On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 12:19 AM Alice Walker <[email protected]> wrote:

The_Enlightenmentandhistoryofconstitutionallaw.ppt

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Management homework help >On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 12:19 AM Alice Walker <[email protected]> wrote:

Brief Introduction

Much of what we study in this section is to understand the United States Constitution and more particularly the Bill of Rights- You are required to read the bill of rights
First 10 Amendments to the Constitution

It is important because much of what we learn here flows into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations which is one of the most important sources of international Human Rights Law
That law in turn influences many other branches of International law in some way.
These in turn have influenced Regional law and National Laws of many countries.

Read The universal Declaration of Human Rights

Two important Historical Documents

As background we needs to mention two documents
Both of these were born from rebellions between classes of people in England against their King.
They sought to limit the power of the King

Magna Carta Libertatum

Magna Carta Libertatum (Medieval Latin for "the Great Charter of the Liberties"), commonly called Magna Carta (also Magna Charta; "(the) Great Charter"),

[a] is a charter agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons,

it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.

Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners, and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities, Lord Denning describing it as "the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot"

Clause 39 Magna Carta 1215

"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

Clause 40 Magna Carta 1215

"To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice. No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled . nor will we proceed with force against him . except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. "

Clause 14 Magna Carta 1215

of the charter required the king to “obtain the common counsel of the kingdom for the assessment of aid”

No taxation without representation

1689 English Bill of Rights

The 1689 English Bill of Rights was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1689 that declared the rights and liberties of the people and settling the succession in William III and Mary II following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when James II was deposed.

English Bill of Rights

Summary of the English Bill of Rights
The 1689 English Bill of Rights had a massive influence on the colonies in North America and the Constitution of the United States. The most important Articles of the 1689 English Bill of Rights are as follows:

English Bill of Rights

the pretended power of suspending the laws and dispensing with[nb 2] laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal;
the commission for ecclesiastical causes is illegal;
levying taxes without grant of Parliament is illegal;

English Bill of Rights

it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;
keeping a standing army in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;
Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;

English Bill of Rights

election of members of Parliament ought to be free;
the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;
excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;

English Bill of Rights

jurors in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders;
promises of fines and forfeitures before conviction are illegal and void;
for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently.

The Enlightenment

“Age of Reason”

NIALL FERGUSON- modern historian at Harvard

six powerful concepts (killer apps) of the west

competition,
science,
the rule of law,
modern medicine,
consumerism,
and the work ethic.

Learning Objective
Day 1

Students will be able to define the Enlightenment and key vocabulary, and identify the historical roots of this time period.

Key Vocabulary

Enlightenment: a period during the 1600s and 1700s in which educated Europeans changed their outlook on life by seeing reason as the key to human progress.
Age of Reason: another name for the Enlightenment
Salons: in France, a simple meeting of philosophers to discuss ideas during the Enlightenment
Philosopher: a scholar or thinker
Reason: Using logical thinking, not superstition

Roots of the Enlightenment

The Enlightenment grew out of the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution.
What’s the same?: Like all of these other movements, much Enlightenment thinking challenged accepted beliefs.
What’s new?: Enlightenment philosophers wanted to use the ideas and reason of the Scientific Revolution for problems in government and society.

Enlightenment in Europe -> modern constitutional ideas

What is it?
The term "Enlightenment" refers to a loosely organized intellectual movement, secular, rationalist, liberal, and egalitarian in outlook and values, which flourished in the middle decades of the eighteenth century.

Enlightenment in Europe

Origins
In a long-term perspective, the Enlightenment can be regarded as the third and last phase of the cumulative process by which European thought and intellectual life was "modernized" in the course of the early modern period. Its relation to the two earlier stages in this process—Renaissance and Reformation

Enlightenment in Europe IDEAS:

Religion. No idea is more commonly associated with the Enlightenment than hostility toward established forms of religion—indeed, at least one major interpreter has characterized the movement in terms of "the rise of modern paganism" (Gay, 1966). It is certainly the case that the majority of adherents to the Enlightenment shared an intellectual aversion to theism in its inherited forms:

Enlightenment in Europe IDEAS:

Science. It is a commonplace that the demotion of religion by the Enlightenment went hand in hand with the promotion of science—indeed, the very notion of a generic "science," as a sphere of cognition distinct from religious "belief," was undoubtedly a gift of the eighteenth century. The Enlightenment discovery or construction of science, in this sense, owed everything to the idea of a heroic age of scientific achievement just behind it, in the development of modern astronomy and physics from Nicolaus Copernicus to Newton.

Enlightenment in Europe IDEAS:

Politics. The seventeenth century had seen a profound revolution in political thought, with the emergence of the modern "natural rights" tradition of Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and Pufendorf. One of the major achievements of the early Enlightenment was to popularize and disseminate this tradition, via an endless array of translations, summaries, and commentaries. By the mid-eighteenth century, the basic conceptual vocabulary of the natural rights tradition—"natural rights," "state of nature," "civil society," "social contract"—had entered the mainstream of Enlightenment political thought, which embraced, nearly unanimously, the belief that the only legitimate basis of political authority was consent. The path toward the vindication of "inalienable natural rights" in the founding documents of the American and French Revolutions lay open

Important ideas

Montesquieu established the idea of three branches of government—executive, legislature, and judiciary.

John Locke (1632–1704) was another prominent Western philosopher who conceptualized rights as natural and inalienable. Like Hobbes, Locke believed in a natural right to life, liberty, and property.

Light out of the Darkness

A Frenchman, Bernard de Fontenelle, expressed this optimistic faith in reason and progress. In 1702, he wrote that the new century “will become more enlightened day by day, so that all previous centuries will be lost in darkness by comparison.”

The Salons

In France, thinkers called philosophes (French for “philosophers”) championed the idea of reason in government.
Philosophers often gathered in informal meetings, called salons. There they exchanged and debated ideas for hours.
Many salons were organized by women. Gatherings like these helped to shape and spread the ideas of the Enlightenment.
Think/Pair/Share: Describe the purpose of a salon.

Why is this important?

Many of our own ideas about government, such as the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution got their ideas directly from the Enlightenment.
In fact, many of America’s founding fathers studied the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers during the American Revolution.

Left to right: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson

What a concept!

Enlightenment thinkers rejected authority and upheld the freedom of individuals to think for themselves.

Rene Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”

Enlightenment and Government

Enlightenment thinkers criticized accepted ideas about government. Some questioned the medieval belief in the divine right of kings [ WE WILL NOT LOOK AT THIS CONCEPT ANY FURTHER ALTHOUGH IT IS IN YOUR BOOK
Many Enlightenment thinkers stressed individual rights that governments must respect.
Enlightenment thinkers also felt that people should have a say in their government.

Enlightenment and Religion

I will not explore this issue other than to say that
Enlightenment thinkers embraced tolerance of other points of view.
Many rejected traditional religion completely

Learning Objective
Days 2-4

Students will be able to describe the ideas of major Enlightenment thinkers.

Fill out the chart as the presentation progresses.

Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes believed people are naturally selfish, cruel, and greedy.
In 1651, he published a book called Leviathan. In this book, he wrote that people are driven by a restless desire for power.
Without laws, people would always be in conflict.
In such a “state of nature”, life would be “nasty, brutish, and short.”
His idea: Governments were created to protect people from their own selfishness.

Hobbes continued….

Later Enlightenment thinkers might not have agreed with Hobbes…
But, he was important because he was one of the first thinkers to apply reason to the problem of politics
His ideas may sound harsh, but it was based on his own observations of human nature and reasoning.

Add these definitions to your vocabulary list

Social Contract: an agreement between people and their government, in which people give up some things in return for the benefit of having government.
Natural rights: rights that people have simply for being human.
Bill of rights: a list of basic rights a government must protect.
Constitutional Monarchy: a form of government in which the king’s power is limited by a basic set of laws, or Constitution.

John Locke: Social Contract and Natural Rights

He wrote Two Treatises of Government in 1690.
He believed the purpose of government was to protect people’s natural rights. He said government should protect,” his life, liberty, and property—against the injuries and attempts of other men.”
His idea: The true basis of government was a social contract between people and their government. If the government didn’t respect people’s rights, it could be overthrown.

John Locke: Social Contract and Natural Rights

In exchange protection, people gave government the power to rule on their behalf. We call this idea the “consent of the governed.”
Lasting Impact: the idea that government could be overthrown if it failed to respect people’s rights had wide influence and was ultimately echoed in the American Declaration of Independence.

Locke’s ideas in England

Locke was in favor of constitutional monarchies. This meant laws or a constitution limited the power of the monarchs (or kings).
In 1689, the English set down a new set of rules called the English Bill of Rights. This strengthened the power of the people and their representatives in Parliament (an English congress.)

Montesquieu: Separation of Powers

Like Locke, Montesquieu was concerned with how to protect liberty from a bad government.
He Wrote The Spirit of Laws in 1748. In this book, he described how governments should be organized.
His idea: The separation of powers: By dividing different powers among more than one branch of government, no one group in the government could grow too powerful.

Montesquieu continued….

Each branch of government checked the other branches. When powers were not separated this way, Montesquieu warned, liberty was soon lost. He said: “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person…, there can be no liberty.”
Lasting Impact: He greatly influenced the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution. We now have a separate legislative (Congress), judicial (courts), and executive (President) branch.

Voltaire: Religious tolerance and free speech

Voltaire was an Enlightenment writer.
His most famous novel was Candide, in which he poked fun at old traditional ideas.
Voltaire was especially concerned with freedom of thought and expression.
His idea: He had a strong belief in religious tolerance and free speech. Tolerance means the acceptance of different beliefs and customs.

Voltaire Continued…

Voltaire said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Lasting Impact: Voltaire met Benjamin Franklin, and when the U.S. Bill of Rights was written, the ideas of freedom of religion and freedom of speech were added to our 1st amendment to the Constitution.

Cesare Beccaria: The Rights of the Accused

In the Middle Ages, torture of criminals was common. The rack was often used, as well as devices like thumbscrews.
Beccaria, an Italian, wrote a book called On Crimes and Punishments in which he argued against brutal punishments.

Beccaria continued….

His ideas: A person accused of a crime should receive a fair and speedy trial. Torture should never be used. Capital Punishment (death sentences) should be done away with.
“For a punishment to be just it, should consist of only such gradations of intensity as to suffice to deter men from committing crimes.” This means that “punishment should fit the crime” and not be more than necessary to stop someone else from doing it again.

Beccaria’s impact

Beccaria’s ideas were adopted straight into our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. In fact our 8th amendment prevents “cruel and unusual punishment” for crimes, and our 6th amendment provides for a speedy trial. (The only exception is the Death Penalty, which we still have in the United States today.)

Damiens

Fetched from his prison cell on the morning of 28 March 1757, Damiens allegedly said "La journée sera rude" ("The day will be hard"). He was first subjected to a torture in which his legs were painfully compressed by devices called "boots".

Damiens

He was then tortured with red-hot pincers; the hand with which he had held the knife during the attempted assassination was burned using sulphur; molten wax, molten lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. He was then remanded to the royal executioner, Charles Henri Sanson, who harnessed horses to his arms and legs to be dismembered.

Damiens

But Damiens' limbs did not separate easily: the officiants ordered Sanson to cut Damiens' tendons, and once that was done the horses were able to perform the dismemberment.Once Damiens was dismembered, to the applause of the crowd, his reportedly still-living torso was burnt at the stake. (Some accounts say he died when his last remaining arm was removed

Adam Smith

Adam Smith (16 June 1723 NS (5 June 1723 OS) – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist, philosopher, and author

Arguably founder of CAPITALISM

Adam Smith

As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.

Adam Smith

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

Adam Smith

Those who regard that statement as Smith's central message also quote frequently Smith's dictum:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to describe how democratic thoughts and governments were influenced by the Enlightenment.

Impact of the Enlightenment on Government

Modern views of government owe a great deal to Enlightenment thinkers. The Enlightenment influenced monarchs in Europe, especially "enlightened despots," and greatly affected revolutions in America and France.

Enlightened Rule by Monarchs

Despot: a king or other ruler with absolute, unlimited power.
The Enlightenment did not change Europe overnight. Many countries still had kings. Some of them became “enlightened despots” by using enlightenment ideas in their countries.
Examples: Some kings ended the use of torture, started universities, and used religious tolerance. They wanted to keep the people happy without losing their power.

The American and French Revolutions

Both America and France had revolutions overthrowing their kings. However, the revolution in France was much more violent.

The Enlightenment in America

Enlightenment ideas had a major influence on the leaders of the American Revolution. English leaders in America shared with John Locke the traditions of the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights.
When the Americans rebelled in 1775, they pointed to the abuse of their rights by the English king.
The Declaration of Independence echoed Locke’s ideas on natural rights and the purpose of government.

“We the People”

Other Enlightenment ideas can be seen in the U.S. Constitution. America’s basic law includes Montesquieu’s idea of separation of powers.
The Bill of Rights protects the freedom of religion and speech championed by Voltaire. It also includes some of the rights supported by Beccaria, such as the right to a speedy trial.

Enlightenment in France

In 1789, revolution broke out in France. The National Assembly adopted the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. This document talked about liberty and equality. It upheld the rights to own property, and freedom of speech and religion.