Question

The essay question: “Far from being democratic, in fact the original U.S. Constitution was aggressively anti-democratic. The people who wrote and defended the document hated the idea of democracy, and the document itself is designed to repress democracy as much as possible.” To what extent should we agree or disagree with this statement, and why or why not? 5 Paragraph long.

Answer 1

• The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are documents that provide the ideological foundations for the democratic government of the United States.
• The Declaration of Independence provides a foundation for the concept of popular sovereignty, the idea that the government exists to serve the people, who elect representatives to express their will.
• The US Constitution outlines the blueprint for the US governmental system, which strives to balance individual liberty with public order.