Social Contract Theory in AP US Government

Plymouth, 1620: a social contract written down

In November 1620, before leaving the Mayflower, a group of male passengers signed an agreement to "combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick." They promised "all due Submission and Obedience" to the laws that body would make. That's the trade in miniature. Each signer gave up the option of doing whatever he wanted in a new place, and in return the group got rules and order.

Most social contracts are never signed. The theory says the agreement is implicit, meaning it's understood rather than written. By living in a society and accepting its protection, you're treated as part of the deal. The Mayflower Compact is useful because it makes that unstated bargain visible.

Why Hobbes and Locke reach different contracts

Both Hobbes and Locke start with people agreeing to form a government, yet they end up with very different deals. The split comes down to where government gets its authority and what keeps that authority in check. That question connects to Unit 1, Topic 1.1 (Ideals of Democracy), which asks how democratic ideals show up in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address.

Thomas Hobbes started from the "state of nature," life with no government at all. In Leviathan (1651) he described that life as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." People escape it by handing power to a strong ruler. A failed state like Somalia, where the central government collapsed, gets used to illustrate what a Hobbesian state of nature can look like.

John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) changes the terms. Government exists to protect natural rights (life, liberty, and property), and if it violates those rights, the people can replace it. Hobbes's contract mostly binds the people. Locke's binds the government too, and that's the version the Founders built on.

Spotting the contract in the Declaration and the Preamble

The Declaration of Independence uses Locke's logic directly: "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men." When a government "becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." The long list of complaints against King George III works as evidence that the king broke his side of the bargain, which justified ending it.

The Constitution is the course's example of a social contract in action. The Preamble lists what the people get for accepting the government: "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare." Phrases about keeping order and providing security point to the social contract. Montesquieu's ideas about dividing power, from The Spirit of the Laws (1748), show up in how that contracted government is structured, but they belong to limited government and separation of powers.

Social contract vs. popular sovereignty vs. natural rights

Text-based multiple-choice questions can give you a quote and ask which ideal it reflects. The other democratic ideals can show up as plausible distractors, so you need a way to tell them apart:

• Social contract: why government exists. People trade some freedom for order and protection.
• Popular sovereignty: where power comes from. The consent of the people ("We the People," "consent of the governed").
• Natural rights: what can't be taken away. Rights people hold before any government exists.

A quick test: if the passage is about giving something up or keeping order, pick social contract. If it's about who authorizes the government, pick popular sovereignty. One easy slip is crediting Hobbes with the right of revolution. That idea is Locke's.

Using the bargain as reasoning in the Argument Essay

On Question 4 (Argument Essay), you need a defensible thesis backed by evidence from foundational documents. The Declaration of Independence is one of those documents, and social contract reasoning is a clean way to explain why a piece of evidence supports your claim. If you argue that the Constitution balances liberty and order, the Preamble's promise of "domestic Tranquility" plus the idea of an implicit bargain links the quote to your thesis.

A strong response does more than name the term. It explains the trade (what freedom is given up, what the people get back) and connects it to the specific text. For Question 1 (Concept Application), the same move works on a new scenario, such as a community accepting new rules after a period of disorder.