Key points
The US government is based on ideas of limited government, including natural rights, popular sovereignty, republicanism, and social contract.
Limited government is the belief that the government should have certain restrictions in order to protect the individual rights and civil liberties of citizens.
Introduction
In 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, stating their specific grievances with the British monarchy and why they were going to create a separate government. After the colonies separated from the British monarchy and formed the United States of America, they had to answer some crucial questions: 1) If not a monarchy, what type of government was the United States going to have? 2) What kind of government was going to protect the people without violating their individual liberties?
The Framers decided to create a limited government based on ideas of natural rights, popular sovereignty, republicanism, and the social contract. We can see some of these ideas pop up in the foundational documents of the United States, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But what are these democratic ideas and why has the United States continued to hold onto them for more than 250 years?
This article describes each of these democratic ideas and explains why the Framers used them as a basis for government.
What is a limited government?
After the colonies decided to separate from the British monarchy, the Framers had to develop a system of government that would gain the support of all of the Patriots. They agreed on a system of limited government.
Limited government is a political system in which there are certain restrictions placed on the government to protect individual rights and liberties. This decision to create a limited government was a deliberate departure from the British monarchy, which the Framers felt violated their rights. They intentionally created a limited government that would have to abide by a set of rules designed by the people of the country.
Now that the Framers had a plan for the type of government they were going to have, they had to decide a few things:
What are the roles and responsibilities of this government?
How will the government respond to the will of the people?
To answer these questions, the Framers turned to political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, whose ideas about what makes a government successful inspired the current system of government in the United States today.
What are natural rights?
The main argument in the Declaration of Independence was that the British monarchy violated the natural rights of the American people. Natural rights, sometimes called unalienable rights, are rights the Framers believed all people are born with and can never give up. The Founders argued that the government’s central purpose should be to protect and uphold these rights.
John Locke, an Enlightenment philosopher, described natural rights as the rights to one’s own “life, liberty, and property.” His work inspired Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration of Independence, who described unalienable rights as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Having defined these natural rights, the Founders of the United States then had to answer the question: “How do we make sure society safeguards natural rights without giving the government too much power
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