AP® United States Government and Politics review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/gov/units/1/1-1)
Unit 1 · Topic 1.1
1.1 Ideals of Democracy
American government is built on a few big ideas: people are born with natural rights, government exists because people agree to create it, power comes from the people, and government's power has limits. The Declaration of Independence states these ideas, the Constitution puts them into practice, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address restated them during the Civil War.
Key terms
- natural rights
- social contract
- popular sovereignty
- limited government
- Declaration of Independence
- Gettysburg Address
The four core ideals
The founders borrowed heavily from Enlightenment thinkers, especially the English philosopher John Locke. You need to know four ideas cold, and be able to spot each one in a new scenario.
- Natural rights: rights every person has simply by being human, before any government exists. Locke listed life, liberty and property. Government doesn't grant these rights; its job is to protect them.
- Social contract: the idea that people agree to form a government and give up some freedom in exchange for protection of their other rights. If government breaks its side of the deal, people may change or replace it.
- Popular sovereignty: the people are the source of government's authority. Officials hold power only because the people consent, usually through elections.
- Limited government: government's power is restricted, by a written constitution, by dividing power among branches and levels, and by protected rights. No official is above the law.
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776. Thomas Jefferson drafted it, with help from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, and Congress made further edits. It has three parts: a statement of political theory, a long list of grievances against King George III, and a formal declaration that the colonies are free and independent states.
The theory section is pure Locke. It says all men are created equal and have unalienable rights, including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson's twist on Locke's “property”). Governments are created to secure those rights and get their “just powers from the consent of the governed.” When a government destroys those rights, the people may alter or abolish it. That single passage contains natural rights, social contract and popular sovereignty.
The grievances matter too. They accuse the king of taxing without consent, dissolving colonial legislatures, quartering troops among the colonists, keeping standing armies in peacetime without the legislatures' consent and denying jury trials. Many of these complaints became protections later: Congress's power to tax, elected legislatures, the Third Amendment and the right to a jury trial.
How the Constitution puts the ideals to work
James Madison did more than anyone to draft the Constitution at the 1787 Convention in Philadelphia, which George Washington presided over. Here is where each ideal shows up in it.
- Popular sovereignty: the Preamble begins “We the People,” and the House of Representatives was directly elected from the start.
- Limited government: Congress gets a list of specific powers, and the Bill of Rights lists things government can't do. Four principles work together to keep power limited: separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism (splitting power between the nation and the states) and republicanism (the people rule through elected representatives).
- Natural rights: the Bill of Rights and the due process clauses protect life, liberty and property.
- Social contract: the Constitution itself is the agreement, ratified by conventions chosen by the people of each state.
The Gettysburg Address (1863)
Abraham Lincoln gave this short speech on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a national cemetery for soldiers killed at the Battle of Gettysburg that July. It's only about 270 words, but it reframed what the Civil War was about.
Lincoln opens with “Four score and seven years ago,” which is 87 years before 1863, so he is pointing to 1776 and the Declaration, not to the Constitution. He calls the nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” He describes the war as a test of whether a nation built on those ideals can survive, calls for “a new birth of freedom,” and ends with the hope that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” That final line is a compact statement of popular sovereignty.
For the exam, the key point is that Lincoln tied the Union cause to the Declaration's ideals of equality and self-government.
Ideals versus reality
The founding documents proclaimed equality while slavery was legal and most people (women, enslaved people, many men without property) could not vote. Much of American political history, including the later amendments and the civil rights movement you'll study in Unit 3, is the story of groups using these founding ideals to demand that the country live up to them.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Spotting the ideal in a scenario
A state's constitution says that if voters gather enough signatures, a proposed law goes directly on the ballot, and if a majority approves it, it becomes law without the legislature. Identify the democratic ideal this best reflects and explain how.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Ask where the power to make the law comes from. Here it comes straight from the voters, not from elected officials.
- Step 2: Match that to a term: the idea that the people are the source of government's authority is popular sovereignty.
- Step 3: Explain the link in one sentence that connects the scenario to the definition, rather than just naming the term.
Answer: Popular sovereignty. The ballot initiative lets the people themselves create law, showing that government's authority comes from the consent of the governed.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Gettysburg Address refers to the Constitution. “Four score and seven years ago” points to 1776, the year of the Declaration.
- Mixing up natural rights and the social contract. Natural rights are what you have; the social contract is the agreement that creates government to protect them.
- Thinking the Declaration is law. It announced independence and stated a theory of government; the Constitution is the governing document.
On the exam
- Multiple-choice questions often quote a line from the Declaration or the Gettysburg Address and ask which principle it expresses. Practice matching phrases like “consent of the governed” to popular sovereignty.
- In the argument essay, the Declaration works as evidence for claims about popular sovereignty or the purpose of government, but be specific about what it says.
Connected topics
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Check yourself
4 questions on 1.1 Ideals of Democracy. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
The phrase “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” most directly expresses which democratic ideal?
The claim that the people may “alter or to abolish” a government that fails to secure their rights is most consistent with which idea?
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
… It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 (Bliss copy)
Which statement best describes how the speech relates to American democratic ideals?
Source 1: The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare …
Source 2: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Source 1: Articles of Confederation, Article III, ratified 1781. Source 2: Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, 1787
Which statement best describes a key difference between the two sources?
0 of 4 answered