Page Eight
THE UNITED AMERICAN
NOVEMBER 1925
Becoming an American
By A. C. STRANGE, Oregon State Director of Americanization Schools.
VIII.
JN THIS LETTER I shall give you certain funda
mental ideas of government which very gradually
and very naturally grew out of the long struggle be
tween the king of England and his people and which
became the foundation stones in the government of
America as built by the Constitutional Convention in
1787. In considering these ideas, we must bear in
mind that during that long contest the question of
methods of government was more often talked about by
thinking people of England and her colonies than any
other subject. Hence the writers of the time natu
rally put these commonly-expressed thoughts on politi
cal matters into writing. There were many of these
writers, among the greatest of whom were Francis
Bacon, John Milton, John Locke and Thomas Paine.
These men belong to different ages, yet we find very
great similarity in their arguments against the auto
cratic and aristocratic governments of England and
other European countries. The colonists of America,
being in the main English people and being deeply in
terested in English political affairs, read these writings
and were tremendously influenced in their political
thinking by them. Consequently, when they later had
the opportunity to build a nation for themselves, they
based it upon these fundamental ideas.
And what were these theories of government ? One
was the theory of natural rights. It was claimed by the
proponents of this theory that man in the savage state
had no government, that he lived, as do wild animals, in
a state of nature, and that he possessed naturally cer
tain rights, such as the right to live, the right to his
liberty, the right to the ownership of property, such as
skins, shelter and weapons, which he might have ob
tained thru his own labor, and the right to seek for
happiness and comfort as he pleased. These writers
argued, furthermore, that his exercise of these rights,
particularly of the last, always caused conflict. For
example, men in seeking their pleasure naturally came
into competition with other men seeking the same end
and a fight ensued. Hence these seekers after hap
piness found suffering instead. Gradually there grew
up the feeling that some sort of agreement as to ter
ritory and privileges was necessary and in this feeling
we have the germs of the first government. In re
sponse to this desire, these savage men came together
and perfected what we call a social contract, a simple
form of government. Altho historians do not acknowl
edge this supposed procedure as necessarily correct, the
idea of the formation of government first by a simple
social contract did influence the colonists’ political
thinking and did become one of the foundation stones
of our goernment.
A third fundamental idea was that of popular sover
eignty; that is, that all government rests upon the
consent of the governed. This is the natural outgrowth
of the social contract theory of government. As
government was first formed by a contract of all mem
bers of the tribe, so its continuance and change should
depend absolutely upon the consent of all those who
enjoy its benefits. The people, then, are sovereign and
they, not the officers of the government, are the rulers.
Government, as has been said before, is but the dress,
the clothing of the country, and may be altered or
doffed as the people wish. Closely allied to this idea is
that of majority rule, a fundamental idea of great im
portance in America. By this we mean that a majority
of the people; they being sovereign in their power, may
change the government whenever they deem such
change best. No idea of government is more jealously
guarded in America and rightfully so. There is not one
of us who is not. now and then, keenly disappointed in
the result of an election; yet, if we are good citizens, we
yield gracefully and cheerfully and go on about our
business. We have heard the voice of the people and
we, as good citizens, obey. We know that that voice
can be changed only thru changing the beliefs of a
majority of the people; there is nothing more that we
can do than to obey and, if we feel strongly enough
about it, to undertake the task of bringing a majority
of our fellow citizens over to our way of thinking. A ,
refusal to obey the mandates of a majority of our
fellow citizens is disloyal and un-American.
The fourth fundamental idea is that of the right
to revolt. By this we mean that it is the privilege and
duty of the citizens of America, whenever a majority j
feel that the government has become bad, to remove j
the officers or possibly to change the government. This |
does not necessarily mean armed revolt, altho it is I
possible that the occasion might arise for the use of I
arms. Our Constitution provides means for peaceably
altering or abolishing the government by vote of the a
people or by vote of a majority of the state legislative I
bodies. This process is what we call amending the Con
stitution, a right upon which no limitation is placed. I
That is, if any citizen should propose an amendment to
the national Constitution, abolishing wholly our
government and putting in its place a kingdom, and this |
amendment should be legally adopted in the manner i
provided for in the Constitution, it would become law j
and our government would become a kingdom instead
of a republic. This provision secures to us the power j
to destroy misrule and does away with the necessity of
armed revolt. It is true, if some president were to use |
his very great power as commander of the army and I
navy to establish himself as dictator, and should thus I
overturn our government as at present organized,
American citizens have the right to use arms to destroy ■
his power. This, however, has never happened and prob-1
ably never will happen. Hence I wish to emphasize that |
the right of revolt means merely the right of a majority •"
of the American people to destroy misrule by removing
bad rulers from office and changing laws thru the use I
of the franchise and not thru use of military force 1
except in very extreme cases.
A fifth fundamental American idea is that which j
we call individualism. By the individualist, government i
is regarded as a sort of necessary evil of which the I
less there is, the better. To understand why this is I
one of America’s foundation principles, we must recall I
the conditions „which generally prevailed in Europe |
during the last half of the eighteenth century. All j
governments were monarchies in which the ruling ?
power was vested in a small group of nobles and rich [
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