Founding Fathers Research Paper

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During the early years of our nation, there was struggle to finding a government that worked for the people. In the late 18th century philosophers began to strongly criticize the governments that were being dominated by monarchy and imperialism. The new beliefs in democracy, freedom for individuals of society, and the importance of human interactions led to the makings of the Constitution. Even though the ideas coming from everyone was far from an agreement, they were certain on their admiration of direct democracy and the restraints on that democracy. Their challenge in creating a government, was to strike a balance between liberty and order. Many documents built the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Declaration of Rights. For example, Second Treatise of Civil Government, The Spirit of Laws, Social Contract, The Virginia Declaration of Rights, and Common Sense.

The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action, written by John P. Roche, addressed the difficulty that the Founding Fathers had in constructing the U.S. Constitution because of the high level of stress they received and the limited amount of time that they had to carry out the formation of this document while keeping the best interest of the country as a priority. John P. Roche starts of by commenting on why the creation of the Constitution was so effective and how the Articles of Confederation benefitted the ratification of the new U.S. Government. As it turns out, the delegates elected to attend Pennsylvania were mainly people who had served in Congress and had experience in the weakness of the Articles in granting too little power to the national government. In addition, the delegates were appointed by the state legislatures, not by the people, as justified by the Articles of Confederation.

In comparing Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists, The Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Constitution, it is evident that the basis of all three documents is the idea that all human beings possess God-given fundamental rights and that government is created to protect those rights. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, is the first of the three documents penned. This is important because it defined the rights of liberty and equality of all American citizens as outlined in John Locke’s natural law thesis (Martin, page 113). In addition to providing an itemized account of the grievances colonist’s held against King George III of England, it served to justify the colonist’s quest for independence and separation from British rule. The Declaration of Independence conveyed to the crown that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, which among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Founders’ of the New World understood that their pursuit of liberties and autonomy specified in the Declaration of Independence could not come to fruition without instituting decrees. In 1787, the U.S. Constitution, was written to replace the Articles of Confederation with a better defined series of stringent laws that would legally uphold the freedoms and privileges established in the Declaration of Independence. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in

On June of 1776, the Declaration of Independence was born. Drawn up by Thomas Jefferson and based on the works of John Locke, the general purpose of the document was to clarify that governments have conditional, not absolute authority over the people; that human beings possess natural rights that can’t be taken from them and government is created to protect those rights. The phrases “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and “all men are created equal” were the main theme of the social contract written for the small colonies of what would be the basis of the United States of America to declare independence from Great Britain and its tyrannical king. However, “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and “all men are created equal” did not apply to African Americans, enslaved or free for the coming years.

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress got together to form a document known as the Declaration of Independence. Written by American colonists, it did not want to be under British rule no more. The document also stated the rights of humans, but some of the main ones were the equality of men and also, the unalienable rights that the people of the United States were given as citizens. The Declaration of Independence has the main rights that modern citizens need now-a-day, but some can argue that the Preamble to the United States Constitution was made in order to form a more perfect union, making it the more compelling document. The Declaration of Independence, in comparison to the Preamble, is the most compelling document in today's day and age.

The English bill of rights and the declaration rights of man and citizen are two of the most influential documents ever written between 1600-1800; those documents greatly affect the rights and freedom that everyone was born with today, it also greatly affects the US constitution about how they govern their country how they think about government. The two documents have many similarities and differences; those two documents were both created because of a similar reason. The kings that were ruling before those documents were created were both corrupted with power; the kings didn’t listen to the people and in the

Joseph J. Ellis is a well-known historian. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the college of William and Mary, and his masters and Ph.D. at the University of Yale. Ellis is currently a full time professor of the Commonwealth at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

No documents have had a greater influence on the citizens of our country than the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. The Declaration of Independence marked the birth of our republic and set forth our “unalienable rights” to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Later, the Constitution outlined our style of government and defined the rights that are protected from intrusion by government.

In 1776 Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration of Independence, many important concepts were written some of these are Equality, Democracy, Government protects rights, and the people have a right to change the government. In 1787 the U.S. Constitution was written but, it wasn’t ratified until 1788. James Madison wrote the document that formed the model of the constitution. In the constitution, there are many civil rights or personal freedoms. The U.S. Constitution did live up to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence about how the people have a right to change government and government protects rights, however, it didn’t live up to the ideals of

The U.S. Constitution was the first constitution in the world, and for its time, it was an outstanding document. For this reason, the subsequent constitutions could not ignore the experience of the drafters of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution (including the Bill of Rights) had great influence on modern policy documents: the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights of 1789 and the Polish Constitution of 1791.

Ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence became the foundation for what America was to become and what it is today. This document is the most important document in the history of the United States of America. Written by Thomas Jefferson at age 33 and signed by numerous American leaders in 1776, this document forever changed the rich history of the world. There are four main ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence; equality, liberty, consent of the governed, and alter or abolish government. Although liberty and the consent of the governed are important ideals, equality is the most important.

On July 4th of 1776, a document was written to change the future of the American Colonists. The Declaration of Independence was compiled with a list of grievances against the king of England to illustrate the separation from British rule to foreign nations. This document was a means to rid themselves of a dictator and his rule, ensuring constitutional rights for all. The constitution included the Bill of Rights which protected the rights of people so powers are not in the hands of government. (Buhle, Faragher, Czitrom, and Armitage 2015, 159)

The creation of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution required a great deal of ingenuity and commitment on the part of the Founding Fathers. Their courage to sign their own names to a document sent directly to the King and Parliament showed their conviction to the American people and to the ideas of Freedom. These men were not a small group of radicals that took matters into their own hands; conversely, the Founding Fathers were chosen representatives of the people who communicated the grievances and beliefs to their oppressors. These leaders did not invent their own diction of liberty, but instead used the already popular and widespread language of freedom. Because of these events, this language endures until today

The whole sense that the Founders thought every human was equal was quite preposterous if thought about. Generally, most Americans are taught that the founders started this country because they wanted a place to be free. However, what these people aren’t being taught is that a lot of the labor that it took to build this country was the work of slaves. And what are slaves? They are workers who are kept at their place against their will.