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Lesson 4 What is a constitutional government. Rap: Without looking back in your notebook: What is a constitution?. Lesson Goal: Students will be able to explain the ideas of a constitution, constitutional government, and higher law.
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Lesson 4What is a constitutional government Rap: Without looking back in your notebook: What is a constitution? Lesson Goal: Students will be able to explain the ideas of a constitution, constitutional government, and higher law. Students will be able to explain some of the important differences between constitutional governments and autocratic and dictatorial governments.
Constitutional government • Every nation has a constitution • Most are written, but some have written and unwritten parts. • Having a constitution does not mean it has a constitutional government • Limits power
Constitutional government • Lists the basic rights of citizens to life, liberty, and property • Establishes the responsibility of government to protect the rights • Places limits on how powers are used • Citizen’s rights • How resources are distributed • How conflicts are handled • Establishes the principle of private domain • Can only be changed • widespread consent of citizens • According to set of procedures
Higher law in a constitutional government • Set of laws that establish and limit the power of government • All the people, INCLUDING government leaders, must obey the higher law of the land • Constitution describes ways to limit power • The constitution is the higher law
Constitution without limits • A nation is NOT a constitutional government • It may provide unlimited use of power • It might say that that the power is limited, but not say how the limits are enforced • A government with unlimited power is a autocratic or dictatorial government
wio Draw a cartoon that illustrates the difference between a constitutional government and a dictatorial government.
You are one of the founding fathers. You are meeting to discuss the creation of a new government. Before you can go into to much depth, some basic questions must be answered. Your job is to answer the questions by coming to a consensus in your group. Each member of your group must participate if everyone is to be represented.
Questions about government: • What are the purposes of government? • What is the organization of government? What parts does it have? What does each part do? • How is government supposed to go about doing its business? For example, how does the government make its laws?
Questions about citizens • Who is a citizen • Are citizens supposed to have control over their government? If so, how is this control supposed to work? • What rights and responsibilities if any, are the citizens supposed to have?