Something that we've brought up throughout different discussion weeks was how the majority of complaints coming from the colonies were about parliament, but ultimately this document gets directed towards the King. One of the reasons I think they may have organized the Declaration to be a list of grievances towards the King and not Parliament was because the future of the United States at that time may have had a Parliament type governing body. Establishing a King/monarch wasn't something that any of the state governments or nation wide debates had included. By directing their anger and upset over governing towards a King set a precedent for how the future government would be organized.

An important note on how the Founders will set their new governments apart from England and Parliament. Having multiple houses and branches is how government if effectively and continuously checked and also sets the states apart from other countries

This statement connects well with the "end of government" quote I think. What a society and government fears changes over time, which would then alter foundation and purpose of the government. Today our society has different fears then when the government was organized. A big fear today is partisanship with the fear of one political party gaining too much power, compared to the founding when they worried about one individual gaining too much power.

This is an incredibly bold statement to make, and one that he has so far been mentioning through this pamphlet - the restrictions on their rights and liberties is like keeping all Americans as slaves. For me this is a difficult point to make when there are actual slaves in the country. But I think that this quote also shows the severity Hamilton referred to political opponents with.

I think this is an interesting point to highlight as apart of the ongoing discussion in class on what type of representation the colonists wanted in England. We've mentioned a couple times how it sometimes seems like the colonists wanted special treatment, or more rights than the English living in Great Britain, but here Hamilton points out that event the people living in Britain had severe problems with Parliament.

As Alec stated above that Knox is creating an argument to delegitimize the colonists through mockery, and here he's attempting to misrepresent their claims. Dickenson's letter, that Knox is referencing, argues against an unrepresented law passed by Parliament that restricts liberties. I think it's claims like these that Knox makes, that focus on the unruly and disobedient helped create the divide between the colonies and England. Pieces like these seem like they would just add fuel to the fire for colonists that wanted to gain independence because it shows how they were shut out of Parliament and still blamed for not communicating with Parliament, and other struggles that the colonies faced to be legitimately heard.

I think this one of the more controversial points Wilson makes so far. As the colonists become more established, I think this brings back the debate about consent. Does living in the colonies and establishing a new society with new generations of colonists require on-going consent? Wilson here states that the needs and happiness of the colonies can be a priority if they have a voice or representative in the government.

I think this is an interesting point to highlight because Adam's warns that the reasons people had historically fought repressive regimes and why people left England and settled in the colonies are the same reasons that would lead into the Revolutionary War. The founders then incorporated this grievance of not having a representative voice to stand against repressive policies.

This passages sticks out to me because it reminds me of the online lecture this week where the professor covered the struggle the founders faced when creating the executive role. There was a lot of discussion and tension on the powers and responsibilities this "ruler" should have in order to uphold the ideals of the new country without creating another monarchy. What I found to be especially interesting, while not completely relevant to this passage but I think is a fun fact, was all the debate that went into choosing the name 'president' and that this title maybe didn't carry the weight of power they were looking for. But overall, I think this passage shows the start of the struggle of creating an executive body that was reflective and representative of the people without having too much power that could repress them.

Like Noah pointed out in the paragraph above, this seems like a direct quote from Hobbes. Hume argues that there needs to be a strong judiciary type branch in order to prevent people from acting on their human nature interests. It seems like Hume is only arguing for the justice branch to to act as a check against the people, and hasn't mentioned the use of these these 12 judges in regards to ensuring that the King and parliament and other officials are doing their best to administer justice

I think this goes with nrsmith's comment above about the masses allowing a leader to rule them. For us living in a representative democracy, it seems ridiculous to ever change our governing system to a monarchy where all the power goes to one person who holds the throne. And for the English the same kind of disruption probably seemed equally improbable because this is how their system ran, had been running. This statement reaffirms their commitment to tradition and consistency.

Thinking of all the connections that Alastair has been making with the US declaration of independence and constitution, this seems to be one of the first mentions of freedom of religion and expression. For a country with a long religious history, I'm sure that it's a controversial claim to argue for diversity of religion and the separation of the government and the religion the people chose to observe.

I understand that Locke is arguing the majority determines the course of governing, and that those in the minority, because they are a member of the society, agree to submit themselves to the majority. I think that individual rights and opinions are important in a society, even though they might threaten the preservation of this society. I'm not sure if support this trade off between submitting the minority to the rule of the majority and the continued safe existence of the society.

I find this to be a pretty controversial idea in this piece - that the authority over the sovereign is more reliable in regards to keeping peace that Laws of Nature. And in the remainder of this section Hobbes seems to use fear as a mechanism of making his point that there must be an authority to ensure natural law