POS Lecture 1

Hello, and welcome to Pos 2041. I'm Mrs. Yannis, and I'm your instructor. This semester. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and start with

the the lecture for today, which is basically a little bit of a history lesson or review of American history, and then get into the nitty gritty of the Constitution. So what we're gonna do at least the 1st couple of weeks is we're gonna go through each of the branches of government, each of the institutions of government. So we'll spend a week on the legislative. We'll spend actually about 2 weeks on the Presidential, because we'll talk about the President.

and then we'll talk about the bureaucracy. And of course, we'll talk about the judiciary and then other aspects of American Federal government.

Specifically, things like the media political parties. Obviously, this is a very interesting year, or semester to be taking this course because we have a an election coming up in November, and we will talk about the the election, the Presidential election that takes place this year. So this is actually a really good time to take this course, because there is, of course, a lot going on.

We'll talk about civil rights and civil liberties. We'll talk about domestic and foreign policy. So every week we will have a different topic to discuss

last year, or I'm sorry. Last week you explored the concept of what government is and the different types of government. And you watch the video. And you defined some words was just kind of, you know, basic, introductory. Just refresh your memory on certain things

and the different types of government. But as you know, government is a ruling authority for a particular community. So we have government at many different levels. This course is going to focus on American Federal government. So we're talking about our national government. But, as you know, we are a federal system. So that means that we have not only a national government, but we also have a State governments and local governments as well

and in actuality. When you think about it, our state and local governments actually impact our lives more readily than the national government does, however, because it is the National government, it tends to get a lot more attention. So you're more likely to know who the President of the United States is as opposed to, maybe your governor, who may know who the Governor is, but your member of Congress, or your or your Senators.

and definitely who your State representatives and your State senators are. Which is why the project that you have coming up is very important, because that's trying to get you to know the different levels of government, and who represents you in each.

And sometimes it gets a little bit confusing. So next week, when we talk about Federalism in in more detail. You'll see how these different levels of government work together. And sometimes they're actually working against each other, and it can get very confusing to know, you know, which branch or which level of government you're supposed to go for each thing.

So we

kind of talked about. You kind of saw this a little bit last week, and answering some of these questions, although you didn't answer them like this per se. But in answering these questions. You do get some of these types of government that you looked at last week. So in order to class classify government, we have 3 very important questions that we need to answer. So the 1st one is who has power, who can make decisions. And here's where you have 3 possible answer choices. You have an autocracy where one person can make decisions.

You have an oligarchy where several people in a small group can make decisions. And then you have democracy where many people can make decisions.

Then you have to also ask, Well, where is power located? And that's on a map. If I were to show you, for example, a map of the United States, and I asked you, Where is power? Where do we get laws and rules? Well, you would be able to tell me. Laws and rules come from not only Washington, DC. Which is our national capital, but also from the various State governments, and we also have local governments.

And then, lastly, what is the relationship between the executive and the legislative branches? So in the United States we have what's known as a Presidential system in a presidential system of government. Our chief executive and our head of State are the same person, so our head of government and our head of State are the same person, the President of the United States.

Our President does not come from the legislative branch that is, in a parliamentary system, where the head of government comes from the legislative branch, the Prime Minister, meaning that that person has 2 roles, a legislative role, making law and an executive role enforcing the law. The President of the United States does not come from the legislative branch. Now, the President might have been a member of the legislative branch at some point, but cannot serve in both capacities at the same time. The President cannot serve in

both the legislative branch and the executive branch.

so a unitary system of government is where power is essentially in one location you find power. In one specific case. And does this mean that this system is dictatorial? No, this system is answering the question of Where is power located? So it doesn't mean that it's dictatorial, because, for example, Great Britain is a unitary system, where London is going to be the foundation of laws and rules. However, it is not a dictatorial system.

because government, the government of Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy. They do have a a parliamentary system.

So this is parliamentary. Sorry for the

there we go, Prime Minister versus President. So here you have you had to differentiate between the parliamentary system of the presidential system and one of the biggest ones, of course, is that in a presidential system. The President does not come from the legislative branch as opposed to in the parliamentary system.

So a brief kind of review of American history and how we got to creating in the system of government that we have today, which is going to be the focus of the rest of the semester. So if you go back and remember some of American history, you'll know, of course, that the United States initially were the colonies of Great Britain. Great Britain, along with many other countries in Europe.

colonized many areas around the world, and the 13 original colonies were colonies of Great Britain. So for many years up until the mid 17 hundreds Great Britain was otherwise engaged. Great Britain was busy fighting wars against France and Spain. Great Britain was busy colonizing in other areas and kind of left the colonies. The 13 original colonies, as we know them today, kind of left them to their own devices.

and I'll

kind of society, you know, is gonna flourish in these colonies with economic systems, with local governments, with new traditions, with kind of its own set of of rules, its own set of of common, you know, ground. And then, all of a sudden, in the 17 sixties.

Great Britain tried to bring in the colonies tried to say, Okay, well, now, you guys need to start behaving like the way that which colonies are supposed to and only do business with us. You cannot trade with other countries. You have to buy your raw materials. You have to sell your raw materials to us. You have to buy your finished products from us. And the colonies said, Wait a minute. That's not gonna work, you know, for 200 years or so we kind of did our own thing all of a sudden. You kind of want to rein us in. That's not gonna happen.

So if there were a series of negotiations. You might remember the Stamp Back Congress. You might remember the Olive Branch petition during the 1st Continental Congress, so trying to see if the issues between the colonies and Great Britain could be solved without bloodshed

by 1,775, 1776. It becomes, you know, kind of inevitable that there is going to be a Revolutionary war, and that Great Britain, and what becomes known as the United States were going to, you know, part company.

So these are some of the events that you probably remember, you know, going back to the end of the French and Indian War. You have things like the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the series of Acts, and I'm sure you heard about in an American history class at some point the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Declaratory Act.

the T Act, the intolerable acts, the Quartering Act of so many acts that you remember that the Parliament in Great Britain passed, and then the the colonists were fighting against it all comes to head, you know, by 1,776. There's actual fighting and bloodshed in Boston. Most of these things initially happen in Boston. So by

July, 1776, June, 1776, it becomes inevitable that something is going to change. Something's gonna have to happen. So a committee is going to is going to be, you know, called to write some sort of formal declaration.

And there's 2 real big reasons why this Declaration of Independence is written. Thomas Jefferson, as you know, is going to be the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

However. He's not alone. Right? So he writes this with John Adams. Benjamin Franklin, who's going to be a in a a leading scholar and philosopher. During this time period Livingston and Sherman are going to be the other 2 who are part of the Declaration of Independence Committee. But the principal author is Thomas Jefferson.

And while

yeah, they sign in big letters,

And John Hancock was the President of the Second Continental Congress writes his name in a really, really, you know, big famously saying so that you know Fat George could see it without his spectacles. But it wasn't written for George the 3.rd It really wasn't written for Great Britain either. From the time that the declaration is written and signed and mailed off and then mail back. Then obviously, we know it goes through on a boat.

It's gonna take about 3 months for it to get there. And meanwhile fighting is happening. So really, the decoration isn't to convince King George. It's not like King George is. Gonna read this, you know, decoration and say, Oh, okay, we're gonna you know, part company. And it's okay. It wasn't about convincing George of anything. But it did serve 2 main purposes. Number one.

It was really for the colonists themselves, because you were asking

a group of farmers and blacksmiths and silversmiths, you know, tradesmen, shipbuilders, you know, people farmers, you know, people who did not have a standing army and navy. You're asking a bunch of volunteers to give up their time, their lives.

their property, their money, leave their homes, leave their families behind, and go fight against the most powerful army and navy in the world, because Great Britain at the time didn't have the most powerful army and navy. So you're asking a rag tag group of, you know. Just volunteer

Minute Men. To kind of train together and shoot together and fight against this really really powerful well equipped. Well financed group of British redcoats and the British Navy. If you're gonna have them do that, if you're asking them to give up

their their time to leave their homes, leave their families, give up their potentially their money and definitely, potentially their lives. You need to give them a really good reason to do that. This really needed to be a call to a higher purpose, you know, to a noble purpose, and the Declaration of Independence is going to do that Declaration of Independence is going to say, this is why we're taking this really, really difficult step.

This is where we're doing something that has never been done before. Never has a colony broken away from its mother stem, and we're doing it because the conditions are so intolerable that we have no choice.

So it really was a kind of call to arms and a way to rally the troops.

Not only the soldiers themselves, but the families. Think about those who were left behind. You know the the children, the wives, the mothers, the sisters, the wives who now had to keep those home fires burning, and it's not like they can get into a car and go to the nearest, you know, Publix, to buy supplies. We're talking about people who were living miles away from the nearest town and

back. Then it was horse or walking to get you to to town, you you they were going to be by themselves, for God knows how long, and potentially lose their spouse, their son, their brother, their father. So if that was gonna happen, it needed to be a very righteous cause, and the Declaration of Independence is going to kind of give that you know morality. Give that

kind of call to arms, and, you know steadfastness to not only the soldiers, but to the families as well. In addition, it is also going to be a call to

France and Spain kind of like the enemy of my enemies, my friend, kind of deal, and say, Hey, France. Say, Spain, you've been fighting against, you know the British for a really long time. Why don't you help us out? And then, if we can help defeat Great Britain, and we knock them down a peg or 2. Then you can come and get some. You know some land

here and you can finally, you know, help defeat Great Britain in their in their colonies.

So, of course, very famous. Line from Thomas Jefferson. We know these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal

with any, that they're dubbed by their creators with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So what happens? So, as we know? You know, the the colonies are going to win.

and independence, you know, is achieved. But now what? So? You were a colony for about 200 years. So now, what do you do now to how do you, you know, move on to something else. What do you create? And the 1st structure of government that is created is the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. Primarily written by John Dickinson,

who was initially a loyalist here. He actually had, you know, very deep ties to Great Britain. He does not sign the Declaration of independence, but he does fight for the defense of the of the colonies.

The Articles of Confederation are going to be the 1st real system of government, and it's the kind of government that is needed for that time. It does not last more than 10 years, and it starts to show its cracks. After 10 years, however, there was no way that they could have passed anything stronger than this. So you have to remember. Why is all of these things like unitary systems, important because Great Britain was a unitary system. And if you just spent, you know, many years from 1,776

up to 1,783 fighting in a very costly, very deadly revolution. Why would you create a system of government that was exactly the same as the one that you just fought against. So, therefore, the Articles of Confederation had to be different.

and where the Great Britain was a unitary system, this was going to be a confederation, a loose association of states where the States had more power, and for many people, particularly in the South, but for many people. They felt like their State was really their country.

The idea of the United States was great, as kind of a loose association of of individual states, but it was. These United States are not. The United States is, and that does make a difference, because they really felt like their individual States was home. Was their country what they were going to fight for? Not necessarily. This idea of a broader United States with a very powerful central government for many, many people that was not something that they wanted.

So it was a confederal system of government. Most power was in the State. It did do several important things. 2 main important things, number one. It held the country together in the 1st 10 years where it needed this type of government, and it also created a system by which new States would be able to come into the Union.

However, sooner or later the cracks begin to show.

and by 1,787, it becomes inevitable that we need to create a new system of government, that the Articles of Confederation are not working. So another meeting is held in Philadelphia, where they decide to strengthen the articles. However, what comes from it is really the new constitutional system that we have today. The original Constitution is the preamble. We, the people of the United States, in order to

form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity

data, and establish this Constitution in the United States of America. What is the point of that preamble? It tells us several things. 1st of all, it tells us, you know who this system of government is for it's for we, the people, and that the government is going to do certain things. It's going to outline the purposes of government. What is government going to do it is going to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.

and then it tells us for whom? For ourselves and our posterity, and we, the people, have created this system. This this constitution that is going to be our governing body. So that's the preamble. Then the 7 Articles, and we're going to go through the articles, you know, in in turn but the articles, the 1st 3 are the articles that create our basic institution. So article one, the legislative article 2. The executive article 3. The judiciary.

And then article 4. The relationship between the States, article 5. The amendment process article 6. Establishes supremacy and Article 7 is ratification.

Then because of some of the issues that several States had with creating the stronger central government. The Bill of Rights are going to be born. We will talk about the Bill of Rights in more detail, particularly when we get to civil rights and civil degrees.

So I know this is a lot of information. Please make sure that you're doing your reading and message me. If you have any questions. Have a great day.