Originally Posted by Sheikh Arham

British Impact on American Government

The United States government is "one of the most important experiments in the world" (Kelman 1999, 20). After the American Revolution, it became the colonists’ duty to create a form of government that could last. They chose to create something completely new to everyone; they formed a democracy. Although the idea of democracy was unique to everyone around the world, the government itself took into account many different ideas from the British. There were two main concepts that influenced the creators of the American government. They wanted to make sure they had a representative government and limited government, both ideas stemming from what they already knew about the British form of ruling. The colonists also received knowledge from the British of what they did not want their new nation to become. They were strongly against the idea of a monarchy and despised many of the British policies. They were able to use all of this knowledge in order to form the successful government in place in the United States today. The founders of the American government took both positive and negative ideas and concepts from the British and applied them to create the outstanding form of government in place in the United States today.

When the fathers of this nation were meeting at the Continental Congress and Constitutional Conventions to discuss the ruling of this nation, many different factors came into their minds. The only form of government they had been familiar with was the monarchy raging through Europe. They had felt the hardships of being ruled unjustly from across an ocean and they deemed it necessary to make serious changes. However, when forming a nation, they saw pieces of the British rule which could thrive in their government thus forming the building blocks of American politics today. In the 1200's a document was signed in Great Britain called the Magna Carta. "This document limited the monarchy's power by helping establish the rule of law" (Kelman 1999, 22). When forming a new type of government, the colonists remembered the Magna Carta and the concepts which it stood for. They appreciated the limited power of the monarch in Britain because of this law and saw how well it "promote[d] public good" (Kelman 1999, 22). They had been leaning toward a constitution and as Turner stated, "their commitment to such higher laws as Magna Carta fortified their inclinations toward written constitutions" (Turner 2003, 29). The colonists knew they did not want an all-powerful monarch ruling this new nation they had control of. However, they realized that some form of government ruling would take place and wanted to maintain the rule of law which they saw through the Magna Carta.

"The Bill of Rights was passed by Congress September 25, 1789" (Flaherty 1957, 2). This document is crucially important to our nation and outlines the different rights of all individuals through the "first ten amendments to the constitution" (Axelrod 1998, 95). Throughout the history of the United States the Bill of Rights has been there making the rights of all individuals in this country explicitly clear. It allows everyone in the country to have many freedoms that the founders and John Locke believed were the natural rights of all human beings. These freedoms are stated in the Bill of Rights and include but are not limited to the freedom of speech, freedom to bare arms and the right to an attorney when accused of a crime. The founders of the United States formed this document of rights because of the influences of the Petition of Right and the English Bill of Rights which they were extremely familiar with. Having past knowledge about a British document ensuring the rights of everyone led to the formation of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. In the English Bill of Rights, it was "clearly established that the monarchy could not rule without consent of Parliament" (Kelman 1999, 23). The English Bill of Rights also gave the citizens different protections which they were entitled to. When the colonists and founders were forming the new government, they saw these rights and thought it was necessary to discuss the rights of all American citizens thoroughly. The Petition of Right was a document that was signed in 1628 and was very similar to the Magna Carta which the colonists looked up to. Both documents were very important in the development of a government that stands for public good. The founders thought that this system of representative government through a bicameral legislature would work ideally in the new nation of the United States of America and thus put the practice into place through the formation of the different branches of government as well as the Bill of Rights.

In the formation of the government, it became vitally important that the nation not be ruled solely by one leader because this could lead to a corrupt, unjust government which they had seem being under the rule of the King of England. The colonists were able to take ideas from the British government of what they did not want their nation to be. They knew that too much power given to one leader causes problems with the nation as a whole and wanted to prevent this from occurring in America. They had experience the high taxes without representation as well as the laws thrust upon them which they believed to be entirely unfair. The British government was at a loss after the Seven Years War and they felt that they needed to make back some of the money that they had spent on the war. Because of this, they felt the only way to receive more income was to tax the colonists across the Atlantic Ocean. The king of England taxed the colonists for all of the things they used daily. There were separate taxes for sugar, alcohol, sending mail, trading goods and everything throughout the colonies was taxable. Not only were they being taxed high amounts for all of the things they purchased but that money went directly back to the British mainland empire and none of it was used to help out within the colonies. It became very important to the colonists to make sure that these same things they felt were unfair under the British government would not happen again in the new country. They needed to make sure that taxation was fair and that the money from the taxes did not just go to fuel the personal riches of the king. They wanted the tax money to help them with their schools, government and necessary town places. Because of how poorly the British treated the American colonists, they were able to go into forming a government, knowing exactly what they wanted from it. They no longer would have to suffer under the rule of an overbearing, highly powerful monarch. This made it very easy for them to take steps in creating a government which could not become corrupt over the years. They knew it was important to protect the rights of all the citizens and that is then what they set out to do.

The colonists saw from the British the problems with having too much power placed in the hands of one individual. They knew that this could lead to the downfall of a nation as well as extremely unhappy citizens because of what they had gone through being under such ruling themselves. They wanted to make sure that their country did not suffer from the same difficulties that they felt under the British ruling. Because they were so connected to this unjust form of government, they were able to create many systems that limited the power of the leaders. This led to a bicameral, "two chamber" (Kelman 1999, 22) legislature being formed in the United States. It took time to perfect the system but it was well worth it. There is now a two house system controlling the government. No longer is there one person ruling the whole entire nation without any boundaries. With the new system that was created, there would be two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. If one house were to make a decision, the other house must be okay with it as well. This led to almost no corruption because one person no longer had complete power. If someone is to propose a law, all of one house must approve and if this happens the law goes to the other house which must approve as well. Because there are so many people making all of the decisions on what passes, it is a much fairer and well-rounded system of government. In order for this strategy of government to be successful, the people making decisions needed to be elected. When the representatives are elected to office by the average citizens, the citizens are placing their trust into the hands of someone else. Because of this immense amount of trust and responsibility given, it is good that the citizens have a say in who the government decision makers are.

In Great Britain, as well as other countries throughout Europe, the king and queen were heirs to the throne and thus the leaders were all members of the same family. Never did the royalty change much and so the policies that were in place were those which the royal family deemed correct. This led to many issues between the king and queen and the colonists. The king would place taxes on the American citizens and then the money which he made from these taxes would go overseas to help England and not the colonies. Also they began taxing the colonists for everything that could be thought of. This led to a huge problem within America. When forming the new government, the founders remembered how unjust the system was. They then began striving to create a form of government where the leader was someone who got that role by being elected by the people. No longer would the citizens have no say in what went on. The president of the United States today must be elected by all of the citizens in the county based on majority vote. This leads to happiness throughout the nation because everyone feels as if they played an important role in electing a public leader. Allowing the citizens to vote for officials was not all the American government did. It also made the citizens have a voice in society and made sure that different "opinions in the society would be heard" (Kelman 1999, 23). The founders had knowledge of how poorly they were treated under the rule of the British and they knew that the opinions of the citizens had not been heard or respected. This made them angry and made them want to fight back against the government and greatly influenced the formation of the system of ruling today. Now people are able to speak up about everything they want to. Issues become known and it the reasoning is correct then generally things can be done to improve the problems.

A vast majority of the rules and regulations guiding this nation have roots reaching back all the way to the British. The founding fathers of the United States of America wanted to set up a democracy. They were aiming for a government "elected every few years by popular vote" (Farndorn 2003, 47). The founders of the nation succeeded in this feat and it was made possible by what they knew from the British. The government of Great Britain had benefits and flaws throughout it and it became the goal of the creators of the United States government to pick out the good and apply it as well as use the knowledge of what they disliked to form new rules and regulations. The Constitution of the United States was written outlining the whole government process. When writing the document, the founding fathers looked to the Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights as well as the Petition of Right as guiding factors. Since they admired these documents they were able to use the given information to help with the formation of the Constitution. Had the Americans not had negative interactions with the British, then they would not have gone into the new formation of a government with such distinct goals. It becomes apparent that without the British, American government as it is today would cease to exist. Through all of the hardships and struggles between colonial America and the countries overseas, there have been significant positive outcomes. The British ruling systems had huge influence over the government formed for the United States of America.

P.S. The content is copied. It is well explained.