Final answer:
Enlightenment thinking contributed to the development of both democratic ideals and racial prejudice in the early American republic. Philosophers like Jefferson and Franklin harbored and expressed racial biases, while the Enlightenment itself offered a more radical approach championing individual liberty but did not originally extend these rights to all races.
Step-by-step explanation:
Enlightenment thinking in the early American republic was a double-edged sword with respect to views on race and racism. On the one hand, Enlightenment ideals inspired notions of liberty, democracy, and the social contract, encouraging a challenge to traditional hierarchies and absolute monarchical power. Yet, at the same time, these ideals were not universally applied. Prominent thinkers and founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin expressed racial prejudices that reinforced the societal norms of a White republic where enslaved Black people and Native Americans were marginalized or demonized. Jefferson's reference to Native Americans as "merciless Indian savages" in the Declaration of Independence is an exemplar of the racist attitudes that were perpetuated despite the rhetoric of human equality.
The more radical arm of the Enlightenment, influenced by philosophers like Spinoza, did advocate for more democratic values, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and the separation of church and state, which were revolutionary at the time. However, the broader application of these principles to racial equality was slow to take root. The moderate Enlightenment, espoused by figures like John Locke, while advocating for the rights of white males, did not extend these rights to people of color or other marginalized groups. It was this selective application of Enlightenment thinking that both rejected and simultaneously encouraged racism, laying a complex foundation for the new American republic.