IDEAS BEHIND THE CONSTITUTION- CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

Many of the framers, especially Madison, studied history and political philosophy. Two political theorists had great influence on the creation of the Constitution. John Locke, an important British political philosophe

r, had a large impact through his Second Treatise of Government (1690). Locke argued that sovereignty resides in individuals, not rulers. A political state, he theorized, emerged from a social contract among the people, who consent to government in order to preserve their lives, liberties, and property. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, which also drew heavily on Locke, governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Locke also pioneered the idea of the separation of powers. The French writer Baron de Montesquieu, who was the second major intellectual influence on the Constitution, further developed the concept of a separation of powers in his treatise The Spirit of the Laws (1748).

Colonial charters such as the Mayflower Compact of 1620 provided another inspiration for the Constitution. These charters seemed to give authority to the people to govern the territories to which they had migrated. Throughout the 18th century a vigorous debate raged over whether these charters permitted self-rule or subjected the colonists to the whims of royal governors. At their most radical, the colonial charters created autonomous legislatures with broad powers.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution sought a fundamental change from these earlier notions in two important ways. First, they put the Constitution above legislative power—indeed, above all governmental powers. The Constitution, particularly the Supremacy Clause of Article VI, establishes the “rule of law,” the idea that the government itself, including the president and Congress, must abide by the law.

The framers also rejected a basic assumption held by many democratic theorists, including Montesquieu, that true democracy was possible only in tiny territories with small, homogeneous populations. In famous passages in The Federalist Papers, Madison brilliantly argued that the old philosophers were wrong. Democracy could flourish, he reasoned, only in large territories with sizable populations and a diversity of interests that would block the ambitions of citizens to control the government. Individual interests and liberties could be most effectively protected in a system of representative government that was open to the voices of all. The people who agreed with this view of government and supported ratification became known as Federalists.