46 PART ONE THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK CHAPTER 3*LIMITED GOVERNMENT:PRESERVING LIBERTY 女The power to decide whether goverment台ingthins时poers7形ss和aywi脐 COLONIAL AND STATE CONSTITUTIONS the judictary. Historically.the U.S.goverment has msualy ahough notayacted with reslraint.This The English tradition of limited government was reflected in the American record is primarily a result of America's diverslty and wealth but also stems from the colonial governments.In each colony there was a right to trial by jury and some Constitution's provis for limited. freedom of expression. The first formal constitution among the colonies,the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut,was written in 1639.It gave "freemen"the right to vote and commanded publie officials to use their authority for"the public good"The The Roots of Limited Government Massachusetts Body of Liberties,drafted two years later,forbade arbitrary sentences by judges and guaranteed a citizen accused of a crime the right to Early Americans'admiration for limited government was based partly on their challenge witnesses.Rhode Island's constitution of 1663 was an even bolder English heritage.Other European nations of the eighteenth century implicitly step toward limited government:it granted religious freedom for Christians and acknowledged the divine right of their kings;England was an exception.British courts had developed a system of precedent known as"common law,"which eemm guaranteed trial by jury and due process of law as safeguards of life,liberty,and authority and citizens had fewer rights.Religious freedom,for example,was not John Locke (op)was an English particularly property.These rights were defended by the courts and ordinarily granted by all colonial governments philosopher who contended that respected by the king and Parliament. When the American colonies declared their independence from England,they every individual has a right to The English tradition of limited government was enhanced by the Glorious adopted state constitutions that defined the limits of government's scope and Revolution of 1688-1689.During the preceding century,England had been authority.The new states preferred written constitutions,since they had been Locke's views and used some of racked by religious upheaval and political intrigue.Under the Stuart kings governed by formal charters as colonies.In addition,Americans admired the his phrases almy t word for ames I and Charles I,Protestants were taxed heavily and persecuted for their contract theory of government,which was premised on a defined relationship word in writing the Declaration religious beliefs,while commercial monopolies and other privileges were between the people and those who exercised governing authority.By putting af Independence.(National the nature of this relationship in writing.Americans believed they were placing Portrait Gallery,London.The granted to Catholies.The Stuarts'reign was interrupted by the dictatorship of limits on the rightful powers of govemment.No state chose to adopt the British White House Historical Oliver Cromwell,a Puritan whose religious intolerance exceeded even that of the Stuarts.When the Stuarts'restoration to the throne in 1660 did not bring model of an unwritten constitution. domestic peace,the English nobility in 1688 invited William of Orange,a Protestant Dutchman,to become king.He was offered the monarchy on THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE condition that he accept a bill of rights guaranteeing certain liberties to propertied Englishmen.He was also forced to rule through Parliament,and was The Revolutionary War was partly a rebellion against England's failure to made dependent upon it for an annual subsidy.Parliament further insisted that respect its own tradition of limited government in the colonies.Many of the William accept an Act of Toleration,which gave Protestants of all sects the right colonial charters had conferred upon Americans "the rights of Englishmen," to worship freely and publicly. but English kings and ministers showed less and less respect for this guarantee To the English philosopher John Locke(1632-1704),the arbitrary rule of the as time went on.Americans were forced to garrison English soldiers in their Stuarts and of Cromwell conveyed a clear lesson:government must be homes,and Parliament in 1765 levied a stamp tax on colonial newspapers and restrained in its powers if it is to serve the common good.Locke's theory of business documents,disrupting commeroe and public communication.As the individual rights and limited govemment became an inspiration to a generation coloniss were not represented in the British Parliament that had imposed the of American leaders.Thomas Jefferson declared that Locke "was one of the tax,the colonial pamphleteer James Otis declared that the Stamp Act violated three greatest men that ever lived,without exception.'In his Two Trentises of the fundamental rights of the colonists as"British subjects and men."The Govermenf (1690)Locke advanced the liberal principle that people have colonists convened a special congress,which declared that the only laws inalienable rights (or natural rights),including those of life,liberty,and binding on the colonies were those enacted by a legislature "chosen therein by property.In Locke's view,such rights belonged to people in their natural state themselves." before governments were created and thus cannot legitimately be taken from or Although Parliament backed down and repealed the Stamp Act,it then surrendered by the individual.Locke claimed that people established govern- passed the Townshend Act,which imposed taxes on all paper,glass,lead,and ments (or,in his term,entered into"socal contracts")in order to protect their tea entering the colonies.In Letters from a Farmer in Pennsyluanin (1767),John inalienable rights from lawless rogues.That being the case,Locke concluded, Dickinson claimed that the Townshend duties were punitive and destructive of the purpose of government is to protect people's rights;if authorities fail to do the goodwill between Britain and its colonies.When other colonists joined the so,the people can rightfully rebel against their rulers. protest,King George III sent additional British troops to America and interfered Thomas Jefferson to John Trumball,February 15,1789,quoted in Dumas Malone,Jeferson snd the Rights of Man (Boston:Little,Brown,1951)211. The British Constitution is unwritten in the sense that no single document defines the precise 股2ama2aatefemtea6oaitanoana