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Course: Constitution 101 > Unit 2
Lesson 4: Principles of the American Revolution: Natural Rights, Popular Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law- Robert George on Natural Rights
- Caroline Winterer on the Founders, Natural Rights, and the Divine Right Kings
- Primary Source: Theophilus Parsons, *The Essex Result*
- Jill Lepore on the Origins of Popular Sovereignty
- Caroline Winterer on the Founders and Popular Sovereignty
- Primary Source: The Preamble to the Constitution and Common Interpretation
- Robert George on the Origins of the Rule of Law
- Caroline Winterer on the Founders and the Rule of Law
- Primary Source: Abraham Lincoln, *Lyceum Address*
- Tom Friedman on Challenges to the Rule of Law Today
- Understand: Natural Rights, Popular Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law
- Apply: Natural Rights, Popular Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law
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Caroline Winterer on the Founders, Natural Rights, and the Divine Right Kings
Please note this is a rough cut video as Khan Academy and the National Constitution Center work with educators on piloting the new Constitution 101 course. The full course will be available September 2024.
Learn more here: https://blog.khanacademy.org/educators-find-out-the-latest-on-our-new-constitution-101-course-coming-september-2024/. Created by National Constitution Center.
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Regarding hierarchical societies, ca1:45, is it possible that we are still in a hierarchical society (US, specifically) that gives lip service to the concept of all persons having the same degree of natural rights? In other words, and to be blunt, those with more financial security are more than willing to bestow all the "natural rights" on someone/some group as long as they don't have to associate with that individual or group if they don't feel it is necessary to do so.(2 votes)
The term hierarchical society is used in a different context and a different meaning in the video. In the modern era, the term "hierarchical" can apply to any scenario in which social mobility is limited to a seemingly slightly lower precedent than its contemporaries, but in the middle ages, Elizabethan, and 1600s, the social structures were highly stratified. There was practically no social mobility. Even the merchant class was distinguished from the aristocracy. Most writers in the 1600s, specifically those in England, preferred those who 'won their status in battle' rather than those who 'won their status in vulgar' trade and other commerce. In short, the term hierarchical is a contentious one- any government at all will naturally need to establish some sort of hierarchy in order for it to rule, regardless of the motives it may have (even in a total equal society, there are still two bodies: the people and the government)- but it is important to note that the strictness associated with the social hierarchies (one last note: there was no word for 'class' commonly used in England before 1700. As such, it is common to hear contemporaries say "group" instead, and these groups are usually not defined capitalistically but rather in 'contribution' of the nation's wealth) is not replicated in the USA, and certainly not codified under the Constitution; the closest thing I can imagine is the system of Federalism, which functioned in slightly different ways before the civil war which separated, more firmly, the powers and rights of the people when encountering the states rather than the people.(3 votes)
1:45