Literature of the revolutionaries

Cornell Notes
• Take your notebook
paper and title it
“Literature of the
Revolutionaries.”
• Then, set up the sections
as shown in the
illustration on the both
pieces of paper.
 Make a column titled
“Questions and Cues”
on the left.
 Make a column titles
“Detailed Notes” on
the right.


Cornell Notes
•

Make eight, six-line sections in the left-hand column of your paper
(four on one piece of paper; four on another piece of paper) .

•

Write one of the following questions in each section:
1. What is the Revolutionaries’ view of education?
2. What is the Revolutionaries’ view of religion?
3. What is the Revolutionaries’ view of work and
worldly success?
4. What is the Revolutionaries’ view of man?

5. What is the Revolutionaries’ view of society?
6. What is the Revolutionaries’ view of authority?
7. What is the Revolutionaries’ view of life?
8. What is the Revolutionaries’ definition of truth?


Literature of
the

Revolutionar


The Enlightenment
• In the 1700’s, there was a burst of
intellectual energy taking place in Europe
that came to be known as the
Enlightenment.
• Enlightenment thinkers had begun to
question previously accepted truths about
who should hold the power in government.
• Their thinking pointed the way to a
government by the people – one in which the
people consent to government limitations in
exchange for the government’s protection of
their basic rights and liberties.


The Enlightenment
• American colonists
adapted these

Enlightenment ideals to
their own environment.
• The political writings of
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas
Paine, and Thomas
Jefferson shaped the
American Enlightenment.
• Soon, the American
Enlightenment began to
eclipse even the most
brilliant European thought.


A Revolutionary Focus
• While it may sound strange, some of the most
famous figures of the American Revolution lived
at the same time as Puritans.
• As products of the Enlightenment, however,
revolutionary writers focused their energies on
matters of government rather than religion.


Pamphlets and
Propaganda

• Many of the gifted minds
of this period were
drawn to political
writings as the effort to
launch a grand

experiment in
government that took
shape in North America.
• The most important
outlet for the spread of
these political writings
was the pamphlet.


Pamphlets and
Propaganda

• Between 1763 and 1783, about
two thousand pamphlets were
published.
• These inexpensive “little books”
became the fuel of the revolution,
reaching thousands of people
quickly and stirring debate and
action in response to growing
discontent with British rule.
• Through these pamphlets, the
words that would define the
American cause against Great
Britain became the currency of
the day, and the debate about
independence grew louder and
louder.

Common Sense
• One such pamphlet, Common
Sense, by Thomas Paine, helped
propel the colonists to
revolution.
• Though expressing the views of
the rational Enlightenment, Paine
also agreed with the Puritan
belief that America had a special
destiny to be a model to the rest
of the world.
• At the end of his stirring essay,
he says that freedom had been
hunted down around the globe
and calls on America to “receive
the fugitive,” to give freedom a
home, and to welcome people
from around the world to its free
society.


Writing that Launched a
Nation
• Thomas Jefferson also wrote
pamphlets, but his great
contribution to American
government, literature, and the
cause of freedom throughout
the world is the Declaration of
Independence, in which he

eloquently articulated the
natural law that would govern
America.
• This natural law is the idea that
people are born with rights and
freedoms and that it is the
function of government to
protect those freedoms.


Writing that Launched a
Nation
• Eleven years later, after the Revolutionary War

had ended, delegates from all but one state
gathered at the Philadelphia State House – in
the same room in which the Declaration of the
Independence had been signed – in order to
discuss forming a new government.
• The delegates included many outstanding
leaders of the time, such as Benjamin Franklin,
Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington.


Writing that Launched a
Nation

• Four months later, they emerged with
perhaps the country’s most important
piece of writing: The Constitution of

the United States of America.
• Although Washington said at the time,
“I do not expect the Constitution to
last for more than 20 years,” it was
indeed
flexible enough to last through
the centuries to come.


The Founding Fathers
• The Founding Fathers of the
United States of America
were political leaders and
statesmen who participated
in the American Revolution
by signing the United States
Declaration of
Independence, taking part in
the American Revolutionary
War, establishing the United
States Constitution, or by
some other key contribution.


The Founding Fathers
• Some historians define the "Founding
Fathers" to mean a larger group, including
not only the Signers of the Declaration of
Independence or the Framers of the
Constitution, but also all those who,

whether as politicians, jurists, statesmen,
soldiers, diplomats, or ordinary citizens,
took part in winning American independence
and creating the United States of America.


The Founding Fathers
• Some of the most notable or most
frequently referenced Founding
Fathers are:
– John Adams
– Benjamin Franklin
– Alexander Hamilton
– John Jay
– Thomas Jefferson
– James Madison
– George Washington


The Revolutionaries’
Education
• Many of the Founding Fathers had strong
•
•
•
•
•

educational backgrounds at colonial colleges
or abroad.

Some, like Franklin and Washington, were
largely self-taught or learned through
apprenticeship.
Others gained instruction from tutors or at
academies.
About half attended or
graduated from college.
Some had medical degrees
or advanced theology training.
Most of the education was in the colonies, but
a few lawyers were trained at the Inns of
Court in London.


The Revolutionaries’
Religion
• Because the Founding Fathers of the United States

were heavily influenced by Enlightenment
philosophies, it is generally believed that many of
them were deists.
• Deism in the philosophy of religion is the
standpoint that reason and observation of the
natural world, without the need for organized
religion, can determine that the universe is a
creation and has a creator.
• Furthermore, the term often implies that this
supreme being does not intervene in human affairs
or suspend the natural laws of the universe.
• Deists typically reject supernatural events such as

prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that a god
(or "the Supreme Architect") does not alter the
universe by (regularly or ever) intervening in the
affairs of human life.


The Revolutionaries’
Religion

• This idea is also known as the Clockwork
Universe Theory, in which a god designs and
builds the universe, but steps aside to let it
run on its own.
• The earliest known usage in print of the
English term "deist" is 1621, and "deism" is
first found in a 1675 dictionary.
• Deism became more prominent in the 17th
and 18th centuries during the Age of
Enlightenment mostly among those raised
as Christians who found they could not
believe in supernatural miracles, the
inerrancy of scriptures, or the Trinity, but
who did believe in one God.


Revolutionaries in Action
Now, your primary source packet.

Together, let’s examine Benjamin’s
Franklin’s “Moral Perfection” and excerpt

from Poor Richard’s Almanac to identify
and evaluate the philosophical, religious,
ethical, and social influence that shaped
the literature of this period.