How America Created Our Government Part 1

     This is the second article of the Social Studies Politics Series, if you haven't read the first one, you can read it with the Before Post in Series at the bottom of the the page. Anyways, after we won the Revolution, we were independent, but we didn't have a government of our own yet and we didn't have any way of as a nation or as states to make laws and decisions. We weren't connected without a government.

     Why do we need government? Why couldn't we just be independent states even though we were a nation? First, let's introduce someone very important - John Locke. John Locke was an English philosopher from the 1600's who influenced the idea of social contract. Why did people agree to Social Contract? Well, they wanted their natural rights to be protected. However, in a social contract, everyone gives up the absolute rights to do whatever they want. From this, we conclude that the main purpose of the government is to protect the natural rights that cannot be adequately protected in a state of nature.

     Let's talk about one type of government - a Republican government. (And no, this does not mean a government made of republicans.) Before we talk about that, though, we have to go back over 2000 years to the Roman Republic, which lasted nearly 500 years. Why was it so successful? They governed themselves without a king and both common people and aristocrats could govern. Here are some characteristics about a Republican government:

• citizens all have power to govern
• citizens delegate or entrust their power to leaders they elect to represent them and serve their interests
• citizens and their representatives work together to promote the common good, not their own interests.

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to a Republican government:

Advantages:

• representatives are elected the serve the common good
• having representatives make the laws is more efficient (save commute time)
• the people have a say in government
• the representatives are responsible to the people (usually)

Disadvantages:

• this system works best in small communities (people in a larger or more diverse [see below] population would divide into factions [no, i did not spell this wrong, it is supposed to be factions] and work against each other)
• there cannot be a high degree of diversity in wealth, moral beliefs, or ways of life

The idea of a republican government was developed by James Madison, father of the constitution, who adapted this idea to fit the American society. What resulted was a representative democracy. People chose the leaders to make and administer laws for their country, and the government would be organized in a way that would avoid the abuse of power by any person. 

     And then our first government formed, and it was based off of the Articles of Confederation (AOFC). It wasn't very successful. Here's what the AOFC was like:

• All of the states were like individual nations
• a national government would be established to control trade and manage conflict

The AOFC was ratified and put into effect in 1781. There were some problems though:

• people were afraid of a strong national government after they learned their lesson from Britain so some of the states would be more powerful at the National level
• the national government was only a legislature
• Congress literally couldn't act or do anything without consent of states
• Congress didn't have any money and it didn't have the power to make states give money
• Congress had no power over the state governments or citizens
• Congress couldn't enforce trade agreements with other nations
• Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states. 
• Citizens thought their property rights were threatened. 

Obviously, a government with so many problems would be quickly overthrown. That's exactly what happened. By 1786, many Americans were broke and the state taxes were so high that many farmers were in debt and some thus imprisoned. Daniel Shays was a farmer that led a group of farmers who closed down courts anytime a case was heard about the seizure of a farm. (The national government couldn't do anything about it because it was so weak!) In January 1787, 2000 rebels raided the federal arsenal for weapons in Massachusetts (now these farmers aren't just old men with forks - they have their hands on national army weapons!). The national government was not able to squash the rebellion, and people decide that this government wouldn't work out. 

That will be all for this time, How America Created Our Government Part 2 will be published soon and possibly a Part 3. 

- Owen


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