Enlightenment and Constitution

erudition and the nature The f wholly in States is a nation established in 1776 on a sight of principles liberty, equality, and self-govern gentlemans gentlemanpowert. These bringing close togetherls derived in part from broad lessons of history, from the colonist, and treatises such as those of Locke and Rousseau. Liberty is a principle that somebodys should be free to act and think as they choose, as long as their actions wear int infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. comparability is a notion that all individuals argon equal and entitled to equal treat workforcet under the law.Self- governance is the principle that the people are the ultimate source and proper benefactive role of governing authority. These principles were the raiseation for the united States set forth and written by our innovation fathers, but taken from rulers and minds of Europeans during the Enlighten handst period. The Enlightenment was an eighteenth- speed of light intellectual movem ent whose proponents believed that humans beings could apply a critical, reasoning fondness to every problem (Hunt, Lynn, Martin & Rosenwein, rapscallion 545).During this period the rulers, writers, and thinkers gave the back bone to the promulgation of Independence, the unify States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Although before we energise to this period and how it shaped the United States we lead keep back to go back a little further to 1651. In 1651 an English philosopher doubting Thomas Hobbes had his work Leviathan published. Hobbes argued that government rests on a social generate in which the people give up current freedoms they would have in a maintain of nature in return for the valueion that a sovereign ruler endure provide.Almost a half of a century later, an English philosopher, illusion Locke, used Hobbes construct of social contract in his moment Treatise on Civil Government. Locke claimed that all individuals have certain inalienable rights , including those of life, liberty, and property. When people engineer a government for securing their safety, they retain these individual rights. only Locke saw the social contract a bit differently.The agreement to put across to governing authority is based on the premise that government will protect these rights, if the government fails to the people stooge countermand the government and form a saucy one( Patterson, foliate 14-15, 30). Thomas Jefferson declared that Locke was one of the deuce-ace greatest men that ever lived. Jefferson paraphrased Lockes ideas in passages of the resolving power of Independence. Including those that, all men are created equal, that government derive their fairish powers from the consent of the government, and that it is the right of the people to spay or abolish a compulsive government. The Declaration was a call of diversity rather than a framework for government. However the ideas contained in the document liverty, equality, indivi dual rights, self-government became the basis for the Constitution of the United States (Patterson, page 30). In Voltaires, Treatise on Toleration and blue jean Jacques Rousseau, Social melt off we find to a greater extent Enlightenment thinkers ideas framed in the Constitution. The ideas the Constitution receives from these works are the basis for Amendment I, freedom of religion.Voltaire states in A Treatise on Tolertion, theology was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. Christians should tolerate from severally one other. I, however, am going further I say that we should regard all men as brothers, are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same theology? Voltaire is setting the basis for freedom of religion, reflection that the people must show frequent Tolerance for all. Rousseau takes it even further in The Social Contract.He states, it is of importance to the State that each citizen should have a religion requiring his i dolatry to duty, however the dogmas of that religion are of no interest to the State. Rousseau sets forth the idea that the government shall make no law respecting an cheek of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, as stated by the First Amendment of the Constitution. eventually Cesare Beccarria and Empress Catherine the Great both have an idea that resides in the Constitution. That idea is that all men are innocent until turn out guilty.In Beccarrias Crime and Punishment he states, No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty nor can society take from him the public protection until it have been proven that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. Empress Catherine states in her Proposal for a recent judicial Code in Russia, No man ought to be looked upon as guilty, before he has received his judicial sentence nor can the Laws deprive him of their protection when it is yet dubious, whether he is Innocent or Guilty?. The United States is a nation established in 1776 on a set of principles liberty, equality, and self-government. These ideals derived in part from broad lessons of history, from the colonist, and treatises from the Enlightenment Period. custody and women from Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Cesare Beccarria, and Empress Catherine the Great have prone ideas that our founding fathers saw and deemed worthy to be put in the United States Constitution. Thomas Jefferson himself based many ideas in the Declaration of Independence from concepts written by John Locke that became the basis for the Constitution of the United States.Where would the United States be without these enlightened minds from Europe? kit and boodle Cited Beccarria, Cesare, Crime and Punishment Catherine the Great, Proposal for a New Legal Code in Russia Hunt, Lynn, Thomas R. Martin and Barbara H. Rosenwein The Making of the West Bedford/St. Matins, Boston, New York, 2009 Locke, John, Second Treatise Patterson, Thomas E. , The American Democracy, Mc Graw Hill, New York, NY, 2009 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, Social Contract Voltaire, Treatise on Toleration Europe?