Unit 1: Foundations of American
Government
Chapter 1: Principles of
Government
Chapter 2: Origins of American
Government
By: Courtney Michaels
What is Government?
• Government- the intuition through which a
society makes and enforces its public
policies
• Public Policies- all of the many goals that
a government pursues in all of the many
areas of human affairs in which it is
involved
– Ex: Taxation, defense, education, crime,
health care, transportation, environment, civil
rights and working conditions
Types of Power
• Legislative Power- the power to make law
and to frame public policies
• Executive Power- the power to execute,
enforce, and administer the law
• Judicial Power- the power to interpret
laws, to determine their meaning and to
settle disputes that arise within the society
The State
• The State- is a body of people living in a
defined territory, organized politically with
a government, and has the power to make
and enforce law without the consent of any
higher authority
Characteristics of a State
• Population- the people who make up a
state may or may not be members of a
group who share customs, a common
language, and an ethnic background
• Territory- land in which the people can live
that has known and recognized
boundaries
Characteristics of a State (cont.)
• Sovereignty- has supreme and absolute
power within its own territory and can
decide its own foreign and domestic
policies. Its neither subordinate nor
responsible to any other authority
– Ex: The US can determine its form of
government, frame its economic system and
shape its own foreign policies
Major Political Ideas
• The Force Theory- one person or a small
group of people claimed control over an
area and forced all within it to submit to
that persons of groups rule
– They believe that the state was born free
• The Evolutionary Theory- claims that the
state developed naturally out of the early
family
Major Political Ideas (cont.)
• The Divine Right Theory- God created the
state and that God had given a “divine
right” to rule
• The Social Contract Theory- the state
exists only to serve the will of the people
and that they are the sole source of
political power and that they are free to
give or to withhold that power as they
choose
Purpose of Government
•
•
•
•
•
•
Form a more Perfect Union
Establish Justice
Insure Domestic Tranquility
Provide for the Common Defense
Promote the General Welfare
Secure the Blessing of Liberty
Classifying Government
• Who can participate in the governing
process
• The geographic distribution of
governmental power within the state
• The relationship between the legislative
(lawmaking) and the executive (lawexecuting) branches of the government
Democracy
• Supreme political authority rests with the people
• The people hold the sovereign power and
government is conducted only by and with the
consent of the people
• There are two types of democracy
– A direct democracy or pure democracy exists where
the will of the people is translated into public policy
directly by the people themselves in mass meetings
– A representative democracy is a small group or
people chosen by the people to act as their
representatives and express the popular will of the
people
Dictatorship
• Dictatorship exists where those who rule
cannot be held responsible to the will of
the people. The government is not
accountable for its policies nor for how
they are carried out.
– Autocracy- a government in which a single
person hold unlimited political power
– Oligarchy- a government in which the power
to rule is held by a small usually self
appointed elite
Dictatorship (cont.)
– All dictatorships are authoritarian which
means those in power hold absolute and
unchallengeable authority over the people
– Modern dictatorships are totalitarian and they
exercise complete power over nearly every
aspect of human affairs
• Ex: China has complete control over the internet
Unitary Government
(centralized government)
• All powers held by the government belong
to a single, central agency
• The central government creates local units
of government for its own convenience
• The local governments have only those
powers that the central government
chooses to give them
Federal Government
• Federal Government- one in which the
powers of government are divided
between a central government and several
local governments
– An authority superior to both the central and
local governments makes this “division of
powers” on a geographic basis
• The division cannot be changed by either the local
or national level acting alone
Confederate Government
• Confederation- an alliance of independent
states
• The powers of the Confederate
Government have been limited to the
fields of defense and trade
• A confederate structure makes it possible
for several states to cooperate in matters
of common concern, and at the same time,
retain their separate identities
Presidential Government
• The executive and legislative branches of
government are separate, independent of
one another and co-equal
• The chief executive (president) is chosen
independently of the legislature, and holds
office for a fixed term and has broad
powers not subject to the direct control of
the legislative branch
Parliamentary Government
• The executive is made up of the prime minister
or premier and that officials cabinet
• The prime minister and cabinet themselves are
members of the legislative branch, the
parliament
• The prime minister and the cabinet remain in
office only as long as their policies and
administration have the support of a majority in
parliament
Foundations of Democracy
• A recognition of the fundamental worth
and dignity of every person
• A respect for the equality of all persons
• A faith in the majority rule and an
insistence upon minority rights
• An acceptance of the necessity of
compromise
• An insistence upon the widest possible
degree of individual freedom
Worth of the Individual
• Democracy is firmly based upon a belief in
the fundamental importance of the
individual
• Each individual, no matter what his or her
station in life, is a separate and distinct
being
• When a democratic society forces people
to pay a tax or obey traffic signals, it is
serving the interests of many
Equality of All Persons
• All are entitled to equality and opportunity
• All are entitled to equality before the law
• The Democratic concept of equality holds that
no person should be held back for any such
arbitrary reason
– Ex: race, religion, and gender
• The concept holds that each person must be
free to develop themselves as fully as they can
and that each person should be treated as the
ewual of all other persons by law
Majority Rule, Minority Rights
• In a democracy the will of the people and
not the dictate of the ruling few determines
public policy
• The democratic process searches for
“satisfactory” solutions to public problems
Necessity of Compromise
• In a democracy, public decision making
must be largely a matter of give and take
• It is a matter of compromise in order to
find the position most acceptable to the
largest number
Individual Freedom
• Democracy insists that each individual
must be as free to do as he or she pleases
as far as the freedom of all will allow
Free Enterprise System
• It is an economic system characterized by
the private ownership of capital goods,
investments made by private decision, not
by government directive, and success or
failure determined by competition in the
marketplace
• This system is based on four factors:
private ownership, individual initiative,
profit and competition
How the System Works
• The free enterprise system does not rely on the
government to decide what items are to be
produced, how much of any particular item
should be produced or how much any item is to
sell for.
• These decisions are made by the market
through the law of supply and demand
– When supplies of goods and services become
plentiful, prices tend to drop.
– When supplies become scarcer, prices tend to rise
Government and the Free
Enterprise System
• Mixed Economy is when private enterprises
exists in combination with a considerable
amount of government regulation and promotion
– The government does this to protect the public and to
preserve private enterprise
• Government’s participations in the economy is
seen at every level: national, State and local
– Ex: antitrust laws, pure food and drug laws, antipollution standards, and city and county zoning
ordinances and building codes
Democracy and the Internet
• Democracy demands that the people be
widely informed about the government
Therefore, internet users can check out the
Web sites of political candidates, discover
what’s happening in Congress, and read
the most recent Supreme Court decisions
Chapter 2
Origins of American Government
Ordered Government
• The 1st english colonists saw the need for an
orderly regulation of their relationships with one
another, that is government
• They created local government based on those
they had known in England
• Many of the offices and units of government they
established are still with us today
– Ex: The offices of the sheriff, coroner, assessor and
justice of the peace, the grand jury, counties and
townships
Limited Government
• The colonists also brought the idea that
government is not all powerful
• In limited government, government is
restricted in what is may do and each
individual has certain rights that the
government can’t take away
Representative Government
• Is the idea that government should serve
the will of the people
• Also that people should have a voice in
deciding what the government should and
should not do
Magna Carta
• A group of determined barons forced King John to sign
the Magna Carta or The Great Charter at Runnymede in
1215
• The barons were seeking protection against heavy
handed and arbitrary acts by the king
• The Magna Carta included such fundamental rights as
trial by jury and due process of law or protection against
the arbitrary taking of life, liberty or property
• These protections against the absolute power of the king
were originally intended only for the privileged classes
• The Magna Carta established the principle that the
power of the monarchy was not absolute
The Petition of Right
• In 1628 when Charles I asked Parliament for more
money in taxes, Parliament refused until he signed the
Petition of Right
• It demanded that the king no longer imprison or punish
any person but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by
the law of the land
• It also insisted that the king not impose martial law or,
rule by military, in time of peace or require homeowners
to shelter the king’s troops without their consent
• The petition challenged the idea of the divine right of
kings, declaring that even a monarch must obey the law
of the land
The Bill of Rights
• The English Bill of Rights prohibited a
standing army in peacetime, except with
the consent of Parliament and required
that all parliamentary elections be free
• This also included guarantees as the right
to a fair trial, and freedom from excessive
bail and from cruel and unusual
punishment
The English Colonies
• Each colony was established on the basis
of a charter or a written grant of authority
from the king
• Over time these led to three different kinds
of colonies: royal, proprietary and charter
Royal Colonies
• The royal colonies were subject to the direct control of
the Crown
• In 1624 the king revoked the London Company’s charter
and Virginia became the first royal colony
• The king named a governor to serve as the colony’s
chief executive
• He also named a council who served as an advisory
body to the royal governor
• The governor, advised by the council appointed the
judges for the colony’s courts
• The laws passed by the legislature had to be approved
by the governor and the Crown
The Proprietary Colonies
• By 1775 there were three proprietary colonies:
Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware
• The colonies were organized by a proprietor, a
person to whom the king had made a grant of
land
• In Maryland and Delaware the legislatures were
bicameral or two house while Pennsylvania was
unicameral meaning one house body
The Charter Colonies
• Connecticut and Rhode Island were
charter colonies
• The governors were elected each year by
the white, male property owners in each
colony
• There charters were so liberal for their
time that with independence they were
kept with only minor changes as State
constitutions- until 1818 and 1843
Britain’s Colonial Policies
• Each colonial legislature began to assume broad
lawmaking powers. They often bent a royal
governor to their will by not voting the money for
his salary until he came to terms with them
• By mid 1700’s the relationship between Britain
and the colonies had become federal
• This meant that the central government in
London was responsible for colonial defense
and for foreign affairs
• It also provided a uniform system of money
Britain’s Colonial Policies (cont.)
• In 1760 shortly after George III came to throne
Britain began to deal more firmly with the
colonies
• Restrictive trading acts were expanded and
enforced and new taxes were imposed
• The colonists did not agree which then started
“taxation without representation”
• Within the next couple of years they had to
choose to submit or revolt
Early Attempts
• In 1643 the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth,
New Haven and Connecticut settlements
formed the New England Confederation
• A confederation is a joining of several
groups for a common purpose
• In this confederation they formed a
“league of friendship” for defense against
the Native Americans.
The Albany Plan
• In 1754 the British Board of Trade called a meeting of
seven northern colonies to discuss the problems of
colonial trade and the danger attacks by the French and
their Native American allies
• This is when Benjamin Franklin offered what became
known as the Albany Plan of Union
• He proposed the formation of an annual congress of
delegates or representatives from each of the 13
colonies
– It would have the power to raise military and naval forces, make
war and peace with the Native Americans, regulate trade with
them and collect customs duties
The Stamp Act Congress
• The harsh tax and trade policies of the 1760s
cause resentment throughout the colonies
• Parliament passed the Stamp Act of 1765 which
required the use of tax stamps on all legal
documents, on certain business agreements,
and on newspapers
• Nine colonies in October of 1765 sent delegates
to the Stamp Act Congress in New York where
they prepared a protest called the Declaration of
Rights and Grievances
The Stamp Act Congress (cont.)
• Parliament repealed and mob violence erupted and
many colonists supposed a boycott of English goods
• On March 5, 1770, British troops fired into a crowd killing
five in what became known as the Boston Massacre
• Organized resistance was carried on through
Committees of Correspondence which was formed by
Samuel Adams in Boston in 1772
• Protests multiplied and the Boston Tea Party took place
on December 16, 1773
• A group of men disguised as Native Americans boarded
three tea ships in the Boston Harbor and dumped the tea
into the sea to protest the British control of the tea trade
The First Continental Congress
• In 1774 the Parliament passed more sets of laws to
punish the colonists.
– These were known as the Intolerable Acts
• Delegates from every colony except Georgia came to
Philadelphia to discuss a plan of action
• They sent a Declaration of Rights, protesting the British
• The delegates stressed refusal of trade with England
until the hated taxes and trade regulations were repealed
or cancelled
• A call for a second congress to be convened the
following May and over the next several months all of the
legislatures including Georgia’s gave their support to the
actions of the First Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress
• The British refused to compromise so on
May 10, 1775 the Second Continental
Congress met
• The second Revolution had begun and the
“shot heard ‘round the world” had been
fired
Representatives
• Each of the 13 colonies sent
representatives to Congress
• Most of those who had attended the First
Continental Congress were again present
• Some notable newcomers were Benjamin
Franklin of Pennsylvania and John
Hancock of Massachusetts
Our First National Government
• The Second Continental Congress had
become the nation’s first national
government for five years however, it had
no constitutional base
• It was condemned by the British as
unlawful assembly and a den of traitors
The Declaration of Independence
• Congress named a committee of five to prepare
a proclamation of independence
– The product being the Declaration of Independence
which the majority of the work came from Jefferson
• On July 2nd the delegates agreed to Lee’s
resolution but only after spirited debate
• Two days later on July 4th, 1776 they adopted
the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the
existence of the new nation
– 13 colonies became free and independent States and
56 men signed the document
The First State Constitutions
• In January of 1776, New Hampshire adopted the
Declaration to replace its royal charter
• Less than three months later so did South
Carolina
• Then on May 10, Congress urged each of the
colonies to adopt “such governments as shall, in
the opinion of the representatives of the people,
best conduce to the happiness and safety of
their constituents”
Drafting State Constitutions
• In 1776 and 1777 most States adopted
written constitutions
• The Massachusetts constitutions of 1780
is the oldest present-day State
constitutions
• Also it is the oldest written constitution in
force anywhere in the world today
Common Features
• The most common features were the
principles of popular sovereignty, limited
government, civil rights and liberties and
separation of powers and check and
balances
The Articles of Confederation
• On November 15, 1777 the Articles of Confederation
were approved
• They established “a firm league of friendship” among the
states
• The Articles didn’t go into effect immediately they
needed ratification or formal approval from all 13 States
• 11 agreed within a year and Delaware added its approval
in Feb. of 1779
• Maryland did not ratify until March 1,1781 and that its
declared the Articles of Confederation’s official effective
date
Governmental Structure
• A Congress was the sole body created and was
unicameral, made up of delegates chosen yearly
by States in whatever way their legislatures
might direct
• Each State had one vote in the Congress,
whatever its population or wealth
• Since the Articles established no executive or
judicial branch these functions were to be
handled by committees of the Congress
• Each year Congress would choose one of its
members as its president
– That person would be its presiding officer
Powers of Congress
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Make war and peace
Send and receive ambassadors
Make treaties
Borrow money
Set up a money system
Establish post offices
Build a navy
Raise an army by asking the State for troops
Fix uniform standards of weights and measures
Settle disputes among the States
State Obligations
• Obey the Articles and acts of the Congress
• Provide the funds and troops requested by the Congress
• Treat citizens of other States fairly and equally with their
own
• Give full faith and credit to the public acts, records and
judicial proceedings of every other State
• Surrender fugitives from justice to one another
• Submit their disputes to Congress for settlement
• Allow open travel and trade between and among the
States
Weakness
• The Congress did not have the power to
tax
• Congress did not have the power to
regulate trade between the States
• The Congress didn’t have power to make
the States obey the Articles or the laws it
made
The Critical Period, the 1780s
• The Revolutionary War ended on October
19,1781 and the Treaty of Paris was
signed in 1783
• The States ended up taxing one another’s
goods and banned some trade
• Violence broke out because of economic
chaos. One of them being known as
Shay’s Rebellion
The Framers
• 12 out of the 13 States sent delegates to
Philadelphia to attend the Philadelphia
Convention known as the Framers of the
Constitution
• These men had been in the Revolution or
had been important, intelligent people in
society
Organization and Procedure
• On May 25 the unanimously elected
George Washington as president of the
convention
• Then on Monday, May 28, they adopted
several rules and procedures
Working in Secrecy
• The delegates decided to keep everything
a secret
• They worked throughout the hot summer
keeping this a secret
• They even kept the windows closed so
that people could not hear what they were
saying
The Virginia Plan
• On May 29 the Virginia Plan, was presented to
Randolph
• The Virginia Plan called for a new government
with three separate branches: legislative,
judicial, and executive
• It also called for a bicameral legislature in which
each State’s membership would be determined
by its population or its financial support for the
central government
• The plan presented by delegates from Virginia at
the Constitutional Convention
The New Jersey Plan
• It is a plan presented as an alternative to
the Virginia Plan at the Constitutional
Convention
• It called for a unicameral legislature in
which each State would be equally
represented
Compromises
• Connecticut Compromise- an agreement during
the Constitutional Convention that Congress
should be composed of a Senate in which States
would be represented equally, and a House in
which representation would be based on a
State’s population
• The Three-Fifths Compromise-an agreement at
the Constitutional Convention to count a slave
as three-fifths of a person when determining the
population of a State
The Commerce and Slave Trade
Compromise
• An agreement during the Constitutional
Convention protecting slave holders
• It denied Congress the power to tax the
export of goods from any State and for 20
years, the power to act on the slave trade
The Convention Completes its
Work
• After several weeks in hot Philadelphia,
the Committee of Stile and Arrangement
headed by Governor Morris put the
Constitution in its final form
• On September 17, the document was
finished with 39 names placed on it
Federalists and Anti-Federalists
• Two groups emerged the Federalists who
favored ratification and the Anti-Federalists
who opposed it
• The Federalists stressed the weakness of
the Articles meanwhile the Anti-Federalists
attacked every part of the new document
Ratify
• Delaware was the first to ratify and then
New Hampshire on June 21, 1788
• Virginia then followed New Hampshire four
days later
• On July 26, 11 states had ratified
• On April 30, Washington took the oath as
the first President of the United States