THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1. THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION BELL WORK #1 Brian who was driving our new buick was stopped by a police officer who was driving to fast on deane boulevard

2. Enlightenment • In France, readers smiled as they read the Persian Letters. This collection , published in 1721, commented on many aspects of French Society. Readers knew that the authors, Persian travelers named Usbek and Rica, were not real. • For a while people did not know who published the letters, but they would soon find out. • Montesquieu had published the book secretly because people could be punished for criticizing the king or the Church. • These letters would soon bring a movement known as the Enlightenment. This movement sought to shine a light of reason on traditional ideas about government and society.

3. Philosophy in the Age of Reason • Using the methods of modern science, reformers set out to study human behavior and solve the problems of society. • The Enlightenment grew out of the Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s, with its amazing discoveries by thinkers like Copernicus and Newton • Natural Law- Laws that govern human nature.

4. Two Views of the Social Contract • In the 1600s, two English thinkers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke had to different views on society. • Thomas Hobbes set out his ideas in a work titled Leviathan. Hobbes argued that people were naturally cruel, greedy, and selfish. • To escape that brutish life Hobbes said “people had to enter into a social contract, or an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society.

5. Two Views of the Social Contract • John Locke had a more optimistic view of human nature. People were basically reasonable and moral, he said. Further, they had natural rights, or rights that belonged to all human form birth. These included the right to life, liberty, and property. • If a government fails its obligations or violates peoples natural rights, the people have the right to overthrow the government. This right to revolution would echo through Europe, in Britain’s North American colonies, and around the world in the centuries that followed.

6. Montesquieu Spirit of the Laws • Then in 1700 Montesquieu talked about governments functioning better if they divided into three separate branches. • Legislature • Executive • Judiciary • To him, the separation of powers was the best way to protect liberty. • His book appeared in France and the ideas of separation of powers and checks and balances in government were written into the Constitution of the U.S.

7. The World of the Philosophers • In France, a group of Enlightenment thinkers applied the methods of science to better understand and improve society. These thinkers were called philosophes. • Philosophers included: • Voltaire- “ I do not agree with a word that you say,” he said “but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” • Denis Diderot- labored some 25 years to produce a 28-volume Encyclopedia

8. Encyclopedia • Diderot Encyclopedia to the French was an attack on public morals, while the pope threatened to excommunicate Catholics who bought or read the volumes. • Despite efforts to ban it, 20,000 copies were printed between 1751, and 1789. This work did much to shape French public opinion in the mid 1700s. When translated into different languages it helped spread the Enlightenment every where.

9. Sorry Women • Natural Rights for women would not come though till later on. • The Enlightenment slogan “free and equal” did not apply to women. Women did have “natural rights,” said the philosophes. But unlike the natural rights fo men, these rights were limited to the areas of home and family.

10. Enlightenment Thinkers • Thomas Hobbes- People were driven by selfishness and greed. To avoid chaos they need to give up their freedom to the government. • John Lock- People have a natural right to life, liberty, and property. Rulers have a responsibility to protect those rights, People have the right to change the government. • Baron de Montesquieu- the powers of government should be separated into 3 stages legislative, executive, and judicial. To prevent any one group from gaining to much power. • Jean Jacques Rousseau- People are basically good but become corrupted by society. In an ideal society, people would make the laws and would obey them willingly.

11. New Economic Thinking • Other thinkers the Physiocrats, focused on economic reforms. They looked for natural laws to define a rational economic system. • They rejected mercantilism, which required government regulation to achieve a favorable balance of trade. Instead they urged a policy of Laissez faire – which allowed business to operate with little or no government interference. • They claimed that real wealth came form making land more productive.

12. Adam Smith • He argued that the free market, the natural forces of supply and demand, should be allowed to operate and regulate business. • A Strong supporter of Laissez faire, Smith believed that the marketplace was better off with out any government regulation. At the same time, however, he did believe that government had a duty to protect society, administer justice, and provide public works. • His ideas would gain increasing influence as the Industrial Revolution spread across Europe and beyond. His emphasis on the free market and the law of supply and demand would help to shape immensely productive economies in the 1800s and 1900s.