Question

Explain how the Enlightenment influenced founders, include a definition of the Enlightenment (in your own words) specific ideas, people and how the founders incorporated those ideas into founding documents and\or principles of government ​

Answer 1

The correct answer to this open question is the following.

The Enlightenment was a period in the history of western Europe, where philosophers and thinkers questioned religious ideas of the Middle Ages and traditional political forms, bringing new concepts about society and politics. They also considered that humans could advance through the use of reason.

The Enlightenment influenced founders its ideas of liberty and rights for the people. Famous thinkers such as Montesquiou, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean -Jaques Rosseau influenced later independence movements as was the case for the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolution.

So the founding fathers of the United States such as Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson, took ideas from the Enlightenment that were included in the Declaration of Independence, and later, in the Constitution of the United States.