Chapter 18 Outline

The Enlightenment and the American Revolution

I. Philosophy in the Age of Reason

A. A World of Progress and Reason

1. The Enlightenment grew out of the Scientific Revolution of the 1500s and 1600s, with its amazing discoveries by thinkers like Copernicus and Newton.

2. Natural laws are laws that govern human nature.

3. Through use of reason, insisted Enlightenment thinkers, they could solve every social, political, and economic problem.

B. Two Views of the Social Contract

1. Hobbes argued that people were naturally cruel, greedy, and selfish, and if not strictly controlled, they would fight, rob, and oppress one another.

2. A social contract is an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society.

3. Natural rights are rights that belong to all humans from birth; these include the right to life liberty, and property.

C. Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws

1. Baron de Montesquieu studied the governments of Europe and criticized absolute monarchy, which opened the doors for later debate.

2. In 1748, Montesquieu published The Spirit of Laws, which discussed governments throughout history and wrote admiringly of Britain’s limited monarchy.

3. Montesquieu believed the separation of powers was the best way to protect liberty.

D. The World of Philosophes

1. A group of Enlightenment thinkers applied methods of science to better understand and improve society; these thinkers became known and philosophes, or “lovers of wisdom.”

2. The most famous philosophe was Voltaire, who targeted corrupt officials and idle aristocrats, and detested the slave trade and deplored religious prejudice.

3. Denis Diderot labored some 25 years to produce a 28-volume Encyclopedia, a book that gathered on all kinds of human knowledge.

E. Rousseau: A Controversial Figure

1. The most controversial philosophe was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was a strange, difficult, man who came from a poor family and believed that people in their natural state were basically good.

2. In 1762, Rousseau set forth his ideas about governments and society in The Social Contract, and although people surrender their rights, they retain their freedom because the government is based on the consent of the governed.

3. Rousseau put his faith I the “general will” and said that the community, as a whole, should be placed above individual interests.

F. Limited “Natural Rights” for Women

1. Unlike the natural rights of men, women’s rights were limited to the areas of home and family.

2. By the mid 1700s, a small but growing number of women protested this view.  They questioned the notion that women were by nature inferior to men and that men’s domination of women was therefore part of “nature’s plan.”

3. Mary Wollstonecraft was the best known of the British female critics.  She accepted that a woman’s first duty was to be a good mother, but she also felt that a woman should be able to decide what is in her own interest and should not be completely dependent on her husband.

G. New Economic Thinking

1. Physiocrats focused on economic reform and looked for natural laws to deinfe a rational economic system.

2. Laissez faire was a policy that promoted allowing businesses to operate with little or no government interference.

3. Free market is the natural forces of supply and demand; Adam Smith believe it should be allowed to operate and regulate business.

II. Enlightenment Ideas Spread

A. The Challenge of New Ideas

1. As Enlightenment ideas spread, people began to challenge old ways, and more and more, they saw the need for reform to achieve a just society.

2. Enlightenment thinking taught that well being, social justice, and happiness were key.

3. Government and Church authorities felt they had a sacred duty to defend the old order and they waged a war of censorship, banning and burning books and imprisoning writers they felt were a threat.

B. Salons

1. Informal social gatherings at which writers, artists, philosophers, and other exchanged ideas.

2. The salon originated in the 1600s when a group of noblewomen in Paris began inviting a few friends to their homes for poetry readings.

3. By the 1700s, some middle class women began holding salons and the middle class citizens could meet with the nobility on an equal footing to discuss and spread Enlightenment ideas.

C. The Salon in the Rue Saint Honore

1. By 1750, Madame Geoffrin was a leading saloniere, and in her home, she brought together the brightest and most talented people of her day.

2. Salonieres were often not well educated themselves.  They set up salons to learn from the conversations of educated men.

3. By the end of the 1700s, the influence of women’s salons had ended.

D. Enlightened Despots

1. Enlightened despots were absolute rulers who used their power to bring about political and social change.

2. Fredrick the Great was a king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786 who exerted extremely tight control over his subjects and saw himself as the “first servant of the state,” with a duty to work for the common good.

3. Joseph II was the most radical enlightened despot and was an eager student of the Enlightenment and his efforts to improve the lives of peasants won him the nickname the “peasant emperor.”

E. The Arts and Literature

1. Baroque paintings were huge, colorful, and full of excitement and glorified historic battles or the lives of saints.

2. By the mid 1700s, architects and designers developed the rococo style; unlike the heavy splendor of baroque, rococo art was personal, refined, elegant, and charming.

3. A new middle class audience emerged with its own requirements and successful merchants and town officials wanted their portraits painted without frills.

F. Lives of the Majority

1. Peasant life varied across Europe; villages in Western Europe were relatively more prosperous than those in Eastern Europe.

2. In the West, serfdom had largely disappeared and instead, some peasants worked their own patches of land.  In Central and Eastern Europe, by contrast, serfdom was firmly rooted and in Russia, it had spread and deepened in the 1700s.

3. By the late 1700s, radical ideas about equality and social justice seeped into peasant villages and while some peasants eagerly sought to topple the old order, others resisted efforts to bring about change.

III Britain at Mid-Century

A. Global Expansion

1. Britain, a small island kingdom on the edge of Europe, rose to global prominence in the 1700s.

2. England’s location made it well placed to control trade during the Renaissance and England would eventually build a global empire from trading outposts.

3. In the 1700s, Britain was generally on the winning side in European conflicts and each victory brought valuable rewards.

B. Growth of Constitutional Government

1. In the century after the Glorious Revolution, three new political institutions arose in Britain: political parties, the cabinet, and the office of prime minister.

2. The appearance of these institutions was part of the evolution of England’s constitutional government; a government whose power is defined and limited by law.

3. The cabinet system was a new feature of government that was later adopted by other countries in Europe and elsewhere around the world.

C. Politics and Society

1. In Britain, landowning aristocrats were seen as the “natural” ruling class.  The highest nobles held seats in the House of Lords.

2. The lives of most people contrasted sharply with those of the ruling elite, the majority made a meager living from the land.  In the 1700s, many landless families drifted into towns, where they faced a harsh and desperate existence.

3. A small but growing middle class included successful merchants and manufacturers who controlled affairs in the towns and cities and some improved their social standing by marrying into the landed gentry.

D. George III Reasserts Royal Power

1. In 1760, George III embarked on a 60 year reign, and unlike his father and grandfather, the new king was born in England.  He was eager to recover the powers the crown had lost.  He wanted to end Whig domination, choose his own ministers, dissolve the cabinet system, and make the House of Commons follow his will.

2. George III found troubles when North American colonists protested paying for their own defense in the Seven Year’s War and triggered the American Revolution.

3. Britain’s loss of its American colonies discredited the king and cabinet rule was restored in 1788; over the decades ahead the power of the monarchy would less and parliament would rule with the prime minister holding real political power.

IV Birth of the American Republic

A. The 13 English Colonies

1. By 1750, a string of 13 prosperous colonies stretched along the eastern coast of North America.  Colonial cities such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were busy centers of commerce linking North America, the West Indies, Africa, and Europe.

2. Colonists felt entitled to the rights of English citizens, and their colonial assemblies exercised much control over local affairs.

3. Colonists shared common values, respect for individual enterprise, and a growing self-confidence.

B. Growing Discontent

1. After 1763, relations between Britain and the 13 colonies grew strained.  The Seven Years’ War, had drained the British treasury and the King wanted the colonists to help pay for the war and for the troops still stationed on the frontier.

2. In April 1775, the crisis exploded into war and in the next month, as fighting spread, colonial leaders met in a Continental Congress to decide what action to take.

3. The Congress set up a Continental Army with George Washington in command.  The following year, it took a momentous step, and voted to declare independence from Britain.

E. The American Revolution

1. At first, the American cause looked bleak.  The British had professional soldiers, a huge fleet, and plentiful money.  They occupied most major American cities.  Also, about a third of the colonists were Loyalists who supported Britain; many other refused to fight for either side.

2. A turning point in the war occurred in 1777 at the Battle of Saratoga, a battle that convinced France to join the Americans against its old rival, Britain.

3. In 1781, with the help of the French fleet, Washington forced the surrender of a British army at Yorktown, Virginia, and after that the British war effort crumbled and two years later the American, British, and French negotiators singed the Treaty of Paris ending the war.

F. A New Constitution

1. A national government set up by a document that Americans called the Articles of Confederation was too weak to rule the new United States effectively and a new document was written in the summer of 1787 to build the framework for a strong, flexible government that has adapted to changing conditions for more than 200 years.

2. By 1789, the Constitution became law and it set up a representative government with an elected legislature to reflect the wishes of the governed.

3. The Constitution of the United States created the most liberal government of its day.  From the start, the new republic shone as a symbol of freedom to European countries and to Latin America.  Its Constitution would be copied or adapted by many lands throughout the world.