What was the influence of enlightenment ideas.

The Age of Enlightenment influenced many legal codes and governmental structures that are still in place today. The idea for the three branch system outlined in the U.S. Constitution, for example, was the brainchild of Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu. A huge proponent of the Enlightenment, Montesquieu suggested the theory of the separation of powers in order to obtain a political system of checks and balances, promoting order and equality.

Principles of the Enlightenment also featured heavily in the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. Consider, for example, Thomas Jefferson's call to action in the Declaration of Independence: He demands the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, while denouncing the British government for not granting the colonies equal representation.

Enlightened thinkers believed that when a people consent to be governed, it is with the implicit expectation that their government will act in the name of their common good. Failing that obligation means the people have the right to overthrow their government and install one that will successfully look out for their best interests. In making his case, Jefferson cited actions committed by George III that he felt clearly demonstrated how England had failed the colonies. These included cutting off trade opportunities, imposing taxes without consent, denying people trial by jury, waging war against colonial towns, and other actions Jefferson and the Continental Congress perceived as tyranny.

When it came to the Bill of Rights, James Madison also took a page straight from the Enlightenment playbook when he included such basic personal liberties as the right to freedom of speech, religion and assembly.

France is another country whose revolution was sparked (at least in part) by the fiery passions stirred up during the Age of Enlightenment. In 1789, the French revolted and issued a declaration of rights demanding liberty and equality, among others. In fact, the upheaval of the Age Enlightenment would ripple around the world, and not just in political arenas. Science, culture and the arts were influenced heavily by the ideals and values of the Age of Enlightenment, and other nation's wars for independence from colonial rulers, such as those in South America, were soon to follow.

Opposition to Absolute Monarchy: Intellectuals such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke introduced the idea that no ruler should have unlimited power. Both argued that leaders derived their authority not from God but from the people. And Locke claimed that if the people opposed their leader, they had the right to replace their government with one that respected their rights.

Notably, few Enlightenment thinkers called for democracy as people understand the term today. Many intellectuals such as Voltaire believed that monarchy was the best way to advance social, political, and economic goals. However, the idea that citizens could hold their leaders accountable was revolutionary.

Separation of Powers: The Baron de Montesquieu argued that power should not be concentrated in just one person. Instead, he called for a balanced distribution of power between executive, legislative, and judicial authorities.

Enlightenment thinkers similarly called for a separation of church and state—the idea that government should not interfere in religious affairs, and vice versa. Writers such as Voltaire were highly critical of religion’s outsize influence in European policymaking, which had contributed to generations of conflict on the continent.

Liberty and Individual Rights: John Locke introduced the idea that all men possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Those rights, he argued, were inalienable, meaning they could not be taken away or constrained by law.

Calls for individual rights contributed to increased religious tolerance in Europe as various governments began providing religious minorities greater freedom to worship.

Equality: Pre-Enlightenment Europe was highly unequal, with powerful individuals known as the nobility possessing exclusive rights to own land, avoid taxes, and hold privileged jobs, while the poorest members of society struggled to survive. The Enlightenment challenged this arrangement, as thinkers like Locke argued that all men were created equal and that no one should be born into more power than another.

However, many intellectuals believed that such equality only applied to white men. Rousseau saw groups such as women, ethnic minorities, and enslaved people as inherently inferior to white men. Nevertheless, marginalized groups often used those same Enlightenment arguments to advance their own cases for equality. English thinkers such as Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft wrote extensively in support of women’s access to the same rights and opportunities as men.

Free-Market Capitalism: Scottish economist Adam Smith railed against the era’s prevailing economic policies such as mercantilism, in which each country sought to produce as much as possible domestically and import as little as possible from abroad. Through careful observation and research, Smith came to introduce groundbreaking economic theories—including supply and demand, free-market capitalism, comparative advantage, and minimal regulations—arguing that countries become richer when they make what they are best at producing and import what they are not. Those ideas continue to form the backbone of international trade.

Where did the Enlightenment inspire revolution?

As Enlightenment texts spread across the Atlantic, their ideas inspired revolutions.

Political and intellectual leaders in Britain’s thirteen American colonies used Enlightenment values to justify their declaration of independence in 1776. Following the American Revolution, those Enlightenment principles—including liberty, equality, and individual rights—became enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, even though many rights were initially reserved mostly for landowning white men. It would take nearly a century for the United States to abolish the institution of slavery and several decades longer to extend the right to vote to women. 

News of the United States’ Enlightenment-inspired revolution ricocheted around the world. In 1788, Thomas Jefferson—then the U.S. minister to France—wrote to George Washington, noting that France “has been awaked by our revolution, they feel their strength, they are enlightened, their lights are spreading, and they will not retrograde.” Indeed, the following year France experienced its own revolution, which ultimately toppled the country’s monarchy.

In 1791, the inhabitants of France’s most profitable colony—Haiti, then known as Saint-Domingue—began demanding their own right to liberty and equality. Enslaved Haitians outnumbered slaveholders ten to one on the island. After a thirteen-year war, the Haitians defeated the French and established the first Black-led republic. European powers, however, did not immediately recognize Haiti as an independent country and instead forced Haiti to pay reparations to France over more than a hundred years.

In the early 1800s, Enlightenment-educated leaders such as Simón Bolívar led movements for independence in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. However, while revolutionaries pledged to eliminate the colonial era’s racial and social hierarchies, independence rarely brought about equality. Instead, leaders frequently perpetuated the same unequal, undemocratic systems that benefited the landowning elite.

Across Latin America—as in the United States, France, and Haiti—Enlightenment values began the march toward fairer and more equitable societies, but it would take generations for many countries to begin fully realizing those ideals.

Where do we see Enlightenment values today? 

More than three centuries after John Locke wrote about the relationship between people and their government, the core tenets of his writing and those of his Enlightenment contemporaries continue to shape society. Many of the world’s strongest democracies, for example, actively support liberty, equality, and individual rights through their laws and norms.

But just as leaders did not universally accept Enlightenment ideas in Locke’s time, the same holds true today.

Many societies—above all, authoritarian countries—actively reject some or most of the Enlightenment’s founding principles. Governments in countries such as China, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Saudi Arabia quash civil liberties, oppose free and fair elections, reject perceived checks to their power, and—in certain instances—ignore separation of church and state.

Enlightenment ideas have even come under attack in democratic countries such as Brazil, Hungary, the Philippines, and Turkey. Leaders there have attempted to increase their power by undermining political freedoms and civil liberties in a trend known as democratic backsliding. As a result, the world has become less free and less democratic every year between 2005 and 2019.

The United States, as well, has long struggled to embrace all tenets of the Enlightenment. Inequality and systemic racism remain significant challenges, and sharp disparities persist in access to housing, wealth, education, and health care. Further, many in the United States dismiss facts and scientific inquiry; former President Donald J. Trump, for example, repeatedly sidelined top scientific experts while endorsing unproven COVID-19 medical treatments. And on January 6, 2021, the country’s free and fair elections came under direct assault when armed rioters—many with white supremacist ties—stormed the U.S. Capitol seeking to overturn the results of the presidential race.

Although trials for witchcraft are no longer a normal part of life around the world, many countries still have a long way to go before fully embodying the founding principles of the Enlightenment.