Lesson 5: What Basic Ideas about Rights and Constitutional Government Did Colonial Americans Hold?

Lesson Objectives

When you have finished this lesson, you should  be able to

• describe the early development of America’s traditions of constitutional government,
• explain why the American colonists attached special importance to such constitutional principles as written guarantees of basic rights and representative government, and
• evaluate, take, and defend positions on the differences between life in colonial America and in England during the same period, the relationship between natural rights theory and slavery in America, and how natural rights philosophy and history help to explain the colonists’ views of the proper role of government.