a gwwnment's powler comes from tbe people, Iwt from God. Thus, h k e provided a strong argument against the divine right af kings. W e ' s ideas about self-government inspired people and became cornerstones of modem democratic thou& W i r e and Rourte~ l Other thiakers of the Enlighmnent admired the demo- m t i c nature of English institutions. They themselves, bowwer, lived under a b lute monarchs. Voltah was a brilliant 1 8thsentury French hist-. He argued in favor of tolerance, freedom of religion, and fke speech. The F m h government and Christkity were often targets of his criticism.

Fbhap the most freethinlang of all E n l ~ ~ t phdmophm was dam-Jcques R o w s x t ~ His DIM famm work wsls Tk S o d C o n m t (1762). In it, Tknwxm ~ d e m ~ . U n l i k e H ~ , h e d e d d K ~ i a l ~ m ~ a m o o g h ~ ~ ~ ~ k a g r ~ v ~ t t h a t d d ~ t O ~ e ~ $ ~

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of assodation which wilt defend and protect with person and goods of each assodate, and in which

W with all, may sb'H ow himsell alone, and remain as

JEAN-IACQUB ROUSSEMI, f i e W

I For Rousseau, the only legitimate, or authentic, government came from the consent of the governed. The people, he hopd, would follow their consciences to vote for, or choose, what was best for the community as a whole. Montesquieu Another French philosopher, Bacon de Montcsquieu, also recog- nized liberty as a m h d right. In The Spirit of [he Laws (1748), Montesquieu pointed out that my persoo M grwp in povrer will tty to imrrease: its power, Like Aristotle, Montquieu searched for a way to control government. He conc1uded that l i k t y couldkt k safeguaded by a -radon of m, that is, by divid- ing government into three separate branches. These branches were ( I ) a legislature to make laws, (2) an executive to enforce them, and (3) courts to interpret them. The United States and many other democratic countries use this basic plan.

The Beginnings of Democracy in America T b e h s o f h ~ t h a d a s t n r m g ~ ~ o n B M % N o r t h ~ colonies. Ry th$r d 17% 13 British COW hold Ikm d W in No& h e r i c a . ~ ~ ~ b y t h e ~ g ~ f . T o t b e m h ~ ~ of Britain's do* was Mew France,$~mcb admy. fa 1734, Bcain and France -ta-~ar-10f~0rshm~8.n~-wa~~ahs:~rerschanad I n d i a n W ~ . ~ ~ ~ d ~ ~ t i n ~ . ~ ~ c o n f l i c t ~ ~ m b ~ ~ W a r ,

A n m b n s Probst B&k& Policies The American colonists helped Britain defeat France in the French and Indim War, which ended in 1763. The war had k e n very cudy, however, and further ex- lay ahead. Britain believed its colonies should pay some of the cost because they shared some of the benefits. To protect ?he newly a c p b d territory, the British needed to keep even more soldiers in America. To raise money, Britain sought to tax the cobnists. The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765.1t was the rust in a series of such tax measurear.

The colonists, who were not represented in Parliament, protested what they vi& as a violation of their rights as British citkm-there should be no taxa- tion without repsatation. The colonists also resented the British for preventing them from settling on land west of the Appalachian Mountains. They felt that the French and Mian War had been fought to allow westwad expausion. Americans Win Independence The colonists opposed each tax measure Parliament imposed Eventuaily, to protect their economic and political rights, the colonists united and began to arm themselves against what they called British oppression. The colonists' fight for independence from Great Britain, the American Revolution, began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord on Aprit 19,1775. The Americans issued a Declaration of Independence on July 4,1776. In it, they declared to King George IIl of England and to the wwld why they should be free of British rule. The ideas of the Enlightenment+pecially Locke's ideas that governments are created by the people to protect their rights-strongly influ- e n d the writers of the Declaration. A M five more years of war, the British army surrendered in 1 78 I . The Americans had won their independence. Fur several years, the new nation existed as a loose federation, or union, of states

under a plan of g o v m e n t called the Articles of Confedecation. Americans Id wanted a weak central gwernment. They feared that a strong govment would l a d to th kind of tyranny they tiad rebelled against. The -1es established one My, the Congress. But it was too weak. It did not have the power to coflect taxes to pay war debt or to finance the gwemment.

Enlightenment Ideas Shape the on In the summer of 1787, a group w ~degatessign of American leaders met in Philadelphia. They had been chosen by their state leg- the new U5; islatures to frame, or m r k out, a better plan of government. The result of their Constitution in Philadelphia

efforts was the Constitution of the United States. This document has served as an

in 1787. inspiration and a model for new democraciw around the world for mu= than :

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years. Creating the Constitution was not an easy task, how- ever. There was great debate over a very basic question: Is it possible to establish a government that is strong and sta- ble but not tyrannical'! The answer t hat the framers reached was y-such a government was possible if they created a system in which power and responsibility were shared in a balanced way.

First, the framers agreed to set up a representative gov- ernment, one in whtch citizens elect representatives to make laws and policies for them. This was to ensure that the power to govern ultimately rested with the people, as advo- cated by Rousseau. Yet, unlike Rousseau, they selected an indirect form of government over direct democracy. The Romans, too. had chosen an indirect democracy when they established a republic.

Second, the framers created a federal s w m . The pow- ers of goverrunent were to be divided between the federal, or cet~tml, government and the states? or local, governments.

Third, within the federal government, the framers set up a separation of powers based on the writings of Montesquieu. Power was dividcd among the executive, legislative, and judi- cial branches. This provided a system of checks and balances to prevent m y branch from having too much power. James Madison played at1 important role in the constitutional debates. (See History Makers on this page.) @

The French Rdution h e 1700&, the imp& towardcbmacyhrrri:4~

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History