Our Modern American Government
A Constitutional Republic
Every textbook and every teacher who has ever told you that the United States is a democracy,
has been telling you the wrong thing. In a democracy, the people
vote for the laws of their country. In America, we vote for
representatives who vote for our laws, which means that we are
technically a republic, not a democracy. Furthermore, our
Founding Fathers have created a document, called a constitution,
which makes rules that the people who we vote for have to follow.
Since that is the case, the American government is actually a
Constitutional Republic. When the Founding Fathers wrote the
Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and the
Declaration of Independence, they weren’t inventing those ideas,
In a Republic, every citizen of the country is
they were taking them straight from Enlightenment thinkers.
supposed to be equal, and they have the
power to choose (elect) their leaders.
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Social Contract
When John Locke wrote about his social contract, he argued that if a government was bad for
people, they should have a revolution to change it to a government
that is able to protect their freedoms. When the American colonists,
(because the United States used to be 13 colonies of Great Britain)
decided they didn’t like the rules that the British government was
making them follow, they turned to the writings of John Locke to
justify their rebellion. They claimed that the British government was
making rules, without their consent or input, and that those rules
were specifically against them. They claimed that the British king
(King George) had violated his end of the social contract, so they were
justified in revolting.
The Constitution begins with the line “We the
People” because it was meant to be a deal that the
After the American colonies had won their independence, and people made with the government. They would give
decided to form the United States of America, they decided that they
certain rights to the government, and in return, the
government would protect the rest of their rights.
would take the social contract, and would make it official. The
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Constitution of the United States of America became a list of
limitations on the power of the government, so that it could never take their rights away anymore. The
Constitution of the United States is still the main document that protects the rights of American citizens
today.
Separation of Powers
During the time of the Enlightenment, Montesquieu wrote about how the only way to keep a
leader from becoming too powerful, is to give the power in the government to different people or
groups. He was looking at absolute monarchies, where the king pretty much decided how everything
ran in the country. Montesquieu realized that no matter what kind of government you have, if you give
all the power to one person, they will use that power to take advantage of people.
During the writing of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers decided that even if people vote for
the leader of the country, they needed to limit his power. This is where they came up with the idea to
have a president (Executive), Congress (Legislative), and Judiciary branch of government. Montesquieu
talked about “power checks power,” so the system used in America came to be called the system of
checks and balances.
In the American government, there are three, equal
branches of government, and all of them have the
power to limit one another’s power. For example, the
president cannot write any laws, but he has to sign all of
the laws that Congress makes before they become laws.
Another example is that any Federal Judge can declare a
law written by Congress (and signed by the president)
“unconstitutional” and it stops being a law. Judges are
appointed by the president, and approved by Congress,
so they don’t have all the power either. Power checks
power.
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Free Speech
Voltaire felt very strongly that people should be allowed to say whatever they wanted, without
getting arrested. What Voltaire understood was that if he wanted to be allowed to say whatever he felt
was important, he needed to respect the idea that other people should be allowed to say what they
believed too, even when he didn’t agree with it. In America, this has been written in the 1st Amendment
of the Constitution, where the Founding Fathers felt it was so important, that they made sure that the
Constitution included laws that specifically protected people’s right to free speech. These laws never
included speech that limits other people’s rights, for example making terroristic threats. If you threaten
to kill someone, you are taking away their right to live without being afraid for their life, therefore your
free speech rights don’t protect that kind of statement.
Natural Rights
Rousseau, and many of the other Enlightenment thinkers all believed very strongly in the idea of
natural rights. At the time, many people believed that it was the king that gave people their rights. If
the rights come from the king, they argued, he could also take them away. It was also the king who
appointed people to the nobility. The
Enlightenment thinkers started to talk about
rights as being human rights, basically that
nobody gives you certain rights, you just have
them automatically. For example, John Locke
stated that everyone has the right to “life,
liberty, and property.” This meant that
everyone, no matter who they are, has a right
to live, that they have a right to do what they
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choose, and they have a right to have their
stuff protected. It is government’s job to
Write about it.
Reading Comprehension Questions
make sure these rights are protected, but
it is not government’s job to give people
North Korea is a dictatorship. Give at least 8
1. What is the contract between
specific examples of how their people do not
these
rights,
because
they
get
them
the people and the American
have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
government called?
automatically. These ideas are central to
of happiness.
2. What does “power checks
American government today. When the
power” mean?
Declaration of Independence was written, the Founding Fathers wrote
3. In America, what rights are
that “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
more important than your right
rights…that among them are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
to free speech?
happiness.”