Which documents were utilized when forming the US government?
All of the above -- I'll say a word about each.
- Declaration of Independence
: This 1776 writing, penned mostly by Thomas Jefferson, listed grievances against the British king, George III. The natural rights of man were being infringed upon, and the US Constitution later would set out to protect those rights.
- Magna Carta
: The Magna Carta, or "Great Charter," affirmed that everyone is subject to the law -- even the king. It was an agreement between King John and the nobility in 1215, but provided instrumental founding principles for the wider establishment of rights for all citizens in the centuries following -- including the rights guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States.
- English Bill of Rights
: In England in 1688, the Glorious Revolution deposed King James II and replaced him with his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, the Stadholder (leader) of the Dutch Republic. James II had tried to take back power away from Parliament. William and Mary were willing to sign the Bill of Rights as they came into the rulership of England, which guaranteed parliamentary rights that needed to be respected by the monarchs. The US Constitution would also limit the rights of the Executive Branch by assigning equal authority to the Legislative Branch.
- Petition of Right: The Petition of Right is a constitutional document from 1628, which established restrictions on the king's power, in the wake of disputes between between Parliament and King Charles I over the execution of the Thirty Years' War. According to the Online Library of Liberty, was one of the sources "the colonists turned as the documentary evidence of the fundamental rights and liberties of all Englishmen, whether they resided in the home-land or in the English communities of America."
Which early philosopher influenced the forming of the US government and believed government should have absolute power; was a "social contract" and people gave up their rights to a ruler in exchange for protection; influenced later philosophers whose ideas were used in formation of US government?
Answer: Thomas Hobbes
- Thomas Hobbes had pointed to the social contract as the source of a government's authority, but his argument still supported a strong monarch style of government for the sake of a country's security and stability. Whoever was put in charge of government needed to have absolute power, in his view. Thomas Hobbes published his political theory in Leviathan in 1651, following the chaos and destruction of the English Civil War. He saw human beings as naturally suspicious of one another, in competition with each other, and evil toward one another as a result. Forming a government meant giving up personal liberty, but gaining security against what would otherwise be a situation of every person at war with every other person.
