Up and down the coast of America a brand new era was stirring. There were ideals that were prevalent throughout the new territories that would soon come into the form of a stated government. The men at this time felt obliged to lay before mankind their admission of certain fundamental truths. These men recognized as well as voiced that the principles at hand, in and of themselves, were not original. What was original was the way in which they were about to be applied to human nature and government. This is what would make them, the government and the time revolutionary. Jefferson tells us through a letter written to Henry Lee on May 8, 1825, that, “All American Whigs thought alike on these subjects.” These subjects included issues such as: equality, state of nature, government by consent, divine right of kings, absolute monarchy, tyranny, majority rule, representation, republicanism, liberty, law of nature, property, social compact, natural rights, civil rig!

Equality was an idea that was not unfamiliar to the men who founded this country. They had been given equality by the king in England through what became known as the “Great Charter.” T

Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness…(231)

Americans at the time of the founding would have almost unanimously conferred on the discussions of the preceding principles. The American mind at the time of the founding realized the revolutionary era in which they were participating. They were people that appreciated a government that attempted to ensure their rights as individuals. These American had fled from a government that refused to respect, honor and even admit to the freedom with nature had granted them and government was justly required to protect and preserve. These principles were the driving force behind many Americans as they sacrificed their lives to secure a land in which human beings could flourish as nature had intended them to, without unjust oppression.

David Hume expanded on the idea that all men by nature are equal in his writings Of the Original Contract. Here he notes how “nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education (119).” Locke and Hume recognized that men, all men, are created equal. The founders realized that men are not endowed with the right of equal status by another of the same status, but rather by a creator which then equalizes all men everywhere at all times. This fact made the American mind a new political creation.

an institutional answer in Federalist # 10. Here he shows that by enlarging the sphere of the republic and by unionizing the individual states can ensure that no factions could form and ultimately prevail in a government. This then becomes the second requirement for founding just legitimate government. Equality, consent of each individual and representative government dependant on the people all became, like building blocks, the foundation of the American Revolution.

This being the case, then all must unanimously give their consent to be ruled not by one, but by the majority. This is the only way to ensure legitimacy of rule by one over another. This then would lead the founders to attempt to form the first large democratic republic. This republic would consist of representatives because anything else would be chaotic anarchy.

e fundamental liberties; this is also known as Social Compact. Thomas Jefferson in A Summary view of the Rights of British America in 1774 refers to the injustice done by the monarchial British government “…upon those rights which God and the laws have given equally and independently to all (159).” In Virginia’s Declaration of Rights and Constitution in 1776 it is written,

ct that a nature given right is given for all men by nature.

James Madison explains the

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1929
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)