Enlightenment to Constitution

A lot of people say the Constitution is outdated; fewer can explain how its design actually came to be. We walk through the ideas that turned Enlightenment philosophy into a durable framework: why the founders insisted on a written constitution, how separation of powers disciplines ambition, and what makes federalism a bold way to scale a republic across a continent without flattening local life. Along the way, we unpack the surprising truth that America embraced a moderate Enlightenment—open to classical learning and religious influence—rather than a radical break with the past.

With Dr. Carrese as our guide, we connect Locke’s case for consent and written fundamentals to Montesquieu’s architecture of distributed power. We widen the lens to the Scottish Enlightenment, where Adam Smith and David Hume push us to consider commerce, passions, and incentives as the real forces that laws must manage. Then we stack those ideas next to the common law’s incremental reasoning, the moral vocabulary shaped by Christianity, and the practical lessons of colonial self-government. The result is a Constitution that fuses theory with experience, reason with tradition, and rights with workable institutions.

If you care about constitutional meaning—original or evolving—this conversation offers a reading list and a roadmap. We trace citations from the Federalist Papers to Blackstone and show why modern courts still lean on those sources. We also draw a sharp contrast with the French Revolution’s radical reset, explaining why America’s complexity is a feature, not a bug. Ready to sharpen your critique or your defense of the system? Press play, subscribe for more civic deep dives, and leave a review with the one source you think every citizen should read next.

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Center for American Civics

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:50

Welcome back to Civic Symmetry. We have Dr. Reese back with us, and today we are talking about the Enlightenment and how those ideas influence the Constitution. So, Dr. Reese, can you let us know what Enlightenment ideas influence our Constitution?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Thank you, Liz. Another great question. The short answer is several Enlightenment ideas from several philosophers or or sources. And I'll mention four big ones to start. But first, let's step back. What are we talking about? What is the Enlightenment? So scholars refer to the Enlightenment as a period in modern philosophy, roughly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that is defined

Setting The Stage: Enlightenment

SPEAKER_01 1:37

by a new and and particularly rational approach to philosophy, seeking the truth, not according to looking backward, traditional sources, let's say Greek and Roman and Christian medieval sources, but thinking afresh and thinking independently. And this is about politics, ideas of human nature and human affairs, but also science, understanding reality in all its dimensions. So the Enlightenment means that that metaphor of light is an approach to philosophy that's looking for universal rational truths in a more disciplined scientific theoretical way, but also scientific-empirical way. And that means less emphasis on ph on on religion and religious authority and tradition. So there's some tension here between Christianity and this new philosophical way of thinking, the Enlightenment. And the and the metaphor also means it's for the people in a way. To enlighten the people, not just the philosophers.

Defining The Enlightenment

SPEAKER_01 2:58

And and that all of that blend, especially the tension with religious belief and with tradition, and that it's it's got a something of a democratic element to it for all the people. Enlightenment philosophy is often referred to as humanistic. Now you could say the Renaissance is humanistic as well, but this is another step in that direction because it's very clearly the Enlightenment is for a broader set of people. So that's my working definition for our discussion of the Enlightenment. What does this mean for the Constitution? Here are four big ideas of Enlightenment philosophy and philosophers for the Constitution. First, that you should have written constitutions. We kind of take this for granted. This is definitely coming from John Locke, English philosopher, but also from the French philosopher we've talked about a few times, Montesquieu, who's not as emphatic about the writtenness as Locke is, but he in shapes the American thinking by writing a study of the English Constitution in his book, The Spirit of Laws in Book 11, that ends up being very, very influential. It's like a it's like a that's not written down, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

The English Constitution is not written down.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Okay, so you're reminding me, right? That's the challenge. The English Constitution is partly written and partly unwritten.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So, you know, you know, Magna Carta is cited from the 13th century and the English Bill of Rights in in uh 1688. But there are parts of it that are really

Four Ideas Shaping The Constitution

SPEAKER_01 4:23

unwritten and Parliament can change it. And so this idea, especially from Locke, you need to write down the fundamental laws in one place. And then Montesquieu provides a summary, outline of the structure, but also the spirit of the English Constitution, and that's very influential for the Americans. And in a way, they get the ambition we can do this. We can write a short constitution that captures this separation of powers idea that especially that Montesquieu has. Okay, so why have constitutions? That's a big idea, and written constitutions, these are ideas coming from the Enlightenment. Why to secure rights of individuals? So the declaration standing behind the constitution, which we've talked about for many of these episodes. Why have constitutions, why have written constitutions to secure rights of individuals, to secure the rule of law? So again, this reflects the Enlightenment. We're going to have a more rational, explicitly rational, and more egalitarian approach to philosophy, to secure the rights of everybody and the rule of law for everybody. We're going to write this, we're going to have a constitution, we're going to write it down. Third, again, constitution has to have the right structure. That flows from the first two points, and especially here, Montesquieu becomes influential, that a more complex structure is good because human nature is complicated, human affairs are complicated, we need a complex system of laws, a constitution to do right by this objective of securing rights for all individuals equally. Thus, my first example of structure, separation of powers, distribution of powers, as Montesquieu calls it. So that's really this complex structure and separation of powers, that's my third big idea. That you want to distribute the powers that have been talked about since the Greeks and the Romans, in a way, but now talked about with Montesquieu in a more disciplined way. There's lawmaking as a part of government and politics, the legislative power. There's the somebody who executes and applies and enacts the laws, that's the executive power. And there are courts where disputes are resolved about what the laws mean and are people complying with them, et cetera. Those the judicial power, right? So separation, distribution of power is a big, huge idea from Montesquieu and the Enlightenment in a more tightly organized packaged way than any prior philosophers had done this. And then the fourth idea, here directly from Montesquieu, really alone, federalism. Right? So

Why Write Constitutions

SPEAKER_01 7:01

the two big structural ideas of our federal constitution are separation of powers and federalism. We are a federation, a federal republic of republics of the states. So those are four big Enlightenment ideas. I should just quickly say there are other Enlightenment philosophers important in the American founding. Think of Adam Smith, the importance of commerce and economic prosperity. David Hume, another Scottish philosopher, teaching many leading founders, maybe especially James Madison, about how laws and institutions need to realistically deal with the passions and the interests that human beings have in free politics. So there's a phrase for you that the Scottish Enlightenment is itself a kind of general movement. Smith and Hume are listed as being in the Scottish Enlightenment. William Blaxton, an English jurist, can really be called an English philosopher. And his commentaries on the laws of England, which published in the last part of the 1760s, are very influential in America. And he is very influenced by Locke and by Montesquieu. So there are other names we can mention. But you know, the shorthand is that Locke and Montesquieu are most directly influencing the Constitution. And of those two, it's really the Frenchman Montesquieu, most influential.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

So if these philosophers of the Enlightenment were so influential on the Constitution, would that make the American Constitution, like for its time, very modern, very rational document and political experiment?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yes and no. Again, which is a very American answer. Complicated complicated answer. Yes and no. It is a new idea to have this federal scale of union, you know, a continent-sized. It's not all of the North American continent, but it's huge. This ambition of federalism is an idea that Montesquieu puts forward, but the Americans really execute it for the first time. And having this written constitution, this kind of detail capturing the federalism principle and the separation of powers principle, that's never really been done before, as far as we know, in human history. So there are new and rational and modern Enlightenment dimensions. But on the other hand, there are scholars who refer to the Enlightenment having two dimensions to it, a more radical dimension and more moderate

Structure: Separation Of Powers

SPEAKER_01 9:38

dimension. And so here I'm stepping into academic controversy and I'm putting my uh chips down on the view that the American constitutional experiment in government, even from the Declaration, but definitely the 1787 Constitution, reflects the moderate Enlightenment. So the shorthand way to think about this is not long after our revolution and constitution building, there's a French Revolution. Think about the difference between the French Revolution and its consequences on the one hand and the American Revolution and its consequences on the other. I forgot how many constitutions and republics the French have had since 1789. It's I lose track, right? It's five or six or something like that, right? The French Revolution was radical, right? We're going to wipe away all the traces of the ancient monarchy and the established church, they established the year zero as a new calendar, you know. So that's the radical Enlightenment showing itself, or even away the post-Enlightenment. The American moderate Enlightenment is in the what does that what do I mean by the modern enlightenment? Montesquieu is the embodiment of it. A philosophy that is new in this Enlightenment way, but is more open to ideas from Greek and Roman classical philosophy that can be brought into the modern world and help the modern world. More friendly to ideas from the medieval Christian period, that we need to not go in the most radical direction that some Enlightenment philosophers are going. So the moderate Enlightenment, Montesquieu, and the American, you know, think of the complexity of the Declaration and the complexity of the Constitution. More open to understanding human nature as itself open to and influenced by religion, especially Christianity. Understanding that politics is shaped by history and by culture, not only by new philosophical ideas and by written laws and institutions. So Montesquieu and the Scottish Enlightenment are more moderate in this way. Another word for moderate might be, you know, complex. And that means that we have to have the right think, the right conception of the Enlightenment and the right kind of dimension of the Enlightenment in mind when we think about American politics.

Federalism’s Novel Scale

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Another way of putting this is, you know, is the Enlightenment the only influence on America from the Declaration of Independence forward? And I think it's a reasonable answer. Everyone can think about it, and some can disagree with me. No. And if you read Tocqueville in Democracy in America 40 years later, he's saying, no, the Enlightenment is not the only influence. Christianity is a fundamental influence on America. And we know this from the time of the American Revolution and the constitutional debates. The Bible is cited more than any of these Enlightenment philosophers in newspapers and in and in public debate, right? Christianity is more important. And then the common law, right? The bulk of the Declaration is the common law. The Constitution is very much a common law document blended with Enlightenment ideas and philosophies. And then a third element, very much in the spirit of Montesquieu, is our own history and our own practice. We'd been governing ourselves as colonies. That's why the imperial crisis happens from the 1760s onward. You know, the Americans over here are saying, excuse me, London, what are you doing over here, bossing us around and telling us, well, you haven't done this for a long time. There have been earlier attempts, but the Americans had brushed them back. And so this is how we define ourselves. We have been doing this self-government thing under the common law, respecting the king, but this is our practice, this is our history. This is the common law constitutionalism we've been living under. So that's very much under Montesquieu and the modern enlightenment, that the history and culture of a people really does matter.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So is it fair to say that the deeper a student, a citizen wants to dig into the constitution, the more they're going to have to study some of these philosophers that you've talked about kind of directly?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yes, these philosophers and these other sources, like the common law I mentioned, and and Tochville's a wonderful guide

Scottish Enlightenment Influences

SPEAKER_01 13:56

for helping us think about religion and its influence on the American Constitution, American constitutionalism broadly. But but more narrowly on the philosophers, think of the Federalist, Publius, right? We've talked about this before. Hamilton, then organizing Madison and Jay, they have to up their game because the Anti-Federalists have some pretty serious thoughtful criticisms. And what do they do in the Federalists? They cite philosophers. They cite Montesquieu more and Blackstone more than they do Locke, and they never cite Hobbes and Machiavelli. But they they cite works of philosophy and they cite classical Greek and Roman authors and Greek and Roman history, right? And the Supreme Court to this day cites the Federalists and cites Publius when they're looking for, arguing with each other, justices on the court. Well, what does this clause of the Constitution mean? What did it mean at the time that the Constitution was proposed and ratified? And certainly the Supreme Court cites Blackston and his view, a kind of modernized, somewhat modernized common law from the 1760s. So, yes, if you really want to be serious as a citizen of your state constitution, of the of the federal constitution, you do need to dig more deeply into some of these particular philosophers and sources and arguments. An experiment and government. It's based on a very clear philosophy of human nature, drawing on philosophers, on the on the common law, on Christianity, that is itself, as we talked about in other episodes, trying to achieve the aims of politics spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. What the laws of nature and nature's God point us toward, right? So you can disagree with it, the Constitution and the Declaration.

Modern Yet Moderate Enlightenment

SPEAKER_01 16:11

You could say, oh my gosh, we're 250 years beyond this. It's like horse and buggy, it's antiquated, we got to get over this, or it was unjust and flawed from the beginning. Fine, but you have some work to do first. Because you it takes some effort to understand the Constitution. And then that means you've got to understand the Declaration. And that means you've got to understand some Enlightenment philosophers and the Capitol and Christianity and its influence on American republicanism and self-government. So now we're into history, into culture. So you have some you have some to be self-respecting as a critic of the Declaration of the Constitution, you have to show that you've done some homework. Because reason and argument are the source of our form of government, as well as what it's this form of government is expecting us to do. Reason with each other, argue and disagree with each other.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

And I appreciate that you bring that up. And we talked about this when we talked about the Federalists and anti-federalists and having those reason debates, because I know for me as a student of this and also somebody who teaches it, the more I learn about these philosophers, the more the declaration makes sense, the more the constitution makes sense, and I understand things and can have these conversations. And you know, you're really good in these podcasts about saying, like, some might disagree with me, but here's my rationale. And I those things are so important. And this is, I mean, I think Dr. Preese, this is why we do what we do, right? Because it's interesting, because we want, we don't want it to be, well, it's 250 years, you know, it's horse and buggy. No, these ideas are kind of timeless. So Dr. Preese, as always, thank you so much for your expertise in this. And I look forward to our next episode.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Thank you very much, Liz.