US Government - Chapter One

Foundations of Government &

Citizenship

US Government - Chapter One

The Need for Government

●Government is the institution through which a society makes and enforce its public policies. Government
is made up of those people who exercises its powers, all those who have authority and control over people.

●The public policies of a government are, in short, all of those things a government decides to do. Public
policies cover matters ranging from taxation, defense, education, crime, and healthcare to transportation,
the environment, civil rights, and working conditions.

Basic Powers of Government

●Every government has and exercises three basic kinds of power: Legislative Power - the power to make laws and to
frame public policies; Executive Power - the power to execute, enforce, and administer laws; Judicial Power - the
power to interpret laws, to determine their meaning, and to settle disputes that arise within the society.

●These powers of government are often outlined in a country’s constitution. A constitution is the body of
fundamental laws setting out the principles, structures, and processes of a government.

●The ultimate responsibility for the exercise of these powers may be held by a single person or by a small group, as
in a dictatorship. In this form of government, those who rule are not held responsible to the will of the people.

●When the responsibility for the exercise of these powers rests with a majority of the people, that form of
government is known a democracy. In a democracy, supreme authority rests with the people.

The State

●We often use the term “state” to mean any body of people, living in a defined territory, organized
politically, and with the power to make and enforce law without the consent of any higher authority.

●Clearly, a state must have people - a population. The size of that population, however, has nothing directly
to do with the existence of a state.

●Just as a state cannot exist without people, so must it have land - territory - with known and recognized
boundaries

●Every state is sovereign - that is, it has supreme and absolute power within its own territory and can
decide its own foreign and domestic policies. Thus, as a sovereign state, the United states can determine
its form of government, frame its own economic system, and shape its own foreign polices.

The Social Contract Theory

●The major political theory on the origin of the state is that of the “social contract”. John Locke, Thomas
Hobbes, and many other philosophers in France developed this theory in the 17th and 18th centuries.

●They wrote that in earliest history humans lived in unbridled freedom, that is in a “state of nature,” in
which no government existed and no person was subject to any superior power. That which people could
take by force belonged to them. However, all people were similarly free in that state of nature. No
authority existed to protect one person from the aggressive actions of another.

Form a More Perfect Union & Establish Justice

●The Constitution of today was written in 1787. The original States adopted it in order to link themselves,
and the American people, more closely together. That Constitution was built in the belief that in union
there is strength. A written constitution is important as an official record of governing principles.

●To provide justice, said Thomas Jefferson, “is the most sacred of the duties of government.” No purpose,
no goal of public policy, can be of greater importance in democracy.

●What does justice mean? As the concept of justice has developed overtime in American thought and
practice, it has come to mean this: The law, in both its content and its administration, must be reasonable,
fair, and impartial. Those standards of justice have not always been met in this country. We have not
attained our professed goal of “equal justice of all.”

Insure Domestic Tranquility & Provide for the Common Defense

●Order is essential to the well-being of any society, and keeping the peace at home has always been a prime
function of government. Most people can only imagine what it would be like to live in a state of anarchy -
without government.

●In fact, people do live that way in some parts of the world today. Somalia, located on the eastern tip of
Africa, has not had a permanent functioning government; rival warlords control different parts of the
country.

●The nation’s defense and its foreign policies are but two sides of the same coin: the security of the United
States. To provide this security, the nation maintains an army, navy, air force, and coast guard.
Departments such as the Department of Homeland Security keep watch for threats to the country and its
people.

Promote the General Welfare & Secure the Blessings of Liberty

●Many people do not realize the extent to which governments acts as the servant of its citizens. They
promote the General Welfare for the people. For example, public schools, quality of air, and food and
water.

●The nation was founded by those who loved liberty and prized it above all earthly possessions.

●For many people, the inspiration to protect our rights and liberties arises from deep feelings of patriotism.

●Patriotism is the love of one’s country; the passion that drives one to serve one’s country, either by
defending it from invasion or by protecting its rights and maintaining its laws and institutions.

Types of Democracy

●In a democracy, supreme political authority rests with the people. The people hold the sovereign power,
and government is conducted only by and with the consent of the people.

●A democracy can be either direct or indirect. A direct democracy, exists where the will of the people is
translated into public policy directly by the people themselves, in mass meetings. Direct democracy does
not exist at the national level anywhere in the world today.

●Most Americans are familiar with the indirect form of democracy - that is, with a constitutional republic
or representative democracy. In a indirect democracy, a small group of persons, chosen by the people to
act as their representatives, expresses the popular will.

Dictatorship

●Authoritarian forms of government such as a dictatorship exists where those who rule cannot be held
responsible to the will of the people.

●Dictatorships are sometimes identified as either autocracies or oligarchies. An autocracy is a government
in which a single person holds unlimited political power. An oligarchy is a government in which the
power to rule is held by a small, usually self-appointed elite.

●A prime example of a dictatorship is North Korea

Theocracy

●A theocracy exists where the legal system of a state is based on religious law.

●Theocracies were more common in early civilizations, but have become rare in modern times.

●One example of a present-day theocracy would be Iran

Centralized Government

●A unitary government is often described as a centralized government. All powers held by the government
belong to a single, central agency.

●The central government creates local units of government for its own convenience. Those local
governments have only those powers that the central government chooses to give them

●Most governments in the world are unitary in form. Great Britain is a classic example.

●In Great Britain, the Parliament, holds all of the government’s power. Local governments do exist but
solely to relieve Parliament of burdens it could perform only with much inconvenience. Though unlikely,
Parliament could do away with all local government in Britain at any time.

Federal Government

●A federal government is one in which the powers of government are divided between a central
government and several local governments.

●This division of powers has a geographic basis, meaning it cannot be changed by either the local or
national level acting alone. Both levels of government act directly on the people through their own sets of
laws, officials, and agencies.

●Advantages to this include that both national and State power are limited and preserved under a federal
system, that government is closer to the people, and that individualized solutions to issues can be
implemented on a State-by-State basis, which also encourages innovation.

Confederation

●A confederation is an alliance of independent states. A central organization has the power to handle only
those matters that the member states have assigned to it. Typically, confederate governments have had
limited powers and only in such fields as defense and foreign affairs.

●Confederate governments usually do not have the power to make laws that apply directly to individuals,
at least not without some further action by the member states. A confederate structure of government
makes it possible for the several states to cooperate in matters of common concern and, at the same time,
retain their separate identities.

Separation of Powers Between Branches of Government

●A presidential government is a system of shared powers in which the executive and legislative branches
have separate powers.

●The two branches are independent of one another. The chief executive (the President) is chosen by the
people, independently of the legislative branch. He or she holds office for a fixed term and has a number
of significant powers that are not subject to the direct control of the legislative branch.

Parliamentary Government

●In a parliamentary government, the executive branch is made up of the prime minister, and that official’s
cabinet. The prime minister and cabinet are themselves members of the legislative branch, the parliament.

●The prime minister is the leader of the majority party or of a like-minded group of parties and is chosen
by that body. With parliament’s approval, the prime minister selects members of the cabinet from among
the members of parliament.

●Parliamentary government avoids one of the major problems of the presidential form: prolonged conflict
and sometimes deadlock between branches because very often the legislative is controlled by one political
party, and the President is a member of a different party.

The First Democracy

●The concept of democracy developed somewhere in the 4th century in Athens.

●Athenian democracy was, at base, direct democracy. Its central feature was an Assembly open to all male
citizens at least 18 years of age.

●The Assembly debated public matters and made law. Decisions in the Assembly were made by majority
vote.

●The Assembly’s agenda was set by a Council of Five Hundred. The body was composed of 500 random
citizens, serving one-year terms, and did the routine day-to-day work of government.

Athenian Democracy

●The writings of many ancient Greek political thinkers had strong influences on the development of
American government some two thousand years later.

●Similarly, the American system of representative democracy was developed with a nod to Greek
philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, who viewed direct democracy as dangerous and unstable. James
Madison and many of the Founders agreed.

●Athens reached the peak of its glory in art, literature, and philosophy in the fifth century but it had been
severely weakened by the long Peloponnesian War and later conquest by the Macedonians.

●What remained of Athenian democracy was extinguished by the Romans who overran Greece.

The Roman Republic

●Rome was founded in 753 and like Athens, was originally a city-state ruled by a monarchy. Monarchical
rule was overthrown the Romans referred to their new form of government, a republic.

●The Roman Republic was far from democratic in the modern sense. It did not introduce the concept of
representation, however. Much of the political history of the republican period revolved around an often
violent struggle between two social classes.

●The Patricians, mostly rich upper-class, landowning aristocrats; The Plebeians, the common folk.

●The Romans did not hold elections to choose some public officials, but women, the enslaved, and the
foreign-born could not participate.

Feudalism

●The decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century marked the beginning of the Middle Ages.

●This also marked the collapse of centralized authority and organized government.

●In response to this, the feudal system was born. Feudalism was a loosely organized system in which
powerful lords divided their lands among other, lesser lords.

●Those with land and power agreed to protect others in exchange for their loyalty, their military service,
and a share of the crops they produced.

The Rise of Monarchies & Legitimacy

●The feudal system was weakening and leaders of towns began to appreciate the benefits of supporting a
central authority and they allied themselves with monarchs. The monarchs, in turn, saw the towns as a
source of wealth that could free them from dependence on their vassals.

●To help manage the national government, monarchs hired loyal civil servants typically born in towns and
educated at local universities. Their perspectives were national, not regional. The state, in the person of
the monarch, now had sovereignty, or the utmost authority in decision making and in maintaining order.

●Rulers have strong reasons to seek consent for their rule. This consent is known as legitimacy, the belief of
the people that a government has the right to make public policy.

●A legitimate government is one that is accepted by the people and other governments as the sovereign
authority of a nation.

Forms of Legitimacy

●One type of traditional legitimacy is known as the divine right of kings. For hundreds of years, European
monarchs based their right to rule on this belief that God had granted them that authority.

●Another type of legitimacy is to win legitimacy through the power of personality. A charismatic person
with strong leadership skills can often win support. The people agree to allow this person to rule them.

●The final and most durable form of legitimacy is created when a government binds itself to the rule of
law. The law must be seen as fair and effective in order for people to trust their government.

European Colonialism

●Several European monarchies embarked on a policy of colonialism. Colonialism is the control of one
nation over lands abroad. European settlers, laws, and religious beliefs spread around the world as rival
nations competed for colonial possessions.

●Colonial trade and its wealth brought newfound power to merchants, and monarchs adopted
mercantilism to control profit from that situation. Mercantilism is an economic and political theory
emphasizing money as the chief source of wealth to increase the absolute power of the monarchy and the
nation.

●Mercantilist policies brought the monarchy and the state deep into the economy. Monarchs taxed imports
heavily to protect locally produced goods. Foreigners were required to buy licenses from the state in order
to trade with local merchants.

Foundations of Democracy

●Democracy is not inevitable. It does not exist in the United States simply because Americans regard it as
the best of all possible political systems. Rather, democracy exists in this country because the American
people believe in its basic concepts.

●Sir Winston Churchill once put the argument for democracy this way: “No one pretends that democracy
is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all
those other forms have been tried from time to time.”

●American concept of democracy: 1. Recognition of the fundamental worth and dignity of every person; 2.
Respect for the equality of all persons; 3. Faith in majority rule an insistence upon minority rights; 4.
Acceptance of the necessity of compromise; and 5. Insistence upon the widest possible degree of
individual freedom

Worth of the Individual

●This concept of the dignity and worth of the individual is of overriding importance in democratic
thought. People can be forced to do certain things whether they want to or not. Examples range from
paying taxes to registering for the draft to stopping at a stop sign.

●When a democratic society forces people to pay a tax or obey traffic signals, it is serving the interests of
the many. However, it is not simply serving the interests of the many who as a mass of people happen to
outnumber the few.

Equality of All Persons

●Democracy does not imply an equality of condition for all persons. It does not claim that all are born with
the same mental or physical abilities. Nor does it hold that all person have a right to an equal share of
worldly goods.

●The democratic concept of equality means that every person is entitled to (1) equality of opportunity and
(2) equality before the law. That is the democratic concept of equality holds that no person should be
held back for any such reasons as those based on race, color, religion, or gender.

Majority Rule, Minority Rights

●The only satisfactory device democracy knows is that of majority rule. Democracy holds that a majority
will be right more often then it will be wrong, and that the majority will also be right more often than any
one person or small group will.

●Certainly, a democracy cannot work without the principle of majority rule. Unchecked, however, a
majority could destroy its opposition and, in the process, destroy democracy itself. Thus, democracy
requires majority rule restrained by minority rights.

●The majority must always be willing to listen to a minority’s argument, to hear its objections, to bear its
criticisms, and to welcome its suggestions.

Necessity of Compromise

●In a democracy, public decision making must be largely a matter of give-and-take among the various
competing interests. Compromise is the process of blending and adjusting competing views and interests.

●Compromise is an essential part of the democratic concept for two major reasons. First, remember that
democracy puts the individual first and, at the same time, insists that each individual is the most equal of
all others. Second, few public questions have only two sides. There is always unlimited sides you could be
on in a debate.

●Remember, compromise is a process, a way of achieving majority agreement. It is never an end in itself.
Not all compromises are good, and not all are necessary.

Insistence upon Individual Freedom

●It should be clear by this point that democracy can thrive only in an atmosphere of individual freedom.
However, democracy does not and cannot insist on complete freedom for the individual.

●Absolute freedom can exist only in a state of anarchy

●Democracy does require that each individual must be as free to do as he or she pleases as far as the
freedom of all will allow

Responsibilities of Citizenship

●The duties of being of a “good citizen” all revolve around his or her commitment to obey the law.

●A citizen is one who holds both rights and responsibilities in a state.

●For many, the most effective form of participation in a democracy is to seek elected office.

●Civil society provides opportunities for people to join together to advocate for things they believe in and
to make life better. Examples include: Charitable work, Red Cross, working to improve wages, and so
much more.