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Enlightenment Ideals in the American Revolution Essay
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Document Type:Essay
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American RevolutionThe American Revolution was a war for independence from England: the Founding Fathers had political, social and philosophical motivations. Philosophically, they were rooted in the Enlightenment, with men like Thomas Paine advocating for freedom and equality in his treatise The Rights of Man. Politically, the revolutionaries wanted independence so that they could govern themselves without any influence from abroad. As Holton (1999) explains, many of them wanted to be in control of the expansion of American territory and they did not like the fact that the English Crown was preventing them from doing so by signing treaties with the natives. Socially, the American Revolution was caused by a new American culture that was fostered by fierce independence, religious freedom, and a pioneer spirit. However, while the philosophical motives for the Declaration of Independence are very much set in the philosophy of Thomas Paine, the founding of America failed to fully incorporate these Enlightenment ideals, as equality was not really a bedrock of the Constitution. The fact is that the American colonists who wielded great power and influence in the colonies were most interested in expanding their land holdings and business operations, which they could only do by overthrowing Englands claim over them.In Virginia, the issue of…
…another hundred years); women did not have any rights when it came to voting; and the propertied-classi.e., the aristocracyessentially reserved all power for itself. It was a very unequal and unfree society, top to bottom, in spite of the high-sounding principles voiced in the Declaration.Thus, one sees that at the root of it, the American Revolution was really driven by a desire among the colonists to be free from their debts, free from English taxation, free from interference by the Crown, and free to pursue expansion as they saw fit. By throwing over the Crown, the colonies could then adopt their own trade agreements and…
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Works Cited Baumgarten, Linda. (2002). What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bilhartz, Terry D., and Elliott, Alan C. (2007). Currents in American History: A Brief History of the United States, Volume 1. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Crunden, Robert Morse. (1996). A Brief History of American Culture. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Fisher, John Hurt. (2001). "British and American, Continuity and Divergence"
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