Creating an American Identity Chapter 2.6

Foundations of English government Beginning with King John in 1215, English monarchs were expected to uphold the Magna Carta The Magna Carta was a document that limited the king’s ability to tax English nobles and granted them due process Nobles gained power and evolved into Parliament Parliament was a bicameral or two-house legislature

Colonies experiment with self-rule Colonists felt they were entitled to the same rights as any other English subject but their governments varied from region to region New England Puritans established republics with governors Governors were elected Other areas the Crown or proprietors appointed a governor Had to share power with the colonists

King James II Tried to rule without Parliament Revoked the colonies government charters Combined those colonies with New York and New Jersey to create the Dominion of New England Elected assemblies replaced with a Crown appointed governor-general Sir Edmund Andros and a council

Glorious Revolution A coup in which King James II gets overthrown and replaced with James’s daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange They had to agree to the English Bill of Rights which guaranteed a number of freedoms and restated rights from the Magna Carta such as habeas corpus – no one can be held in prison without being charged with a specific crime This set off rebellions in the colonies Militias arrested Sir Edmund Andros

Salutary Neglect Colonial policy adopted by England They would allow colonies to self-rule as long as the colonies cooperated with England’s economic policies and assisted in wars against France and Spain.

Freedom of the Press In 1734, a series of articles in the New York Weekly Journal, published by John Peter Zenger, criticized the English appointed governor The articles accused the government of rigging elections and allowing the French enemy to explore New York harbor. It accused the governor of an assortment of crimes and basically labeled him an idiot. The governor had Zenger thrown in jail for libel because he refused to name the writers of the articles

Enlightenment Movement started by philosophers who believed that all problems could be solved by using human reason Sir Issac Newton Used reason and observation to formulate new ideas about math and physics

John Locke Looked for natural laws that could be applied to government, society, and economics Challenged the unlimited power of monarchs and the Church Believed people were born as a blank slate and that knowledge could be acquired through experience and reason Said that men were entitled to life, liberty, and property

Benjamin Franklin Inspired by the Enlightenment scientist, inventor, writer, printer, diplomat, ambassador, creator of the postal service, etc. Invented bifocals, lightning rod, and more

Great Awakening A movement of religious revival that inspired the American people with a sense of their own spiritual worth and value as individuals Jonathan Edwards Leading preacher Used vivid imagery of an angry God to get sinners to repent Wrote Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God George Whitefield Inspired by Edwards Came to colonies as a traveling preacher This movement helped to prepare the way for a political transformation

Excerpt from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God “O Sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hands that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread. “

Works Cited