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Directions: Thoughtfully annotate the text. Your purpose for reading and answering the questions is to answer the content, so your annotations should reflect that. Thoughtful annotations would include things like; summarize a sentence or paragraph, paraphrase a sentence or paragraph, or circle and define key words. I expect a MINIMUM of 10 ANNOTATIONS. Once you have completed the annotations, then answer the Questions to Consider.

The Foundations of Democracy

What ancient principles, traditions, and events have shaped the system of government we have today?

The rights, freedoms, and form of government that we enjoy as Americans did not begin with the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1788. Nor did they begin with our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776. In fact, the origins of the American political system can be traced to ancient times.

The growth of democracy, or rule by the people, has not occurred at a steady pace over those thousands of years. There have been long periods of time when little democracy existed. During some of these periods, people were governed by monarchs, or single rulers who held great power. At other times, however, the ideas and practices of democracy have developed, spread, and grown strong.

Ancient Democracies

In the 400s b.c., the Greek city-state of Athens created the world’s first democracy. All free men over 18 were considered citizens. They could take part in the Athens assembly. This was a gathering at which any citizen had the right to speak. Its decisions were carried out by a council of 500 members. This council governed Athens. Citizens took turns serving on the council. Since this required taking time off from work, council members were paid for their service.

This system, in which the people govern themselves, is called direct democracy. It was possible in Athens because the city-state was small. In places with large populations, direct democracy is not practical. In such places, people choose leaders to govern for them. This form of democracy is called representative democracy. A government based on representative democracy is called a republic. The United

States is a republic.

As the ancient Greeks were creating democracy, the ancient Romans were creating the world’s first republic. In 509 b.c. the Romans overthrew their king. Government was put in the hands of a senate. Members of this body were chosen from among Rome’s wealthy upper class, called patricians. The senators elected two members, called consuls, to lead the government. Both consuls had to agree. Each consul had the power to block the actions of the other by saying veto, meaning “I forbid!”

Rome’s common citizens, called plebeians, soon tired of the rule of the patricians. A long struggle followed. The plebeians finally gained political equality in 287 b.c. Rome continued as a republic until General Julius Caesar took control around 50 b.c. After his death, monarchs called emperors ruled Rome and its empire for more than 500 years.

Early English Influences

Magna CartaThe Roman Empire collapsed around a.d. 476. For the next 700 years, kings and lords ruled most of Europe. Lords were noblemen who usually inherited land, wealth, and power. Over time the growth of towns as business and trade centers weakened the power of the lords. The kings gained greater control of their kingdoms. Many nobles resisted this change. In England they rose up against King John in 1215. They forced him to sign a document called the Magna Carta (Latin for “Great Charter”).The Magna Carta limited the king’s power. It forbade him from placing certain taxes on the nobles without their consent. It gave rights to free men. These included the rights to equal treatment under the law and to trial by one’s peers. The Magna Carta also gave nobles the right to rebel if the king broke his part of the agreement.

The Magna Carta is important because it established the principle of limited government. This is the idea that a ruler or a government is not

all-powerful. At first, many of the rights protected by the Magna Carta applied only to nobles. Over time, however, those rights came to apply to all English people.

Kings who came after John were advised by nobles and church officials. Gradually this group grew to include representatives of the common people, as well. By the late 1300s the advisers had become a legislature, or lawmaking body. It was called Parliament.

Parliament had some influence, but England’s monarchs remained strong for the next 300 years. In the mid-1600s, a power struggle developed between the monarch and Parliament. In 1625 King Charles I dismissed Parliament and ruled alone. When he recalled the members in 1628, they forced him to sign the Petition of Right. Like the Magna Carta, this document limited the king’s power. When Charles failed to uphold the terms of the agreement, a civil war broke out. Eventually, Parliament removed the king and ruled without a monarch for about 20 years.

The English Bill of RightsIn 1688 Parliament forced King James II, the son of Charles I, from the throne. It asked James’s daughter Mary and her husband, William, to rule instead. This transfer of power is known as the Glorious Revolution.But first William and Mary had to accept rules set by Parliament. They agreed that English citizens had rights that no king could violate. Citizens had the right to a fair trial. They also could not be taxed unless Parliament agreed. The rights set out by Parliament became known as the English Bill of Rights.

The signing of the English Bill of Rights signaled the end of the struggle between Parliament and the monarch. Parliament had won. It was now the leading force in English government. Such events changed English government. They also received much notice in the English colonies in North America.

Influence of the Enlightenment

How did Europe’s Enlightenment influence ideas about government in what became the United States?

The conflict between the monarch and Parliament produced new ideas about government. These new ideas were part of a larger cultural movement in Europe known as the Enlightenment.

During the 1600s, scientific discoveries led to the belief that God had created an orderly universe. Some people thought that its laws could be discovered through human reason.

This change in how some people saw their world is called the Enlightenment. These thinkers wanted to apply the laws that ruled nature to people and society. These new ideas had a great effect on political thinking in Europe and the Americas.

Enlightenment ThinkersAn early Enlightenment thinker, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), experienced the English Civil War firsthand. Hobbes believed that an agreement, called a social contract, existed between government and the people. In this contract, the people agreed to give up some freedom and be ruled by government. In return, government had to protect the people’s rights. But Hobbes thought that people needed a strong leader because they were too selfish to be able to rule themselves.Another English thinker, John Locke (1632–1704), was influenced by the events of the Glorious Revolution. In 1690 he published Two Treatises of Government. (A treatise is a long essay.) Locke wrote that all people were born equal with certain God-given rights, called natural rights (inalienable). These included the rights to life, to freedom, and to own property. Like Hobbes, Locke believed in a form of social contract. Locke believed that people agreed to give up some rights and to be ruled by a government. But he believed that if the ruler failed to protect the rights of the people, the social contract was broken. Then the people could choose new leaders.

Some years later, a French thinker named Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) wrote The Social Contract. It was published in 1762. In it, he said that “man is born free, yet everywhere he is found in chains.” He referred to the many Europeans living with little freedom. Rousseau thought people had the right to decide how they should be governed.

At about this time, another French writer named Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755) developed the idea that the power of government should be divided into branches. Then, Montesquieu believed, no one branch would become too strong and threaten people’s rights. Montesquieu called this idea the separation of powers.

Colonists’ views about government were shaped by the Enlightenment thinkers. Ideas about a social contract, natural rights, and separation of powers influenced the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

The First Colonial Governments & Colonial Influence

How were the first English colonies in America shaped by earlier ideas about democracy and government?

England founded colonies in America throughout the 1600s. A colony is an area of settlement in one place that is controlled by a country in another place. The early colonists were loyal to England. They brought to America the traditions, beliefs, and changes that had shaped England’s government. These included a strong belief in their rights and representative government.

Jamestown & the Virginia House of BurgessesThe first permanent English settlement in North America was Jamestown. It was located in what is now Virginia. Jamestown was founded in 1607 by the Virginia Company. The Virginia Company was a business owned by a group of London merchants. They asked King James I to allow them to send some colonists to North America. The company provided the supplies and settlers for the colony. The owners hoped the colony would make money for the company.

The first legislature anywhere in the English colonies in America was in Virginia. This was the House of Burgesses, and it first met on July 30, 1619, at a church in Jamestown. It was later relocated to Williamsburg, VA. This legislature marked the beginning of self-government and representative democracy in colonial America.

Through the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, many leaders of the move toward independence made their names in the House of Burgesses. Patrick Henry introduced seven resolutions against the Stamp Act there in 1765. Famous burgesses also included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

The fact that the burgesses could make their own laws was very much on the mind of many people in the American colonies, especially when Great Britain continued to pass harsh laws that the colonists viewed as "taxation without representation."

The Mayflower CompactSoon after the House of Burgesses was formed, another group of English colonists arrived in America. In 1620 these Pilgrims set sail for Virginia, seeking religious freedom. A storm in the Atlantic blew their small ship, the Mayflower, off course. They anchored off the coast of what is now Massachusetts instead.The Pilgrims knew they had reached a land that had no English government. They knew that to survive they needed to form their own government. So they drew up a compact, or written agreement. All the Pilgrim men aboard the ship signed. They agreed to choose

leaders and work together to make their own laws for the colony. They also agreed to obey the laws that were made. Then the colonists went ashore and founded the town of Plymouth.The signers of the Mayflower Compact established a direct democracy in colonial America. The people of Plymouth held town meetings to discuss problems and make decisions. Anyone in the town could attend and express his or her views. However, only some male members of the colony could vote. The tradition of the town meeting continues in much of New England today.

Maryland Toleration Act

The Maryland Toleration Act, was a law mandating religious tolerance for Trinitarian Christians. Passed on April 21, 1649, by the assembly of the Maryland colony. The Act allowed freedom of worship for all Christians in Maryland, but sentenced to death anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus.

As the first law on religious tolerance in the British North America, it influenced related laws in other colonies and portions of it were echoed in the writing of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protected religious freedom in American law.

The Zenger Case

John Peter Zenger became a symbol for the freedom of the press in the young American colonies.

No democracy has existed in the modern world without the existence of a free press. Newspapers and pamphlets allow for the exchange of ideas and for the voicing of dissent. When a corrupt government holds power, the press becomes a critical weapon. It organizes opposition and can help revolutionary ideas spread. The trial of John Peter Zenger, a New York printer, was an important step toward this most precious freedom for American colonists.

John Peter Zenger was a German immigrant who printed a publication called The New York Weekly Journal. This publication harshly pointed out the actions of the corrupt royal governor, William S. Cosby. It accused the government of rigging elections and allowing the French enemy to explore New York harbor. It accused the governor of an assortment of crimes and basically labeled him an idiot. Although Zenger merely printed the articles, he was hauled into jail. The authors were anonymous, and Zenger would not name them.

In 1733, Zenger was accused of libel, a legal term whose meaning is quite different for us today than it was for him. In his day it was libel when you published information that was opposed to the government. Truth or falsity were irrelevant. He never denied printing the pieces. The judge therefore felt that the verdict was never in question. Something very surprising happened, however.

The most famous lawyer in the colonies, Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, stepped up to defend Zenger. Hamilton admitted

that Zenger printed the charges and demanded the prosecution to prove them false. In a stirring appeal to the jury, Hamilton pleaded for his new client's release. "It is not the cause of one poor printer," he claimed, "but the cause of liberty." The judge ordered the jury to convict Zenger if they believed he printed the stories. But the jury returned in less than ten minutes with a verdict of not guilty.

Cheers filled the courtroom and soon spread throughout the countryside. Although true freedom of the press was not known until the passage of the first amendment, newspaper publishers felt freer to print their honest views. As the American Revolution approached, this freedom would become ever more vital.

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The Foundations of Democracy: Questions to Consider

1. How do direct democracy and representative democracy differ?

2. What two ancient democracies helped shape the system of government we have today?

3. How did the Magna Carta establish the principle of limited government? In what ways did it limit the king’s power?

4. What is the purpose of Parliament?

5. Once the English Bill of Rights was signed by William & Mary, how did it change the power struggle between the royals and the legislature?

6. Compare and Contrast: The English Bill of Rights & The U.S. Bill of Rights

7. How do Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau differ in regards to how they define their “Social Contract”?

8. How did the writings of John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu influence ideas about government in what became the United States?

9. What natural rights did John Locke believe all people had?

10. Why is the Virginia House of Burgesses significant?

11. Describe what the Mayflower Compact established.

12. How did the Maryland Toleration Act influence the United States government?

13. Why is freedom of the press critical for a democracy to work?

14. Why do you think that the outcome of the Zenger case was important to the American Revolution?