Types of Government
In this system, a single person holds unlimited power, often maintaining control through inheritance or force. Dictatorship is one type.
Autocracy
To punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, Britain passed these four laws, known in the colonies by this "judgmental" name.
Intolerable Acts/ Coercive Acts
This fortress and prison in Paris was stormed on July 14, 1789, symbolizing the flashpoint of the Revolution.
The Bastille
This document, which begins with the words "We the People," was written in 1787 and serves as the "Supreme Law of the Land."
US Constitution
Thomas Hobbes famously described life in the "State of Nature" as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and" this.
Short
Unlike a representative republic, this system requires every citizen to vote directly on every law and policy.
Direct democracy
This 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine used plain language to argue that it was justified for the colonies to seek independence.
Common Sense
Members of the Third Estate took this famous "Oath" after being locked out of the Estates-General, vowing not to disperse until a constitution was written.
Tennis Court Oath
To prevent any one person from having too much power, the Framers divided the government into three distinct parts: Legislative, Executive, and this one.
Judicial
Marx used this term to describe the working class who, in his view, would eventually rise up to seize the means of production.
Proletariat
While it literally means "without a ruler," this political philosophy argues that voluntary cooperation should replace all forms of state authority.
Anarchy
This 1765 act, which taxed paper goods, was the first time Parliament imposed a direct tax on the colonies.
Stamp Act
This 1789 document declared that "men are born and remain free and equal in rights," drawing heavy influence from Enlightenment philosophy.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens
This system allows the President to veto a law passed by Congress, or the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional, ensuring that no branch dominates the others.
Checks and balances
Hobbes’s seminal 1651 work, titled after this biblical sea monster, argues for a powerful, undivided sovereign to maintain social order.
Leviathan
This form of government is ruled by religious leaders who claim divine guidance or use a specific holy text as the law of the land.
Theocracy
This colonist created an engraving of the Boston Massacre that was an influential piece of propaganda for the revolutionaries.
Paul Revere
Known as the "Incorruptible," Robespierre was the leader of this organization, which presided over the most violent phase of the Revolution.
Committee of Public Safety
Added to the Constitution in 1791, these first ten amendments were designed to protect individual liberties like freedom of speech and the right to a fair trial.
Bill of Rights
According to Marx, the system of feudalism was destroyed when part of this the peasant class, the merchants, traders, lawyers, and others, rose up to create a new class, similar to how we today would imagine a "middle class".
Bourgeoisie
In the modern world, this system is often "constitutional," where the royal head of state has primarily ceremonial duties.
Monarchy
The Proclamation of 1763 prohibited colonial settlers from moving west of this mountain range.
Appalachian Mountains
In response to the 1789 "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," this French playwright and activist published a 1791 pamphlet titled "The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen," which eventually led to her execution by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.
Olympe de Gouge
In 1779, this founding father wrote the constitution for Massachusetts, which described how that state government would be run. It was the first constitution to divide up the state's power so that no one person or group would always be in control.
John Adams
While Hobbes believed the Social Contract was irrevocable, Marx believed this specific state of being—where workers feel detached from their labor—was the catalyst for revolution.
Alienation