Romantic EnlightenmentA recurring theme in the study of American history is discovering exactly what the Founding Fathers thought and how their philosophies changed with those of society as times changed. Henry Commager wrote in his essay: “…it was the Americans who not only adopted all the principles of the Enlightenment, but who also enshrined them in law, crystallized them into institutions and implemented them. This, as much as the winning of independence and the creation of the nation, was the American Revolution” (Lerner). Commager's essay relentlessly pursues his thesis by exploring ideas from American and European philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment and those of the international community of intellectuals: educators, revolutionaries, rationalists, deists, men of letters, statesmen and citizens of the world. , who sought useful truths in reasoning. The underlying principle that they all agreed on was the foundation of their view of human nature, God, and society: order. They were concerned with organization, classification, codification and systematization (Lerner). During the early American Republic, the Enlightenment era gave way to the Romantic era. The heart of the reasoning of American philosophy which led to personal and religious freedom through the unity of a nation has given way to romanticism, to the individual and his rebellion against the confinement of religious tradition, of the perception of nature and society. Even though the two philosophies, Enlightenment and Romanticism, were different in their principles, one could not exist without the other. In the mid-18th century, Philadelphia was the American capital of the Enlightenment, the intellectual and cultural center of the American colonies presided over by B...... middle of paper ......d is more complicated than saying that you just need to reason and use common sense. As the philosophical theories of the Enlightenment began to decline, the only other possible reaction was the rise of Romanticism. As Nathaniel Hawthorne would likely have suggested through his short stories, even though our founding fathers founded our country on the basis of rationality and the use of deductive reasoning, they must have had faith that everything would work out for him. better. Masterplots, fourth edition (2010): 1-3. MagillOnLiterature Plus. EBSCO. Internet. September 27, 2011. Gerber, Leslie E. “Against the Grain.” Magill Literary Annual 1981 (1981): 1-5. MagillOnLiterature Plus. EBSCO. Internet. September 28, 2011.Lerner, Saul. “The Empire of Reason”. Magill Literary Annual 1978 (1978): 1-3. MagillOnLiterature Plus. EBSCO. Internet. September 27. 2011.