Politics: United States Declaration of Independence and Government Essay example

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1. In Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, “mores” are understood as customary rules of behavior or social norms. These “mores” are the foundation of the social contract that allows mankind to create a civil society and eventually form government.
2. Tocqueville argued that Puritanism was closely related to political theory because of the way churches were formed. Puritans would simply vote on the idea of adopting another church. This method was very democratic compared to the way Catholic churches were formed. That idea was carried over into their social contracts and eventually their government. In order for any government to exist, it needed to have the consent of the governed.
3. (a) The distinction between liberty and license or true liberty and corrupt liberty is simple. Locke explains liberty as the state of nature and as a state of equality in which no one has power over another, and people are free to do want they want. However, when people act on desires that infringe on other peoples’ life, liberty, and property, then it becomes license and violates the natural law. (b) The State of Nature cannot be a state of license because the State of Nature requires people to be equal and obey the laws of nature and to not infringe on the unalienable rights given by God. A state of license is actually a State of War, according to Locke.
4. Tocqueville claims that America combined religion and freedom, something previously thought to be farfetched. This combination worked so well because religion was used a catalyst for liberty. As previously stated, The Puritan idea of receiving the consent of the people to create churches was carried over into their way of government.
5. A true democracy is a system of government where every single person directly affects the policies and laws for the government usually through voting. A democratic republic is where people elect representatives to vote on policies and laws for the government.
6. Unalienable rights are rights that cannot be infringed upon by others or even yourself because these rights are given to you by God.
7. According to Locke, “political power” is the power to make laws and to define the punishments for greater and lesser crimes, regulate and secure property, carry out the laws, defend the commonwealth from foreign threats, and exercise the aforementioned powers only for the public good.
8. (a) Private property, according to Locke, comes to be when an individual works the land through farming. Once the individual farms the land to make a living, then it becomes theirs. (b) Land becomes scarce when people take more than they need as stated in the spoilage clause of the Natural Law. (c) The cause of war is when the State of War derives from the State of Nature because the parts of property (life, liberty, and estate) were infringed upon. (d) The solution to war or the way out of the State of War is to create a social contract, made unanimously, thus creating a civil society. Those that oppose the social contract cannot be a part of the civil society and will therefore remain in either that State of Nature or State of War.
9. (a) Adams stated that tyrants discouraged people from gaining knowledge about the laws themself. (b) When people are enlightened enough to have knowledge of the laws, they are able to recognize when a leader misuses them. This gives the people the power to keep the leader in check and not become a tyrant.
10. Hamilton felt that Hobbes had a misguided view of natural rights, and Blackstone was more on par with the correct view. Hobbes and the farmer believed that liberty equals license for the strong to walk over the weak. However, we know from such philosophers and sociologists like Locke that liberty does not equal license and, even in the most basic form of human existence, there is still a natural law to obey. Blackstone would align himself with Locke, Montesquieu and others of that ideology.
11. (a) All
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