The ideals of the Enlightenment had a major impact on the colonists and the founding fathers of the United States used many of these ideas in their new government. Major elements of our democracy, such as “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” came from Enlightenment writers like Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. Even Thomas Jefferson’s famous phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” from the Declaration of Independence was adapted from John Locke’s phrase “Life, Liberty, and Property.”
