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Difficulty: MediumPhilosophical Foundations of the American Revolution

Read the excerpt below.

"Liberty is the greatest blessing that man can enjoy, and slavery the greatest curse that can befall him; and as a nation's liberty is in proportion to the influence the people have in their government, so it is the sovereign duty of every community to preserve and defend it. The British constitution... is formed of distinct powers which check each other... but when the legislative power is exercised over a people without their consent, the very essence of their freedom is destroyed."
— Stephen Hopkins, *The Rights of Colonies Examined*, 1764

The arguments expressed in the excerpt are most representative of which of the following intellectual influences on the American Revolution?

  1. A
    The argument that colonial economic growth should be structured to maximize the wealth of the British metropole.
  2. B
    The advocacy for a strong, centralized federal system to replace the decentralized structure of the Articles of Confederation.
  3. The adoption of Enlightenment concepts concerning the social contract and natural liberties.Answer
  4. D
    The claim that the Coercive Acts directly caused the initial ideological shift toward independence in the early 1760s.

Answer

The adoption of Enlightenment concepts concerning the social contract and natural liberties.
The correct answer is correct because Stephen Hopkins's emphasis on the consent of the governed and the preservation of liberty directly reflects the influence of Enlightenment political philosophy, particularly John Locke's ideas on natural rights and the social contract.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the source text to identify its primary focus.
The text focuses on the concept of 'consent of the governed' as the foundation of political liberty and rejects legislative control without representation.
Understanding the source's main argument is necessary to connect it to historical intellectual movements.
2
Identify the historical context and the philosophical origins of these ideas.
The ideas of consent and checking legislative power are core tenets of Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, who argued that governments derive legitimacy from the social contract.
This links the specific arguments of the document directly to the target learning objective.
3
Evaluate the distractors for conceptual and chronological alignment.
Mercantilism is an economic framework, not a philosophical defense of liberty. Constitutional debates occurred decades later. The Coercive Acts postdate this document's publication.
Eliminating options based on error taxonomy ensures the selected answer is uniquely correct and historically accurate.

Key Concept

Enlightenment political philosophy, specifically the social contract and consent of the governed, as the foundation for colonial resistance.
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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Philosophical Foundations of the American Revolution

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