3. The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution.
What are these words?
Answer:
We the People
Explanation:
The idea behind the words “We the people” is one of the most important ones in a
democracy. A democracy is a government where the citizens (the people who are
part of a country) vote for and elect (or choose) the people who will govern (or lead
and make decisions for) them. The United States has a representative
democracy, which means that citizens vote for people who then represent them in
the government, making laws and decisions that reflect (or are the same as) what
the citizens want.
These first three words of the Constitution, “We the people,” also tell us about the
main difference between the United States and the European countries that most of
the United States’ first citizens came from. Back in the 1700s, countries like
England and France, where many of the first Americans came from, were ruled by a
monarch (or a king). These monarchs usually inherited their power (or received it
because one of their relatives had been a ruler or a king and then died) and often
made decisions that their citizens did not like. One of the reasons that the American
colonists (or the people who moved to the new country) fought the Revolutionary
War to get their independence from Great Britain was because the colonists felt that
the English king, George III, was treating them badly. Americans said that they were
fighting the Revolutionary War for the right to self-government, or to have the ability
to create their own government and elect their own officials or leaders.
The authors (or writers) of the Constitution were not writing it for just themselves.
The writers of the Constitution wrote it on behalf of (or in the name of) all
Americans. This is because they believed that for a government to be fair, it would
have to be made by the people (that is, elected by citizens) and for the people,
meaning doing things for the good of all citizens, not just a few.