Bell Ringer
Date: September 24th, 2015
1)Copy down the homework in your
agenda. Its due tomorrow.
2) Answer this Question on the paper
from yesterday.
Warm Up: What do you think the
government was like in the early
colonies?
Rights Activity
After reading pg. 104
• How was the power of English Monarch’s
Limited?
• Which groups of people were permitted to
vote in colonial elections? Which were not
permitted to vote?
Part 2 – After pg. 106
• Why was the Zenger case important?
• Which economic impact did the Navigated
Acts have on the colonies?
Colonial Government
Objectives
• Explain how English political traditions
influenced the 13 colonies.
• Describe the responsibilities of early colonial
governments.
• Identify John Peter Zenger’s role in establishing
freedom of the press.
• Understand how the Navigation Acts affected the
colonies’ economy.
Terms and People
• legislature – a group of people who have the
power to make laws
• bill of rights – a written list of freedoms that a
government promises to protect
• habeas corpus – the principle that a person
cannot be held in prison without being charged
with a specific crime
Terms and People (continued)
• freedom of the press – the right of journalists
to publish the truth without restriction or penalty
• libel – the publishing of statements that
damage a person’s reputation
How did English ideas about
government and trade affect the
colonies?
All English colonies shared a common English
heritage, and that heritage included the idea
that citizens had political rights.
England also promoted the theory of
mercantilism—that colonies existed to benefit
their parent country—but some colonists
began to question that theory.
In 1215, English nobles forced King John to
sign the Magna Carta, which was the first
document to place restrictions on an English
ruler’s power.
The rights listed in the Magna Carta were at first
limited to nobles.
Over time, the rights were extended to all English
citizens.
The Magna Carta:
• limited the monarch’s right to levy taxes
without consulting the nobles.
• protected the right to property.
• guaranteed the right to trial by jury.
Parliament
Great
Council
• Under the Magna Carta, nobles formed a Great
Council to advise the king, and this body developed
into the Parliament.
Two-House
Legislature
• Parliament was a two-house legislature.
• The House of Lords was made up of nobles who
inherited their titles.
• Members of the House of Commons were elected,
but only a few rich men and landowners had the
right to vote.
Taxes
• Parliament’s greatest power was that no monarch
could raise taxes without its consent.
In the 1640s, power struggles between King
Charles I and Parliament led to the English Civil
War.
King Charles I
Parliament
Parliamentary forces eventually won the war,
executed the king, and briefly ruled England.
In 1660, the monarchy was restored, but Parliament
retained its traditional rights.
In 1688’s Glorious Revolution,
Parliament removed King James
II from the throne and invited
his daughter Mary and her
husband William to rule.
A condition of their rule,
however, was that they sign
the English Bill of Rights.
The English Bill of Rights:
• restated many of the rights granted by
the Magna Carta.
• upheld habeas corpus.
• required that Parliament meet regularly.
The legal rights that men in England had
won over the centuries led the colonists to
expect a voice in their own government.
Colonial
Governors
Colonial
Legislatures
Appointed by
the King
Most were
elected
By 1760, every British colony in North America
had a legislature of some kind, although the
legislatures sometimes clashed with the colonial
governors appointed by the king.
Virginia and Massachusetts
Virginia
• From 1619, the House of Burgesses—
the first legislature in British North
America—made laws for the
Jamestown Colony.
Massachusetts
• Massachusetts set up a legislature
called the General Court in 1629.
• In 1634, Massachusetts colonists
gained the right to elect delegates to
the General Court.
The British government gave William Penn
outright ownership of Pennsylvania.
But in 1701, the colonists forced Penn to agree
that:
• only the General Assembly—not Penn or
his council—could make laws.
• only the king could overturn laws passed
by the General Assembly.
British and colonial governments were similar in some
ways, but they had important differences.
Great Britain
American Colonies
King
Governor
• Inherited executive power
Parliament
• Appointed by and served the king
but paid by the colonial legislature
Colonial Legislatures
House of Lords
•Aristocrats who inherited legislative
power along with their inherited titles
Upper House or Council
•Prominent colonists without inherited
titles who were appointed by the
governor
House of Commons
•Elected by men who held significant
amounts of property
•Few British men qualified to vote.
Lower House or Assembly
•Elected by men who held property
•Majority of colonial men allowed to
vote.
In the colonies, 50 to 75 percent of
white men could vote, which was a far
greater percentage than in England.
But the following groups could not vote:
• English women, even those who
owned property
• Native Americans
• Africans, whether free or enslaved
Colonists gained another important right-freedom of the press.
In England, writers
who criticized the
government were
punished, even if
what they said was
true.
However, a trial in
the colonies
granted writers
new freedom to
publish the truth.
John Peter Zenger, publisher of the New York
Weekly Journal, was charged with libel for printing
articles that criticized the governor.
Jurors found Zenger not guilty because the articles
he published were based on facts.
The Zenger case helped establish the principle
that a democracy depends on well-informed
citizens.
Therefore, the press has a right and a
responsibility to keep the public informed of the
truth.
Today, freedom of the
press is recognized as a
basic American liberty.
While colonists maintained some important rights,
they felt burdened by Britain’s economic policies.
Under the theory of mercantilism, colonies existed
in order to enrich their parent country.
$
In 1651, the English
Parliament passed the first
of several Navigation Acts,
laws designed to funnel the
colonies’ wealth to England.
They set the stage for future
conflict.
$
$
$
$
$
$
Pros and Cons of the Navigation Acts
Pros
• Colonial traders had a sure market for their goods in
England.
• The law contributed to a booming shipbuilding
industry in New England.
Cons
• Many colonists began to resent the Acts because
they thought the Acts favored English merchants at
the colonists’ expense.
• Some colonists thought they could make more
money if they were free to sell to foreign markets
themselves.
• Some colonists smuggled goods to foreign markets
to avoid the Navigation Acts.