Question

How would the ideas of these Enlightenment thinkers we just learned about lead to thoughts of revolution and revolt against other countries?

Answer 1

Short answer: Enlightenment ideas attacked the old sources of political legitimacy (divine right, tradition, absolute monarchy) and offered new principles (natural rights, popular sovereignty, reason, equality, limited government). Those principles gave people both the moral justification and the language to demand self‑government, to reject foreign or monarchical rule, and to organize new states — so they helped turn political dissatisfaction into revolutions and independence movements.

How that worked, in concrete terms

- Natural rights and the right to rebel (John Locke)
- If people have inalienable rights (life, liberty, property) and rulers exist to protect them, then rulers who violate those rights lose legitimacy. Locke explicitly said people can overthrow rulers who breach the social contract. That idea justified rebellion against kings and colonial governors.

- Popular sovereignty and the social contract (Rousseau)
- The claim that legitimate authority springs from the people (the “general will”) shifted the source of political power from monarchs or foreign rulers to the governed. That encouraged creating republics and asserting independence from distant states.

- Critique of concentrated power (Montesquieu)
- Arguments for separation of powers and checks on authority undermined the appeal of absolute monarchies and offered blueprints for constitutions and new governments.

- Freedom of speech, religion, and reason (Voltaire and others)
- Attacks on censorship, privilege, and church authority helped delegitimize traditional institutions that supported monarchies and empires, making resistance more thinkable and respectable.

- Economic ideas (Adam Smith)
- Critiques of mercantilism and support for free trade appealed to colonial merchants and the bourgeoisie who resented imperial economic controls and taxes — a practical spur to revolt.

- Transmission and organization
- Pamphlets, books, salons, newspapers, and coffeehouses spread these ideas to merchants, lawyers, officers, and intellectuals who organized resistance. Enlightenment discourse provided rhetoric (rights of man, liberty, equality) used to rally people and write constitutions.

Examples
- American Revolution: Colonists used Lockean arguments about consent and rights to reject British taxation and governance.
- French Revolution: Rousseau’s and Voltaire’s ideas influenced demands for popular sovereignty, civic equality, and the overthrow of monarchy and privilege.
- Haitian Revolution: Enslaved and free people used revolutionary language of equality and natural rights to revolt against French colonial rule.
- Latin American independence: Leaders like Bolívar drew on Enlightenment and revolutionary models to break from Spain.

Caveat
- Ideas alone didn’t cause revolutions — economic stress, war, weak governments, social conflict, and leadership mattered too. But Enlightenment thought supplied the moral justification, vocabulary, and institutional models that turned resistance into full-scale revolution and independence movements.