To me the reading of constitutions, declarations and memoirs just shows how influential that the Enlightenment writers were throughout the course of history. From the Declaration of Independence to the Declaration of Sentiments, all have incorporated some sort of philosophical essences from the Enlightenment writers. Inalienable human rights, equality, and freedom can all be found within the several documents. So what if these Enlightenment writers never wrote anything that decried social imbalances, religious anarchy, or political usurpation? The world would probably be in its darker days right now!
And as people, we often take things for granted not realizing what our ancestors had done for their posterity. But after reading these documents, they’ll serve as a stark reminder that people shouldn’t just forget about the past. And the one part that stuck to me the most was in the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” which stated, “Considering that ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man are the sole causes of public miseries and of the corruption of governments.” This to me implies that man can do much good or evil and we should always strive for the former not the latter.
