The Albany Plan of Union was adopted in 1754 during the Albany Congress. The Congress was established to help the colonists plan for a combined defensive effort in the event of war between the British and French Empires (The French-Indian War or Seven Years’ War). However, the Albany Plan, proposed by Benjamin Franklin, went far beyond the original scope and attempted to establish a unified colonial government. It was not successful, but could be said to represent the germination of an idea.

The three elements of Constitutionalism are limited government, rule of law, and the fundamental worth of each individual. The framers believed that a government limited in power would be more responsible for its actions. The rule of law declares the Constitution "the supreme law of the land" or "higher law," meaning that no one or no other law is above the Constitution. Everyone is held accountable to the same standards outlined in the Constitution. The fundamental rights of each individual are most obviously observed in the Bill of Rights. This concept guarantees rights and liberties to each individual.

Thomas Hobbes was the author of the book, The Leviathan. He is most famous for advocating a strong autocratic ruler to prevent society from falling into a state of destructive chaos. Hobbes was most concerned with preserving law and order as a way to preserve life. He may be seen as an influential figure to the Constitutional Framers, if not the most important one.

John Locke, as an advocate for limited government, believed that a government’s most essential and vital purpose was the protection of the natural rights of its citizens. According to Locke, natural rights are automatically endowed upon every person at birth, as an innate human quality, much like the human needs for shelter, food, water, and air. Natural rights are intrinsic and irrevocable and therefore cannot be taken away by any governmental power. The most important of these natural rights include life, liberty, and the protection of private property, all of which are woven in together to constitute the entire spectrum of natural rights. According to Locke, any politically moral and socially responsible government must take as its first and most basic responsibility the protection of these natural rights, from which all other benefits (such as the safeguarding of a strong economy and the national security) will then follow.

The Founding Fathers believed in the republican form of government. A republic is a system of government where individuals elect representatives to speak for them in the government. They were skeptical of democracy, which is technically defined as direct involvement of the people in policy making.

Anti-federalists strongly supported power to the states and the bill of rights. Anti-federalists were strongly opposed to the idea of a centralized, powerful authority figure. Rather, they wanted power to be left in the states. As a result, they supported a small national government that would be more responsive to the people. For these reasons, anti-federalists did not support the adoption of the Constitution. The anti-federalists also wanted a Bill of Rights to ensure their liberties without government interference. Upon adopting the Constitution, a Bill of Rights was added as a compromise.

John Locke wrote that man was endowed with the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. Thomas Jefferson changed it to Pursuit of Happiness when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

The American system is often described as a democracy, but a more technical definition is a representative republic, where the people elect representatives to reflect their interests in a congress. A true democracy is when citizens have direct voting power, as in some Ancient Greek city-state governments.

John Locke was an English Enlightenment-Era philosopher who famously wrote two treatises on government. His beliefs that there were certain inalienable rights granted to all individuals—to life, liberty, and property—were very influential over many of the American Founding Fathers. In particular, Thomas Jefferson based many of his writings and political opinions on John Locke’s philosophies, as can be seen, for example, in his own writing that all men have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The Leviathan was written by Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century. It can be seen as the philosophical foil for John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government. In The Leviathan, Hobbes argue that human beings are naturally belligerent and inclined toward aggressive competition and self-interest. He believed that, due to the defects of human nature, the best form of government was an absolute ruler, who could constrain the chaos that would ultimately ensue in a free and democratic society.