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Unit 3 – Foundations of American Government

Unit 3 – Foundations of American Government. Unit 3 – Lesson 1 – Part II – Steps Toward Independence *. Primary Source – Common Sense

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Unit 3 – Foundations of American Government

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  1. Unit 3 – Foundations of American Government

  2. Unit 3 – Lesson 1 – Part II – Steps Toward Independence * Primary Source– Common Sense “It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons; the destruction of our property by an armed force; the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms.” “….But the most powerful of all arguments is that nothing but independence….can keep the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable that it will be followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of Britain.” Thomas Paine – “Common Sense”

  3. Unit 3 –Lesson I - Part II– Steps Toward Independence *** Declaration of Independence: Influence of the Enlightenment Thomas Jefferson was a scholar. He had read the writings of many of the Enlightenment thinkers in Europe, including Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The Enlightenment was a movement among philosophers in Europe that: *Stressed the right of individuals. *Questioned older ideas. *Argued that people could use reason to solve problems. Jefferson used many ideas from both Hobbes and Locke to create the Declaration of Independence.

  4. Unit 3 –Lesson I - Part II– Steps Toward Independence *** Thomas Jefferson was also influenced by other thinkers like Montesquieu. Montesquieu liked the idea of “civic virtue,” but he thought it is hard to get in complex commercial nations. He believed that “self – interest” would have to substitute. “There is nothing so powerful as a republic in which the laws are observed not through fear, not through reason, but through passion,” (Montesquieu,1734). Montesquieu explained that liberty rested upon separating the different powers of government: especially the power to enact laws from the power to enforce them. “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner,” (Montesquieu, 1748). Declaration of Independence: Other influences

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