Enlightenment Thinkers

​How did some Enlightenment Philosophers help create the Constitution?

​ John Locke

• People are good and moral

• Born free and with natural rights: Rights everyone is born with Life, liberty, and property (land)

• Best type of Government:

• Supported a limited government based on the consent of its people (Democracy)

• How did this influence the future?

• If a government fails to protect these rights, people have the right to overthrow it

• Influenced future revolutions (ex. American & French Revolutions)

​Thomas Hobbes

• Beliefs about Human Nature:

  —Believed people were naturally “cruel, greedy, and selfish”

• Best Type of Government:

• Supported Absolute Monarchs because they ensure order & force obedience

• What is a social contract:

  —An agreement by which people give up their freedom to live in society

​ Ideas From Other Countries

​ England

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• English Bill of Rights

• Magna Carta- monarchs had to obey laws and citizens have unalienable rights.