The Constitution of the United States has been shaped and molded by the experiences of many people throughout history. When the framers drafted the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they included the best ideas from governments around the world, and through time. From the Ancient Greeks and Romans thousands of years ago, to the events of the previous five years, the framers incorporated the best ideas they could find. From all of these governments, the framers took the ideas of popular sovereignty, individual rights, limited government, federalism, republicanism, separation of powers, and checks and balances.
The United States Constitution was influenced by the Enlightenment, Colonial Experiences, and the failures of The Articles of Confederation. The US Constitution was influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment. The Enlightened thinkers influenced the writers of the Constitution with their ideas on the Social Contract. The Enlightenment was an Intellectual Movement from the 1650s to the 1750s in Europe where people started to base ideas off of science and logic, rather than faith and guesses.
Enlightened thinkers were the first people who started to question the absolute power and divine right of their governments. Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Locke were two of these thinkers. They both believed in the idea of a social contract, a metaphorical agreement that people follow when they create a society. Since the people agree to be ruled by the government, they control the government. This idea shows the concept of popular sovereignty, because the government will only work if it has the consent of the governed, earned by the government protecting the natural rights of the people.
Natural Rights are the rights to life, liberty, and property. Popular Sovereignty is shown throughout the Preamble of the Constitution. The Preamble of the Constitution shows that the right to rule comes from the people, which is the idea of popular sovereignty. Popular Sovereignty was included in the Constitution so the people can have the power to control the government. Voltaire was another great Enlightened thinker, who influenced the the Constitution with his idea of natural rights. He believed that all people should respect the beliefs and opinions of others.
He also believed in the ideas of separation of church and state, and freedom of religion and speech. His ideas show individual rights, because he thought all people deserved natural rights: life, liberty, and property. Individual Rights are found in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. They give the people unalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government. Individual Rights were included in the Constitution so the people could have rights that the government couldn’t take away. Another intellectual was Charles de Montesquieu, one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment.
Montesquieu influenced the Constitution with his idea of branches of government. Montesquieu believed that in order to prevent abuses of powers in government, power must be divided amongst three branches of government. In 1748, he published a book called The Spirit of Laws, about his beliefs on checks and balances. “To prevent this abuse, it is necessary, from the very nature of things, that power should be a check to power…. When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty. . . (Document D).
When Montesquieu wrote this, he meant that power in government must be divided into the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches to prevent abuses of power. He also thought that checks and balances were needed to prevent one branch from becoming too powerful. Checks and Balances and Separation of Powers are found in Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the US Constitution. They split powers between the 3 branches of the government to prevent abuses of power. Checks and Balances and Separation of Powers were included to prevent abuses of power by the government.
By splitting the branches, the government is limited in what powers it has. By letting the branches check each other, the Constitution prevents one branch from overpowering the others. Altogether, the writers of the Constitution derived many of their ideas from the thinkers of the Enlightenment. The Constitution of the United States was influenced by the Americans’ colonial experiences. The US Constitution was influenced by the idea of colonial government structure. In the American colonies, governments were created to keep the monarchy in control of the colonists from overseas.
Most of these colonial governments shared a similar structure. The colonial governments almost all shared a governor, an appointed council of advisors, and an elected legislature. The power was split between the branches in order to prevent abuses of power, which shows checks and balances and separation of powers. Checks and Balances and Separation of Powers are found in Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the US Constitution. Checks and Balances and Separation of Powers were included to prevent abuses of power by the government.
By splitting the branches, the government is limited in what powers it has. By letting the branches check each other, the Constitution prevents one branch from overpowering the others. The colonial experiences influenced the US Constitution with the Mayflower Compact. When the English settlers wrote the Mayflower Compact, they created a government for the people, by the people. They needed a government to keep order in the unfamiliar territory they had landed in, and knew it needed to be created because of the failures of the colonies without government before them.
In the Mayflower Compact, it states “It was thought good there should be an association and agreement that we should combine together in one body and submit to such government and governors…[and to] combine ourselves together into a civil body politic…” (Document E). This shows the principle of popular sovereignty, because the people control the government created by the Mayflower Compact. The government created by the Mayflower Compact had the consent of the governed, because every male colonist participated in the government. Popular Sovereignty is shown throughout the Preamble of the Constitution.
Popular Sovereignty was included in the Constitution so the people can have the power to control the government. The colonial experiences influenced the Constitution with the Grievances from the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. The writers of the Declaration of Independence wrote the Grievances to show why the they felt the need to separate from England. In the Grievances, the writers meant that the fact that the British Government did not respect their rights was the reason they were splitting from England.
An example is when they say “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences” (Document F). This shows the principle of individual rights. The writers said that the reason they were splitting was that the British government was infringing on their most basic rights. Since the government did not respect their rights, they were violating the social contract, and the people had the right to rebel. Individual Rights are found in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.
Individual Rights were included in the Constitution so the people could have rights that the government couldn’t take away. To summarize, the framers of the Constitution acquired many ideas from the colonial experiences. The US Constitution was influenced by the failures of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution was influenced by the lack of judicial and executive branches in the Articles of Confederation. Before the United States Constitution was created,the government followed the Articles of Confederation.
Eventually,the leaders saw how flawed the Articles of Confederation was, and rewrote the document as the Constitution. One of the reasons the Articles of Confederation was so flawed was because of the lack of executive and judicial branches. Lacking separation of powers, the entire country was lead by the legislative branch. Also, the legislative branch was unicameral, not bicameral. Since there was a lack of both checks and balances and separation of powers, the Articles of Confederation failed as a constitution.
Checks and Balances and Separation of Powers are found in Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the US Constitution. They split powers between the 3 branches of the government, preventing abuse by the government. Checks and Balances and Separation of Powers were included to prevent abuses of power by the government. By splitting the branches,the government is limited in what powers it has. By letting the branches check each other, the Constitution prevents one branch from overpowering the others. The Constitution was influenced by the unregulated state governments under the Articles of Confederation.
Many of the new American citizens felt that the state governments did not fairly represent the citizens under the Articles of Confederation. State constitutions created frequent elections and only represented the majority of voters. The states did not represent the people, and therefore could not work for everyone. This was a lack of popular sovereignty, because the state governments only worked for some citizens. Popular Sovereignty is shown throughout the Preamble of the Constitution. Popular Sovereignty was included in the Constitution so the people can have the power to control the government.
Many citizens who fought in the Revolutionary War were unhappy with their new government under the Articles of Confederation. The citizens who fought had no source of income during the wars, and were jailed after they couldn’t pay taxes. This sparked Shays’ rebellion, where thousands of farmers in Massachusetts tried to overthrow their state’s government. George Washington wrote about this event in a letter to Henry Knox. “If government… is unable to enforce its laws; … anarchy & confusion must prevail – and every thing will be turned topsy turvey in that State;” (Document G).
In George Washington’s letter to Henry Knox, he says that governments unable to enforce their laws will rot, and anarchy will replace them. His letter shows how the principle of federalism was not enforced fairly. The federal government had a lack of power compared to the state governments, so they could not control the people of every state, and make sure the state governments were working together. The states could impose unfair taxes, create new laws, and coin money without any regulation by the federal government. Federalism is found in Article 4 of the Constitution.
It shows how power is shared equally between the state and federal governments. Federalism was included in the Constitution so power would be shared between the state and federal governments. Since overly powerful state governments didn’t work, there needed to be a balance of power between state and national government. Ultimately, the writers of the US Constitution obtained many ideas from the failures of the Articles of Confederation. In conclusion, the United States Constitution incorporated ideas from the Enlightenment, Colonial Experiences, and the failures of The Articles of Confederation.
The framers of the US Constitution included various ideas from governments throughout time. From these governments, they took the ideas of popular sovereignty, individual rights, limited government, federalism, republicanism, separation of powers, and checks and balances. These concepts were put to use in the Constitution to prevent abuses of power. The US Constitution is still being influenced everyday by events that occur around the world. However, the basic principles will keep the government no matter how much the Constitution is amended.
