Introduction to Government (updated 2/2017) Definition of government: Government is the institution through which a state maintains social order, provides public services, and enforces decisions that are binding on all people. Rule of Law – The law applies to everyone equally and no one is above the law (write all of this)

Definition of state: A state is a political community that occupies a definite territory and has an organized government with the power to make and enforce laws without approval from any higher authority (sovereignty). Definition (write all of this)

Definition of nation: A nation is any sizable group of people who are united by common bonds of race, language, custom, tradition, and sometimes religion. Cherokee Tibetans (write all of this)

Introduction to Government Where did government come from? There are 4 main theories.

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Introduction to Government Evolutionary Theory – During early times of primitive human evolution, the head of the family was the authority that served as the government. (Write the white part)

Queen Cleopatra of Egypt Force Theory – Government emerged when all of the people living in a certain area were forced to live under the rule or authority of one person or group. Write the green part Terra-cotta army of emperor Qin, a ruthless but efficient ruler who united China and established a complete bureaucratic system during his reign (221-206 BC). China is named after him. Queen Cleopatra of Egypt

Divine Right Theory – The concept that certain people were chosen by gods to rule or were, themselves, descendants of gods, and therefore had the right to rule. To go against the ruler was not only treason, it was sin! Write the white part

Social Contract Theory – The 2 most famous authors of this theory are Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, both Englishmen from the 1600s. Hobbes claimed that without a government to protect people from each other, life was “cruel, brutish, and short.” By contract, people agreed to surrender certain freedoms to the government who, in turn, agreed to protect the citizens. Write the orange part

The American Revolution Locke took Hobbes’ social contract a step further. Unlike Hobbes’, who felt the citizens owed absolute authority to the government and could never rebel or revolt, Locke believed that if the government did not fulfill its part of the contract and take care of its people, the people then had a right, a duty, even, to revolt and overthrow the government. Sound familiar? What happened between 1775-1781? The American Revolution Write the orange part

Colonel Prescott: "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes." Bunker Hill – June 17th, 1775 Colonel Prescott:  "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."

December 25th-26th 1776

Cornwallis surrenders to Washington at Yorktown, October 19th, 1781, while the British band plays “The World Turned Upside Down.”

Locke’s writings were also the inspiration for certain parts of the Declaration of Independence. Locke claimed that all men had a right to “life, liberty, and property,” and that all men were born equal. Jefferson almost certainly borrowed from Locke when he wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, …” What does “consent of the governed” mean?

Quiz time, baby! You will need a pencil and these notes.