This homework is for you if you are working on the Social Studies test.
You started civics on our own site, with the Civics Flyover and Chapter 1 of Civics, Chapter by Chapter. Last week in class we watched the Khan Academy video The Social Contract and talked about it. This week you continue in two places: the free civics textbook at ushistory.org, and two videos.
All four pieces ask the same question from different sides: what is a democracy, and what does it value? They come back again and again to the same few thinkers and the same few ideas. That repetition is on purpose. Each time you meet an idea, it should feel a little more familiar.
- Read: What Is a Democracy? (about 15 minutes, longer if you read it twice)
- Watch: Mr. Byrd, Enlightenment Thinkers (12 minutes, plus time to pause and fill in the table)
- Read: Democratic Values: Liberty, Equality, Justice (about 15 minutes)
- Watch: Khan Academy, Democratic Ideals of US Government (9 minutes)
- Check yourself: seven test-style questions
- Write to me
You do not have to do it all in one sitting. Two sittings is a good plan: Steps 1 and 2 one day, Steps 3 to 6 another. Keep a sheet of paper or a notebook beside you the whole time. If you can, print this page; the table in Step 2 has room to write in.
What Is a Democracy?
Open the reading: ushistory.org, 1c. What Is a Democracy?It opens in a new tab. Come back to this tab when you finish.A few words to have in hand before you start
- democracy
- Government by the people. The word comes from two Greek words: demos, “the people,” and kratia, “power” or “rule.” So, word for word, democracy means “the people rule.”
- direct democracy
- The people make the decisions themselves. Everyone who has a vote comes together, talks the question over, and votes on it. The side with more votes wins. That rule, that the larger number decides, is called majority rule.
- representative democracy
- The people choose a smaller number of people to make decisions for them. Those chosen people are called representatives. Members of Congress and members of the New York City Council are representatives.
- republic
- A government in which the people elect representatives, and there is no king or queen. The founders of the United States preferred this word. Today “republic” and “representative democracy” are often used to mean the same thing.
- rule of law
- Everyone, including the people who govern, must follow the same written laws. The government acts according to its laws, not according to what a ruler happens to want that day.
- natural law
- The idea, going back to the ancient Greeks, that human societies should be governed by principles of right and wrong that exist in nature, before any government writes a law.
As you read, look for the answers to these
- The reading points out something surprising about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The word “democracy” does not appear in either one. What were the founders afraid might happen if the people ruled directly?
- Who counted as “the people” in ancient Greece? Who was left out? The reading says that who counts as “the people” has changed over time. Can you think of one group in the United States that was once left out and later won the vote?
- Where does direct democracy still work? Why does it work there, and why would it be hard to run a whole country that way?
- The founders preferred the word “republic.” According to the reading, what kind of citizens did they expect to be chosen as representatives? Now find the complaint many people make about representative democracy. How are those two ideas connected? (There is a name for a democracy in which everyone may vote but a small, educated, or wealthy group holds most of the influence: an elite democracy. We will come back to this idea often.)
- The reading also describes a form of government called democratic centralism, made famous by Lenin after the Russian Revolution of 1917. In that system, who actually makes the decisions? Why is it different from the other two kinds?
- The reading ends by tying democracy to the rule of law. In your own words, why would a government by the people need everyone, leaders included, to follow the same laws?
Five Thinkers of the Enlightenment
Watch: Mr. Byrd, Enlightenment Thinkers (YouTube, 12 minutes)It opens in a new tab. Pause it after each thinker and write in the table below.The Enlightenment was a period in Europe, roughly the late 1600s and the 1700s, when writers and thinkers argued that people could use reason, careful thinking, to understand the world and to improve how they are governed. Before then, most people were taught that kings ruled because God chose them. The Enlightenment thinkers asked a new question: what makes a government fair, and what makes it legitimate, meaning rightful and deserving to be obeyed?
You have already met some of these names in class and in Chapter 1. Mr. Byrd gives a short review of five of them. The founders of the United States read these thinkers closely, and their ideas show up in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The GED test asks about them often.
Fill in the table as you watch
For each thinker, write down his biggest idea in your own words. Then, in the last column, write where you think you can see that idea in the United States today. It is fine to leave the last column blank at first and come back to it after Step 4.
| Thinker | His biggest idea, in my own words | Where I see it in the U.S. today |
|---|---|---|
| Thomas Hobbes England | ||
| John Locke England | ||
| Montesquieu France | ||
| Jean-Jacques Rousseau Geneva and France | ||
| Voltaire France |
When you have filled in the table, open this to check it
Your words will be different, and that is good. Check that you have the main idea.
| Thinker | The main idea | Where we see it |
|---|---|---|
| Hobbes | Without government, life would be a war of everyone against everyone; he called it “nasty, brutish, and short.” So people agree to give up their freedom to a strong ruler in exchange for safety and order. This agreement is a social contract. Hobbes thought the ruler should have almost total power. | The idea of a social contract itself. (The founders kept the contract and rejected the all-powerful ruler.) |
| Locke | Every person is born with natural rights: life, liberty, and property. Government exists to protect those rights, and it gets its power from the consent of the governed. If a government violates the people’s rights, the people may change it or replace it. | The Declaration of Independence: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” |
| Montesquieu | Power should be divided among separate branches, one to make laws, one to carry them out, one to judge, so that no one person or group holds all of it. This is the separation of powers. | The three branches in the Constitution: Congress, the President, and the courts, each able to check the others. |
| Rousseau | Wrote a book called The Social Contract. Government should follow the general will, what the people as a whole decide is good for everyone. Power belongs to the people. | The idea that the people are the source of power, called popular sovereignty: “We the People.” |
| Voltaire | Defended freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and tolerance of people who think differently. Criticized the power of the church and the king to silence people. | The First Amendment: freedom of religion, speech, and the press. |
If you want to read about four of these thinkers again, in our own words, they are in Part 4 of Chapter 1: Where Power Comes From.
Democratic Values: Liberty, Equality, Justice
Open the reading: ushistory.org, 1d. Democratic Values: Liberty, Equality, JusticeIt opens in a new tab. Come back to this tab when you finish.This reading comes right after the video for a reason. It names three of the thinkers you just met, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, and explains what American government took from each of them. You should recognize them now.
One thing to watch for. The caption under John Locke’s picture says Locke saw government as the “general will” of the governed. The phrase “general will” belongs most closely to Rousseau, as you saw in the video. Locke’s own phrase, the one in the Declaration of Independence, is “the consent of the governed.” The two ideas are close, which is why they get mixed up. On the test, connect “general will” with Rousseau and “consent of the governed” with Locke.
A few words to have in hand before you start
- liberty
- Freedom: being able to speak, believe, move, and live as you choose without the government stopping you.
- equality
- Being treated the same. Equality can mean several things: everyone has the same vote; everyone gets the same treatment from the law; everyone has a fair chance to get ahead. People argue about how far equality should go.
- justice
- Fairness, especially in how the law treats people.
- order
- Peace and safety in a society: laws are followed, and people can live without fear of violence or chaos.
- absolute monarch
- A king or queen whose power has no limits. No law, court, or elected body can stop him or her.
As you read, look for the answers to these
- The reading says that absolute monarchs often brought peace. What did people give up to get that peace?
- What did each of these three thinkers add, according to the reading? Locke: ______. Montesquieu: ______. Rousseau: ______.
- The reading describes two balances a democracy has to keep. The first is between order and liberty. Why does a society need some order? Why can too much order become a problem?
- The second balance is between liberty and equality. The reading says that when people have unlimited liberty, inequality tends to grow. It also says that pushing too hard for equality can limit people’s freedom. Read that part twice. The reading gives an example: taxing rich citizens more than poor ones. Explain how that can bring more equality. Then explain how, if a government carried it too far, it could limit someone’s liberty. Where would you draw the line?
- According to the reading, what has changed over time in how the United States strikes these balances, and what has stayed the same?
The Ideas Behind the Founding Documents
Watch: Khan Academy, Democratic Ideals of US Government (9 minutes)It opens in a new tab on Khan Academy.If the Khan Academy page will not load, the same video is here on YouTube.
This video is in the same Khan Academy course as The Social Contract, which we watched in class. It brings together everything from Steps 1 to 3 and shows how those ideas went into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It names five ideas. Learn these five. They are among the most common civics words on the GED test.
- natural rights
- Rights every person is born with, which no government gives and no government may rightfully take away. Locke named them as life, liberty, and property.
- social contract
- The idea that people agree with one another to form a government and to follow its laws, and in return the government protects them. If the government breaks its side of the agreement, the agreement can end.
- popular sovereignty
- “Popular” here means “of the people,” and “sovereignty” means final power. So popular sovereignty means the people hold the final power. The government gets its power from them. The Constitution begins with it: “We the People.”
- limited government
- The government’s power has limits that are written down, and the government must obey its own laws. The Bill of Rights is a list of such limits: things the government may not do to you.
- republicanism
- The belief that the people should govern through elected representatives who serve the common good. (This is not the same as the Republican Party. It comes from the word republic, which you met in Step 1.)
As you watch, look for the answers to these
- Which of the five ideas can you find in this sentence from the Declaration of Independence? There is more than one.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Unalienable means “cannot be taken away.” Endowed means “given.” Instituted means “set up.”
- How is the Declaration of Independence different from the Constitution? Which one explains why the colonies broke away, and which one sets up how the government works?
- What are the Federalist Papers? Who wrote them, and why are they still useful for understanding the Constitution?
- Go back to your table from Step 2 and fill in any blanks in the last column.
Open this to check your answer to question 1
“Certain unalienable Rights … Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is natural rights, Locke’s idea. “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted” is the social contract: government is set up to do a job for the people. “Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” is popular sovereignty: the government’s power comes from the people. Notice that Jefferson changed Locke’s “property” to “the pursuit of Happiness.”
One more thing to notice: “all men are created equal” was written by men who held other people enslaved and who did not let women vote. Over the next two centuries, women, Black Americans, and others used these same words to demand the rights they had been denied. Chapter 1 tells that part of the story in Part 6.
Seven Questions in the Test’s Own Style
Choose one answer for each. Then press “Check my answers.” If you miss one, read the explanation, then go back to the step it points to.
1. In a small New England town, every registered voter may come to the yearly town meeting, debate the budget, and vote on it. What form of government is this?
2. The founders of the United States preferred the word “republic” to the word “democracy.” What did they mean by a republic?
3. The Declaration of Independence says that governments get “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Which principle does this phrase express?
4. The Constitution gives the power to make laws to Congress, the power to carry out laws to the President, and the power to judge cases to the courts. Which thinker’s idea does this most clearly follow?
5. After a rise in late-night violence, a city sets a curfew: people under 18 may not be out on the street after 11 p.m. without an adult. Which two democratic values is the city balancing?
6. Which statement would John Locke most likely agree with?
7. The First Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Which principle does this amendment show most clearly? (Abridging means “cutting down” or “reducing.”)
What You Learned, and What You Wonder
Choose one of these and write a paragraph or more. There is no wrong answer here; I want to see your thinking. Use at least two of the words from this page, and say where an idea came from (the reading, a video, or class).
- The word “democracy” is not in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Why do you think the founders left it out? Do you think the United States today is a democracy, a republic, or both? Explain.
- Think of a law or rule in your own life, at work, in your building, in your city, that takes away a little liberty to keep order. Is the balance right? Who decided, and did the people it affects have a say?
- Hobbes and Locke both believed in a social contract, but they came to very different conclusions about how much power a ruler should have. Explain the difference. Which one do you find more convincing, and why?
- Or write me what you learned this week, and what questions you have. What do you want to know more about?
The two readings are from U.S. Government Online Textbook, ushistory.org, published by the Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia. The videos are by Mr. Byrd on YouTube and by Khan Academy.