Paine used Common Sense as a great tool to let the commoners and less educated to gain some insight on the role and purpose of government. Firstly, Paine makes a distinction between government and society. Paine states: “Society is everything constructive and good that people join together to accomplish. Government, on the other hand, is an institution whose sole purpose is to protect us from our own vices. Government has its origins in the evil of man and is therefore a necessary evil at best.” He goes on to say that “government's sole purpose is to protect life, liberty and property, and that a government should be judged solely on the basis of the extent to which it accomplishes this goal.” Basically, Paine is stating to the common people that they have the opportunity to form their own representation of government and do it in a way that truly represents their wants and needs.
Locke's Treatises provides everyone with a right to defend their "life, health, liberty, or possessions". Even the first sentence of our Declaration establishes a Natural Law, a theory popularized by Locke with his State of Nature ideas. It was also in this first section of the Declaration that we establish if it becomes necessary for one government to be abolished and another created, this process is allowed under Natural Law; so Locke's theory is employed again as his ideas of a State of Nature are lent to our idea of Natural Law. The second part of the Declaration, were we list our grievances towards King George, and establish that because of these wrongs he is no longer fit to rule us as a colony. The final part of the Declaration in which we
When they won the French and Indian War, England had to make a few reforms. King George III declared the Proclamation of 1763, which forbid American colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains in an effort the stabilize relations with the Native Americans. However this angered many colonists who had land grants there and in turn, the Proclamation Line was ignored. This was the start of a series of disagreements between the two lands, as the American citizens began to gain a stronger taste for independence. Enlightenment writers such as John Locke, who patented the idea that it
Evolution of the American Revolution: Causation to Sovereignty The American Revolution is described as the political uprising of the thirteen British Colonies of North America against the British Empire during the last half of the eighteenth century. Officially, the conflict lasted from 1775, starting with the “shot heard round the world,” to 1783 when the British Government recognized the independence of the colonies as one sovereign nation. The Revolutionary War was preceded by politically, socially, and economically related ideals and events that altogether inspired the unification of the independent colonies and their separation from the British Empire. The key influences of the American Revolution include: the French and Indian War; the Navigation, Currency, Stamp Tax, Declaratory, Townsend Duties, Tea, and Intolerable Acts; as well as the political and religious ideals of the colonists. The revolutionary era for the American Colonies began around 1763 after the British removed the military threat of the French from North America during the French and Indian War, which resulted in substantial economic debt for the British Empire.
The Monroe Doctrine was presented by President Monroe in his seventh annual message to Congress in December 1823. It consists on a policy directed to Latin America in order to protect the hemisphere from European influence since American countries were following a trend of achieving their Independence. This policy has been seen with good and bad eyes throughout the 190 years of application. As we know, during this period a lot has changed and so have the focus of the policy according to the administration in place. Latin American states often see it as an Imperialistic move from the U.S. of which it was used to assert their position of a regional hegemony.
The Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776 was when the birth of the United States of America was established into a free country, and set free from Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson who is the most credited for the writing of the document, John Locke developed his own theory that all men are “certain unalienable Rights, the among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. Locke, who was one of idea people who helped Jefferson the main writer, put everything together. The ideas from John Locke, and other pointers he put into the document set ways on how to run a government, and how that today’s government is run by “him”. All in all the Declaration of Independence is the foundation, and the birth of the United States.
Madison and the other 56 delegates gathered in Philadelphia in May 1787. They planned to amend the Articles of Confederation. They ended up creating a new constitution, and Madison became the chief recorder of information. He had previously helped create Virginia’s constitution, thus he understood the process of creating a constitution more than the other delegates who didn’t have as much experience. Madison strongly encouraged a strong central government.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Declaration of the Rights of Women reflected many ideas of the Enlightenment, some of the key principles were liberty and equality. The Enlightenment took scientific reasoning and applied it to human nature, society and religion. The influence of the philosophers is obvious, with Voltaire's support of religious freedom being expressed in the Declaration by saying that "no man may be accused, because of his opinions, even religious..." and Rousseau's belief about personal liberty expressed in "The Social Contract" is reflected through the statement that "All men are born free and equal in rights." During the Enlightenment, women began to demanding that the new reformist rhetoric about liberty, equality, and natural rights be applied to both sexes. But Initially, Enlightenment philosophers focused on the inequities of social class and caste to the exclusion of gender.
This leads to a moral law, or a natural law, which includes the duty to maintain the rights of others. According to Locke, we are moral people, so there is no “war against all”. In Locke’s eyes, we should uphold Lex Rex (the law is king). We need the law to uphold order and assure we keep our inalienable rights, and no one should be above said law, not even a king. He believes in the commonwealth, and the people have the obligation to seek it.
For many years various acts were passed taxing the residents of the newly founded colonies. At first this posed no threat to England, but as time went on the patience of the colonies grew thin. Aggression towards England would reach an all time high by the 1770’s. The colonies in North America, for multiple reasons, had reached their breaking point with the unruly governing of Britain and its king. On July 4, 1776, congress approved the Declaration of Independence, formally declaring its separation from England.