American Enlightenment

The American Enlightenment is the intellectual thriving period in the United States in the mid-to-late 18th century (1715–1789), especially as it relates to American Revolution on the one hand and the European Enlightenment on the other. Influenced by the scientific revolution of the 17th century and the humanist period during the Renaissance, the Enlightenment took scientific reasoning and applied it to human nature, society, and religion.

Politically, the age is distinguished by an emphasis upon liberty, democracy, republicanism and religious tolerance – culminating in the drafting of the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Attempts to reconcile science and religion resulted in a rejection of prophecy, miracle and revealed religion, often in preference for Deism. Historians have considered how the ideas of John Locke and republicanism merged to form republicanism in the United States. The most important leaders of the American Enlightenment include Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Wilson.