The Rise Of Modern Republicanism

Economic Ideas: Believe taxes shouldn't be increased for anyone (including the wealthy) and that wages should be set by the free market.

When Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote his Social Contract, the idea of liberty and freedom were not new theories. Many political thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes had already evolved with their own clarification of liberty and freedom of mankind, and in fact John Locke had already publicized his views and ideas on the social contract as well. In Rousseau’s case, what he did was to transform the ideas incorporated by such substantial words, and present us to another method to the social contract dilemma. What would bring man to leave the state of nature, and enter into a structured civil society? Liberals believes that this was the assurance of protection - liberty to them implied being free from destruction and harm towards one’s property. Rousseau’s concept of freedom was entirely different from that of traditional liberals. According to Rousseau, liberty is meant to voice out your opinion, and participation as human being. “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man” (Wootton, 454).

Rousseau wanted the state to be a legitimate democracy, a society that united together the people in freedom, equality and civic devotion. Rousseau believed that an individual fulfils his moral potential not in isolation but as part of a community where all members are committed to helping each other. This belief led Rousseau to ancient Greek society for which he felt a great admiration. He believed the Greeks lived in 'organic communities', cities where the citizens set aside personal interests in order to attain the common good. Rousseau's ideal state was one of a smaller size but one where the citizens were welded together in the spirit of 'fraternity'. People would therefore have the opportunity to get know each other, resulting in an enthusiastic contribution to all public affairs. Such a political environment produces free and committed citizens. In contrast, the large modern day states are ruled by an absolute monarch, creating 'servile subjects', which Rousseau despised.8

The Republican’s principles were not to increase slavery, support of the protective tariff, establish a daily mail service, a transcontinental railroad, and enactment of free homestead legislation. The Republican principles believe that the only rule of a government is to protect the equal natural rights of individual citizens. The rights of individuals, not groups were the reason to creating a government. The individual's’ rights are cited in the Declaration of Independence and should be taking in action was the principles of the Republican. Abraham Lincoln believed that nation could not be under controlled if the states were split into slavery states and anti-slavery. That believe was what attracted the Northerners. The Northerners at that

By the 1980s, there was a steady increase in Republican voting for state level offices. Figures 1.11 and 1.12 show that there were major differences in presidential voting between the states, with the Deep South/Peripheral South divide becoming evident. Figure 1.8 shows that in the 1990s, for the first time, Republicans outnumbered Democrats in the South. After the 1994 election, for the first time since Reconstruction, a majority of the South’s members of Congress were Republicans. Republican candidates were receiving a greater percentage of the votes for state level offices as well. While in some states, the Republican Party still did not have a majority of party identifiers, the South had experienced a dramatic shift by the end of the 1990s.

Since the birth of America men have divided themselves into different parties to come up with ideas that would better the nation and themselves. George Washington, in his farewell address, warned Americans about the problems that would accompany political parties, but no one listened. Instead many different political parties began to slowly develop overtime causing many major and minor divisions. The rise of the Republican Party came about at the nation’s darkest and most divided hour, but they began the hard, war-torn steps of putting the Union back together.

The Republican Party came from GOP (abbreviation for Grand Old Party) and is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery activists and modernists in 1854, and the first president was Abraham Lincoln, who served from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. The Republicans dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern States for most of the period between 1860 and 1932. There have been 18 Republican presidents, and the most recent being George W. Bush, who served from 2001 to 2009. [1]

One of the biggest misconceptions in American politics is that both political parties operate and appear the same way compared to their old platforms in the 1800s. The modern Republican Party can be generalized as more likely to be conservative and have higher living standards as opposed to the modern Democratic Party. These stereotypes have caused many people to believe that the Republican Party had always functioned this way. The old Democratic Party, on the other hand, strongly opposed Republican ideals in the nineteenth century. The Democrats opposed the influence of federal government, civil rights, and Western settlement. This notion incites a convoluted question for many: Are the Democrats not supposed to fight for justice and civil

Rousseau’s Social Contract, Book I, has become a basis for opinions regarding the concept of political philosophical equality. The line “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (SC, Book I Ch. I) is well recognized, reflecting his opinions of civilization and the psychological harm in the alienation of oneself in a society. Rousseau’s original man, “nature boy”, was a creature of simplicity, living to eat and sleep however with the slow but sure development of society, he was corrupted, expressing the idea that men are born good but behave wickedly depending on the social situation that one is in. It is clear that despite the ideal model of returning to a state of nature, it is impossible and Rousseau outlines a model in which people can save themselves from the subordination of society.

Rousseau establishes the Social Contract (Compact) that will provide the solution for a protective community of free individuals, who submit their freedoms or duties to the betterment of the whole collective body. While the individual is still free to conduct his life in freedom, the same citizen has a requirement to conduct business and make decisions that will be what’s best for the body. If everyone in the body commits to the arrangements of the contract, then the general members will have no problems with compelling to the political structure (Rousseau pg. 11).

. . problem in the state of nature . . . was to find a way to protect everyone’s life, liberty, and property while each person remained free” (CITATION ROUSSEAU). Rousseau suggested that each person enter into a social contract where they would give up their rights to a whole community, rather than a king. He called this “public figure” a sovereign who would act on behalf of the citizens, exercise their “general will” and make laws for public welfare.

We have covered the general accounts of human nature found in Confucianism and Taoism in light of the historical backdrop of the Period of Warring States. Use your responses to the following general questions below as an opportunity to refer either to the Smith text and accompanying assigned scriptures(s), Smith video(s) on China, Confucianism, and Taoism, or any additional material covered in class. Look ahead to the next question on the chun tzu in order to plan on avoiding repetition of answers verbatim within each essay if there are areas of potential overlap.

All men must consent to this “two-way commitment between the public and the individuals belonging to it” (8). This social compact between the subjects of a state creates the states “unity, its common identity, its life and its will” (7). Rousseau then laid out the two crucial parts of a state and their crucial separation: the sovereign, or the people, and the government. At the end of Book I, Rousseau summarized his proposed social contract by stating that it “replaces…physical inequalities as nature may have set up between men by an equality that is moral and legitimate, so that men who may be unequal in strength or intelligence become equal by agreement and legal right” (11). Rousseau’s social contract in theory would give each individual, regardless of physical strength or education, guaranteed freedom from the chains of the state.

Yu Hua presents interpretations of classical Chinese culture as fluid, fundamentally dependent on the surrounding political context. China has always placed a great emphasis on the concept of the ‘people’, turning it into an abstract concept that forms the basis of the worldview. Consequently, the understanding of the term shifted as China moved from Maoist to a more market-oriented state.

The purpose which Rousseau ostensibly gives his social contract is to free man from the illegitimate chains to which existing governments have shackled him. If this is his aim, then it follows that he should be most concerned with the preservation of freedom in political society, initially so that savage man might be lured out of nature and into society in the first place, and afterwards so that Rousseau’s framework for this society will prevent the present tyranny from reasserting itself. Indeed, in his definition of purpose for man’s initial union into society, he claims that, despite his membership in an association to which he must necessarily have some sort of obligation if the