CH2 Defining and Debating America’s Founding Ideals

Bell Ringer

• What Is America???

• What are the ideals that United States was founded on?

• Who wrote the declaration of Independance?

• Are those Ideals still alive today?

Equality• Equality is the ideal

situation where all people are treated the same way, and valued equally.

• Jefferson says that these rights are “self evident.” What does self-evident mean?

• Social classes have existed throughout history. Social classes existed in the USA when Jefferson wrote this.

• Name an example you can think of where equality did not exist.

Rights• Rights are powers and

privileges granted to people either by an agreement among themselves or by law.

• Jefferson wrote of unalienable rights: rights so basic that they could never be taken away.

• Jefferson got this idea from John Locke. He said that people had natural rights just from being born, and that they were life, liberty, and property.

• Why did Jefferson change “property,” to “pursuit of happiness”? (He wasn’t concerned with plagiarism.

Liberty • Liberty is essentially the

same thing as freedom.• The American

colonies fought a war for liberty. (True) Did the American colonies fight a war only for liberty?

• Why is Liberty a hard thing to fight for?

Opportunity

• Opportunity is the chance for people to pursue their hopes and dreams.• Page Smith argues that,

“The kings and potentates, the powers and principalities of this world [would not] have thought of including “happiness” among the rights of a people… except for a select and fortunate few.”

• Why else might Jefferson not included the right to own land?

Democracy

• Democracy is a system of government founded on the simple principal that the power to rule comes from the consent of the governed

• Jefferson, as well as other colonist, did not want a monarchy or a dictatorship. Why?

• A democracy means that everyone, on some level, has a say with what happens in the country. This is the concept of voting.

• Is a democracy perfect?

ESSAY• Outline an Essay• Intro: Hook, and Main Idea• Body 1– Fact 1, 2 sentences

explanation– Fact 2, 2 sentences

explanation• Body 2• Body 3• Conclusion: No new

Information, driving home the point of the paper.

Have American’s lived up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence?