Monday February 13, 2012
Ahhh… finally felt good enough to attend class today. You know, I never feel like I miss certain things when I read by myself, but I catch so many good points that I didn’t even think of when the class discussions go on. So today we talked about chapter two - Creating an American Republic. There were many many documents to get through in this chapter and I think Scott did a good job in picking questions out from each one. We spent a great deal of time talking about how the ideas of John Locke influenced how the Declaration of Independence was written. Writers of the Constitution knew that they did not want to have a king in power because it did not work out well, like England’s control over the colonies. The Constitution guarantees life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Locke had said life, liberty, and land. I think that land was left out because the government did not want to have to guarantee land to everyone. This way, happiness means that anyone can come to the country and do what makes them happy, and the government does not have to give land away.
Scott asked us “why do you think Jefferson criticized the King of England in the Declaration of Independence and not Parliament?” I had to actually think this question through a few times because each time I came up with a different answer. The first time I thought that the king was in charge of the government and it was he who placed ridiculous orders on the colonies. But, no, that was actually Parliament. Then I thought it was the king who got the blame because Jefferson did not want to offend members of Parliament. Finally, I thought that the king was the figure head of the country, just like how the president is now for the U.S. It was much easier for Jefferson to place blame on the King/figure head of the country, then on the many members of Parliament. This created on scapegoat/enemy that everyone could recognize and dislike. I think this was an excellent idea from Jefferson. Americans banned together on the dislike of one person and in the end fought for and created their own country.
Another subject discussed in the chapter was that of political parties. Even though when the Constitution was drafted there were not legitimate political parties, I still believed people banned together with common ideas. America has always been divided on political issues and it is only natural for people to support political figures who believe the same things that they do. Now, political parties are what run the country! Heck, most people I know will say that they are a democrat or republican, but they don’t really even know the values and beliefs of the party. Most people follow what their parents believe or what they have been taught from others.
The governmental system of checks and balances was put into place because the founding fathers believed that everyone was predisposition to be evil. I somewhat agree with this argument as well. The system of checks and balances works very well in America because no one branch of government can out power the other. This creates a sort of harmony. England does not really have checks and balances because their different branches of government overlap and there is a hierarchy of power among the government agencies. I think that is was not so much that the founding fathers believed that people would become evil and misuse the government, but that there should also be a clearly defined differences among the branches. At the time, the newly forming U.S. did not want to be like England in any way, and many of the founding fathers knew that that England’s system of government could easily be tweaked to created a new and unique government. Even though the U.S. government is not perfect (what government is!?) is works well for our country because every branch must work together instead of overpowering each other.
excellent observations.
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