Government Unit 1

Unitary Government

A government where most power belongs to the central government. Local governments have limited power.

Federal Government

Power is divided between a national government and state or local governments.

Confederate Government

A system where states or regions have more power than the central government.

Autocracy

A government where one person has most or all of the power.

Oligarchy

A government where a small group of people holds the power.

Presidential Government

A system where the president leads the executive branch and serves separately from the legislative branch.

Parliamentary Government

A system where the legislative branch chooses the head of government, usually a prime minister.

Direct Democracy

Citizens directly vote on laws and government decisions.

Representative Democracy

Citizens elect representatives to make decisions and laws for them.

A Republic

A government where citizens elect representatives to govern and make laws.

Magna Carta

Limited the power of the king and established the idea that the government must follow the law, helping to establish the principle of individual rights.

Petition of Right

Limited the king’s power by preventing taxation without Parliament’s approval, arbitrary imprisonment, and the use of martial law during peacetime.

English Bill of Rights

Protected individual rights and limited the power of the monarch, supporting ideas such as free elections, petitioning the government, and protection from cruel punishment.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Hobbes believed people needed a strong government to prevent disorder, giving up some freedoms in exchange for protection.

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government

Locke believed in natural rights including life, liberty, and property, and that government gets its power from the consent of the people.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

Rousseau believed government should represent the will of the people, who agree to follow laws in exchange for protection of their rights.

Charles Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws

Montesquieu supported separation of powers, advocating that government power should be divided into different branches.

All men are created equal

Influenced by Locke's belief in natural rights and equality, challenging the idea of kings' natural right to rule.

Unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Based on Locke’s idea of natural rights, especially life, liberty, and property.

Governments are instituted among men and derive their power from the consent of the governed

Based on Locke’s idea that government gets its authority from the people.

It is the right of the people to alter or abolish government

Based on Locke’s belief that people have the right to replace a government that violates their rights.

Standing armies in times of peace

Britain kept a permanent army in the colonies even when there was no major war.

Quartering large bodies of armed troops

British soldiers were housed in colonial buildings or homes, viewed as an abuse of government power.

Imposing taxes without consent

Britain taxed the colonists without giving them representation in Parliament, leading to the slogan "No taxation without representation."

Depriving the people of a trial by jury

Colonists were sometimes denied the right to be tried by a jury of their peers.

Not abiding by the laws of the land

The British government ignored or violated colonial rights and laws.

Burning their towns and plundering their seas

British forces attacked colonial towns and interfered with colonial trade during the conflict.