Fundamental Principles and Values of American Political and Civic Life
Standard 4.4: Fundamental Principles and Values of American Political and Civic Life
Define and provide examples of fundamental principles and values of American political and civic life. (Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for History and Social Studies) [8.T4.4]
FOCUS QUESTION: What are the Fundamental Principles and Values of American Political and Civic Life?

Political and civic life in the United States rests on a set of fundamental principles and values including equality, rule of law, limited government, and representative government.
What do those principles and values actually mean? The modules for this standard explore that question by examining each in more detail, reviewing the importance of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and outlining the boundaries of student rights at school.
Modules for this Standard Include:
1. INVESTIGATE: Fundamental Principles and Values of American Life
Equality, rule of law, limited government, and representative government are examples of fundamental principles and values in American political and civic life.

Equality
The word "equality" did not appear in the Constitution of 1787 or the Bill of Rights of 1789. While the Constitution guaranteed rule of law to all citizens and provided security of liberty under the law, the existence of slavery and inequalities in the status of women contradicted the idea of equal rights.
It was not until after the Civil War that equality was deliberately addressed in the Constitution through a series of amendments:
- The 13th Amendment (1865) banned slavery.
- The 14th Amendment (1868) guaranteed equal rights of citizenship to all Americans, with the special intention of protecting the rights of former slaves.
- The 15th Amendment (1870) provided voting rights of all citizens.
Learn more about the efforts toward equality for marginalized groups:
- The African American Struggle For Equality provides background on the history of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
- The website Equal Rights Amendment discusses efforts to expand the concept of equality to women.
- Black Lives Matter is an organization dedicated to overcoming violence and oppression of African Americans.
- Human Rights Watch works to ensure the equal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
The Rule of Law
The concept of the rule of law is taken from Alexander Hamilton's Federalist 33 where he wrote: "If individuals enter into a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their conduct."
According to the United States Courts, "the Rule of law is a principle under which all persons, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are:
- Publicly promulgated
- Equally enforced
- Independently adjudicated
- And consistent with international human rights principles" (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, n.d., para. 5).
Limited government
In the United States political system, the national government is given limited but not supreme or total powers. After the struggle of the American Revolution to be free from rule by a king, people in the colonies were very wary of a tyrannical ruler or an overbearing government. In the Constitution, limited government relates to free markets and classical liberalism, drawing on Adam Smith's philosophy of the "invisible hand" and self-regulating economies.
The 9th and 10th amendments of the Bill of Rights further express the concept of limited government. Those amendments state that the rights of people do not have to be expressly written in the Constitution and that delegated powers of the Federal government are only to be performed if expressly mentioned in the Constitution. The Constitution also limits government intervention in other key areas of political life, including thought, expression, and association.
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is the principle that people elect individuals to represent them in the government. This is a fundamental element of the governmental system of the United States. Voters elect representatives to a ruling body (the Congress) who acts on behalf of the people's best interests. Learn more from this video: Representative Democracy.
Suggested Learning Activity
- Create a Public Service Announcement (PSA) Video
- Does American political and civic life exemplify the fundamental principles and values of equality, rule of law, limited government, and representative government?
- Conduct research and then create a video that educates others.
- Create a Social Media Post About Representative Democracy
- Using Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, or some other digital tool, create a social media post that answers the following questions:
- What personal qualities, education, and background should an elected representative have?
- How would that representative best stay in touch with you and other constituents?
- What problems do you want that representative to focus on solving?
- What type of person do you want representing you in government at the local, state, and national level?
- Using Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, or some other digital tool, create a social media post that answers the following questions:
Online Resources for Fundamental Principles of American Political Life
- Fundamentals of Representative Democracy, Lesson Plans for High School Civics, Government, and U.S. History Classes
- Learning Plans That Help Students Learn About Democracy
2. UNCOVER: The Importance of the 14th Amendment
John Bingham, a now mostly forgotten Congressman from Ohio, wrote these famous words of the 14th Amendment:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The 14th Amendment was one of three post-Civil War Amendments to the Constitution:
- The 13th Amendment abolished slavery.
- The 14th Amendment gave equality under the law and for citizenship to anyone born in the United States; however, explicit rights for women were not guaranteed.
- The 15th Amendment gave all citizens the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous position of servitude; however, voting rights for women were not guaranteed.
Historian Eric Foner (2019) characterized the three post-Civil War amendments as “sleeping giants . . . that continued to inspire those who looked to the Constitution to support their efforts to create a more just social order” (p. xxviii).
Since its passage, the 14th Amendment has continued to transform law and society in the United States. As New York Times opinion writer Magliocca (2013) noted:
This sentence would be the legal basis for the Supreme Court’s subsequent decisions desegregating the public schools, securing equality for women, and creating the right to sexual privacy. Bingham also said that his text would also extend all of the protections of the Bill of Rights to the actions of state governments, which is largely, though not completely, the law today (para. 15).
Passed on July 9, 1868 and based on the Civil Rights Bill of 1866, the 14th Amendment had five sections:
- State and federal citizenship for everyone, no matter of race, who were born or naturalized in the United States.
- States are not permitted to limit "privileges and immunities" of citizens.
- No citizen is denied life, liberty, or property without "due process of law."
- No citizen can be denied "equal protection of the laws."
- Congress has the power to enforce these laws (Faragher, et. al., 2011, p. 505).
Suggested Learning Activities
- Research and Report
- How did the 14th Amendment serve as the basis for the following landmark Supreme Court decisions?
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954): School desegregation
- Mapp v. Ohio (1961): Illegal search and seizures
- Gideon v. Wainwright (1963): Right to access to an attorney
- Griswold v. Connecticut (1965): Right to privacy
- Loving v. Virginia (1967): Interracial marriage
- Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978): Affirmative action
- How did the 14th Amendment serve as the basis for the following landmark Supreme Court decisions?
The National Constitution Center has overviews of more Supreme Court cases involving the 14th Amendment.
Online Resources for the 14th Amendment
- The Meaning of the 14th Amendment, PBS Learning Media
- How Supreme Court Decisions Affect History, Thirteen.org
- Congress Debates the Fourteenth Amendment, Facing History and Ourselves
3. ENGAGE: What Are Students' Rights at School?
Students "do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate" declared the Supreme Court in the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines case (the details of the case are in Topic 5/Standard 6 of this book).
At the same time, the law permits schools to set their own rules and policies about what students can and cannot do in school buildings (First Amendment Rights for Student Protestors). As a result, in many instances, students do not have the same rights in school buildings that they have outside them (Student Rights at School: Six Things You Need to Know).
Students do not have a right to wear racially or religiously threatening images (such as swastikas or confederate battle flags) in school nor can they post racist or degrading comments about classmates on their outside-of-school social media accounts (National Education Association, 2018). Student actions can be restricted by school officials when those officials believe there is a significant threat to orderly educational practices or other peoples' legal rights.

Minnesota High School Students Walked Out of School to Demand Changes to Gun Laws, March 7, 2018 by A1Cafel is licensed by CC BY 2.0
The rights of students are subject to shifting legal interpretations and intensified political debates over the ongoing issues of speech, privacy, social media, dress codes, discipline procedures, disability rights, gender expression, bathroom access, health, pregnancy, and more. Legal scholar Catherine J. Ross (2015) contends that courts have retreated from the broad protections that granted student speech in the 1940s through the 1960s.
Students attending private schools (that is, schools not funded by local, state, or federal government) do not automatically have the same rights as their peers in public schools. Constitutional protections do not necessarily apply. Instead, student rights are determined by the legal contract that families sign to send children to those schools (Student Rights in Private Schools). Private schools therefore have broad discretion about the rules and behaviors they want to enforce and students must follow them or they can be punished or expelled for violating the contract signed by their families to attend.
Suggested Learning Activities
- Analyze Data & Conduct Research
- Conduct a class poll: What do students in your class or school believe are their rights in school?
- Conduct research on what legal rights students have in school (see Student Rights at School: Six Things You Need To Know).
- Compare and contrast the findings from the poll with the findings from your research.
- Design a Students Bill of Rights Digital Poster
- The Rights of the Child, Teaching Tolerance
- 11 rights that all students (should) have from the Student Bill of Rights
- Student Bill of Rights, National Youth Rights Association
- Record a Video or Podcast
- Create a video or podcast that summarizes students rights in schools.
- Explore the following resources:
- Freedom of Speech - The First Amendment in Schools: A Resource Guide, National Coalition Against Censorship
- Dress Codes - School Dress Codes & School Dress Code Pamphlet, ACLU of Rhode Island
- School Discipline - School Discipline Pamphlet, ACLU of Rhode Island
- Social Media - Student Social Media Rights, ACLU Northern California
- Student Protests - Student Walkouts and Protest at School, ACLU Maine
Online Resources for Student Rights at School
- Boston Student Rights, Board & Boston Student Advisory Council
- My School My Rights: Know Your Rights, ACLU of California
- Know Your Rights: Students' Rights Scenarios, ACLU
- Legal Guidance on Students Rights: Discrimination and Harassment Based on Race, Religion, National Origin, and Immigration Status, National Education Association (March 2018)
Standard 4.4 Conclusion
American political and civic life rests on a series of fundamental principles and broadly shared values. INVESTIGATE explored the meanings of four of those principles and values: equality, rule of law, limited government, and representative government. UNCOVER discussed how the 14th Amendment to the Constitution has over time extended America’s fundamental principles and values to African Americans and other marginalized individuals and groups. ENGAGE asked what are the protections and limits of students’ rights at school.