Thomas Jefferson understood that people were unhappy with the idea that they were a property to Britain. The Declaration of Independence focuses on strengthening rights to citizens. Ideas such as, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are taken directly from Enlightenment philosophes. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness simply means, all men are created equal. All citizens have the same rights regardless of gender, religion, or color. Ideas from the Enlightenment such as “humanism” and “individualism” also appear in the Declaration. The idea of humanism states that every man is important. There is no one man that is better than the other. Individualism gives rights to the people, such as freedom to express themselves in speech or …show more content…
America still continues to use a democratic form of government. As citizens of the United States, we have the right to vote for who represents our country. This was a major theme for our founders of the United States. They wanted to get away from absolutism and adopt a form of government that represented the people. Today, we still embody the belief in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. America is the land of the free and guarantees equal rights to all of its citizens. Each man is given the opportunity and right to live the life they dream about. Within these rights is freedom of speech and religion. As a citizen of the United States one is given the right to say anythingwithin reasonand practice any religion we believe in. The Enlightenment was a time of brave new order and ideas, which is why the founders took these ideas and implemented it into our socio-political