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Montesquieu's treatise, already widely disseminated, had an enormous influence on the work of many others, most notably: Catherine the Great, who produced Nakaz (Instruction); the Founding Fathers of the United States Constitution; and Alexis de Tocqueville, who applied Montesquieu's methods to a study of American society, in Democracy in America.
Château de la Brède, Montesquieu's birthplace. Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in southwest France, 25 kilometres (16 mi) south of Bordeaux. [4] His father, Jacques de Secondat (1654–1713), was a soldier with a long noble ancestry, including descent from Richard de la Pole, Yorkist claimant to the English crown.
The American Enlightenment is a period of intellectual ferment in the thirteen American colonies in the period 1714–1818, which led to the American Revolution and the creation of the American Republic. Influenced by the 18th-century European Enlightenment and its own native American Philosophy, the American Enlightenment applied scientific ...
Although Locke's Two Treatises of Government has long been cited as a major influence on American thinkers, historians David Lundberg and Henry F. May demonstrate that Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding was far more widely read than were his political Treatises. [15] The Scottish Enlightenment also influenced American thinkers.
Joyce Appleby has argued similarly for the Lockean influence on America. In the decades before the American Revolution (1776), the intellectual and political leaders of the colonies studied history intently, looking for models of good government. They especially followed the development of republican ideas in England. [42]
The quotation "all men are created equal" is found in the United States Declaration of Independence and emblematic of the America's founding ideals.The final form of the sentence was stylized by Benjamin Franklin, and penned by Thomas Jefferson during the beginning of the Revolutionary War in 1776. [1]
[4] Billias describes six waves of influence: From 1776 to 1811, after the American Revolution began, it influenced northwestern Europe and its colonial connections. 1811–1848, after the decline of Napoleon's reputation, it was referenced by Latin American, Caribbean, and European nationalists.
The American Enlightenment was a critical precursor of the American Revolution. Chief among the ideas of the American Enlightenment were the concepts of natural law, natural rights, consent of the governed, individualism, property rights, self-ownership, self-determination, liberalism, republicanism, and defense against corruption.