FOUNDATIONS OF GOVERNMENT

The current American Political System did not spring into being overnight. It is the result of philosophy,
trial and error, and yes, even luck. To begin our examination of why we have the type of government we have
today, we look at the theories of government that influenced the Framers who drafted the Constitution and
created the United States of America.

Types of Government
As early as Plato and Aristotle, theorists have tried to categorize governments by who participates, who
governs, and how much authority those who govern enjoy. Dictatorship*, is a system in which the leader(s)
exercises unlimited power and individual members of society have no personal rights or liberties. A Monarch
(King) is defined by the rule of one in the interest of all of his or her subjects. Generally, these systems tend to
be ruled in the name of a particular religion or orthodoxy, an ideology, or a personality cult organized around
the supreme leader. Oligarchies, while also existing for the benefit of a few, are rare today.

A Democracy, from the Greek words demos (the people) and kratia (power or authority) is a system of
government that gives power to the people either directly or through their elected representatives. This was the
form of government favored by the Framers.

The Reformation and the Enlightenment: Challenges to the Divine Right of Kings
In the 3rd century, monarchs throughout Europe began to rule their countries absolutely, claiming their right
to govern came directly from God. Thus, since it was Gods will that a particular monarch ruled a country, the
people in that country had no right to question their monarchs authority or agitate for a voice in their
governments operation. In theory, monarchs ruled in the interest of all of their subjects.

The intellectual and religious developments of the Enlightenment and Reformation periods of the 16th and
th
17 centuries encouraged people to seek alternatives to absolute monarchies and to ponder new methods of
governance. In the late 16th century, radical Protestants split from the Church of England. These Protestants or
Puritans believed in their ability to speak one on one to God and established self-governing congregations.
They were persecuted for their religious beliefs by the English monarchy. The Pilgrims were the first group of
these Protestants to flee religious persecution and settle in America. There they established self-governing
congregations and were responsible for the first widespread appearance of self-government in the form of a
social contract or compact, an agreement between the people and their government signifying their consent to
be governed. The Mayflower Compact, deemed sufficiently important to be written while the ship was at sea,
reflects this tradition.

Hobbes, Locke and a Social Contract Theory of Government

Two English theorists of the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704), built
on conventional notions about the role of government and the relationship of the government to the people in
proposing a social contract theory of government. They argued that all individuals were free and equal by
natural right. This freedom, in turn, required that all men and women giver their consent to be governed.

In his now-classic political treatise Leviathan (1651), Hobbes argued pessimistically that mans natural state
was war.* Government, he theorized, particularly a monarchy, was necessary to restrain mans bestial
tendencies because life without government was but a state of nature. Without written, enforceable rules,
people would live like animals foraging for food, stealing, and killing when necessary. To escape the horrors
of the natural state and to protect their lives, Hobbes argued, people must give up certain rights to government.
Without government, Hobbes warned, life would basically be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short a
constant struggle to survive against the evil of others. For these reasons, governments had to intrude on
peoples rights and liberties to better control society and to provide the necessary safeguards for property.

Hobbes argued for a single ruler, no matter how evil, to guarantee the rights of the weak against the strong.
Leviathan, a biblical sea monster, was his characterization of an all-powerful government. Strict adherence to
Leviathans laws, however all-encompassing or intrusive on liberty, was but a small price to pay for living in a
civilized society.

In contrast to Hobbes, John Locke, like many other political philosophers of the era, took the basic survival
of humanity for granted. He argued that a governments major responsibility was the preservation of private
property, an idea that ultimately found its way into the U.S. Constitution. In two of his works, Essay
Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Second Treatise on Civil Government (1689), Locke not only
denied the divine right of kings to govern but argued that men were born equal and with natural rights that no
king had the power to void. Under Lockes conception of social contract theory, the consent of the people is the
only true basis of any sovereigns right to rule.

According to Locke, people form governments largely to preserve life, liberty, and property, and to assure
justice. If governments act improperly, they break their contract with the people and therefore no longer enjoy
the consent of the governed. Because he believed that true justice comes from laws, Locke argued that the
branch of government that makes laws as opposed to the one that enforces or interprets laws should be the
most powerful.

Locke believed that having a chief executive to administer laws was important, but that he should necessarily
be limited by law or by the social contract with the governed. Lockes writings influenced many American
colonists, especially Thomas Jefferson, whose original draft of the Declaration of Independence noted the rights
to life, liberty, and property as key reasons to split from England.

Terms:
Democracy a form of government that bases its authority to rule on the consent of the governed...the social
contract. There is recognition that power comes from the people, that the people govern either directly or
indirectly through their elected representatives, and that government exists to serve the people. While there are
various kinds of democracy, all share some basic characteristics: limited government, rule of law, popular
sovereignty, civil liberties and civil rights (minority rights), elections, property rights, amongst others.

Dictatorship a form of government in which the authority of the dictator (could be an individual, group or
organization) to rule the state (society) is based on coercion (force). While there are different kinds of
dictatorships, in general, they reject the legitimacy of the consent of the governed and any expressions of
individual rights and freedoms they believe threaten societal order and their power to rule. As such, these
governments can be very repressive of individual rights and property.

Social Contract Theory The belief that people are born free and equal by God-given right, that they freely
create a government, and that in exchange (Contract) for government providing them with certain benefits, they
give their consent to be governed agree to abide by the laws. (espoused by John Locke).

Sources:
OConnor, Karen., and Sabato, Larry J. Essentials of American Government: Community and Change, Pearson Longman,2006.
Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, Richard Tuck, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Peter Lasleti, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.