Democracy In John Locke's Declaration Of Independence
Locke’s influence on Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence All individuals are created equal. This is one of the many ideas the United States is built on. This concept existed long before the Declaration of Independence was written. This idea was introduced by John Locke who was an Enlightenment thinker. The declaration of Independence is where Americans declared their rights.
The Primary objective of all leaders should be to control citizens. A society that allows authority to be challenged will never succeed. This source depicts an authoritarian or totalitarian view of what a governing body should look like. The author suggests that the primary objective of government should be the “control of the citizens”, and therefore that the individuals should entirely obey said government.
This being one of the main influences that still exists to this day, the “Puritan doctrine also helped to nurture self-government in the new land” (Fowler). Essentially, what this did was create a community democracy in which our state’s political system is based from in the United States. Although the Puritan’s initial idea of government was for the people, they also “favored a model of government based on a community’s covenant with god.” (Fowler) One of the main flaws with their self-governance was within their definition of democracy, only religious leaders could attain a position within government because of their political religious
Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, ventured through America during Andrew Jackson's presidency. In the first volume of his work, Democracy in America, Tocqueville provides a clear understanding of the nature of modern democracy. In the work that he published about the United States after his adventuring, Tocqueville describes the attributes of which the United States possessed which classified a distinct, coming-to-be more modernized form of democracy in the early nineteenth century. In that time period, beginning with Andrew Jackson's presidency, rapid changes occurred in many different concepts which shaped and formed the nation into newer forms that were modified as time progressed and different ideas and plans were passed around throughout
New England was fed up with the Church of England and the Puritans wanted to recreate their own religion which they thought was more what God had believed was the intended belief. They both decided that neither of them like the way England was set up and said that England was no good for their beliefs. They planned to leave England and go to the new world to set up a life where their children had the chance to be raised in a perfect society with no corruption. Concentrated on town life and industries, they made a living off of fishing, whaling and shipbuilding. Whale oil was key because it made their lamps.
[5: . R.R Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800. The Challenge. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
In order to write the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress had used various sources, which include philosopher literatures, philosophers and history. In the second passage of the declaration, their lies that phrase that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. The unalienable rights, or the one’s natural rights, were part of John Locke’s philosophies. He stated in his writings that the privilege to life, liberty and property were bestowed upon one’s birth, and that a part of a functioning government's role was to protect its citizens’ natural rights. In addition to John Locke’s theory of the unalienable rights, the Spirit of Laws, by Charles Montesquieu, was used to help form and prove
Thomas Jefferson had his own ideas concerning how he wanted the government to function. Thomas Jefferson mainly focuses on farmers, he wanted the farmer to stay self-sufficient, personally independent, and not attach to anyone when it came to their independence. Jefferson’s Democrat was talked about in the newspapers, which was well recognized throughout the globe. I believe that Jefferson meant well and look out for the poor man, but he went about it the wrong way.
Alexis de Tocqueville penned Democracy in America after he spent month America in the 1831, where he witnessed a new democratic system. He found it’s concepts to have unique strengths and weaknesses that he believed could be the inspiration for the new government of post-revolution France. The concepts of limiting individualism, encouraging positive associations, and moderating the tyranny of the majority that Tocqueville observed during his trip in America helped maintain the new democratic republic built after the revolution. As soon as America became free from British rule, their groundwork for their new government helped cement them as a true democracy since it contended with individualism. Tocqueville noticed that after a successful
Colonial America’s democracy was a work in progress with democratic and undemocratic features. With features like Individual and Human Rights, Equality, and Limited Government, colonial America was continuously finding new ways to govern a new society. While, some of their strategies were undemocratic and cruel, they realized and fixed it with democratic solutions. Their efforts were enormous, and created the free land of colonial America.
Scholars from all over the Western world have analyzed and discussed the impact of democracy has had for the citizens of the United States, for over 200 years. Each new period throughout American history, has brought a new concept of being an individual in a democratic society. One flaw scholars from the late nineteenth century saw with democracy was that the majority ruled and if an individual part of the minority their voices were not heard, even if the minority was just and the majority unjust. Thus the democracy most Americans are proud to have is primarily individualistic and can be deemed corrupt because of the focus of majority rule, which might not be the wisest decision. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French writer who wrote several essays on his visit to the United States.
In 1831 French sociologist and political theorist Alexis De Tocqueville and a lawyer he befriended named Gustave de Beaumont, spent nine months traveling around America studying its prisons and came back with a full report on the cultural, political and psychological life in America. While Beaumont wrote about the penitentiary system, Tocqueville focused more in the cultural and political life in America. He wrote two essays and published them in a book called Democracy in America. He discussed the possible threats to democracy and the possible dangers of democracy. He believed that religion and equality were the greatest ideas and they were the most advanced in the United States and that's why democracy worked so well in America.
John Locke was a philosopher and political scientist. He had many interests and produced a number of writings that influenced future leaders. One of these leaders was Thomas Jefferson, who was involved with the aid of America and the act gaining independence from Britain. The Declaration of Independence and Locke’s views on government contain many similar aspects. These ideas includes the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (natural rights); the protection that is provided by the government for these rights; and the altering or abolishment of government if it fails to provide and protect the rights of the people.
In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville provides an analysis and critique of American civic life. During his travels across the country, he discovered how different America was from Europe, particularly France. While the majority of Europe consisted of aristocratic countries with hundreds of years of history, America was a young democratic country. Most notably, he observed that America was growing in equality. The growing equality becomes a presupposition of individualism and isolation, but despite this inevitable growth of equality, individualism and isolation can be minimized.
Problems in America only grew worse when democracy was being added to the mixture of already complicated politics. In Woody Holton’s book, Unruly American and the Origins of the Constitution, he stated that, “many Americans. . . were growing ‘tired of an excess of democracy,’ a ‘prevailing rage of excessive democracy. . .’ [or] ‘democratical tyranny.’” Democracy was an attempt at home rule among the colonies, but not everyone was happy with this extreme excess of colonial citizens contribution to the government.
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