American Revolution and French Revolution

The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the American Revolution of 1776[65] and the
French Revolution of 1789—both had some intellectual influence from Thomas Jefferson.[66][67]
One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the "consent of
the governed" philosophy as delineated by Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1689)
represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under feudalism known as the
"divine right of kings". In this view, the revolutions were caused by the fact that this governance
paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the
result. A governance philosophy where the king was never wrong would be in direct conflict
with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their
government.

Alexis de Tocqueville proposed the French Revolution as the inevitable result of the radical
opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the
Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-
powerful and without real power." This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion",
born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the bourgeoisie from the political
sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in
fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime.[68] De Tocqueville "clearly designates... the
cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power."[69]