Foundational Documents

Declaration of Independence

• 1776

• Declaring independence from Britain

• Listed grievances against the King

• Stated that they’d tried to work with them

• Focus on natural human rights

  • Life, liberty, property (pursuit of happiness)

• Influenced by Enlightenment thinkers (John Locke: social contract)

Articles of Confederation

• First attempt at US Government

• WEAK central government, MOST POWER WITH STATES

• Loose “league of friendship”

• No national executive, judiciary, or currency

• State courts could effectively overturn national laws

• Unicameral legislature (each state one vote)

• Congress had basically no authority

  • Could not levy taxes (could coin money)

  • Could not raise an army (could declare war, could raise navy)

  • Could not regulate trade/taxation between states

  • COULD settle disputes between states

U.S. Constitution

• After failure of Articles (was supposed to be a revision)

• Main points:

  • Separation of Powers

  • Checks and Balances

  • Federalism

  • National Supremacy

• 7 Articles 

• 27 Amendments (first 10 Bill of Rights)

• Bill of Rights NOT originally in (added in 1791 as compromise for Anti-Federalists)

• Important clauses:

  • Supremacy, Commerce, Necessary and Proper, War Power, Establishment, Free Exercise, Equal Protection, Due Process, Full Faith and Credit, Privileges and Immunities, Contracts, Emoluments,

Federalist 10: Factions

Two options

1. Remove the causes

   1. Cause 1: Liberty

   2. Cause 2: Differing opinions

2. Control the effects

Can’t remove causes (destroy liberty or give everyone the same opinions)

Must instead control effects

LARGE REPUBLIC is the only way to control the effects of factions

Representatives are patriotic and love justice, they will not sacrifice republic for own self-interest 

1. Will be voted out if betray interest of ppl

2. Need large number of reps to guard against the few, but small enough to not confuse things

3. Large # of people voting

4. Large republic 🡪 plurality of interests

5. Majority less likely to have common motives (particularly when blending all states together with different interests)

Federalist #51: Separation of Powers

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary…you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

• Each “department” must have will of its own

• Legislative authority necessarily dominates, so divide it (bicameral legislature)

• Must give each branch the “necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of others.”

• Yes, giving power to a single central government, but dividing power several times (federal/state, legislative/executive/judicial)

• Makes argument from 10 again: plurality of interests

Federalist #70

• On the Executive Branch (president)

• Argument for strong(ish) executive 

• ONE person has to be in charge 

• With a counsel executive, differing opinions lead to

  • Blame shifting

  • Separation

  • Which person to follow?

• Executive has ability to unify

• Energy is most important quality of executive

• Ego gets in the way 

  • If it wasn’t his decision, he won’t follow it

• Against cabinet?

• Two ways to destroy unity:

  • Put power in 2+ executives

  • Put unchecked power in 1 executive

Federalist #78

• “The judiciary…has no influence over either the sword or the purse, no direction either of the strength or wealth of society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.”

• On the judiciary

• Too weak a branch to do anything proactive (can’t take too much power)

• States appoint judges in the same way they’re proposing Federal government should

• Argues against, then for, judicial review (NOT in the Constitution, but you can see that was intention)

• Judiciary is bound to Constitution alone

• Must be appointed for life in order to be bound only to Constitution and not political whims

• Judicial power comes from people:

  • Judicial branch not superior to either branch

  • People are superior to all, and it is the people’s Constitution

  • Judicial branch carrying out will of the people by striking down laws in conflict with Constitution

Brutus 1

Brutus was the ANTI-federalist argument

Main arguments (each explained on next few slides): 

1. Gives WAY too much power to central government

2. Too large a state to have a free republic

3. Standing army = bad idea

Main arguments against ratifying

Gives entirely too much power to a central government 

1. A1, S8 (N&P)

2. A6 (Supremacy clause)

3. Acknowledges state power in A4, but warns it will be taken away

4. States have no recourse against federal govt (A6)

5. Power to tax is too much

6. Federal courts will render state courts useless

Too large a state to have a free republic

1. Human nature is to seize and keep power

2. US can’t be reduced to one state and still keep freedom 

3. Too big to have a govt who “knows” the people

4. Referenced Montesquieu:  large republics don’t work because people are naturally self-interested and central government would be too removed from the common good

5. Speaking of common good…there isn’t one because states have such unique identities

Standing Armies

1. That’s not how you roll in free republic

2. They are “the destruction of liberty”

3. Free republic must depend on the support of its citizens, not armies

4. But again, size issue because “the confidence which people have in their rulers, in a free republic, arises from their knowing them.”

Letter from Birmingham Jail

• 1963

• MLK jailed after participating in a nonviolent demonstration against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama

• Letter is a response to a group of white Southern religious leaders who said demonstrations were “unwise and untimely”

• MLK’s main points:

  • There are 4 steps in a nonviolent campaign: collection of facts, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action

  • Had gone through all of those steps

  • Direct action…

    • Was well thought out (not entered into lightly)

    • Creates tension in a community that will force negotiations

    • Is the only thing that will lead to policy change