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What Lessons About Government Did Colonial Americans Draw From The History Of Ancient Greece And Rome

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The Authors’ organization for Chapter 1 was organized topically because he was speaking on different topics on The Origins of American Political Principles. These are the major questions in this chapter: What are the broad purposes of government? How should government be designed to achieve its purposes? What lessons about government did colonial Americans draw from the history of ancient Greece and Rome? What circumstances led Europeans to leave their homelands to settle in America? What did democracy mean to our colonial ancestors, and did they approve it? Identify five key terms that will be central to understanding this chapter. Look at subject headings to find these terms. Define them as you read. Be sure to provide pages numbers. …show more content…

Oppression in Europe and the Settlement of America The authors want us to know that English Pilgrims and Puritans came generally from among the middling merchants, artisans, yeomen, and husbandmen, usually free and often successful, but barred based on their religious beliefs from advancing through the social and political hierarchies of the day. Puritan religious and secular leaders worked with Puritan parliamentary leaders to open an English society. Space, Diversity, and Dissent in Colonial America The authors want us to know that in England, there was often orthodoxy, but in America there were huge spaces between pockets of orthodoxy in which its influence was barely felt. As a result, when Roger Williams ran afoul of the orthodoxy of John Winthrop and John Cotton in Massachusetts, they could simply banish him, as they did, and he could simply flee south with his followers into what is now Rhode Island, which he

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The main purpose of this chapter is to determine the Founding Fathers’ motives for creating the Constitution by analyzing a secondary source by Woody Holton, and several primary sources. Frist, I will begin with the secondary source, “Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution” by Woody Holton. Mr. Holton’s main purpose was to locate the motivation behind the Constitution in developments in the states (page 90). Mr. Holton addressed several grievances for possible motives of the Founding Fathers’. First, the excessive democracy that acerbated many Americans, the runaway inflation caused by the farmers who were allowed to satisfy their debt to creditors with property and good instead of hard currency, and the Revolutionary War that

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Gordon Wood achieved great success among his peers with the publication of his book, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, for which he was awarded the Bancroft Prize, as well as the John H. Dunning Prize, both in 1970. In it, Dr. Wood breaks down the process of how American political thought developed from early protests against British measures in the construction of the world's first federal republic. He does so by giving us in detail using a number of different sources, historical information on the reasoning behind the revolution. Dr. Wood walks us through how our government started with a monarchical society which was hierarchical, and later transformed, and emerged as a more recognizable modern society, in where a more commercially oriented and capitalistic government came to light. Wood writes, “[Americans] learned how to define the rights of nature, how to search into, to distinguish, and to comprehend, the principles of physical, moral, religious, and civil liberty, how, in short, to discover and resist the forces of tyranny before they could be applied.

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Throughout the seventeenth century, religious freedom was essentially a key to the new forming colonies. Many pursued the “New World” looking to gain individual rights for their own personal beliefs- which we understand today as religious freedom. The main group seeking this freedom was the Puritans who came to the New World from England. When the Puritans had reached the land where they wished to settle they called it the Massachusetts’s Bay Colony. The colony was said to be a place where one could express their beliefs freely.

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After the American Revolution, the colonies needed to reconstruct a new, fresh government. America, however, was extremely restrictive with giving the central government any forms of power after the hardships the colonies faced being under the British government and Parliament. The colonies did not want to undergo another period of unfair taxation and regulated systems. Thus, America’s first government, The Articles of Confederation, gave the central government immensely few granted powers. After an eight year period, the majority of America knew that they needed a new form of government.

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In Colonial America, during the 1600’s and 1700’s, there were religious, political and geographical changes which resulted in democratic and undemocratic changes. Religion had a big impact on Colonial America. Maryland had to pass the Act of Toleration because too many people were not able to exercise their religion freely. (document 1) The act stated that nobody in Maryland who exercises their religion will be embarrassed and is free to do so willingly, however this act only applied to Christians.

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Colonial America’s democracy was a work in progress with democratic and undemocratic features. Colonial America had democratic features like citizen participation; where citizens were voting for leaders in the colony. An undemocratic features in Colonial America was slavery; because the colonists would be taking away someone else’s rights. Also work in processes such as religious freedoms were taking place.

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Even though many had originally come to the New World to practice their own religion freely, not all of them were able to allow others to do the same. The Puritans thought that to ignore God's work was completely unthinkable and when “free-thinkers” such as Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams chose to speak their minds, conflict was inevitable (“Dissent in Massachusetts Bay”). The economic landscape of the colonies was small and isolated. Tension was inevitable because the colonists did not have much, if any, gold and silver.

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However, they were never successful in doing so. In nearly all of colonial America, there was some religious intolerance, with the exception of few colonial areas. In a quite ironic manner, the Puritans displayed and acted out much religious intolerance, even after facing much scrutiny concerning their religion, in England. This statement is proven, when “Puritan New England: Kahn Academy”, mentions “Although many people assume Puritans escaped England to establish religious freedom, they proved to be just as intolerant as the English state church.” The main and pretty much only, exception, would in this case be Rhode Island, seeing as though it was founded by former Puritan Roger Williams, who had been banned from the colony (in opposition to being executed), as a result of the questioning of their actions towards local Native American tribes, he decided to create Rhode Island, as a place of refuge for those seeking religious tolerance, or who had simply been banned from the previous colony they had resided

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History Midterm Paper Why are today’s politicians compared to the founding figures that built this nation’s government? The answer to this question perhaps lies in the book “Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different” by: Gordon Wood. This book gives readers an insight on some of this nation’s founding fathers, and how they came to be so memorable. Wood’s main point in writing this book is to show the readers how character is of the utmost importance for these different leaders of the new transforming government.

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Although all the colonists all came from England, the community development, purpose, and societal make-up caused a distinct difference between two distinct societies in New England and the Chesapeake region. The distinctions were obvious, whether it be the volume of religious drive, the need or lack of community, families versus single settlers, the decision on minimal wage, whether or not articles of agreements were drawn for and titles as well as other social matters were drawn, as well as where loyalties lay in leaders. New England was, overall, more religious than the Chesapeake region. Settlers in New England were searching relief for religious persecution in Europe. Puritans, Quakers, and Catholics were coming in droves to America searching for an opportunity to have religious freedom.

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The Puritans eventually broke away from the Church of England and there willingness to separate from the church became part of the American character. Americans felt that they could break up from corrupt systems and the Puritan philosophy played a large part in the fight for American Independence. It is no coincidence the struggled for independence started in Massachusetts. God’s role is a Puritans life is vividly expressed in Mary Rowlandson’s, a “Narrative of Captivity Restoration.” Rowlandson, the daughter of a Massachusetts Bay landowner and wife of a minister, describes her life as a captive of the Indians.

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Unlike, the middle colonies who settled for farming grains, and the south for profit. The Pilgrims also signed The Mayflower Compact which dictated how the colony would be ruled by majority ruled, which was the closest thing to self-government at the time; for all church going men could vote. At the time with the Puritans settling the New England colonies for their this would be considered the most religiously intolerant regions. The Puritans here were a sect of Calvinism that their views had a broad term for sinner, which means anything from being lazy to practicing another religion, like the Quakers and Baptist did, could ensue, fines, flogging; a public whipping, banishment, or even the death penalty. Compared to the other two colonial region who were more tolerant and open to other religions because of that Roger William was banished by the Puritans so he established Rhode Island in the New England for religious freedom.

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Puritans are typically the first thought that comes to mind when thinking of America’s earliest settlers. Although, the Puritans are known for coming to the New World for strictly religious reasons, there were other draws to the New World, not only to practice religion. In the Book, the Norton Anthology – American Literature, Beginnings to 1820, provides evidence through reading short stories, poems, and letters, which proves early American settlers has also came to the New World for secular reasons as well. Not that those came to the New World were not religious, there were other draws that influenced to them to take the risky voyage. In early America the religious and secular, non-religious, issues were intertwined, but conflict when

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Chapter 3 Outline: • 3.1 The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism • 3.2 The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth • 3.3 The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth • 3.4 Building the Bay Colony • 3.5 Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth • 3.6 The Rhode Island “Sewer” • 3.7 New England Spreads Out • 3.8 Puritans Versus Indians • 3.9 Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence • 3.10 Andros Promotes the First American Revolution • 3.11 Old Netherlanders at New Netherlanders • 3.12 Friction with English and Swedish Neighbors • 3.13 Dutch Residues in New York • 3.14 Penn’s Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania • 3.15 Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors • 3.16 The Middle Way in the Middle Colonies   3.1 The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism

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Religious freedom and toleration in the English North American colonies provided little room for those who did not practice the exact same form of government and religion. Although a similarity to America today is that the Puritan "court" provided a ruling to determine the punishment of an individual, however, the similarities stop there. When people came outright to declare their individual practices, such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, they were denounced and, in certain cases, sent into

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