Enlightenment thinkers questioned traditional ideas about

Units/Unit 4/Liberal Political Revolutions.html
4: The Enlightenment and the Age of Revolution

The Age of Revolution
Enlightenment ideals not only infiltrated the ideas of monarchs like the Enlightened Despots, but they also penetrated into some societies. This was particularly true in societies where there were a large non-noble and non-peasant class of people, some of who were educated and who could read the texts produced by the enlightened intellectuals. These individuals felt left out of the social and political order, silenced from expressing dissent or from advocating in favor of their own goals. They desired to institute some of the values imagined by the Enlightenment intellectuals, but as we will see, they did so in very different ways.

lockeLocke, Rousseau, and the Social Contract
As we've seen, enlightenment thinkers throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. John Locke (1632-1704), who we met in our section on Enlightened Ideas, laid much of the groundwork for the Enlightenment and made central contributions to the development of liberalism.

To expand on that earlier section, we should discuss two very important publications of Locke's that lay the foundation for the Age of Revolution. In his “Two Treatises of Government” (1690), Locke rejected the divine right of kings, arguing instead that societies form governments by mutual agreement. So, when a king loses the consent of the governed, a society may remove him—an approach quoted almost verbatim in Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 Declaration of Independence. Locke also developed a definition of property as the product of a person’s labor that would be foundational for both Adam Smith’s capitalism and Karl Marx’s socialism. Locke argued that a government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their right of self-defense (of "self-preservation"). The government thus acts as an impartial, objective agent of that self-defense, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner—the condition in the state of nature. In this view, government derives its "just powers from the consent [i.e, delegation] of the governed". Again: consent of the governed. In his “Letters Concerning Toleration” (1689-92), Locke suggested that governments should respect freedom of religion except when the dissenting belief was a threat to public order. Atheists (whose oaths he felt could not be trusted) and Catholics (who owed allegiance to an external ruler, the Pope) were thus excluded from his scheme. Even within its limitations, Locke’s toleration did not argue that all (Protestant) beliefs were equally good or true, but simply that governments were not in a position to decide which one was correct.

What many will remember is Locke's arguments concerning the Rights of Man, which had their basis in the theory of the divine right of kings. Locke lived in a time of Absolute Monarchy, which meant the king had the power to do anything without any constraint by law or Parliament. This is called absolutism. This had its basis in the Divine Right of Kings Theory, which asserted that God chose some people to rule on earth in his will (Kings, the church, the Pope), so whatever the King decided was the will of God. When you criticized the ruler, you were in effect challenging God. Locke argued in favor of the Rights of Man, which held that there is no divine right of kings; only a divine right of man. This connected to his political theory of government by the consent of the governed as a means to protect life, liberty, and estate (or property). With that in mind, Locke argued there was no legitimate government under the divine right of kings theory. Instead, the purpose of government was to protect the natural rights of its citizens. Those natural rights (life, liberty, and property) were earned these simply by being born. Furthermore, when a government did not protect those rights, the citizen had the right and maybe even the obligation of overthrowing the government.

rousseau

French philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who we also met in our section on Enlightened Ideas, came a bit later than Locke and was certainly influenced by him. You could consider him more a product of the Enlightenment than an influencer like Locke. Rousseau's philosophies influenced the spread of the Enlightenment in France and across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the overall development of modern political and educational thought. He once wrote: “Man is born free and yet everywhere he lives in chains.” (Rousseau, Social Contract 1:1), and that sums up what the Enlightenment really was about: Freedom. While Locke argued that tabula rasa translates into natural equality – we are all born the same, “empty” or devoid of knowledge, and thus we are all “equal” – Rousseau similarly argued that freedom is also the inherent, natural condition of mankind; all political inequality, all slavery, all absence of freedom follows from social, not natural conditions. Thus to Rousseau freedom is both an inherent right and a means towards maintaining just, moral societies. What Rousseau offered was a means of actually implementing this philosophy into a set of laws to create this society. Those means became the basis of American and most European democracies.

Locke and Rousseau both based their beliefs on what we call The Social Contract, a theory that states that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. In other words: I agree to support and trust you, King, if you agree to protect and govern me in a manner befitting that support and trust.

The central assertion that social contract theory approaches is that law and political order are not natural, but human creations. The social contract and the political order it creates are simply the means towards an end—the benefit of the individuals involved—and legitimate only to the extent that they fulfill their part of the agreement. Hobbes argued that the government is not a party to the original contract and citizens are not obligated to submit to the government when it is too weak to act effectively to suppress factionalism and civil unrest. According to other social contract theorists, when the government fails to secure their natural rights (Locke) or satisfy the best interests of society (called the "general will" by Rousseau), citizens can withdraw their obligation to obey, or change the leadership through elections or other means including, when necessary, violence. Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and therefore the rule of God superseded government authority, while Rousseau believed that democracy (self-rule) was the best way to ensure welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law.

comparisonsThe Anatomy of a Revolution
There are a number of conditions that seem to be present as causes of the revolutions that take place during this period, and this allows us to see how the ideas of the Enlightenment begin to trickle down to the populace.

For example, people from all social classes feel restless and held down by unacceptable restrictions in society, religion, the economy or the government. While they are hopeful about the future, they are being forced to accept less than they had hoped for. As the ideas of the enlightenment begin to take root in all corners o society, people are beginning to think of themselves as belonging to a social class, and there is a growing bitterness between social classes. This leads to hostility, and scholars and thinkers begin to express their frustration with the way their society operates.

Citizens begin to feel that the social contract has been violated and that the government does not respond to the needs of its society. The government is unable to get enough support from any group to save itself, and it cannot organize its finances correctly and is either going bankrupt or trying to tax heavily and unjustly. As revolutionaries begin to organize, there are demands made of the government, which, if granted, would mean its end. Unsuccessful government attempts to suppress revolutionaries only give the revolutionaries more power, uniting the citizens against the government and a plan to overthrow that government is born.

Enlightenment ideals will stimulate actions, and we see that in the liberal political revolutions that take place during this period: the American Revolution (1776-1783), the French Revolution (1789-1799), the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), the Latin American Revolutions (1808-1830), and the Mexican Revolution (1810-1821). However, while each of these has many similarities, each has its own unique qualities. While the American, Haitian, and Latin American Revolutions were all focused on decolonization and the realization of fundamental rights, the French and Haitian Revolutions were both significant for their work in overthrowing the existing political and social regimes. These revolutions were deemed liberal because they sought to overthrow the existing political and/or social order and to institute a political and/or social system based upon rights and equality. Very few revolutions realized their ideals, but they nonetheless contributed to the development of them.