-
500
Ancient Greece
In 5th Century BC in Ancient Greece was seen as a past civilization to be copied and looked onto. It helped us form a direct democracy, Ancient Greece gave us an example. -
Jan 1, 1215
Magna Carta
The Magna Carta established four big things: a limited government, rule of law, due process of law and individual rights. This helped become independent in a HUGE way by establishing all of these things it gave us a system of law to go by and rules to go by in the court and in the government, -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact gave new settlers rules and regulations to agree to for survival. It also formed a government based off of majority. This helped us find new ways of government to help us form one. -
Thomas Hobbes- Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes explains that the perfect governmet should be made of the citizens and the soverign as the head of the government. The book explains Hobbes ideal government and mankind. -
John Locke- Two Treatises on Government
In the First Treatise, of the two John Locke argues about religion having to do with Adam, the first man in the Bible. The second treatise concerns the ideas Locke had on reason, power and governance. -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights helped develop independence with the right to bear arms, right to petition the king and right from cruel and unusual punishments. Setting up these rights gave the people more freedom and justice, helping them become indeoendent. -
Jean-Jacques Rousseau- The Social Contract
The Socail Contract is made up if four different books which explains the peoples freedom that is our right from birth. He believes that states are not letting us have all of our "physical" freedom. -
Baron de Montesquieu
Montesquieu explains that freedom is going by the law. This helped the COnstitution realize that we definitely need laws to guide us, and our own laws to be independent. -
Voltaire- Treatise on Tolerance
This book talks about how Voltaire thinks that there is less and less religious tolerance which is accepting a person's faith. This helped form more religion in people and understanding of religion put into the Constitution -
Cesare Beccaria- On Crime and Punishment
Cesare Beccaria turned in this book anonomously after he had written it talking about his own beliefs on criminal justice. Free will, rational manner and manipulability were his three key points. After he had seen that the founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had qutoed it he took pride and claimed himself as the author. -
First Continental Congress
The delegates from the colonies met for 2 months and Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts. Having a new Act helped us become more seperate. -
Second Continental Congress
This was obviously a huge step towards coming independent because, the Second Continental Congress was a meeting held with all 13 delegates from the colonies present, which decided to declare our freedom. They had decided to give us our freedom after reading Common Sense it convinced our freedom to be declared. Our freedom was not declared at that moment but about one year and two months later. -
Declaration of Independence
Named the thirteen colonies as thirteen newly independent soverign states. Seperated the thirteen colonies from Great Britian into becoming America. -
The Articles of Confederation
The Articles established three branches of government, seperating our power into three differnent places. The Articles also gave Congress the power to make treaties, set up a money system and borrow money. This helped us govern ourselves with more divided power and it helped Congress control more. -
Shay's Rebellion
Shay's rebellion was an armed uprising mostly made up by a group of farmers, led by Daniel Shay. They wanted to stop forclosure of mortages on their property by rebelling they made their point clear and made things obvious that we needed to change for the Constitution. -
Philadelphia Convention
This meeting between the delegates from all 13 states was a very important meeting which discussed serious issues, for example; slavery, the number of reps per state, strength of the federal government, whether or not to have a president and the role of the government in commerce. After the Articles had been so extremely bad with many problems they formed an entirely new government. With our government being able to make huge decisions like the ones listed it helped us propose the Constitution. -
Ancient Rome
From 509 BC- 49BC. Ancient Rome showed a Republic form of government. This gave us different ideas of how to govern ourselves and have citizens involved in our government.