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The History of Government
The Origins of Government
Government is one of humanity's oldest and
most important institutions. From earliest times, some
kind of government has been a vital part of every society.
This is because every society needs people to make and
enforce decisions that affect conduct within the group.
The term government also refers to the process of
exercising power in a group.
The first humans started out as nomads. They
were hunters and gatherers, traveling from place to place
in order to follow cattle during seasonal changes to
where the land was fertile. Nomadic life produced the
first stage of government called anarchy. Anarchy means
no government. There were no laws or rules except for
the laws of nature.
As individual hunters married and formed
families, a new type of government emerged. The first
real government began with family rule. Over time
families grew larger and larger until a tribe or clan was
formed. In tribal life, the oldest and wisest rules with
respect from the younger less experienced members of
the family.
Very early in human history, people or tribes
decided to settle in one place so that they would be able
to build permanent homes. These permanent settlements
grew into villages and later into civilizations. Small
civilizations formed a system of government that is
known as city-states, which was the earliest form of
communism and socialism. This has been taught by
political philosophers like Karl Marx to be the only
possibility for a true Utopia to exist. In these city-states
there was no such thing as ownership of property. There
also were no classes among the people. Everyone was
seen to be equal as long as they contributed to the
community and everyone shared in the communities’
goods and products as they needed.
Around the year 2000 B.C., civilizations grew
and began expanding out into new territories. They came
in contact with other prosperous civilizations and often
times these meetings would lead to conflicts and even
war. Battles could erupt for reasons such as: the desire
for others’ goods, resources, and even over religious
beliefs. These battles introduced the next evolution in
governmental history, which is known as Survival of the
Strongest. In this form of government, the civilization
was not ruled by the oldest and wisest or by the entire
community. The person who could defeat all others by
sheer force in order to take over ruled the civilization.
Survival of the Strongest quickly gave way to
the next evolution in government called Divine Right.
The theory of Divine Right comes from a religious belief
that the power to rule comes from god. In ancient times,
it was customary that anyone could challenge the king’s
right to rule, and in so doing he would also be
challenging the authority of that king’s god. The people
believed that the winner’s god must be the greater god.
The victor would then be king, and any actions he took
were not to be questioned. To question the king, believed
to be divinely appointed by god, would bring eternal
judgment by god on that individual. The Divine Right
Theory also related to conquering other civilizations. The
victorious civilization was believed to have a greater god
then that of the loser. When one civilization had taken
over another they would generally turn the people into
servants and slaves. This created a large class system
with rulers and workers.
Ancient Civilizations
Several civilizations developed independently in
various parts of the world. The first one arose in the
Tigris-Euphrates Valley in the Middle East named
Mesopotamia. Other civilizations developed in the Nile
Valley in Egypt, the Indus Valley in what are now
Pakistan and northwestern India, and the Huang He
Valley in China. The locations of these settlements were
always on the banks of major rivers. The river provided
almost all of the needs that a society needed to survive.
First, it provided a constant source of food and fresh
water. Secondly, the river provided means of
transportation. Finally, the river provided protection
from invaders. The people developed systems of writing
and new forms of
government, made
advances in science
and technology, and
excelled in crafts
and art. These four
civilizations are also
referred to as empires.
The First Set of Laws
The first empire, which was in Mesopotamia, is
known as Babylon. New and lasting developments in
government came from the Babylonians. The greatest
development was the idea of written codes or laws. This
gave predictability to punishments rather than having
arbitrary rule by the king. A Babylonian king named UrNammu assembled the earliest known code about 2100
B.C. Other Babylonian rulers produced codes during the
following centuries. A king
named Hammurabi drew up the
most complete and best known
of these codes during in 1780
B.C. The Code of Hammurabi,
like the earlier ones, consisted
mainly of a long list of rules
(282 rule to be exact), to settle
specific types of cases. The
code laid down the law for such matters as the
unfaithfulness of a wife, the theft of a farm animal, and
the faulty work of a house builder. Many of the
punishments were harsh by today's standards. For
example, a son found guilty of striking his father had his
hand cut off.
From about 1000 to 400 B.C., the Israelites of
the Middle East assembled their religious and social laws
into a code. The code reflected the teachings of Moses, a
great Israelite leader of the 1200's B.C., and so it is often
called the Mosaic Code or the Law of Moses. The
Mosaic Code stressed moral principles. It became a key
part of the first books of the Hebrew Bible and later of
the Christian Bible. According to
the Bible, God gave the part of the
code
known
as
the
Ten
Commandments to Moses in 1290
B.C. The commandments therefore
have had enormous influence on the
moral content of the law in Western
civilization.
the Greeks also believed that human beings have the
power to make laws--and to change them as the need
arises. The Greek city-state (polis – Latin for politics) of
Athens became the chief center of this development.
In the 590's B.C., the ruling council of Athens
authorized a high-ranking official named Solon to reform
the city's legal and political system. Solon made the
Athenian assembly representative and increased its
lawmaking powers. In about 460 B.C., Pericles became
leader of the popular party and the most powerful person
in the state. He made many changes as head of the state.
Public officials had never been paid before, but Pericles
introduced salaries, first for the elected officials called
archons, and later for all officers. According to
Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, as many as 20,000
people were on the public payroll. In 457 B.C., Pericles
made his greatest reform. The common people were
allowed to serve in any state office. Athens became the
most successful democracy of ancient Greece during the
400's B.C. Every male Athenian citizen had the right to
serve permanently in an assembly, which passed laws
and determined government policies. They granted all
citizens the right to vote on government policies, hold
political office, and
serve on a jury. The
Athenian assembly
was elected by a
secret ballot. The
assembly
also
elected
Athenian
generals. Each year,
the citizens drew
lots to select a council of 500 men. This council ran the
day-to-day business of government and prepared the bills
that the assembly debated and voted on. Jurors were also
chosen by lot. The Athenian jury constituted the first trial
by jury in history.
The Greeks believed strongly in the importance
of law. They considered respect for the law to be the
mark of the good citizen.
The great Athenian
philosopher and teacher Socrates became the supreme
example of this belief. The court sentenced Socrates to
death in 399 B.C. for teaching Athenian youths to
question the authority of the law. Socrates knew that he
was innocent. But he accepted his sentence in order to
show his respect for the law.
The Influence of Ancient Greece
Ancient Philosophy: Governmental Forms
The Social Pyramid
The second largest empire was Egypt. Another
development of government, the social pyramid, became
the center of Egyptian society and can be observed in
many societies today. The Egyptians developed one of
the largest social pyramids in history. In ancient social
pyramids true class systems were observed. All people
were born into the class that they would remain in until
death. No one could move up in class unless appointed
by the Pharaoh himself. The classes in Egypt consisted
of the Pharaoh, Nobles and Priests, Soldiers, Scribes,
Merchants, Artisans, Farmers, Slaves and Servants.
Today’s American society has narrowed down to only
three classes, the upper, middle, and lower classes, which
are economic in nature.
Religious Law
Most scholars regard the ancient Greeks as the
founders of both Western law and Western civilization.
Unlike earlier civilizations, the civilization of ancient
Greece made the law a clearly human institution. Before
the Greeks, most people believed that only gods and
goddesses had the power to make laws. The gods and
goddesses gave the laws to certain chosen leaders. These
leaders passed them on to the people. Like earlier
peoples, the ancient Greeks believed that gods and
goddesses required human beings to obey the law. But
During the 300's B.C., such Greek political
thinkers as Aristotle and Plato again stressed the idea of
rule by laws. Aristotle classified governments by the
number of rulers and by certain principles under which
they operated. Today, various forms of government,
including democracy and communism, differ mainly by
the degree in which the people participate in them.
Aristotle, sometimes called the father of political science,
suggested that all governments fall into one of three
categories: (1) rule by one person, (2) rule by a few
people, and (3) rule by many people. Within each
category, rule could be exercised for the benefit of all
and be "virtuous," or for the benefit of only the rulers and
be "corrupt." When one person ruled for the good of all,
Aristotle taught, the government was a monarchy. A
corrupt monarchy was a tyranny, whose leader ruled to
satisfy an appetite for power or wealth. Government by a
few people, for the good of all, was an aristocracy. When
a small group of people ruled to increase their own
power or wealth, the government was an oligarchy.
Aristotle called rule by many people, for the good of all,
polity. In a polity, a large number of citizens could rule
for the benefit of the rest. Democracy was Aristotle's
name for corrupt rule by the majority, and it was to be
feared as a dangerous kind of mob rule.
The Influence of Ancient Rome
Ancient law reached its peak under the Romans.
Roman law included all the main branches of public and
private law that exist today. In fact, the scientific
classification of the law began with the Romans. The
Romans designed their laws not only to govern the
people of Rome but also to build and hold together a vast
empire. By the early A.D. 100's, the Roman Empire
included much of Europe and the Middle East and most
of northern Africa.
A series of kings ruled ancient Rome at the
beginning of its history. Each king was advised by a
Senate, which resembled that of many countries today,
made up of the heads of Rome's leading families.
Citizens met in assemblies to vote on decisions made by
the king and the Senate.
The Roman Republic was established in 509
B.C., after Roman nobles overthrew the king. Two
elected officials called consuls headed the government.
The consuls shared power, but either consul could veto
the actions of the other. A consul served for only a year.
The Senate was the most powerful government
body of the Roman Republic. The Senate conducted
foreign policy, passed decrees (official orders), and
handled the government's finances. Senators, unlike
consuls, served for life. At first, all senators were
patricians—that is, members of Rome's oldest and richest
families. Patricians controlled not only the Senate but
also the assembly that elected the consuls and other
important officials. All the rest of Rome's citizens, who
were called plebeians, had little political influence.
To obtain political rights, plebeians formed their
own assembly, the Concilium Plebis, and elected leaders
called tribunes. Largely through the work of the tribunes,
plebeians gradually gained the same political rights as
the patricians. In time, a new and larger assembly, the
Comitia Tributa, developed. It represented both
patricians and plebeians, but plebeians largely controlled
the assembly.
The Roman Republic lasted nearly 500 years,
until 27 B.C. It combined strong heads of state, a
respected Senate of senior statesmen, and assemblies
where the people could be heard. For centuries
afterward, historians and political scientists viewed the
Roman Republic as a model of balanced government.
The Romans published their first known code of
law in 451 B.C. This code, called the Laws of the
Twelve Tables, set down accepted practices in written
form. It set down the chief customary laws of the Roman
people in a form that was easy to remember. For
hundreds of years, Roman boys had to memorize the
code as part of their schoolwork. Roman law remained
flexible. It depended on the interpretations of skilled
lawyers and judges.
The special rights of Roman citizens included
owning property, making contracts and wills, and suing
for damages. As the Roman government expanded its
rule, Roman citizens traveled to other lands to fight wars,
rule territories, and conduct business. They kept all their
special rights when they traveled anywhere in the Roman
Empire. The government also began to grant Roman
citizenship to people who had never lived in Rome. In
A.D. 212, the government granted Roman citizenship to
most people throughout the empire, except for slaves.
For many years, Romans and non-Romans
within the empire were governed under different sets of
laws. Roman citizens were governed under the jus civile
(civil law). The Romans developed a special set of laws,
called the jus gentium (law of the nations), to rule the
peoples they conquered. They based these laws on
principles of justice that they believed applied to all
people. Such principles are known as natural law.
The belief in
natural law also led to
the idea that nonRomans within the
empire should have the
same rights as citizens.
In A.D. 212, the
Romans granted Roman
citizenship to most of the peoples they had conquered,
except slaves. The jus civile then became the law of the
entire empire.
However, the principles of natural law set down
in the jus gentium remained part of Roman law. These
principles were important to future generations because
they led to the belief in equal rights for all citizens. But
hundreds of years passed before people fully developed
the principles of equality that were outlined by the
Romans. Once the principles had been developed, they
contributed to the building of democratic governments in
the United States, France, and many other countries.
The Middle Ages
In 395, the Roman Empire split into two parts-the West Roman Empire and the East Roman, or
Byzantine, Empire. The West Roman Empire, which
had its capital in Rome, fell to invading Germanic tribes
in the late 400's. The empire's fall marked the start of the
1,000-year period known as the Middle Ages. The East
Roman Empire, which had its capital in Constantinople
(now Instanbul), escaped the invasions. In 527, Justinian
I became the ruler of the eastern empire, and his great
code of Roman law was mainly enforced there. In
Western Europe, most of the legal and cultural
institutions developed by the Romans gradually died out.
However, Roman law survived in the West as
the basis for canon law--the legal system developed by
the Roman Catholic Church. Most Europeans during the
Middle Ages were Catholics, and so canon law had a
powerful influence on their lives. Christianity taught that
everyone is equal before God. This teaching promoted
the democratic ideal of brotherhood among people.
Christianity also introduced the idea that Christians are
citizens of two kingdoms—the Kingdom of God and the
kingdom of the world. It held that no state can demand
absolute loyalty from its citizens because they must also
obey God and His commandments. During the Middle
Ages (A.D. 400's to the 1500's), the conflict between
these two loyalties helped lay the foundation for
constitutional government.
Feudalism
In the A.D. 400's, Germanic tribes conquered
the West Roman Empire and divided it into many
kingdoms. The Germanic peoples—called barbarians by
the Romans—were loyal only to their tribal chiefs or to
their families. Thus, the strong central and local
governments of the Romans disappeared. In addition,
barbarian customs replaced many Roman laws. Such
changes and further invasions resulted in general
disorder and constant warfare in the years following the
barbarian conquest of the West Roman Empire.
Feudalism helped establish order in Europe under these
conditions. Under feudalism, people owed allegiance to
individual lords rather than to a central government.
The word feudal comes from a Latin term for
fief. The fief was the estate or land granted by a lord in
return for a vassal's loyalty and service. Some fiefs were
large enough to support one knight. Others were great
provinces of a
kingdom, such
as the province
of Normandy in
France.
The
church, which
owned
large
fiefs, was also
part
of
the
feudal system.
A lord enforced the law in his territory and
granted protection to the people who served in his armies
and who lived and worked on his land. Both the lord and
his subjects, called vassals, were aristocrats. The lord
gave vassals land in return for military and other
services. The lord and the vassals were bound through
ceremonies and oaths to be faithful to each other and to
observe their obligations. The peasants had no part in
such arrangements.
A lord could not demand more than the law
allowed. The people thus had a right to refuse any
demands by their lord that went beyond the limits of the
law. Europeans later used this principle to resist
monarchs who claimed too much power. The principle
thus played an important role in the struggle for
democracy in Europe.
The Social Contract
During the 1200's, the feudal system of
lords and vassals entered a period of major decline, and
ruling kings and their governments grew increasingly
powerful. Under feudal law, nobles called barons
received land in return for military and other services to
the king. Law and custom established the barons' duties
and what was expected of the king. But there was no
actual control over the king's power. When John became
king in 1199, he exercised
his power even more
forcefully than earlier
kings. He demanded more
military service than they
did. He sold royal positions
to the highest bidders. He
demanded larger amounts
of
money
without
consulting the barons, which was contrary to feudal
custom. He decided cases according to his wishes, and
people who lost cases in his court had to pay crushing
penalties.
English barons and church leaders began to
express dissatisfaction with John's rule early in his reign.
Their unhappiness grew and they forced him to sign a set
of articles on June 15, 1215. Four days later, the articles
were engrossed (written out in legal form) as a royal
charter. Copies of the charter were distributed throughout
the kingdom. In the charter, the king granted many rights
to the English aristocracy. The ordinary English people
gained little. The charter was named the Magna Carta,
which in Latin means Great Charter.
The Magna Carta contained 63 articles, most of
which pledged the king to uphold feudal customs. One
article says that the king will not sell, deny, or delay
justice. Another says that no freeman shall be
imprisoned, deprived of property,
exiled, or destroyed, except by the
lawful judgment of his peers
(equals) or by the law of the land.
The idea of due process of law,
including trial by jury, developed
from these articles. In John's time,
however, there was no such thing as trial by jury in
criminal cases.
The charter tried to make the king keep his
promises by establishing a council of barons. If the king
violated the charter and ignored warnings of the council,
it could raise an army to force the king to live by the
charter's provisions. But these measures were
unsuccessful.
Many years later, the Magna Carta became a
model for those who demanded democratic government
and individual rights for all. The Magna Carta is
recognized as the first attempt at a Social Contract,
which is an agreement between a government and the
governed that in exchange for protection and rights, the
governed will be loyal to the government. In its own
time, the greatest value of Magna Carta was that it
limited royal power and made it clear that even the king
had to obey the law.
The Renaissance and the Reformation
The great cultural reawakening called the
Renaissance spread throughout Europe during the 1300's,
1400's, and 1500's. A new spirit of individual thought
and independence developed. It influenced political
thinking and hastened the growth of democracy. People
began to demand greater freedom in all areas of life.
The new independence of the individual found
religious expression in the Protestant Reformation. The
Reformation emphasized the importance of individual
conscience. During the early 1500's, Martin Luther, a
leader of the Reformation, opposed the Roman Catholic
Church as an intermediary between God and people. A
number of Protestant churches were established during
the period. Some of these churches practiced the
congregational form of government, which had a
democratic structure. During the 1500's, both Catholics
and Protestants defended the right to oppose absolute
monarchy. They argued that the political power of
earthly rulers comes from the consent of the people.
Natural Rights
The idea that people have certain rights that
cannot be taken away probably began thousands of years
ago with the theory of natural law. This theory states that
a natural order exists in the universe because nature or
God creates all things. Everything has its own qualities
and is subject to the rules of nature to achieve its full
potential. According to this theory, anything that detracts
from a person's human qualities, or prevents their full
achievement, violates natural law.
Natural law had always stressed the duties over
the rights of government and individuals. But in the late
1600's, natural law began to emphasize natural rights.
This change was brought about largely by the writings of
the English philosopher John Locke.
Locke argued that governmental authority
depends on the people's consent.
According to Locke, people
originally lived in a state of
nature with no restrictions on
their freedom. Then they came to
realize that confusion would
result if each person enforced his
or her own rights. People agreed to live under a common
government, but not to surrender their "rights of nature"
to the government. Instead, they expected the
government to protect these rights, especially the rights
of life, liberty, and property. Locke's ideas of limited
government and natural rights became part of the English
Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration of the
Rights of Man (1789), and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791).
The Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first
agreement for self-government ever put in force in
America. On Nov. 21 (then Nov. 11), 1620, the ship
Mayflower anchored off Cape Cod, Mass. The Pilgrim
leaders persuaded 41 male adults aboard to sign the
Mayflower Compact, and set up a government in
Plymouth Colony that would be a local representative
democracy while still giving loyalty to the King of
England.
The English Bill of Rights
By the 1700's, several European countries had
become nation-states with strong central governments.
One of the oldest national governments, the British
Parliament, developed before the 1000's from a council
of nobles and high-ranking clergy that advised the early
kings. This council helped the king decide matters of
government policy and made laws. By the mid-1300's, it
had become an enlarged parliament that included elected
representatives who met separately from the nobles and
clergy. By the late 1700's, Parliament had gained nearly
total control over the monarch.
The English revolution of 1688 finally
established the supremacy of Parliament. John Locke, the
philosopher of the revolution, declared that final
authority in political matters belonged to the people. The
government's main purpose, he said, was to protect the
lives, liberties, and property of the people.
In 1689, Parliament presented to King William
III and Queen Mary a declaration that became known as
the Bill of Rights. It stands with Magna Carta and the
Petition of Right as the legal guarantees of English
liberty. The Bill of
Rights listed certain
rights that were the
"true, ancient, and
indubitable
rights
and liberties of the
people"
of
the
English kingdom. It
settled
the
succession to the throne, and limited the powers of the
king in such matters as taxation and keeping up a
standing army. The right known as habeas corpus was
one of the chief common-law safeguards of personal
freedom. Habeas corpus is a Latin term meaning you are
ordered to have the body. As developed in English
common law, habeas corpus means that a person cannot
be held in prison without the consent of the courts. The
Founding Fathers of the United States considered this
right so essential to human liberty that they wrote it into
the Constitution (Article I, Section 9).
Political Philosophy
French contributions to democracy were made
in the 1700's by such political thinkers as Montesquieu,
Voltaire, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Their writings
helped bring about the French Revolution, which began
in 1789. Montesquieu argued that political freedom
requires the separation of the executive, legislative, and
judicial powers of government. Voltaire spoke out
against government invasion of individual rights and
freedoms. Rousseau declared in his book The Social
Contract (1762) that people "have a duty to obey only
legitimate powers." The only rightful rulers, he added,
were, ultimately, the people.
The Thirteen Colonies
In the early 1600's, the English king began
granting charters for the purpose of establishing colonies
in America. The charters went to companies of
merchants and to individuals called proprietors. The
merchants and proprietors were responsible for recruiting
people to settle in America and, at first, for governing
them. By the mid-1700's, most of the settlements had
been formed into 13 British colonies. Each colony had a
governor and legislature, but each was under the ultimate
control of the British government.
The 13 colonies stretched from what is now
Maine in the north to Georgia in the south. They
included the New England Colonies of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire in the
far north; the Middle
Colonies of New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware;
the
two
Chesapeake Colonies of
Virginia and Maryland, along
Chesapeake Bay; and the
Southern Colonies of North
Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia in the far south.
The 13 English colonies began as either charter
colonies or proprietary colonies. Charter colonies had a
charter granted by the English monarch to stockholders.
Proprietary colonies were owned by an individual
proprietor or by a small group of proprietors under a
charter from the monarch. Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and Virginia were founded as charter
colonies. The other nine colonies were established as
proprietary colonies.
In 1624, the English monarch began to change
the colonies into royal colonies. Such colonies were
under the direct control of the monarch. By the end of
the colonial period, only Connecticut and Rhode Island
remained charter colonies, and just Delaware, Maryland,
and Pennsylvania were still proprietary. The other eight
colonies had become royal colonies.
Colonial government. All the colonies had a
governor, a legislature, a governor's council, and a court
system. In royal colonies, the monarch appointed the
governor. In proprietary colonies, the proprietors did so.
In the charter colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island,
the voters elected the governor.
Colonial legislatures debated issues and elected
officers to preside over their meetings. They passed laws
and could tax the people. The governor could veto any
laws passed by the legislature. The governor also had the
right to call elections and to call together and dismiss the
legislature.
The British Parliament passed some laws for the
colonies, especially ones regulating trade. It also created
a postal system and certain courts for the colonies.
British officials reviewed all laws passed by colonial
legislatures in royal and proprietary colonies. These
officials could disallow—that is, reject—laws that they
considered to be contrary to English law. Only about 5
percent of colonial laws were disallowed. However, even
these few acts of disallowance caused resentment in the
colonies. In some cases, decisions of colonial courts
were appealed to England.
Toward Independence
During the 10-year period prior to the adoption
of the Declaration, American leaders repeatedly
challenged the British Parliament's right to tax the
colonies. Three efforts by Parliament to raise taxes
provoked heated protest
from the colonists. These
efforts were the Stamp
Act
of
1765,
the
Townshend Acts of 1767,
the Tea Act of 1773, and
the Intolerable Acts of
1774.
On Sept. 5, 1774, the First Continental
Congress met in Philadelphia to plan common measures
of resistance. All the colonies except Georgia sent
representatives to the Congress. The delegates supported
the view held by most colonists—that they could not be
ruled by a Parliament in which they were not
represented. The delegates to the First Continental
Congress hoped the United Kingdom's King George III
and his ministers would free the colonies from the
Intolerable Acts.
In 1775, most colonists still did not favor
declaring themselves independent of the British Crown.
Such a declaration would cut the last bond linking the
colonies to the United Kingdom. The delegates to the
Second Continental Congress, which assembled on May
10, 1775, continued to hope the king would help resolve
the colonists' differences with Parliament. In July, the
colonists sent a final petition to the United Kingdom
declaring their loyalty to the king and asking him to
address their complaints. But the king ignored their
request and declared the colonies to be in rebellion.
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War had begun
in April 1775, when British troops clashed with colonial
militia at Lexington, Massachusetts, and nearby
Concord. In January 1776, the political writer Thomas
Paine published Common Sense. This electrifying
pamphlet attacked the concept of monarchy and made a
powerful case for the independence of the American
Colonies.
As the fighting intensified, hopes of
reconciliation with the United Kingdom faded. On June
7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a
resolution to the Second Continental Congress stating
that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States ..." After several days of
debate, the Congress appointed a
committee to draft a declaration
of independence. The committee
gave the task to Thomas
Jefferson of Virginia, who
completed the work in about two
weeks. Two other members,
Benjamin
Franklin
of
Pennsylvania and John Adams
of Massachusetts, made a few
minor changes.
The Declaration of Independence
On July 2, the Congress approved the Lee
resolution. The delegates then began to debate Jefferson's
draft. A few passages, including one condemning King
George for encouraging the slave trade, were removed.
Most other changes dealt with style. On July 4, the
Congress adopted the final draft of the Declaration of
Independence. American democracy took root in
traditions brought to North America by the first English
colonists. The Pilgrims, who settled in Massachusetts in
1620, joined in signing the Mayflower Compact to obey
"just and equal laws." The American Revolution began
more than 150 years later, in 1775. The colonists wanted
self-government and no taxation without representation.
The Declaration of Independence, adopted by
the Continental Congress in 1776, is a classic document
of democracy. It established human rights as an ideal by
which government
must be guided.
When the
American
colonists declared
their independence
from England in
1776, they based
their claims partly on the ancient Greek and Roman ideas
of natural law. These ideas had been developed in detail
by various French philosophers of the 1700's, such as
Claude Helvetius and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The
French had especially promoted the idea that the natural
law gives all people equal rights. The U.S. Declaration
of Independence echoed this idea in the famous phrase
"... all men are created equal [and] are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
American Democracy
Most of the Founding Fathers distrusted the
Athenian version of direct democracy. They wanted to
establish a republic because they feared that giving the
people too much power would lead to mob rule. For this
reason, the men who wrote the Constitution of the United
States adopted a system of dividing power between the
federal
government
and the states. They
also provided that the
federal powers be
divided among the
legislative, executive,
and judicial branches.
In
addition,
they
provided that the
President be elected
by an electoral college
rather than by the
direct vote of the
people.
T
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Hiissttoorryy ooff G
Goovveerrnnm
meenntt Q
Quueessttiioonnss::
1. What was the first stage of government that was present with the Nomads?
2. Who rules in the system of family rule?
3. What is the only possibility of a true Utopia? Who stated that?
4. What is the Divine Right Theory?
5. What were the first four ancient civilizations?
6. What civilization had the first set of written laws?
7. Which King’s laws in that civilization are most remembered?
8. How many laws were there? Give an example of one of the laws.
9. What is a social pyramid?
10. Which civilization had a social pyramid?
11. What was the first religious law? When was it given and to whom?
12. Name five lasting influences from Ancient Greece’s government.
13. Into what categories did Aristotle divide all governments?
14. Name five lasting influences from Ancient Rome’s government.
15. What was the name of the laws in Rome and when were the written?
16. What was the church’s influence on governmental laws during the Middle Ages?
17. Describe the system of governing under feudalism.
18. Who was King John?
19. What was the Magna Carta and what did it do to the king’s power?
20. What is a social contract?
21. What were the influences of the Renaissance and the Reformation?
22. What are natural rights and where do they come from?
23. Who was John Locke and what were his thoughts about government?
24. What was important about the Mayflower Compact? When was it written?
25. What was the English Bill of Rights? What were its provisions? Who signed it?
26. What were the French contributions and lasting influences toward politics?
27. What were the three types of colonial governments (describe them), and which
colonies were in each category?
28. What problems led to colonists wanting independence from England?
29. Who proposed that the colonies declare independence?
30. What ideas were put in the Declaration of Independence that came from earlier
governments or philosophies?
31. How did the founding fathers decide to set up America’s government in light of
all other governments in history?