Origins and Development of Colonial

Governments
The Colonial Period
Social Studies Survey
Essential Question
What elements of the English
political heritage helped
develop representative
government in the American
colonies?
I CAN:
1. Explain why the colonists expected
representative government
2. Analyze early British documents that
helped to set up our Declaration of
Independence and Constitution
3. Describe the government of early
colonial America
 An English Political Heritage

 The English
established the
thirteen colonies
 English system had
two major principles:
1. Limited Government
2. Representative
Government
 Limited Government

System in which
the power of the
government is
limited, not
absolute
Magna Carta Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rROhCaTvyLc
2:34 min
 Magna Carta (1215)
Also known as
Great Charter
First appears in
Magna Carta
(1215) and only
to nobility at the
start
 Petition of Rights (1628)
Severely limited
King Charles 1
power
No longer collect
taxes, imprison
people without just
cause, house troops
in private homes or
declare martial law
without war
 English Bill of Rights (1688)

Set clear limits

on what a ruler
could and could
not do
Set up 5 key
ideas:
 English Bill of Rights
1. Monarchs do not have absolute authority
2. Monarch must have Parliaments consent
to suspend laws, levy taxes, or maintain
army
3. Monarch cannot interfere with
parliamentary elections and debates
4. People have right to fair and speedy trial
5. No cruel and unusual punishment
 Representative Government
Government in
which people
elect delegates
to make laws
and conduct
government
 John Locke
John Locke- Two
Treatises of
Government
Argued that if
government failed to
protect these natural
rights, the people
could change that
government (social
contract theory)
Jean Jacques
Rousseau

Wrote the Social

Contract – a contract
between government
and people. People
agree to give up some
freedoms in exchange to
be governed/protected.
Baron de Montesquieu

-Published “Spirit of Law”

-Came up with the theory
of separation of powers.
-Also came up with
checks and balances
 Government in the Colonies
 Each English colony
had its own governor,
a legislature, and a
court system
 Each had:
1. A written constitution
2. Legislatures of elected
representatives
3. Separation of powers
between governors
and legislature
Mayflower Compact Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lJ70k-P4rw
Start at 8:15
Mayflower Compact (1620
First example
of colonial
self-
government
 Mayflower Compact Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgZPiFgptdw
4:25 min (ok)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=sYr8LbFNB00&feature=fvwrel
Creation of the mayflower Compact (3:57)
Mayflower Compact
 Great Fundamentals (1636)

First basic
system of
laws in the
colonies
 Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
(1639)

First formal
constitution or
charter in the
colonies
All men have
the right to vote
in the colony
 Fundamental Preamble
 For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God by the wise disposition
of his divine providence so to order and dispose of things that we the
Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield are
now cohabiting and dwelling in and upon the River of Connectecotte
and the lands thereunto adjoining; and well knowing where a people
are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the
peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and
decent Government established according to God, to order and dispose
of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do
therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one Public State or
Commonwealth; and do for ourselves and our successors and such as
shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into Combination
and Confederation together, to maintain and preserve the liberty and
purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also,
the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said
Gospel is now practiced amongst us; as also in our civil affairs to be
guided and governed according to such Laws, Rules, Orders and
Decrees as shall be made, ordered, and decreed as followeth
 Colonial Legislature
First legislature in
America: Virginia House
of Burgesses
Many colonies had
legislature well before the
Declaration of
Independence and
Constitution were put into
place
Voting had property
qualifications, but land
was abundant and
affordable
 Separation of Powers

The division of
power among
the legislative,
judicial, and
executive
branches