World History Primary Material

1
World History Primary Material

• Greeks
• Romans
• English Revolution
• American Revolution
• French Revolution

2
Greeks Democracy in the Politics of Aristotle  

• The citizen in common parlance is the person who
  has a share in ruling and being ruled in the
  best system of government a citizen is both able
  and willing to rule and be ruled in accordance
  with a life lived with excellence as its aim.
• Source http//www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article
  _aristotle_democracy

3
Greeks Democracy in the Politics of Aristotle  

• The following arrangements are usually considered
  consistent with democracy
• Election to all offices from among all the
  citizens.
• The same person not repeating the same
  magistracy, or only rarely, except for military
  offices.
• Having the terms of magistracies be short,
  wherever possible.
• Choosing jurors from all citizens to adjudicate
  all matters, or most matters, especially the most
  important ones.
• Making no distinctions according to a citizens
  birth, poverty, or occupation no public offices
  held for life.
• Source http//www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article
  _aristotle_democracy

4
Greeks Democracy in the Politics of Aristotle  

• Democracy is when those who do not own much
  property, but are poor, have authority in the
  system of government.
• Source http//www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article
  _aristotle_democracy

5
Greeks Democracy in the Politics of Aristotle  

• Everyone would agree that law makers should make
  the education of the young a special priority.
  City-states that fail to do this injure their
  systems of government. The education must suit
  the system of government, for this preserves it.
  Since a city-state has a single goal, education
  must, of necessity, be the same and be given to
  everyone. Its oversight should be a public
  matter.
• Source http//www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article
  _aristotle_democracy

6
Romans Excerpt from Caesar , By Plutarch ,
Written 75 A.C.E., Translated by John Dryden

• When he Julius Ceasar came to the river
  Rubicon, which parts Gaul within the Alps from
  the rest of Italy, his thoughts began to work,
  now he was just entering upon the danger, and he
  wavered much in his mind when he considered the
  greatness of the enterprise into which he was
  throwing himself. He checked his course and
  ordered a halt, while he revolved with himself,
  and often changed his opinion one way and the
  other, without speaking a word. This was when his
  purposes fluctuated most presently he also
  discussed the matter with his friends who were
  about him, computing how many calamities his
  passing that river would bring upon mankind, and
  what a relation of it would be transmitted to
  posterity. At last, in a sort of passion, casting
  aside calculation, and abandoning himself to what
  might come, and using the proverb frequently in
  their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold
  attempts, "The die is cast," with these words he
  took the river.
• Source http//classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/caesar.ht
  ml

7
Romans Tacitus The Annuals - An excerpt on
Octavian Ceasar Augustus

• Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the
  populace with cheap corn, and all men with the
  sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees,
  while he concentrated in himself the functions of
  the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws. He was
  wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had
  fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while
  the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be
  slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and
  promotion, so that, aggrandised by revolution,
  they preferred the safety of the present to the
  dangerous past.
• Source http//www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/tac
  itus-ann1a.html

8
The English Revolution Gerrard Winstanley
1649 The Levellers Standard

• And hereupon, The Earth (which was made to be a
  Common Treasury of relief for all, both Beasts
  and Men) was hedged in to In-closures by the
  teachers and rulers, and the others were made
  Servants and Slaves And that Earth that is
  within this Creation made a Common Store-house
  for all, is bought and sold, and kept in the
  hands of a few, whereby the great Creator is
  mightily dishonoured, as if he were a respector
  of persons, delighting in the comfortable
  Livelihoods of some, and rejoycing in the
  miserable povertie and straits of others. From
  the beginning it was not so.
• Source http//www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/d
  iggers/diggers2.htm

9
The English Revolution The English Bill of
Rights, 1689 - excerpt

• 1. That the pretended power of suspending laws,
  or the execution of laws, by regal authority,
  without consent of parliament is illegal.
• 3. That the commission for erecting the late
  court of commissioners for ecclesiastical causes,
  and all other commissions and courts of like
  nature, are illegal and pernicious.
• 4. That levying money for or to the use of the
  crown by pretense of prerogative, without grant
  of parliament, for longer time or in other manner
  than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal.
  
• 6. That the raising or keeping a standing army
  within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be
  with consent of parliament, is against law.
• 7. That the subjects which are Protestants may
  have arms for their defense suitable to their
  conditions, and as allowed by law.
• 10. That excessive bail ought not to be required,
  nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and
  unusual punishments inflicted.
• 11. That jurors ought to be duly impaneled and
  returned, and jurors which pass upon men in
  trials for high treason ought to be freeholders.
• Source http//www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1689bil
  lofrights.html

10
The American Revolution The Declaration of
Indendence, 1776

• When in the course of human events, it becomes
  necessary for one people to dissolve the
  political bands which have connected them with
  another, and to assume among the powers of the
  earth, the separate and equal station to which
  the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle
  them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
  requires that they should declare the causes
  which impel them to the separation.
• 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.
• Source http//www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/declare.
  htm

11
The French Revolution The Tennis Court Oath, 1789

• The Assembly quickly decrees the following
• The National Assembly, considering that it has
  been called to establish the constitution of the
  realm, to bring about the regeneration of public
  order, and to maintain the true principles of
  monarchy nothing may prevent it from continuing
  its deliberations in any place it is forced to
  establish itself and, finally,  the National
  Assembly exists wherever its members are
  gathered.
• Decrees that all members of this assembly
  immediately take a solemn oath never to separate,
  and to reassemble wherever circumstances require,
  until the constitution of the realm is
  established and fixed upon solid foundations and
  that said oath having been sworn, all members and
  each one individually confirm this unwavering
  resolution with his signature.
• Source http//www.historyguide.org/intellect/tenn
  is_oath.html

12
The French Revolution The Declaration of the
Rights of Man, August 26, 1789

• Abridged Version
• Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and
  proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices
  of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man
  and of the citizen
• Articles
• 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in
  rights. Social distinctions may be founded only
  upon the general good.
• 2. The aim of all political association is the
  preservation of the natural and imprescriptible
  rights of man. These rights are liberty,
  property, security, and resistance to oppression.
  
• 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do
  everything which injures no one else.
• 5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are
  hurtful to society.
• 9. As all persons are held innocent until they
  shall have been declared guilty
• 11. Every citizen may, speak, write, and print
  with freedom, but shall be responsible for such
  abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by
  law.
• 17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred
  right, no one shall be deprived thereof except
  where public necessity, legally determined, shall
  clearly demand it, and then only on condition
  that the owner shall have been previously and
  equitably indemnified.
• Source http//www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof
  .htm