Aristotle And Plato's Influences On The Constitution

In the past thousands of years, many people, ideas, and cultures have help mold the Constitution into what it is today. Ideas have been taken from the ancient times, from the Romans and the Greek, and up to early American history with the Magna Carta and the House of Burgesses. In making the Constitution, the framers looked at ancient literature, and ideas from Plato and Aristotle, to more modern ideas and literature such as the works of John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu.

Influences on the Constitution mark back to ancient times. James Madison and other framers studied the works of Aristotle and Plato intently. Both Aristotle and Plato were Greek philosophers who theorized about how to make government better, called political philosophers.

Plato’s book Republic outlined what an ideal form of government should do, and look like. He pointed out the importance of laws and the dangers of having a political tyranny, and implemented the concept of the rule of law, stating that any person in a position of power is still subject to the law, which would fight against corruption. He pointed out the flaws of the four main political systems, and sought a new way of government. He came up with a subsidiary of a democracy, called, as his book was, a republic. This new form of government would have leaders elected by the people they governed, and lead to the new political concept of popular sovereignty. This meant that in a democracy or a republic, if citizens felt that an elected leader wasn’t doing a good job, they wouldn’t have to re-elect them. On the other hand, Aristotle denounced Plato's idea of an “ideal state,” in his book titled The Politics. Instead of trying to theorize an ideal state, Aristotle took a more practical approach in trying to make a constitution that could be easily implemented. He divided some of the types of governments in Greece into either “True,” or “Defective.” After researching he figured that the easiest to implement and least problematic was a system called a polity. A hybrid between an oligarchy and a democracy that would create a strong, educated middle class. It is also referred to as a “Middle Class Polity.” In ancient Rome, they implemented a republic, and the Romans experienced great growth and prosperity. The Founding Fathers saw that the republic system helped Rome reach great heights, and decided to implement this system into the Constitution. Using the history from the Romans and Greeks, and using parts of the Roman republic and Plato and Aristotle’s ideas of a democracy and popular sovereignty, they helped prevent a political tyranny and corruption with their ideas of a republic, and the rule of law. If not for history and scholars documenting and learning about ancient history, and ancient philosophers theorizing and documenting their ideas and thoughts, we might not have the country, and the Constitution we know today.
17th and 18th century political philosophers were also vital in forming our Constitution, and of these John Locke was one of the most pivotal. He believed that all humans had natural rights (life, liberty, and property), and had strong views about what the government should and shouldn’t do. He believed that their was a relationship, a “social contract,” between the govern and the government. He thought that there should be limits on government, and thought that people shouldn’t need to re-elect officials they didn’t like what they did in their past terms. His ideas compounded on Plato’s ideas of popular sovereignty. This is what he meant in a “social contract,” and that the government has to protect the people's natural rights of its citizens. Another important 18th century political philosopher was Baron de Montesquieu. He thought that there should be multiple branches of government with different objectives, and could have checks and balances on other branches so that no branch has too much power. This idea of multiple branches became known as separation of powers. The Founding Fathers implemented these idea of a multi branch system (legislative, executive, and judicial branches) so that no one branch would have too much power like the government that they left in England.
Many important English and early American documents and literature contributed ideas included in the Constitution.

The framers looked at documents from the English government, such as the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights, to sculpt their government. The Magna Carta limited the king’s power and stated that citizens had certain rights. This meant that the king had to recognise the citizen’s rights, and couldn’t imprisoned or arrest citizens unless convicted of a crime, and they had legal rights, and could have a trial by jury. The Magna Carta is significant because it was one of the most important democratic documents in history. It was important because it said that everybody was subject to the law, unlike a dictatorship, oligarchy, or monarchy. It set up a parliamentary democracy in England, and strongly influenced the American Bill of Rights. Likewise, the English Bill of Rights further restricted the powers of the king. The English Bill of Rights gave everybody certain rights; of these where were the right to trial by jury, no unusual, cruel, or unjust punishments, the right to own a gun, and citizens had to be charged with a crime before they could be sent to prison. The English Bill of Rights was influential to the American Constitution, because in the Constitution, the framers included a Bill of Rights outlining the rights of all citizens. The American Bill of Rights was heavily influenced by the English Bill of Rights. Of these were the right to bear arms, the right to a fair trial, and citizens couldn’t be put in jail without being charged with a

crime.
Other influences on the Constitution from England can be noticed. When the first English settlers came over to Jamestown, Virginia, from England, they set up a representative government, not a monarchy such as the one they left from in England. The settlers came over mainly because they were upset by the English form of government, and promptly propped up their own form of government which represented the people fairly. The framers implemented this idea in the Constitution with the legislative branch, which was representative of what their constituents believed in and wanted. Another early American history influence was the Mayflower Compact. It served as the constitution for the Plymouth Colony on how to run their own government, and what limits and powers the government had. The main documents that influenced the Constitution were the New Jersey and Virginia Plans. After the failed Articles of Confederation, at the Constitutional Convention proposed how to run the legislative branch. Delegates form New Jersey proposed that each state should have the same amount of representatives in the legislature. This plan wouldn't have worked because it gave equal power, and didn’t truly represent the population. Delegates from Virginia proposed that delegates should be merited based on population size, not an equal representation. This plan also wouldn’t have worked because it gave all the power to the larger states. Rodger Sherman combined the two plans, by making two houses. The lower house, which is the House of Representatives, was shaped as the Virginia Plan was organised. It had representatives based on how many people were in each state and delegates were merited accordingly. In the upper house, they were formed out of the New Jersey Plan, giving every state the same amount of delegates. These documents were formative in organising the government we know today, and shaped our ideas around how are government should look and act like.
All these people, cultures, and civilizations have helped mold America into what we know it as today. Without scholars documenting the history and leaders reading their works, we would have a very different America then we do today. The Founding Fathers used the documented history to make history in the Constitution. The Constitution is still one of the most remarkable pieces of American history and is a shining beacon of hope, democracy, and freedom.