• U.S. HISTORY UNIFYING CONCEPTS

    REPUBLIC
    A FORM OF GOVERNMENT IN WHICH THE PEOPLE USE THEIR POWER TO ELECT  REPRESENTATIVES TO MAKE DECISIONS  ON THEIR BEHALF

    DEMOCRACY
    A FORM OF GOVERNMENT THAT PLACES POWER IN THE HANDS OF THE  PEOPLE

    LIBERTY
    THE FREEDOM TO THINK OR ACT WITHOUT BEING  LIMITED BY  UNNECESSARY FORCE

    RIGHTS
    BASIC CONDITIONS  GUARANTEED TO EACH PERSON

    POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
    THE PRINCIPLE THAT GOVERNMENT WAS CREATED BY AND IS SUBJECT TO THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

    OPPORTUNITY
    THE PROMISE THAT  PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE THE CHANCE TO  ATTAIN  THEIR HOPES  AND DREAMS

    SALUTARY NEGLECT
    Unofficial British practice(1607-1763) toward the colonies in which Parliament did not strictly enforce policies in the colonies.  This was followed to ensure colonial loyalty to Great Britain.  This policy ended after the French & Indian War and the accumulation of a huge war debt.
     

    MANIFEST DESTINY
    THE BELIEF THAT AMERICANS SHOULD HAVE AN OBVIOUS GOD GIVEN RIGHT TO ALL OF THE LAND FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC

    EQUALITY
    THE CONDITION OF BEING EQUAL

    ENLIGHTENMENT IDEALS
    - BELIEF IN REASON
    - BELIEF IN NATURE
    - BELIEF IN PROGRESS
    - BELIEF IN EQUALITY
    - BELIEF IN LIBERTY

    FEDERALISM
    THE SHARING OF POWER  BETWEEN THE STATES &  NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

    CHECKS & BALANCES
    - a system by which each branch of the U.S. Government excercises power of the others to maintain balance

    JUDICIAL BRANCH
    -interprets the law in relation to the U.S. Constitution
     -made up of the Supreme Court, Federal Courts of Appeal and lesser courts

    EXECUTIVE BRANCH
    -enforces the law
     -made up of the President of the United States and  his cabinet

    LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
    -passes the law
     -made up of the Senate & the House of Representatives
    ___________________________________

    MAGNA CARTA
    1215
    (GREAT CHARTER)
    AN  ENGLISH   DOCUMENT  WHICH PLACED LIMITS ON THE POWER OF MONARCHS TO RULE

    ENGLISH BILL OF RIGHTS
    1689
    A DOCUMENT  THAT  ESTABLISHED BASIC RIGHTS FOR ALL  ENGLISHMEN

    MAYFLOWER  COMPACT
    AN AGREEMENT BY THE PASSENGERS THAT THEY WOULD LIVE BY MAJORITY RULE

    ALBANY  PLAN OF UNION
    A PLAN SUGGESTED BY BEN  FRANKLIN WHICH CALLED FOR THE COLONIES TO JOIN TOGETHER FOR  COMMON DEFENSE


    DECLARATION OF  INDEPENDENCE
    1776
    A FORMAL STATEMENT OF  GRIEVANCES AND REASONS FOR THE SEPARATION OF THE  AMERICAN COLONIES FROM THE BRITISH CROWN

    UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
    1789
    THE FRAMEWORK FOR OUR  GOVERNMENT WHICH   ESTABLISHED THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT  WITH A CLEAR SEPARATION  OF POWERS
     
    John Locke, Social Contract Theory
    contained in Two Treatises on Government
    • People have God given rights including Life, Liberty, and Property.
    • Governments are formed to protect people's rights.
    • When governments fail to protect people's rights they have broken the Social Contract and the people have the right to change the government. 

    BILL OF RIGHTS
     Written by  James  Madison
    THE FIRST TEN AMENDMENTS TO THE UNITED STATES   CONSTITUTION

    MARBURY V. MADISON
    SUPREME COURT DECISION WHICH CLEARLY ESTABLISHED THE POWER OF THE COURT FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW OF LAWS
     

    Gettysburg Address

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

     

    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.


    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.