History and Geography: American
195
What Teachers Need to Know
Background
This section examines some of the basic values and principles of American
democracy, in both theory and practice, as defined in the Declaration of
Independence and the U.S. Constitution, both in historical context and in
terms of present-day practice. In examining the significance of the U.S.
Constitution, introduce students to the unique nature of the American experi-
ment, the difficult task of establishing a democratic government, and the com-
promises the framers of the Constitution were willing to make. In order to
appreciate the boldness and fragility of the American attempt to establish a
republican government based on a constitution, students should know that
republican governments were rare at this time. Discuss with students basic
questions and issues about government, such as:
• Why do societies need government?
• Why does a society need laws?
• Who makes the laws in the United States?
• What might happen in the absence of government and laws?
• Where do people in government get the authority to make, apply, and
enforce rules and laws?
Students began their exploration of these questions in Kindergarten. Add
to them the issue of power versus authority.
A. Main Ideas Behind the Declaration of
Independence
Main Ideas
The Declaration of Independence has four parts. The Preamble states that the
colonists believe it necessary to explain why they are declaring their independ-
ence from Great Britain, so they have written this document. The next part
explains the political ideas behind their action. Thomas Jefferson borrowed many
of these ideas from French and British thinkers of the era, a time in history known
as the Enlightenment. The third, and longest, part lists all the charges against the
king, and the fourth part lists all the rights that the new nation is claiming for
itself.
Students should be familiar (at a minimum) with the beginning of the
second part:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This second section continues with some words that may be less familiar to
students but are no less important to the foundation of the nation:
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that is,
Teaching Idea
Introduce the term
republic
by asking
students what they remember about
the Roman Republic, which they stud-
ied in Grade 3 if they were taught the
Core Knowledge curriculum. The
word
republic
comes from the Latin
word
res,
meaning “thing,” and
pub-
lica,
meaning “of the public.” Ask
how the Romans chose their leaders.
(They elected them.) Explain that a
republican form of government is one
in which the people choose who will
represent them. Point out that in 1776,
a republic seemed a daring idea.
Since the Roman Republic, European
nations had been ruled almost exclu-
sively by hereditary monarchies.
Teaching Idea
Ask students to consider what
Jefferson meant by “life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.” What do
those words mean to them? What
would it mean to have the right to life
taken away? The right to liberty? The
right to the pursuit of happiness? Ask
students to step back and consider
how government directly influences
their lives.
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II. Making a Constitutional Government
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Grade 4 Handbook
Teaching Idea
Before detailing what our rights are
according to our Constitution, have the
class brainstorm a list of what they
think are our basic rights. Ask students
to write a persuasive paragraph about
the right they feel is most important.
Share these paragraphs, and then graph
the results to see which rights were
most important to the class.
Teaching Idea
Contrast Jefferson’s theory of govern-
ment with the prevailing European theo-
ry at the time, the divine right of kings.
Put simply, it was believed kings
derived their right to govern directly
from God and people existed to serve
the king. Disobeying the king was
therefore like disobeying God. Great
Britain did not adhere to the theory of
divine right, but it continued in France
until the French Revolution. Jefferson,
Locke, and other Enlightenment thinkers
turned the theory of divine right upside
down, proclaiming the purpose of gov-
ernment is to guarantee the rights of the
people; government exists to serve the
people rather than people existing to
serve the government.
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new gov-
ernment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect [bring
about] their safety and happiness.
In general, the signers of the Declaration and the framers of the later
Constitution were educated men who drew on ancient Greek and Roman ideas
about government. They also read the works of British Whigs Trenchard and
Gordon and European philosophers and political theorists of the Enlightenment
period, such as Locke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. The underlying idea of the
Enlightenment was that reason was the basis of all knowledge, and all received
ideas could and should be tested by reason. Instead of just accepting preexisting
political institutions, Enlightenment political thinkers urged that reason be used
to evaluate political ideas and institutions.
It was the ideas of philosophers such as John Locke in England and Louis,
Baron de Montesquieu in France to which Thomas Jefferson turned in writing the
Declaration. Jefferson based the Declaration on the theory of natural rights,
which argued that every human being has certain basic rights that belong to the
person by virtue of his or her being human. From this assumption, Jefferson pur-
sued a logical argument that people institute government to preserve these rights.
When government no longer safeguards these rights, he asserted, people have a
right to change the government.
“All Men Are Created Equal”
This is the basic assumption in the Declaration: every human is equal to
every other by virtue of one’s humanity. However, this does not mean that every
person should necessarily have the same amount of education, money, or posses-
sions, in material terms. It is also important to note that in the 18th century, not
all people were considered equal. For example, women and African Americans
did not receive equal treatment.
Natural Rights
What rights does a person have by virtue of being human? The first sentence
of the Declaration identifies these rights as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness.” The Declaration states that these are unalienable (“inalienable” in some
versions)—that is, they cannot be taken away by any person or government. It is
important to note that the signers agreed that these rights were only examples of
the rights people have.
Government’s Responsibility
The second sentence of the second section of the Declaration states, “That to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men . . . .” According to
the Declaration, people establish governments in order to ensure that their rights
are guaranteed and protected; that is the purpose of government.
“Right of the People . . . to Institute a New Government”
If a government does not protect the rights of its citizens, asserts the
Declaration, then its citizens have the right “to alter or abolish it” and to establish
a new government. Jefferson explains in the next few sentences that changing a
government structure is not something to be done lightly. He then outlines a long
Signing the
Declaration of Independence
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list of the king’s abuses, including the following:
• quartering large bodies of armed troops among the colonists
• cutting off colonists’ trade with all parts of the world
• imposing taxes on colonies without their consent
• depriving colonists, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury
42
B. Making a New Government: From the
Declaration to the Constitution
Articles of Confederation
During the Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress wrote and
adopted the Articles of Confederation as the framework for the new nation as it
waged war against Great Britain. When peace was won, the new United States
continued to operate under this document. However, it had a number of short-
comings. For one, there was no executive department to coordinate the actions of
the states or to act for the nation as a whole, for example, in dealing with foreign
nations. The Congress of the Confederation held both legislative and executive
powers, yet the Congress had no powers of taxation, making it dependent on the
states for all revenue. The shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation were
made clear by a series of events in the early years of the new republic, including
Shays’s Rebellion, an uprising which the federal government was too weak to han-
dle without help from local government. Shays’s Rebellion is considered one of
the main events that led to the ratification of the Constitution.
Framers: James Madison
When it became clear that the central government under the Articles was not
working, a convention was called in Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles.
Instead of merely revising, however, the delegates wrote a new constitution, the
one under which we live today.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention voted to keep the proceed-
ings secret, but James Madison, who represented his native Virginia, kept notes,
which were not published until 1840. Because of his notes, we have a full record
of the proposals and the debates over the wording of the Constitution.
Madison was a pivotal figure in those proceedings. Having served on the com-
mittee in Virginia that wrote the state constitution, he had considered the proper role
of government for some years. He had read political philosophers like Locke and
Montesquieu, and was also well versed in Greek and Roman political institutions.
His thinking is represented in several of the key ideas of the Constitution,
such as the need for a strong central government, the basing of representation on
population (the formula for the distribution of seats by state in the House of
Representatives), and the federal system itself.
Once the Constitution was passed, Madison joined Alexander Hamilton and
John Jay in writing the Federalist Papers, which set out arguments explaining
why the states should ratify the Constitution. After the Constitution was ratified
and the new government took office, Madison, as a member of the first Congress,
submitted a proposal for a Bill of Rights, which Congress debated, revised, and
sent to the states for ratification. See Section C, “The Constitution of the United
States” on pp. 199–203, for a discussion of those rights.
History and Geography: American
197
Teaching Idea
Ask students to consider the differ-
ence between power and authority.
Power is the ability to compel people
to do something. Authority implies an
agreement by which people acknowl-
edge and accept the commands of
someone else.
Help students see that the govern-
ment’s authority comes from the
Constitution and the consent of the
people. The power of government,
which is shared by dictatorships and
democracies alike, is different from
the authority that can come only from
legal, legitimized sources.
Old State House, Philadelphia
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