How Did The Enlightenment Affect The United States

How the Enlightenment Affected the United States “[A]ll men [...] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (“Declaration of Independence”). Many may recognize this popular quote from the Declaration of Independence. What many may not know, however, is that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, borrowed this idea of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” from John Locke, an Enlightenment philosopher who came up with the idea that “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions” (Locke). The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason, had a large influence on the United States. The Enlightenment emphasized science and logical reasoning over faith and superstition. Specifically, the American Enlightenment is largely characterized
Rational Supernaturalists thought that they could defend the supernatural with reason, although they understood that what could and could not be established rationally were two different things. They believed that while supernatural experiences can indicate divine origin, reason and logic have the last word when it comes to explaining and accepting them. Enlightenment thinkers in Europe thought that tradition, custom, and prejudice were “barriers to gaining true knowledge of the universal laws of nature” (“American Enlightenment Thought”). As a result, many Enlightenment thinkers were Deists. Deism had a much larger impact on the United States than Rational Supernaturalism. It is the belief that God does not divinely intervene in the world, but rather he created universal laws of nature for humans to discover. Many American Enlightenment thinkers, such as James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, were