Upon reading the Henretta Chapter 7 content, I found Adams Thoughts on Government to be quite intellectual in his idea of how the government should be run. It seems like his idea of having a dispersed system of authority through three functions of government, lawmaking (legislative), administering (executive), and judging (judicial) still continue to be practiced in our government today. Although this publication was well received, it did have some flaws. Many people did not enjoy that governors had the power to veto laws because it reminded them too much of the royal governors. Regardless, without this Adam's publication, would other men have stepped up and proposed the same ideas? Would our system of government be the same without his ideas? Also in this section, there is a discussion on why Congress would not allow free expansion across the Appalachian Mountains. It is stated that Congress feared that western settlers would set up separate republics and then would ally with Spain to gain a strong foothold on economic gain. In response to this fear, there were a number of acts passed dividing the region into territories, requiring surveying of the land, and creating separate territories. My question is, if these acts were not passed, would westerners actually have allied with Spain? Or did these people go through enough and have a general sense of nationalism for what they had just achieved by beating the British that they would have obeyed Congress regardless of the passage of these acts?
Looking at the U.S. Constitution, I found it interesting that in the Bill of Rights, that there was no mention of voting, yet there was included the right to bear arms. True, it was quite helpful that these colonists did bear arms during the period of the Revolution because many British generals did not expect this, allowing guerrilla warfare to reign supreme and provide Minutemen. Yet these men who bore arms for the defense of the nation still could not vote because of land requirements or financial prerequisites. First off, do you think that there should have been an amendment that gave more liberty to voting? Do you think that the right to bear arms was important? Is the right to bear arms important today?
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First off, I believe the acts passed to control the settling out west were very important. I think it is is quite possible and likely that western territories could have been made too large and their greed definitely could have led to a West alliance with Spain. In this time Nationalism was not terrible high. Most wanted to keep to themselves so in all likelihood, westerners would not have a moral obligation to siding with Spain.
About the bill of rights: I had never really taken the time to notice that voting was not mentioned but now that I have realized it, I am surprised. Obviously right to bear arms was a good one, but I believe voting should have been of more concern.
I think that congress had a legitiment reason for being worried that western settlers would set up seperate republics. At this time there was not a great sense of nationalism just yet, not even with the 13 states. I think that the right to bare arms was very important at that time, although maybe not as important as voting rights.
Yes I think that voting should have been included in the Bill of Rights. The colonists were pretty hypocritical. They said all men are created equally, but yet they had slaves. They thought it was unfair that they did not have representation in Parliament but yet they don't want to let everyone vote.
I feel like the right to bear arms was something of more importance in the past as it is currently. During the times of the Revolution, the colonies had not be as civilized as they are today. Laws were not laid as much, and there wasn't as much of a supreme government close to home. While they did have laws and a government, I think it is a lot easier to press those laws now as opposed to the past. I am uneasy about the voting rules. Everyone deserves a right to vote, but with the new government and such recent opposition, it was probably hard to give the right to people who didn't know much about it. So to me, the right to bear arms in the past, may have been more important than the exact right to vote. While today it can be seen the other way around.
It is somewhat ironic that in the Bill of Rights there is mention of a right to bear arms and to a militia but the liberty to vote is not traceable. However, I think that the founding fathers had to take small steps before making the much needed leaps and bounds of democracy. If one cannot protect, in this case ACTUALLY protect, his/her ownself before speaking or acting openly towards a democratic-oriented government then it is very hard to act if forceably restrained. Also, the fear of another British offensive of British oriented conflict was very great post-revolution. Therefore if one was to see a clan of redcoats in the distance one would have hoped that the infant American government would allow for protection of oneself. The new American government had to set itself up before it could make such progressive steps toward liberty and voting, and in order to be fully constructed it had to offer the right for it and its citizens to protect themselves. I feel that it was more of the "crawl before you walk mentality."
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