By about 1600 the world view of what we would call the middle Class was raising.
Theirs was the world of the contract.
So the American system of Government is based on what was called the "Social contract."
....God created a world of compleatly free people and people formed communities for their mutual benefit. That is people agreed to give up SOME of their freedom, to be controlled by LAWS in exchange for the benefits of the community. For example: If you go hunting by yourself, you are free to go where you will when you will....but if you have a accident, it is better to have a few friends to help you back to camp than wait for the wolves to eat you alive. Ah but if you go hunting with the group, you have to abide by the groups rules..They may vote to hunt bear and you prefer to hunt deer..so you give up some of your "freedom" to be with the group. That is basic Social Contract. That is how people created governments!
Yet, wanting a much freedom as possible, people put limits on the power that they gave the governments of these communities.They had learned that a king (government) with unlimited power meant that sooner or later the people would be always in rebellion (civil war) or reduced to serfdom (enslaved)
The answer seemed to them to be create a needed central government? Yes. But give it limited powers and to prevent it gaining more power through a system of checks and balances.
This our Constitution does and as pols have long lamented, our Constitution mostly tells the Federal Government what it CANNOT do.
Tomorrow: Balance of power and checks and balances .
Theirs was the world of the contract.
So the American system of Government is based on what was called the "Social contract."
....God created a world of compleatly free people and people formed communities for their mutual benefit. That is people agreed to give up SOME of their freedom, to be controlled by LAWS in exchange for the benefits of the community. For example: If you go hunting by yourself, you are free to go where you will when you will....but if you have a accident, it is better to have a few friends to help you back to camp than wait for the wolves to eat you alive. Ah but if you go hunting with the group, you have to abide by the groups rules..They may vote to hunt bear and you prefer to hunt deer..so you give up some of your "freedom" to be with the group. That is basic Social Contract. That is how people created governments!
Yet, wanting a much freedom as possible, people put limits on the power that they gave the governments of these communities.They had learned that a king (government) with unlimited power meant that sooner or later the people would be always in rebellion (civil war) or reduced to serfdom (enslaved)
The answer seemed to them to be create a needed central government? Yes. But give it limited powers and to prevent it gaining more power through a system of checks and balances.
This our Constitution does and as pols have long lamented, our Constitution mostly tells the Federal Government what it CANNOT do.
Tomorrow: Balance of power and checks and balances .
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