Learn About John Adams
John Adams did much more than help write the Massachusetts state constitution. He went on to become the second president of the United States, and he is one of just two presidents to have a son grow up to be president as well. Learn more about the things he did in his life by visiting this White House Web link that provides biographies of U.S. presidents. Which of John Adams’ achievements were the most important for the United States? Which would you like to learn more about? Why?
United States Navy
When the United States was formed, it was a nation unlike any that existed at the time. As a representative democracy, it gave citizens the power to choose their leaders. It gave citizens the power to make their own laws and rules to live by. This was far different from governments in which a king or emperor held all the power and set all the rules for the people. One of the nation’s founders, John Adams, explained the difference when he helped write the Massachusetts state constitution in 1780. In the United States, he said, we have “a government of laws, not of men.”
A Government of Laws
Think About Your Day
As a class, discuss ways that laws affect the everyday lives of people. Think about everything that affects you from the time you leave your home in the morning until you get to school. Make a master list as a class. Remember that laws cover both big issues — such as the number of days students go to school — and small issues — what people must do at a crosswalk. How would life be different without the laws you experienced this morning?
Google Images
Get the Picture Online
What did John Adams look like? View some portraits of him (along with an actor who portrayed him in a TV miniseries) at this link. What kind of personality do you think he had, based on the portraits? Why would the artists paint him as they did?
National Constitution Centthe Constitution? Begin at the Beginning
What would you say first if you were writing a constitution for a new nation? As a class, discuss ideas you think would be important to state at the beginning. Which would be the most important for the people of the nation to know? Now visit the website of the National Constitution Center and read what the nation’s founders said first when they started writing the U.S. Constitution. (You can read it in Spanish as well as English and in other languages, too.) This first statement is called the preamble to the Constitution. What do the first three words of the preamble tell you about this new nation the founders were forming? What goals for the nation are most important to the founders? What words reveal their interest in having citizens and states of the nation work together? How many times do they express this idea in this short paragraph? How can you tell the founders were interested in the future as well as the time in which they were living? The U.S. Constitution was written at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The signers of the Constitution seem larger than life in history, but they were real men who came in all shapes and sizes. At the National Constitution Center, the Signers’ Hall exhibit above features life-size statues of 42 men who attended the Constitutional Convention (women could not vote at the time and did not take part). Some are tall and some are much smaller than expected when visitors stand beside them. Others seem of ordinary height and build. But what they did was extraordinary. Visit the Constitution Center online to learn about the founders who took part. Click on the name of a participant. What was his background and career? How did he contribute to the writing of the Constitution? What did he do after attending the Constitutional Convention? What other contributions did he make to the forming of the United States, or to the politics of his home state?
Explore Our Constitution
In the study of civics, you learn how governments work, how they came to be and how they affect the lives of their citizens. So if you were going to set up a government, how would you do it? The first thing you would need to do is draw up a plan. The plan drawn up by the founders of the United States is the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution was written more than 220 years ago, but it remains one of the world’s great documents. The way it divided power between different branches of government established the idea of “checks and balances” and became a model for other countries. And in its first 10 amendments, it spelled out some of the most important freedoms Americans have.