Social Contract Theory, John Locke and the Declaration of Independence AND how we decided to write the U.S. Constitution

Social Contract Theory
To continue on with Tuesday's lesson on the Declaration of Independence, we took a look at John Locke's Second Treatises on Government and compared it to what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration. We highlighted where Jefferson's and Locke's writing is similar. This was for a grade so if you missed it you need to find these papers in the make-up work tray in the back of the room.

Here are some things that are similar about what John Locke and Thomas Jefferson said about the social contract:
Governments get their power from the people. If the government no longer serves the people it can be overthrown.

This is why Jefferson uses Social Contract theory in the Declaration of Independence; it justifies throwing out England.

How the U.S. Constitution came about
After the United States threw England out, they were left with the task of creating their own government. They threw out the government of England because it was too strong and so powerful it abused the citizens' rights. So the Americans put together a government that couldn't abuse the citizens' rights. They made the Articles of Confederation. The problem was they made the government so weak it couldn't do much at all. After about 10 years it became clear that the Articles were failing so they decided to create a new constitution. They did so by creating the U.S. Constitution in Philidelphia in 1787.

There were problems creating this constitution too. For example: how do you fairly represent states in the legislature? Bigger states wanted more representation because they have more people leaving smaller states to be bullied all the time. Smaller states wanted each state to have an equal vote but the big states said each of our people get a smaller slice of the vote that way. They ended up with the Great Compromise which used both plans together: the number of representatives in the House would be determined by population; the number of senators in the Senate would be equal (2 per state); put them together and you've got a bicameral Congress.

The last problem was getting everyone to agree to the new Constitution. Some people said it was too strong we'd end up with another problem like England and our rights aren't written down anywhere to protect us from the government. These people were called the Anti-Federalists. The others said we have to replace the Articles because our government is too weak. They compromised by adding 10 amendments to the Constitution. These 10 amendments are known as the Bill of Rights.