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Apush Dbq Essay

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(Q4) As a scholar in 1789, looking at the United States Constitution I would see many ideas from the Enlightenment. There would be ideas from both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke reflected within the document. There are parts in the Constitution that explain how to build a powerful government to maintain control and keep the people in line. Thomas Hobbes believed that a strong government was a necessity. There are also parts that reflect classical liberalism however, which pushed for individualism and the government only having power that people allow it to have. These ideas align with John Locke. The Constitution contains a lot about how to build and maintain a strong central government. It shows how power will be broken down between the …show more content…

He believed a government is based on the consent of the governed. The Constitution states that the government is “by the people, for the people”. This directly aligns with what John Locke believed. John Locke believed in individual liberties. The Bill of Rights directly lists out what liberties and rights citizens would have. The separation of powers applies to John Locke's ideas as well as Hobbes’. The checks and balances between the branches would ensure that Each branch operates only within the constraint of the law. No branch would be able to become too powerful. Popular sovereignty is also a theme of the Constitution which is the idea that the people get to decide how the government is run and who runs it. This is shown in the Constitution in ways as simple as saying “we the people”. This phrase alludes to the idea that the people decide what they want, not the rulers. This essential aligns up perfectly with the philosophies of John Locke. Locke believed that a society was only a society if the people living in it decided to live together and work together. Or in other words, power comes from the …show more content…

I sit in front of a machine doing the same thing all day long. I am simply part of the assembly line. Currently I stitch together a couple of the pieces for the shoes. A short time ago, they had me cut one of the pieces of leather for the shoes. It is very repetitive and boring. The factory is dark, and cold. I feel like the people that work around me change almost every week. We get paid barely enough to survive. It has made me and all of the people around me very depressed. As a result most of us spend a large portion of our pay on alcohol and drugs. This was not the life that I wanted, but industrialization forced it on me. I am the only skilled worker in the entire shoe factory, yet I am no more valuable than anyone else. I thought my day would consist of making one pair of shoes at a time, on my own time. But instead I sit in a dark, cold, loud room all day and get threatened with being fired if I ever make a mistake. Industrialization has made shoes more attainable for the consumer, however it has definitely changed my life for the

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