USI.13



media type="custom" key="29546811" align="right" =Explain why the United States government is classified as a democratic government =

Topics on the Page

 * Groundwork of American Democracy **
 * Magna Carta **
 * First Continental Congress **
 * Richard Henry Lee's Proposal **
 * Declaration of Independence **
 * Articles of Confederation **
 * The Constitutional Convention **
 * The United States Constitution **



//**Focus Question: What were key historical developments at the beginning of America's democratic government?**//
//**For more link to United States Government I.7**//

**The Groundwork of American Democracy**
The United States’ foundational documents and the interpretation(s) of these documents are what define and frame American democracy. The aim of the [|Framers] of the United States Constitution was to structure a democratic society that would be different from the monarchy of England.

1. The United States Constitution was influenced by documents like the [|Magna Carta]. It is essentially an accumulation of ideas founded in those earlier documents thus developed by the Framers of the United States Constitution. 2. Democracy is a process and the constitution wasn’t developed overnight. It continues to be a living document in that **amendments** can be made to affect political change.

Here is an Appreciating Democracy [|lesson plan] from Rutgers University, with ideas for possible classroom activities.

//**[|The Magna Carta] (1215)**// Abuses by King John caused a revolt by nobles who compelled him to execute this recognition of rights for both noblemen and ordinary Englishmen.

It established the principle that no one, including the king or a lawmaker, is above the law. Its primary purpose was to call for majority rule and recognize the rights of the public at large as opposed to granting protection to the rights and property of a few powerful families living in England.

See World History I.8 for more on the Magna Carta

Image to the right is a document of the Continental Congress, signed by President of the Congress John Hanson and Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson, giving George Washington the authority to negotiate with Great Britain for the "exchange, subsistence, and better treatment of prisoners of war." This was the first document impressed with the Great Seal of the United States, which had been designed a few months previously.

//**[|The First Continental Congress] (est. 1774)**// In the eighteenth century, relations between the colonies and Great Britain began deteriorating at a fast pace. To punish the colonists for a wide variety of defiance acts, including not paying taxes and hosting the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts of 1774.

Called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists, they restricted the rights of colonists in Massachusetts to hold town meetings, among other things, and required all colonists to provide food and housing to British soldiers living in the colonies.

Tired of having to bend to rules and regulations by a government in which they had no representation, the colonists decided to take things into their own hands and convened the First Continental Congress in September 1774. Delegates at the convention had had enough of British oppression.

The Massachusetts Historical Society has an excellent page titled "The Coming of the American Revolution." [|Here] is their page about the First Continental Congress.

//**[|Richard Henry Lee's Proposal](June 7, 1776)**// "The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us: she demands of us a living example of freedom, that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum, where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose...."

//**[|Declaration of Independence](July 4, 1776)**// Produced by a committee of First Continental Congress members, headed by Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, the committee presented its draft to the congress on June 28, 1776. It established the principle of equality for all. The most moving lines start at the very beginning of the second paragraph: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." While at the time the document intended to mean only white men, these lines helped pave the way for freedom for minorities and women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Here is a direct link to the text of the [|Declaration of Independence].

//**The Articles of Confederation (1777)**// The Declaration of Independence said what the colonists were willing to fight for, but it said nothing about how they would be administered. With the formal declaration made, the colonists now needed a document to unite the colonies under one central government. The Articles of Confederation was the first attempt at forming a central government to unite the colonies under one central government.
 * "The Unites States of America" would be "united" only as far as each state kept its "sovereignty, freedom and independence" from the other states regarding powers not expressly given to the new federal government.
 * The new government would have only one branch, the legislative. This congress, with only one house, would be composed of delegates selected from their respective stated legislatures. Each state could have anywhere from two to seven delegates, but when they came to vote, all must vote as one. The legislative branch would also administer executive and judicial functions.
 * When the congress was in recess, a Committee of the States---a group of delegates selected from each state legislature--- would be in charge.


 * Weakness and Flaws in Democracy:**
 * A two-thirds majority vote would be required to decide important matters.
 * Amending the Articles would take unanimous support from all 13 states--not an easy task when the new states all had different agendas.
 * The articles didn't establish a national trade policy, so the federal government had no control or authority over trade and commerce between the states and each other, or between the states and foreign governments.

//**The Constitutional Convention (1787)**// Two Famous Compromises See [|Faculty Letter to President Wagner](February 18, 2013) for commentary on the Emory University President's use of the 3/5 Compromise as an example of "pragmatic half-victories" in democratic government, an essay for which the President later apologized.
 * Counting of enslaved African Americans when it came to determining representation in Congress and taxation. Southern delegates wanted slaves counted for the purposes of representation but not taxation (the number members in Congress would be relative/proportional to the state's population and one would be taxed based on how much property one owns; slaves were considered property). Northerners, on the other hand wanted slaves counted strictly for tax reasons and not for representation.
 * The delegates approved what is known as the [|Three-Fifths Compromise] that stipulated that each slave would count as three-fifths of a person for purposes of both taxation and representation.


 * The delegates enacted the [|Great Compromise] by creating a separate body of electors equal to the number of delegates each state had in congress, plus two for the senators. The electors would be selected by the state legislatures, and these people--the electoral college--would ultimately vote for the president.
 * The delegates enacted the [|Great Compromise] by creating a separate body of electors equal to the number of delegates each state had in congress, plus two for the senators. The electors would be selected by the state legislatures, and these people--the electoral college--would ultimately vote for the president.

The Library of Congress has a page dealing with [|Documents from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention].

Timeline of America during the Age of Revolution.

A summary of the daily lives of colonial women.

Abigail Adams, wife of the second President John Adams, and mother of the sixth President John Quincy Adams, was an outspoken, intelligent woman who openly opposed slavery and urged her husband to "Remember the Ladies" when he was working on the Declaration of Independence.

Click here for a link to the Massachusetts Historical Society's website with more links about Abigail Adams.

Cute music video about the Declaration of Independence set to the music of the song "Apologize" by Timbaland and One Republic.

The Native Americans' role in the American Revolution.

The Constitution of the United States has served as a model of limited government for more than 200 years and is the oldest written constitution in use today. The Articles of Confederation while weak and ineffective, played an important step in the Constitution's development The Magna Carta represented to the Framers of the United States the impulse toward equal rights The Constitution it its current form consists of 7 articles and 27 Amendments. Interpretation of its meaning continues to this day. The first three articles of the Constitution give the parameters for establishing the three branches of the US Government. The fourth governs matters pertaining to the states. the last three articles stipulate how the Constitution can be amended and what it would take to put the document into effect.
 * //The United States Constitution (1787)//** : **Conclusion**
 * The entire structure of the Constitution is based on system of checks and balances--that is, each of the three branches of government has controls to prevent any one branch from holding too much power.
 * Its general framework is intended to serve as a guide for democracy.

Here is a more direct link the the [|Constitution] itself.

Click here for access to The Democracy Project by PBS.

Links: Magna Carta (1215) http://www.constitution.org/eng/magnacar.htm Framers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States http://www.usconstitution.net/constframedata.html The Constitution: http://www.house.gov/house/Educate.shtml