4 3 Ideas That Influenced the Constitution A

4. 3 Ideas That Influenced the Constitution • A. The Lessons of Rome’s Republic – 1. The delegates of the Constitutional Convention wanted to create a republic, a government in which citizens rule themselves through elected representatives. • a) Few republics lasted very long. – 2. Americans greatly admired the Roman Republic. – 3. Independence and public service were virtues that the founding fathers saw in the citizens of Rome. • a) Roman citizens were willing to serve not for money, but they were devoted to their republic.

4. 3 Ideas That Influenced the Constitution – 4. The Founding Fathers saw the collapse of Rome as a warning to the United States. • a) Rome eventually became a dictatorship, a government in which one person or a small group rules. • B. Britain’s Traditions of Freedom – 1. Greece and Rome were not the only examples of democratic republic government. • a) Leaders of the Revolution valued British traditions of freedom. – 2. King John of England signed the Magna Carta in 1215. • a) The Magna Carta stated that English monarchs had to obey the law.

4. 3 Ideas That Influenced the Constitution • b) The monarch would have to consult Parliament in order to raise taxes. – 3. The Magna Carta stated that English nobles had certain rights. • a) These rights were later expanded to other people. • b) private property • c) Trial by jury • C. The American Experience – 1. Representative government started in the colonies in VA with the House of Burgesses. • a) Eventually all the colonies in America developed their own representative government.

4. 3 Ideas That Influenced the Constitution – 2. The Founding Fathers bitterly remembered their grievances against the English king. • a) In writing the Constitution they sought to avoid such abuses. – 3. The Declaration accused the king of placing military power above civilian authority. • a) The Constitution made the President the “Commander in Chief of the Army and the Navy”. – 4. The Declaration protested that the king had made judges dependent on his will alone. • a) The Constitution set up a court system independent of the President and legislature.

4. 3 Ideas That Influenced the Constitution – 5. Much of what went into the new Constitution came from prior governments. • D. Teachings of the Enlightenment – 1. The Constitution came from ideas of the European Enlightenment. • a) The use of reason. – 2. John Locke, an English writer, proposed two ideas. • a) Life, liberty, and property. • b) Government should be an agreement between the ruler and the people. – 3. The French Enlightenment thinker Baron de Montesquieu influenced American ideas of how a government should be constructed.

4. 3 Ideas That Influenced the Constitution • a) In Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, stressed the importance of the rule of law. • b) The powers of the government should be defined and divided up between a legislative, executive, and judicial branch. • c) The dividing up of powers between branches of government is known as the separation of powers.