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How Did The Enlightenment Thinkers Influence Our Government

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Enlightenment thinkers had a huge impact on how we view, and run our government today. They contributed greatly to the influences we have in our world and even the laws we abide by in our world today. These thinkers were extremely influential to our government and how they shaped the country. The reason being, they had amazing ideas that went for the better of the people, and that was exactly the dream that they had for the U.S. We follow what they said, and thought, and put our own twist on it to make sure that it fit exactly what we wanted for our country and what we want for our country now.

In the Declaration of Independence we see a good amount of Enlightenment ideas being put into this. One of them being John Locke’s idea that …show more content…

We don’t follow all of these today, but they are still there, and some people still follow them as if they were created yesterday. But I believe that we all should realize our unalienable rights, and try to gain that “pursuit of happiness” every day.

In the Constitution we also see a lot Enlightenment ideas come into play as well. The idea from Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Beccaria. One of the ideas we see is from Rousseau, which is the idea of Popular Sovereignty. This states that the authority of the government is created for and by its citizens. Basically, the people are the ultimate rulers, and can rule themselves or pull other people in for them to do it themselves. This idea that the real and true power lies with the people is a big idea of the Enlightenment and pushed into the Constitution. Rousseau also believed that a republican form of government, in which the people choose their representatives and who they want involved in the government was an ideal form of government. Another Enlightenment idea that is very prevalent in the Constitution was the ideas of Montesquieu and the separation of powers/checks and balances. This man heavily shaped our government. In his thoughts, each branch of government was to be separate and each have their own independent powers. He believed in this

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