American Literature

But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected merely because it may comprise what is new Is it not the glory of the people of America, that while they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for customs, or for namesto this manly spirit posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favour of private rights and public happiness.

By some considerations the Enlightenment began in 1687 with the publication of Isaac Newtons Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. But others place the start much earlier, in 1642, when Thomas Hobbes published his De Cive, while others love to push the date back in 1637, the publication year of Descartes Discourse on Method, or even further to Francis Bacons Advancement of Learning of 1605. Whatever the date may be, all the thinkers and those who followed their path, like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, undertook to open to the scrutiny of human reason. The main motivation was to search for the mysteries of the universe and of mans place in it. It was believed that through science the curse of superstition and the dim lights of dogma would be replaced with clear scientific reason and vision. Their goal was, in the strictest possible of terms, enlightenment.

Much of the foundation for Enlightenment was laid in the thinking process of the 16th and 17th centuries, most notably through the colonization of the Americas and European expansion into Asia. The Scientific Revolution helped this process by dominating the intellectual life of the eighteenth century and influencing most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Much of the intellectual support of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries diverted towards this progressive thinking process, making the way for two watershed developments the French and American Revolutions. Thus it is to that tradition - to the likes of Descartes, Hobbes, Bacon and Newton along with John Locke and Adam Smith - which thanks are due for everything ranging from constitutionalism and the rule of law to the progress of natural sciences to liberal capitalism.

To understand the relationship of the United States to the Enlightenment it is incumbent to look both forward and backward. On the one hand America was built on the solid foundation of enlightenment principles. On the other, the Americans European inheritance encouraged them to make their own contribution towards enlightenment. This process is clearly visible when it comes to politics. Americans such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson were inventors and contributed to the assimilation of Enlightenment thinking as part of modern American values. The American republic owes a lot to them - from the Declaration of Independence to the U.S Constitution. Their great political accomplishment was in many ways a running comment to that unique frame of mind.

Two of the most prominent thinkers, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were the central figures of the American Revolution. The urban and pragmatic Franklin was a master businessman, a superior diplomat and politician. He conspicuously advocated self-improvement and bettering oneself. On the other hand, Jefferson was a country gentleman. A scholar and an idealist, Jefferson was a man of word. He had his faith in Nature and he used his literary craft to express this faith. He believed in the promise of the American Empire of Liberty. Both these great men had embraced science to fulfill their dreams. Jefferson was a better champion while Franklin was a better scientist.

Jefferson was arguably the most complicated man. There are so many puzzling aspects to his character that in recent years he has been regarded as a man of contradictions, essentially a puzzle and an enigma. How could a man, who became world famous as an advocate of human freedom, the author of the Declaration of Independence and its famous all men are created equal, have been all his life a slave-master He possessed hundreds of slaves, none of them he freed. He fell short of living up to his own ideals but the ideals he advocated and championed were very high and very American.

At the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson could look back to the creation of the nation and suggest that it would be remembered as the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and suspicion had persuaded them to bind themselves and to assume the blessings and security of self-government (Jefferson  Writings, Merrill Peterson) . Jeffersons enthusiasm was that of an unapologetic champion of the Enlightenment. To ages yet unborn his message to America would be unmistakable
   
All eyes are opened, or are opening to the rights of man. The general speed of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, not a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

Enlightenment influenced Jefferson like it did to all thinking men of that age. He incorporated ideas from Newton and Sir Francis Bacon into his political and social writings. All men are created equal these resonant words not only helped the American Revolution but laid the foundation for the nations democratic institutions. His life-long battle against slavery earned him a place among the greatest of American who fought for justice and equality. Jefferson wrote how to abolish slavery from the state of Virginia and the following passage from Notes on the State of Virginia bears testimonials to how he was influenced by the Enlightenment whole commerce between master and slaves is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other.

His views were not influenced by any philosophical or political beliefs but purely on scientific explorations of his age, particularly of Newton and Locke. Jefferson wrote, in Notes on Virginia the conclusions he had reached through the Enlightenment process and through many years of observations, about the mental, physical and mental character of blacks as compared with whites

The first difference which strikes us, he says, is that of color. . . And is this difference of no importance Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers the emotions of the other race Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form . . .

Jefferson is anxious in all this to take the position of a disinterested scientist and ends his discussion with a rejection of dogmatic certainty.
   
Benjamin Franklins political and social project rested on a belief in the power of reason and science to grasp moral truths and to guide American society. Franklin believed that people could live more happily when not overawed, either by hereditary powers that claimed divine justification  authority in everything or by the priests and the dogmas that historically supported or by supported by them. In Franklins political thought, his rationalist claims and his views on civil religion there is an adequacy of reason. In the writings of Franklin that we have examined there seem to be two major and sometimes conflicting strands to Franklins belief and thinking about human reason. The comments he makes on economics, the science of politics, and the natural sciences, Franklin shows enormous confidence in the power of reason and experimentation. He trusted improvements in technologies will eventually eradicate hunger, diseases and eventually mortality itself. Influenced by the Enlightenment thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he believed critical and analytical learned discourse progressively to correct errors and to bring understanding to an ever-expanding mass of educated people. He also believed that schools could teach ordinary people what is best for them and the amalgamation of education and free press could provide sufficiently accurate knowledge of public affairs for a democracy to manage them well.

In discussing the welfare of the Indians in Virginia he observes that education will eventually free these people of their superstition and age-old blind beliefs. However he admires the way the Indians hold a council and discuss their internal matters, but he casts his doubt over the process of such councils. In Concerning the Savages of North America he writes.

The politeness of these savages in conversation is indeed carried to excesses, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is asserted in their presence. By this means they indeed avoid disputes but then it becomes difficult to know their minds, or what impressions you make upon them.

Franklin was given almost to reflect on the limits of reason. His writings are filled with reflections on the difficulty of following reason and how easily reason can be fobbed off with flimsy sophistries that should convince no one. Every comment he makes in praise of good habits is also an indictment of the failing of reason in the face of momentary inclinations. In his writings Franklin suggests that a part of human folly lies in dogmatic certainty and that a great part of wisdom lies in modest skepticism about ones judgment.

Franklins writings show an inner journey from boyhood to manhood. The Enlightenment ideas that he inherited from great scholars and scientists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not deter him from believing in God. Franklin was certain that, if there was God, He must judge things the same way Franklin himself did, honoring virtue as the perfection of humanity, honoring reason as the core of virtue, and demanding nothing unreasonable. In his views, Heaven, if it existed at all, must be accessible to all who practice virtue within his limits and within the limits of the mankind. He writes in Poor Richards Almanack
To lead a virtuous Life, my Friends, and get to Heaven in Season,
Youve just so much more Need of Faith, as you have less of Reason.

The influence of this famous man is intense in American life and culture. Inspired by the Enlightenment, he was influential in a number of ways as a founder of fire departments and great libraries, sanitation projects, hospitals, militias, and a great university as the inventor of wood-burning stoves, lighting rods the author of two best sellers Poor Richards Almanack and The Way to Wealth a first rank scientist, who laid the foundation for the modern understanding of electricity. But he devoted the majority of his time to politics.

Both Jefferson and Franklin were greatly influenced by Enlightenment thinking and scientific explorations of the day. They incorporated in their works reason and thought that influenced American nation building and American society in general. There is no nation more closely associated with Enlightenments most basic premises than the United States, and both these writers were a great influence in its very creation and in its very role of perpetuating those premises as the essence of the principles of ordered liberty and republican justice.
   
The influence of the writings of Jefferson can be seen in the basic philosophies that America today believes in. His influence in writing the Constitution is beyond words. Thomas Jefferson, alone among the Founders, acted as a mirror in which subsequent generations of Americans found reflected their most urgent concerns. Whatever his failings as a man, he offered to Americans a unique version of how free people should govern themselves. His Declaration of Independence remains to this day a perennial study in free political thought.
   
Benjamin Franklin, on the other hand, is and has always been the most American of Americans. Franklin, a hopeful man, clever and a self-made always invented something or other for the common good. But Franklin was essentially a man of political action and not of systematic or profound theorizing. Franklins modesty and his profound knowledge made his writings worthwhile to read. His writings are full of fascinating reflections on human nature, on the character of good leadership, and human endeavors for excellence.