Foundations of
American Democracy
If the Constitution was meant to be written in stone
it would have been written in stone!
The Foundations of the American System
The essential question which you will have to answer
is:
• What are the foundations of the American form of
government?
The Foundations of the American System
Along the way we will determine:
* What elements of the US constitutional system evolved
from Athens and Rome?
* What elements are derived from the Magna Carta, the
English Petition of Rights, and the English Bill of Rights?
* What are the fundamental principles of American gov’t and
law developed by leading European political thinkers
* Why are the charters of the Virginia Company of London
significant?
* How are the natural rights philosophies of John Locke and
Jean Jacques Rousseau reflected in the Declaration of
Independence?
•
•
•
•
The Foundations of the American System
But first let me tell you about
- mob rule
- how Rome contributed to the mind-numbing quantity of Law
and Order scripts
- and how a particularly gruesome form of torture led to one of
the modern day foundations: “I may not agree with what you
say but I will defend to my death your right to say it”
mediaite.com
Let’s Begin With The
Ancients
gracchii.blogspot.com
Athens and Rome
•Democracy = Demos (people) + Kratia
(rule)
•The
In Greecepower
wasn’t
held
in
hand
of
Athenian Democratic experiment
one
person
or
even
a
few
but
in
the
hands
didn’t last too long before Phillip of
of
5000
citizens.
First
come
first
serve
(no
Macedonia invaded and these noble
saving
seats)
to
the
main
legislative
body,
and enlightened Greeks were crushed
the
Assembly.
by the brutal, armed, and dumb....
•Jury duty was considered a civic honor
(chosen from a pool of 6000)
•Even judges chosen from this pool (that
• could be anyone!)
blog.kazaa.com
Athens and Rome
• Rome enjoyed a representative form of
gov’t
• Many of our Founding Fathers borrowed
moranmustangs.org
ideas such as bicameral legislature,
emphasis on republicanism and civic
virtue
flashcardmachine.com
and an
obsession
with
Athens
and
Rome
•Rome’s biggest influence may have been
on our legal system and the codified key
concepts such as “innocent until proven
guilty”
huffingtonpost.com
•of course eventually that Republic gave
away to an Empire and the only voting was
that which took place in the Colosseum
usually involving a large degree of blood-
The Magna Carta
The English Petition
of Rights
The English Bill of
Rights
The Magna Carta
1215 the wealthy English barons refused to give
King John the money he needed to wage war
against the French until he signed the Magna
Carta. This document codified that no man was
above the law (no one said there were not people
below the law....)
• Limited power of the gov’t
• Fundamental rights
• trial by jury
• due process of law
• habeas corpus
grp226lesfilles.blogspot.com
The English Petition of
Rights
1628 English Petition of Rights
• Men have rights and establishes concept of rule
of law
• Basic rights
• guarantee of trial by jury
• protection against marshal law
• protection against quartering of troops
• protection of private property
doesn’t seem to be much rule of law in Pakistan today
ypsddpakistan.itgo.com
masterpiece-productions.co.nz
Before the
Enlightenment (in
the dark ages
when they threw
the dead bodies
in the drinking
water) people’s
rights were very
limited and
selective. They
were special
privileges enjoyed
by certain groups
of people.
But what about that world of torture?
The Enlightenment - an age of arrest and torture
imposed on citizens who expressed opinions that
stood in opposition to prevailing religious, social,
political views
paperbackswap.com
Though it might seem easy, today, to criticize such a passionate emphasis
on reason, remember that Voltaire's society tortured people who went
against the accepted norm.
WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO PAY THAT PRICE TO CHANGE SOCIETY
IN WAYS YOU DEEM NECESSARY?
Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Love truth and pardon error.
I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to my death your right to
say it.
• This is the foundation world of our
founding fathers...
• and these are the philosophers who so
profoundly influenced what would
become our “little social experiment”
known as the United States of America
John Locke
• Locke’s political philosophy is called the
natural rights philosophy
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/1/30/1264879512245/FW-de-Klerk-and-Nelson-Ma-001.jpg
Natural Rights Philosophy
1. What is human nature? What traits of
personality and character, if any, do all human
beings have in common?
2. What should be the purpose of gov’t?
3. How do people running a gov’t get the right to
govern?
4. How should a gov’t be organized?
5. What kinds of gov’t should be resisted and
fought?
Natural Rights Philosophy
1. You have all been transported to a place with
enough natural resources for you to live well but
where no one has ever lived before.
2. When you arrive you have no means of
communicating with people in other parts of the
world.
Natural Rights Philosophy
Locke’s answers to these questions were widely
shared by Americans in the 1700s
Natural Rights Philosophy
1. Upon arrival would there be any
gov’t or laws to control how you
lived, what rights or freedoms you
exercised, or what property you
had? Why?
Locke believed there were rules in a state of nature. He called
these rules the law of nature. “The state of nature has a law of
nature to govern it which obliges every one.... No one ought to
harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions....”
They were “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,
as Thomas Jefferson called them in the Dec of Independence.
Jefferson believed they were laws made by a Supreme Being
for the benefit of human beings.
Natural Rights Philosophy
1. Upon arrival would there be any gov’t or laws to control
how you lived, what rights or freedoms you exercised, or
what property you had? Why?
Locke believed that most people understood this law of nature
through their use of reason and b/c their consciences told
them to. BUT not all humans are reasonable or good...
There might be a disagreement about the laws of nature. If
there was no gov’t then no one could interpret or enforce the
laws.
Of course, said Locke, there would be no gov’t in nature
because it had yet to be created. A legitimate gov’t cannot
exist until the people have given their consent to be ruled by it.
TJ included this in the D of I when he wrote,
“ Gov’ts are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed....”
Natural Rights Philosophy
2. Would anyone have the right to
govern you? Would you have the
right to govern anyone else? Why?
No one would have the right to govern you, nor would you
have the right to govern anyone else. The only way would be if
consent had been given. If the people to be gov’nered have
not consented then there is no legitimate gov’t
Natural Rights Philosophy
3. Would you have any rights? What
would they be?
Using his reason to determine what rights where provided for
by the laws of nature, Locke asked himself, “What are things
that all people always need and seek, no matter what they
believe, no matter when or where they lived?”
Life people want to survive and they want their lives to be free as possible from threats to
their security
Liberty People want to be as free as possible from the domination of others, to be able to
make their own decisions
Property people want the freedom to work and gain economic goods such as land, houses,
tools, and money which are necessary to survival
Natural Rights Philosophy
4. What might people who were
stronger or smarter than others try
to do? Why?
Locke believed that people are basically reasonable and
sociable, but they are also self-interested. Since the only
security people would have for the protection of their natural
rights would be their own strength or cunning, people who are
stronger or smarter would often try to take away the life, liberty,
and property of the weak
Natural Rights Philosophy
5. What might the weaker or less
sophisticated people try to do?
Why?
Weaker or less sophisticated people might try to protect
themselves by joining together against the strong
Natural Rights Philosophy
6. What might life be like for
everyone?
Since there would be no laws that everybody agreed upon,
and no gov’t to enforce them, everybody’s rights would be
very insecure
What do you think?
1. What are some examples of conflicts that might occur when
one individual’s rights to life, liberty, property conflict with
those of another individual?
2. Should some rights be given more protection than other
rights? Why?
3. The natural rights philosophy claims that gov’t is based on
consent. How do we give consent? How do we withdraw it?
4. Many people today believe the rights to life, liberty, and
property include the right to public education and health care.
Would the founders have agreed? Do you agree? Why?
In summary...
how mob rule, civic
virtue, and torture led
to the foundations of
our form of gov’t
• Human rights
• political and economic rights
• consumer rights
*•
In describing
the
concept
of
natural
rights,
philosophers
like
parental rights
Locke were making a bold departure form the previous term of
what we would see as “limited” rights today.
* Locke and others did not think rights were limited to situations
of birth.
The individual not the group was the most important unit.
Society is only a collection of individuals, all whom share the
same right to pursue his/her own welfare.
* Natural rights of life, liberty, and property were the essence of
humanity.
* Gov’ts and societies based on natural rights guarantee
specific rights to preserve our natural rights.
* Under the US Constitution, you possess civil rights, securing
such things as freedom of conscience and privacy, and
protecting you from unfair discrimination by gov’t or others
* You also possess certain political rights like the right to vote
or run for office, which give you control over gov’t.
Such civil and political rights serve to protect natural rights to
life, liberty, and property
* For Locke and others the greatest problem was finding a way
to protect each person’s natural rights (since not all people are
good.)
* The best way to solve this is for each individual to agree with
others to create and live under a gov’t and to give it power to
enforce laws. This kind of agreement is called a social
contract.
* Of course you have to give up your absolute right to do
anything to receive the protection. You have to agree to obey
the limits put on you by the laws created by the gov’t.