1. Background Notes for Constitution

2. Background Notes
The delegates who wrote the document studied the _history_ of political thought in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the past.
English Magna Carta (1215) placed _limits__ on the power of the monarch. 
English Bill of Rights (1689) gave English citizens certain __natural__ rights. 
Enlightenment was a movement of the 1700s that _promoted__ knowledge, reason, and science as a means of ___improving_ society.

3. Background Cont.
John Locke was an English philosopher who wrote_ that all people have _Natural rights.
Natural rights include the rights of life, _liberty__ and property.
In his Two Treatises of Civil Government (1690) he wrote __government_ is based on an agreement, or contract, between the _people_ and their government.

4. Background Cont.
Framers viewed the Constitution as a _contract__ between the American people and the government that _protected__ the peoples’ rights by limiting government power. 
The French writer Charles de Montesquieu declared in The Spirit of Laws (1748) that the powers_ of government should be separated and _balanced against each other.
This would prevent one person or group from gaining too much _power_.