Analysis Of The Preamble Essay, Research Paper

Inferring freedom and equality, most people and processes depend on each other to survive in the natural world. First of all, freedom and equality presuppose each other in some instances, but sometimes they are interdependent. For example, if one looks at the lower class, people within that class are equal among others in that class. Also, they have freedom inside the boundaries of their status quo. As the view broadens to the whole society, that certain class loses some of its freedom and equality to the aristocracy. In this example, the amount of freedom and equality one receive all depends on money and power. Wealth corrupts the balance of freedom and equality between the social classes in the nation. Thus, everyone in a legitimate society has some equality and freedom, however, the how much you get relies on where you stand in the social triangle. In most governments, citizens have basic rights. The sense of equality, however, will never be distributed equally between them. This problem is often true because of the definition of general will: an individual has to alienate some of his natural rights to join the body politic. Therefore, power is distributed to the government and the people of the nation are not equal. One person will always have power over another. If everyone was equal, chaos would break out into the world, because when nobody governs or rules the citizens, they can do whatever they please. Freedom is preferred in the society rather than equality. A person with freedom would have most rights in the Constitution, but a person with equality would live in a chaotic society, because there is no governing house. Altogether, the presence of freedom and equality together differs with the scope of the condition. America s concepts of freedom and equality have varied over the course of its history. When the American government was new, only white male property owners had total use of the Constitution s given rights. Early America also exercised the idea of slavery, where the master and slave relationship exist. On the contrary, as an intolerance against slavery grew, the masters were forced by the Union to change their illegitimate system to a more legitimate system. This newly built system resulted in all males, even if they did not own property, having privileges to all rights in the Bill of Rights and the American Constitution. This method, however, still leaves out a major group of people, women, from the concept of freedom. Also in America, the “separate but equal” issue rose to the surface of controversy over the topic of freedom. All these examples demonstrate where freedom is nonexistent to all people in the nation. They also display the same idea of freedom within the private will, but that freedom is surrendered to the general will to support a legitimate government.

In some cases in the American history, some citizens have abandoned more rights than others. But as the view travels closer to the present, the difference of the people s rights between each other gradually diminishes to a negligible amount. This perception of America s freedom shows an increase of knowledge towards a near-perfect republic. Today, government partially employs the use of total equality. But again, a government cannot have total equality because of the alienation of certain rights to join the body politic. Thus, the system of checks and balances balances the amount of power among the three governing houses. Also, the government does not employ a parallel existence of freedom and equality. That existence is impossible in any legitimate society, according to the description of the body politic and the general will. The individual mind has matured a long way toward this form of structured government, but the basic concept of the government is the natural laws of a human being. Although, man has evolved into a being of great reason, distant from the state of nature, he must look into nature to find a correct and sanctioned regulations and theories.