How Free Are We? Gallery Walk

Founding Fathers Quote Analysis

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of other - Thomas Jefferson

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government - George Washington

Democracy...while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember,democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself - John Adams

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! - Benjamin Franklin

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: first you must enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself - Alexander Hamilton

Political Cartoons - Electoral College

Mike Lester - Electoral College Political Cartoon

Steve Stark – “Turkey Wants the Electoral College”

John Locke Excerpt from “Two Treatises on Government

That’s how it comes about that the commonwealth [nation] has the power of making laws: that is, the power to set down what punishments are appropriate for what crimes that members of the society commit; and the power of war and peace: that is, the power to punish any harm done to any of its members by anyone who isn’t a member; all this being done for the preservation of the property of all the members of the society…Every man who has entered into civil society has thereby relinquished his power to punish offences against the law of nature on the basis of his own private judgment, giving it to the legislature in all cases; and along with that he has also •given to the commonwealth a right to call on him to employ his force for the carrying out of its judgments (which are really his own judgments, for they are made by himself or by his representative). So we have the distinction between the legislative and executive powers of civil society. The former are used to judge, by standing laws, how far offences committed within the commonwealth are to be punished; the latter are used to determine, by •occasional judgments based on particular circumstances, how far harms from outside the commonwealth are to be vindicated. Each ·branch of a commonwealth’s power· can employ all the force of all its members, when there is a need for it. Thus, there is a political (or civil) society when and only when a number of men are united into one society in such a way that each of them forgoes his executive power of the law of nature, giving it over to the public. And this comes about wherever a number of men in the state of nature enter into society to make one people, one body politic, under one supreme government.

Images of the Founding Fathers

George Washington

Alexander Hamilton

Benjamin Franklin

John Adams