How does the theory of social contract explain the beginning of the Revolution?

John Locke is the best-known proponent of the social contract theory. He developed it in two Treatises of Government, published in February 1690. The idea behind it is that there is an unspoken contract between the governors and the governed. The governed have duties to the governors, but the governors also have duties to the governed, and the people have the right to modify or revoke the social contract.

The colonists believed that there was a kind of agreement, or contract between them and the British government. The colonists took risks to create wealth and increase British imperial power, and spread British political and religious ideals and institutions. In return, they thought, the British government had promised a) free land b) self-government and c) a Protestant haven. It was a bargain for both sides.

However, from 1763 to 1775, from the colonial point of view, the old contract was broken by England:

a) The royal proclamation of 1763 stopped the settlement of new lands

b) the Declaratory Act gave the British government the right to make laws for the colonies

c) the Quebec Act established Catholicism as the official religion of Canada. In 1775 the colonists felt free to break the contract w/ GB, since from the colonists’ pov, GB had already done it.

The Brits, however, considered the colonists as employees, whose mission was to keep British ships and British cash boxes full. Since the colonists did not fulfill this mission (Britain went into big expenses after the Seven Years’ War), they had to be punished as bad employees (through the series of R and I Acts).

The trouble was that American colonists never considered themselves as employees. They considered themselves equal partners in a joint venture. The moment the British denied them of this equal status and started to treat them as employees, they felt humiliated and disillusioned. They started to protest against taxation without representation (meaning that unless they were represented in the British Parliament as full members of the British Empire, they would pay no taxes) and made it a slogan of the War of Independence.

How did the Constitution differ from the Articles of Confederation?

The Articles of Confederation created a weak federal government. The federal government did not have an executive branch and a system of national courts. The federal government could not regulate trade and taxes between the states. The Constitution created a strong federal government. The federal government had 3 separate branches (legislative, executive and judicial). The federal government could regulate trade and taxes between the states.

What is the Bill of Rights?

1791 - Ratification of the United States Bill of Rights. The original Constitution had said nothing about the rights and freedoms of individual citizens. The Bill of Rights altered this with the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. It promised all Americans freedom of religion, a free press, free speech, the right to carry arms, the right to a fair trial by jury, and protection against cruel and unusual punishments.

What were two major compromises of the Constitution?

The Great Compromise (also known as the Connecticut Compromise) and the Three-Fifths Compromise.

The Great Compromise allowed both large and small states to agree to the Constitution without seriously diminishing their power in Congress. The small-population states wanted a Congress with equal representation from all states, and the large-population states wanted a Congress with representation proportional to the number of residents of each state. Connecticut proposed a two-house Congress with a House of Representatives based on population and a Senate comprised of two members from each state, regardless of its population.

The Three-Fifths Compromise settled the dispute between Northern states and Southern states over the definition of " population" for determining the number of members a state had in the House of Representatives. Northern states thought that slaves should not be counted, and Southern states thought they should. The Compromise that both sides agreed to was to count each slave as three-fifths of a person.

What was the difference between Federalists and Anti-Federalists?

The differences between the Federalists and the Antifederalists are vast and at times complex. Federalists’ beliefs could be better described as nationalist. The Federalists were instrumental in 1787 in shaping the new US Constitution, which strengthened the national government at the expense, according to the Antifederalists, of the states and the people. The Antifederalists opposed the ratification of the US Constitution, but they never organized efficiently across all thirteen states, and so had to fight the ratification at every state convention. Their great success was in forcing the first Congress under the new Constitution to establish a bill of rights to ensure the liberties that the Antifederalists felt the Constitution violated.

Feds: Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, George Washington

Anti-Feds: Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, Mercy Otis Warren

What was the political significance of the Constitution?

1. Formed the first fed gov ( 3-branch gov).

Legislative - Congress (the Senate and the House of Reps)

Executive - President

Judiciary - the Supreme Court

Each branch was checked and balanced by the other two and consequently, no one had the upper hand/ultimate power.

2. Helped to form the first American political parties% Feds and Anti-feds (Hamilton vs. Jefferson)

3. Guaranteed the individual rights to American citizens

1791 - 10 amendments to the Constitution (originally there were 12, but only 10 passed), aka the Bill of Rights.

What was the economic significance of the Constitution?

1. Helped make the US financially secure.
The goal was achieved by Hamilton by creating the Bank of the US in 1791. The National Bank served to support the national currency and it also accumulated the money of influential groups of rich ppl, who invested their money in the national economy through the National Bank and got high profits. In other words, Hamilton’s policy created an influential group of the rich who stood behind the nat gov, ready to resist any attempts to weaken it (oligarchy).

2. Helped to strengthen the US domestic economy.

The fed gov started to conduct the policy of protectionism, which meant that taxes on imported goods were raised to prevent their competition with national goods. Industrialization also came act thnx to the Constitution. Protectionism and industrialization both angered the southern planters, who relied on foreign goods for sustenance.

What was the cultural significance of the Constitution?

Helped to frame the feeling of American national identity. Before the Revolution, the expression my country in America had meant my colony or my state. The US Constitution gave separate states the feeling of unity. ‘Country’ now meant the United States of America. It was the period when the notion of unique American culture appeared, as well as the notion of the American English, different from the British, appeared and was described in the first American dictionary written by Noah Webster. Even their currency had to be different-decimal, unlike in GB.

The new American feeling of unity was reflected in their search for a national hero, whom they quickly found in George Washington, their first president elected in 1788.

What was the composition of the first US government under the Constitution?

Legislative. Congress: 26 Senators and 65 Reps (1 rep for 30k ppl; if less, still send one the constitution said)

Executive. President: G. Washington VP: John Adams Cabinet: 3 depts of State (T. Jefferson), Treasury (A. Hamilton), War (H. Knox)

Judicial. US Supreme Court: 1 Chief Justice (John Jay, John Marshall 1801) and 5 associate justices

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