Describe the relationship between the Enlightenment and the “Founding Fathers.”?

Answer 1

Locke was important, but some misunderstand the role of his ideas in the throught of the Revolution --and miss the OTHER very important ideas NOT from him. In short, it s NOT true that "most of the Declaration" was based on Locke.

Locke's philosophy did influence the political thinking of the founders. But this was mainly a way of supporting ideas and practices that were already part of English Constitutional and political tradition. Thus it was very helpful in their thinking through and advancing their political arguments, but it was not the ORIGIN of their notions of what government should look like, how it should function, and what SPECIFIC rights they ought to be able to enjoy.

The most obvious refletion of Locke is his language about universal, natural rights of man and about government being instituted by the PEOPLE, and so able to be CHANGED by them --language found in the Declaration of Independence, and in many other political documents of the time. For example, "life, liberty and property (and also, sometimes happiness)" are Locke's way of characterizing basic human rights. And so, the PREAMBLE (that is, the introduction) to the Declaration of Independence, uses the language of Locke.

But the document does not stop there. As a preamble, in INTRODUCES the theory (how their action could be justified) but the concrete ARGUMENT rests with the specific EVIDENCE (the list of abuses) that follows.

text of George Mason's draft of the "Virginia Declaration of Rights" [VDR] (May 1775) - one of several documents of the period to reflect Locke's langauge
http://www.historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=584

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It is important to see how the Lockean ideas fit together with OTHER political and historical forces that influenced the thinking and actions of the revolutionary generation -- including British notions of the "rights of Englishmen" and Puritan notions of government by covenant or "compact". In fact, these ideas PRECEDED Locke and the Englightenment and influenced HIM. Locke's wrirting was going on amidst the mid 17th century -- the period from the English Civil War to the "Glorious Revolution"-- and his theories are connected to those events. Since this was the very same time of major immigration waves to the American colonies, it is not surprising that American colonists took these political ideas (of the English Puritans and Whigs) with them.

text of English Bill of Rights [EBR] (1689)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/england.htm

Oddly, those who see Locke's language in the Declaration often overlook the fact that the MAIN argument and structure of the document was NOT based on Locke but on the tradition reflected in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This document --Parliament's justification for replacing James II with William and Mary-- lays out the RIGHTS of Englishmen (building on foundations going back to the 13th century Magna Carta), and lists the ABUSES of King James that justified their act. Notice that the Declaration of Independence, whose heart is a similar list of King George III's abuses, is the SAME sort of document. Again, it is a legal document based on English Constitutional tradition and political documents, not a philosophical work (even though it borrows some of Locke's language and way of arguing at the start).

Actually, note that Masons' VDR begins with three paragraphs of Locke's language--including "life, liberty, property. . . happiness" and theory of government by the consent of the governed (as well as the "separation of powers") -- BUT moves immediately from these abstract principles to a SPECIFIC list of traditional English civil and political rights (things like "trial by jury"), the very sorts of rights laid out in the EBR. (ALSO, Mason's list of rights was much like others written into state constitutions at the time and eventually added to the U.S. Constitution as its "Bill of Rights", all going back to the tradition of the EBR.)

In other words, Locke providing a general way of explaining and arguing for the BASIS of a whole set of rights that had come to be recognize

Also, note that Mason's work was written to be the FIRST part of the new Virginia State Constitution. The rest of it-- drafted by Jefferson!-- was a list of the GRIEVANCES against the king in VIOLATING the concrete English civil and political rights Mason had just listed [cf. the Declaration of Independence] and the outline of the state's new form of government [the real heart of a "constitution"]. The document as a whole looks a lot like the EBR.

See Jefferson's part:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jeffcons.htm
Here is the final combined document:
http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=105

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The VARIOUS strands of Enlightenment thinking, and these other influences are nicely laid out in the first chapter of a classic work from the 1960s --*The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution* by Bernard Bailyn.

Actually, though, some of the BEST explanations of how English history and traditions (or "rights", "compacts" etc) and these Lockean ideas are all worked together are documents that the founders themselves wrote. You can see this in the Virginia State Constitution above as well as in the "Declaration and Resolves" of the FIRST Continental Congress (October 1774)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/resolves.htm

Their understanding of how government SHOULD operate drew on such things as New England Puritans ACTUAL forms of church and civil government by "compact" (which actually started out in their theological ideas of "covenant"). Other ideas of how legislatures should work, about voting, about trial by jury, etc., etc., were rooted in . Again, Locke provided a helpful theoretical argument for WHY they were justified in establishing new governments and fighting for their rights. . . but he was NOT the source of the idea that they HAD such rights (and esp. not of the specific concrete rights).

Answer 2

Most of the Declaration of Independence is based on enlightenments John Locke

Answer 3

the founding fathers were masons, masons are also called the Illuminati, the Illuminati means enlightenment, but some how it turned into darkness.