Question

PLEASE HELP!!!!In the space provided, explain the impact of Thomas Hoker’s ideas on American democracy. Use evidence to support your explanation. It has to be a paragraph or more.

Answer 1

The Thomas Hoker's ideas that had an impact on American Democacy were:

- The extention of suffrage to all free men.

"the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance" (quote Thomas Hoker sermon, Connecticut General Court, 1638)

- The goverment must answer to people, limiting its power.

"They who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them" (quote Thomas Hoker sermon, Connecticut General Court, 1638)

In American democracy these ideas were embraced in its Constitution, grantting every citizen the right to vote. It also states limits to the actions and power of the Goverment.

Answer 2

After puritan pastor Rev. Thomas Hoker and others founded the colony of Connecticut, Hoker gave a significant and crucial speech before the Connecticut General Court in 1638, encouraging popular sovereignty. Hoker supported democracy based on the Bible, in fact, he promoted certain Bible-inspired principles of self government, such as popular sovereignty, agreement of the governed, limited government, representatives chosen by the people and constitutions. His speech influenced the writing of Connecticut´s Constitution, known as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1693, the first constitution in the American colonies, which later helped structure aspects of the Constitution of the United States.

Hoker is frequently described as the "father of American democracy" for his support of self-governing principles in the early American colonies. He was critical of limiting the right to vote to male church members with property, Hoker pursued a more universal right to vote and told the Connecticut General Court that people had the God-given right to choose their representatives or magistrates; he declared that the benefit of voting should be exercised according to God's will, he favored the vote for all men, regardless of any religious property qualification, with this, he proclaimed a more democratic view of people's representation.