Question:
Central themes of the lectures and the readings have been the evolving ideas of equality, democracy, and limited government. Your understanding of these ideas in 2022 may or may not be the same as how the Founders understood these ideas.
Evaluate how the Founders’ understood each of these ideas as evidenced by the lectures and specific aspects of the documents you have read, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.
Suggestions:
The assignment calls for:
1. An overall, sustained argument in response to the question;
2. It would be helpful to develop a thesis statement and to set it forth at or near the beginning or your essay. The thesis statement provides the reader with the basic point or position you will take and defend in your paper. The form of this statement can be simple and direct (“In this essay, I will argue that…”), or you might be more imaginative about how you present your basic argument. But at some point early on in an argumentative essay, the reader should have an idea of what your argument will be.
3. Some concepts you may wish to employ as you construct your argument
include:
a. The influence of Enlightenment thinking on the Founders as evidenced by the Declaration
b. The conflict between the Declaration’s idea of equality and slavery
c. How and why did the Founders balanced the idea of consent of the governed (and majority rule) in a democracy with protection of minority factions as explained in the Federalist Papers?
d. How and why did the Constitution establish a federalist system that limited the powers of the national government?
