LESSON 4, UNIT 1 ESTABLISHING OUR GOVERNMENT

• Essential Question: How was the government of the United States established?

• Learning Target: I will be able to recognize how Enlightenment ideas including Montesquieu’s view of separation of power and John Locke’s theories related to natural law and how Locke’s social contract influenced the Founding Fathers.

Homework: Vocabulary• Daily Rubric: 4 – I fully understand

the learning target and I am ready to move on

• 3 – I feel like I have a good understanding of the learning target but I need to cover it a little more

• 2 – I feel kind of lost on the learning target and I need a lot of review before I can move on

• 1 – I am completely lost and feel like I need to completely cover this learning target over

PREVIEW

• In your notebook, consider what kind of government the colonies were trying to set up.• What type of government would the colonies establish?• Who would be in charge of this government?• What problems might the colonies face in setting up a new government?

• Discuss with the class.

VOCABULARY

• Montesquieu: Believed in a separation of powers.• John Locke: Believed a king’s power was limited by the natural rights of

individuals.• Hobbes: Believed that the people needed a strong monarch to keep order.• Rousseau: Believed in direct democracy.• Separation of Powers: The distribution of political power among the branches of

govt., giving each branch a particular set of responsibilities. (page 93)• Federalism:A system of govt. in which the powers of govt. are divided between

the national govt, which governs the whole country, and the state govts, which govern the people of each state. (page 46)

• Enlightenment: Giving knowledge about different forms of government• Natural Law: A system of law that is determined by nature and universal.

ACTIVITY

• Read the article below as a class:• http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-20-2-c-hobbes-locke-montesq

uieu-and-rousseau-on-government.html

• Debate the following questions:• Of the four philosophers discussed in this article, which do you think differed

the most? Why?• Which of the democratic forms of government proposed by Locke,

Montesquieu, and Rousseau do you think is the best? Why?• Rousseau wrote in The Social Contract, “As so as any man says of the affairs of

the State ‘What does it matter to me?’ the State may be given up for lost.” What do you think he meant? How do you think his words relate to American democracy today?

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Name one thing about our government that fits Locke’s philosophy and one thing that fits Montesquieu’s.