Around 300 years ago, many great philosophers started to appear. That time was called the Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, many Philosophers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Locke, Hobbes and many others shared their ideas and change the way we think about many things. For example, Mary Wollstonecraft pushed the idea of women's rights, which had been not seen a lot before. Today, we can easily recognise their impact on our founding documents and the amendments added.
Mary Wollstonecraft was an English Philosopher who strongly advocated for Women's rights in the 16th century. One of her most famous quotes was: “I do not wish for them (women) to have power over men, but power over themselves.” This means that she did not believe or want women to be superior over men, but for them to be equals. We see her greatest influence in the 19th amendment, ratified in 1920. The 19th amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” This gave women the right to vote, and it states a clear connection to Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas.
Another influential philosopher was Voltaire. Voltaire lived in France, where an absolute monarch had all the power, and Voltaire despised this system. He was inspired by the English government and how they divided their power between Parliament and the King. One of his ideas was that there should be three branches of government, like our political system today. He also advocated for freedom of speech and religion, which is proven by his statement: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." We see his influence in the First Amendment, in which it says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This means that Congress would not deny anyone of the freedom of speech or religion, which was exactly what Voltaire wanted.
Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, usually just referred to as Montesquieu, was a French judge and Political Philosopher in the early 16th century. One of his main ideas was separation of powers between different branches. This meant that no one branch was strong enough to overtake another so the power was equally distributed. This is proven by this quote: “For we can not abuse power, must, by the arrangement of things, power checks power”. This means that power is the only thing strong enough to prevent to much power, so we have to divide it equally. We see this in our current government with the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches.
Without the ideas of these philosophers, our world would be very different today. Even the slightest change in our government could be affected by our ideas. It would have been easy for a dictator to come into power, our society and the way we view social issues would be different, and we might not have as many rights. Without them, just imagine what our world and our country would be like.
