The Enlightenment's Effect on the American Revolution

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Our founding fathers were inspired by influential people to write the great documents for America. For instance, Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, was inspired by ideas of philosophers in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment ideas from political philosophers were used by other founding fathers as a means to motivate others for the Revolution. After the Revolution, James Madison also used ideas of Enlightenment philosophers to construct the United States Constitution. Philosophers, like Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, all had a great influence in the making of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Montesquieu had influenced the writers of the U.S. Constitution with the idea of check and balance. Montesquieu stated, "Power should be a check to power." Montesquieu meant by this statement was that a government should have a separation of power to check and balance the government. As a result of his philosophy, Articles One, Two, and Three show how his ideas influenced the writers of the Constitution. In Constitution, It establishes the first branch of government, the Legislative branch. This article defined Congress and the House of Representatives.(Article 1, Section 1-2). The article also specified the powers of Congress and gave certain limits to control the power of Congress. For example, Congress cannot make their own money, or declare war (Article 1, Section 8-9). This article shows how the government tried to restrict the power of the Legislative branch. In addition, Article Two sets another branch of government, the Executive branch. This article establishes the office of President and Vice-President and as well as states the power and duties of the President. A duty of the president is to make suggestion to congress (Article 2, Section 1-3). Lastly, the third article in the Constitution
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