Unit 1: Foundations

Republic

Government run by representatives

Mixed government

Most stable form of government

Each class has power

Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy

Aristotle’s good forms of pure government

Monarchy

Government is ruled by one

Aristocracy

Government is ruled by a few/the best

Democracy

Government is ruled by many

Constitution

Basic principles and laws of a nation, state, or social group that determine the powers and duties of the government and guarantee certain rights to the people in it

• Includes concepts like: consent of the governed, role of law, limited government

Civic virtue

Good character in government

Natural rights

Rights everyone has (born with)

• Locke says they’re: life, liberty, estate

State of nature

When there’s no government (no recognized authority to make and enforce rules and manage conflicts)

Consent of the governed

The people agreeing to a social contract or joining a society to be governed by

Classical republicanism

Devotion of citizens to the common good

• Small, uniform communities

• Citizenship and civic virtue

• Moral education

Social contract theory

• Individual rights

• Popular sovereignty/consent of governed

• Limited government

• Human equality

Public morality

Virtues that are important for acting in the community

Private morality

Virtues of inner faith and obedience to God’s law

Nation-state

Common law

Stare decisis

Precedence

Habeas corpus

Rule of law

Magna Carta

Right to revolution

Suffrage

Constituent

Charter

Sovereignty

Writs of assistance

Long, train of abuses

Legislative supremacy

Checks and balances

Separation of powers

Aristotle

Polybius

Cicero

Montesquieu

John Locke

John Adams

Thomas Jefferson

George Mason

James Madison

Mixed Government

Classical republicanism

Social contract theory

Reformation

Enlightenment

British government’s evolution

Charters

European religious violence

Declaration of Independence

State Constitutions

Magna Carta

Habeas Corpus Act

British policy inre the colonies

Capitalism

Rights of Englishmen

Stability of government

Promoting the common good

Protecting individual rights

“Factions”

Promote popular sovereignty

The American experience from beginning of colonies to 1787