Chapter 1

[Keith Broaders]

Since the dawb of civilization bullies have ruled the earth. The biggest and stronhest individuals have used their strength to dominate the people and rob them of their God given rights.

These rulers  became tyrants that created governments to control the people and their wealth. They  promised to protect the people in exchange for a portion of their harvest.

The tyrants learned that they could extract more . of they were able to make the people believe that they were in eminent danger from real or imaginary threats.

The tyrants called themselves monarchs and claimed that they had been chosen by God to rule and reign over the  people.

For thousands of years the masses were subject to the will of rich and powerful monarchs who ruled over them with an iron fist.

It wasn't inti; a period known as the Age of Enlightenment did the people come to realize they were endowed by their Creator with a set of natural rights and that their systems of government were desifned to benefit the few at the expense of te many,

The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by what is known as the Scientifc Revolution when many long held beliefs bgan to b questioned.

The discovery that the earth was not in the center of the Universe was one of the first false beliefs promoted by the religious sects of the day

Up until this time that the printimg press was invented word of God was revealed by the church and people were taight to trust the clergy to reach them the word of God.

When the people began to have access to the scriptures a paradgym shift took place.and people began to question authprity.

Muths and superstitutions were questioned by the teachings of men like Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo and Copernicis.

The philospher John Locke promoted the idea that we were endowed by our Creator at birth with the right to life, liberty and property and that the Universe was governed by natural Laws.

Another pjilosopher ny the name of Montesquieu in his treatrsie "The Spirit of the Law" reavealed principles of sound government which had a tremendous inflience on the authors of our Comstitution.