 The English common law had its roots in feudal government. It was the people's law, providing an acceptable level of personal justice and support for the common person and their efforts at commerce. This level of support served to keep the common people satisfied with their aristocratic form of government. It was also acceptable to the aristocracy. Feudal leaders have benefit from a peaceful and productive common people. When the people were supported and at peace, they provided a good tax base and work base to see to the welfare of their rulers. It benefited everyone and so it supported a very stable and satisfying society. Feudal governments have been historically the most stable form of government, lasting thousands of years where others witnessed only a few hundred years. Its apparent downfall is not from its abuses, nor exercising authority to subdue or take advantage of the people who are governed. The downfall is the twin problems of being too stable and of serving the sovereignty of an aristocracy so long that variations in leaders eventually leads to disasters. The stability problem was there. There was no reason to change, no potential for taking advantage of advancement in science or other areas. The leadership problem is that eventually there had to be a bad king in charge and there is no good way to deny family leadership to a bad king. The common law was an important part of the English aristocratic rule. The rule of the aristocracy was careful not to abuse the people who were the source of both the wealth and privilege. This led to a high level of acceptance and honoring in support of the authority of common law judges. The common law was recorded and codified by the courts largely through a history of court decisions. Recorded decisions that best supported fairness and effectiveness for people as they went about their personal and commercial activities were honored and used as examples for what other judicial officers should do. The legal doctrine is currently known as stare decisis, a law of prior decisions. This approach effectively creates law through court decisions instead of legislation. It was a way to assure consistency in the application of law and to accumulate the wisdom of jurists for the benefit of future applications. The maintenance of court records was both a service and a means of passing the wisdom of many prior decisions to serve the immediate situation that called for judicial determinations and actions. This was equitable law. It was a system that seemed to work for the benefit of both the common citizen and the aristocracy. The use of juries by of citizens was part of that wisdom. It was not simply the king's justice as exemplified by Solomon threatening to divide a child between two claiming to be its mother. It was not the wisdom of some ruler but resulted from tapping into that sense of fairness that helped to define the common people. It was a wisdom that honored the common person's sense of justice and fairness. It was giving common people a voice in the actions of government. As a limit, feudal government through royal decisions and legislation was accepted as a higher authority. The laws passed by sovereign government leaders overcame the common law whenever the two were in conflict. In England, legislation set under sovereign authority was always treated as superior to the common law. In the founding of the United States, this was reversed. The government was created in the name and under the authority of the people. The US government resulted from their coming together in agreement to accept this government. We the people were the sovereign source of the power behind the establishment of this new government. The United States government was created under the rules of the common law appropriate for common law agreements or contracts. The common law purpose was written into the preamble to the Constitution in terms of the recognized purposes of justice and domestic tranquility. The writing set the people's common law purpose on their new US government. It set a purpose on the laws that Congress would pass and set limits on how the US courts would be authorized to implement those laws. Then in Article 1, we start with we the people in agreement that all legislative powers should reside in just two representative bodies. There is no longer to be any recognized lawmaking authority in the President or the Supreme Court. Neither can Congress, by passage of laws, create any legal substitute or alternative bodies to create legislation. Nor can it authorize federal courts to create or even recognize judge-made law. This did not remove stare and decisis from law. That was the doctrine that assured consistent application of law in support of justice and domestic tranquility. The creation of law by prior decision of the courts is directly forbidden by the terms of our Constitution. Even the Congress, the lawmaking body, has only limited legislative authority to interfere in delivery of justice or domestic tranquility. This gave the courts that assured justice and tranquility and authority that was greater than legislation. It allowed the courts to act outside of legislative boundaries when it was necessary to fulfill the legal purposes set upon the government created through our Constitution. Judicial leadership simply ignored the purpose. The courts, accepting their own authority under the concept that judicial decisions had created the common law, determined to address their prior decisions as if they were legislation. And accordingly rivaled and limited the laws that Congress passed. State leadership also ignored our Constitutional purpose. They established legislation that their courts accepted as effectively replacing the common law and directed their courts to honor the legislation instead of the common law. It was right back to English legal approach that had been rejected by the Revolution. It was right back to whatever the sovereign judiciary did as forbidden legislation was of greater legal impact than the common law under which the Constitution was proposed and ratified. It was right back to sovereign government that only supported the common law when it did not interfere with judicial edicts. This is reflected back onto the Constitution in terms of legislating through passing amendments. Using a separately authorized process to establish legislation that our representatives were forbidden to do. It was reflected back by amendments that avoided the limits specifically placed on government by we the people in our agreement. It was reflected back onto the judiciary by accepting judge made law as greater than legislated laws so that judicial decisions could determine the meaning of laws that Congress passed. An uneducated public supporting uneducated leadership continued to plague the United States following the initiation of constitutional government. The American experiment in self-government was largely set aside while the new nation handled its own growth-based needs. The United States had growing pains. Changes included power transportation with American determination and ingenuity that harnessed steam to power ships. Even inland shipping was supported by projects like the Erie Canal which stretched more than 500 miles, a technological wonder of the age. Leadership had become a profession, a way to get a living, much as privilege had been a way for aristocrats to get a living under the feudal system. This is not just in the federal government, but in the states as well. The same was true for professional leadership, building a system that rewards those who have longevity in office above those that serve. Presentation of this course to American teens goes sharply against the grain. It challenges that easy path which returns to political feudalism. This course in law and government is provided to empower young citizens so that they are prepared to pick up the reins of government that they own, setting it to serving a self-governing people. No, there is no power in this course of study. The power is not in learning, but in realizing that the power is already in citizenship. Contrary to what has become common political knowledge, the U.S. citizen is the source for all political power, all political authority, and all the potency of both the nation and the individual leaders. Empowerment in this class is not in assuming some new mantle of authority or leadership, nor in electing the public office the right people. Empowerment is not in learning to protest and entering into revolution against other Americans. Empowerment is discovery of what is already yours and learning to respect the power of other citizens in a relatively safe environment of a classroom. Empowerment is not through gathering into some group that can gain influence and overcome others. It is in finding where we are agreed as a people and directing our government representatives to act upon that agreement. It is empowerment, even as the original ratification of the Constitution had to start with the empowerment of common citizens in order to authorize the existence of this new government. For this purpose, the subject of this lesson goes back to the preamble. It goes back to the beginning to pick up that sense of freedom that belonged to the people who had just pushed the abusive rule of British government away, declaring themselves to be separate people. We can go back to the beginning of our nation. The people were divided on many things, but not on their acceptance of a need to find what it was that would bring the people of the United States into a union. We are still the people who are suspicious of those who assume leadership and still chafe at the very idea of some special people assuming benevolent rule over us. We still seek freedom, prosperity, and support for our families. It is such things that bring us together that bind us into a people. Will our rulers accept this? The American answer puts the challenge to government authority itself. There is only one party in interest, and it is us. There is no ruling aristocracy, just those who are acting as if they were. There is no special group of leaders who are not part of the people. When our leaders serve the people, they are serving their own families. When our leaders also seek freedom, they also have families and value prosperity so that they can bring up their next generation. A source for misdirection? How have things gotten so far off track? The answer is in the ignorance of the common citizen as to there being a sovereign source of government. It is in largely unintentional government effort to keep people in adherence of their true potency by setting citizens against citizens. Potency does not come from leaders, it comes from you. It does not come through revolution against other Americans. It comes from you enlisting one another and enlisting leaders as well to the things that we all value. It comes from what you learn in class, respecting one another because that is the way that we become an effective people. This is a continuation of the great American experiment in self-government. Your support for one another and recognition of the sovereignty and citizenship is not some end result. It is just the next step into the future that you will help to define.