Lets Vote on it
This one of the three branches of government, it is composed of Congress, which is a body of representatives that are elected by citizens to vote on laws on their behalf.
What is the Legislative Branch?
This idea was a source of inspiration for the founding fathers when laying out the relationship between people and government. It's the idea that citizens agree to give up some freedom to the government in exchange for the security and order that government provides.
What is the Social Contract?
Divides governmental authority into legislative, executive, and judicial branches, with each branch having its own job to prevent any single branch from getting too powerful.
what is separation of powers?
Like the CEO of a company, this individual is the leader of the Executive Branch.
Who is the President?
A prominent Enlightenment thinker, this man's ideas including Naturals Laws, Natural Rights and the Social Contract influenced founding fathers.
Who is John Locke?
A type of democracy in which policies and laws are voted on by every citizen instead of a group of elected representatives.
What is a Direct Democracy?
This catch all term for the religion traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam inspired our founding fathers with their ideas of Ethical Ideas of Justice, Individual Rights and Personal Responsibility.
What is the Judeo-Christian Tradition?
The principle of government that says everyone, including the government, is accountable under the law
what is Rule of Law
Part of the Judicial Branch, this entity is the highest level of the justice system in the United States.
What is the Supreme Court?
This enlightenment thinker argued that governments should be organized in a way that prevents any one person or group from dominating or oppressing others. His ideas included Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances
Who is Baron de Montesquieu?
A type of Democracy where citizens elect representatives to make decisions and govern on their behalf, instead of voting directly on policies and laws.
What is a Representative Democracy or a Republic?
This ancient civilization influenced our founding fathers, namely the way they divided their government into separate branches, we also modeled our Representative Democracy after their Republic.
What is Ancient Rome?
These kinds of laws promote justice based on the ideas of right and wrong
What are Ethical Laws?
This principle of government stemmed both from ancient Rome and the Enlightenment, it divides authority among three branches to prevent any single branch from becoming too powerful
What is Separation of Powers?
John Locke believed that these are the rights and liberties that all people have by virtue of being human, and are sometimes called individual rights or human rights
Natural Rights
The idea that citizens should take part in government , including voting for elected officials and legislation, proposing and voting on laws, serving on a jury and running for office was popularized by the Ancient Greeks.
What is Civic Participation?
This is a document that lists fundamental principles or established rules that a state or country has to follow. While very normal today, they were revolutionary in 600 BCE
what is a Constitution?
A system where each of the three branches of government has the power to limit or "check" the actions of the other branches, preventing any one branch from becoming too powerful
what are checks and balances?
This group of people with the constitutional or legal task to rule a country or state, or advise a head of state, usually from the executive branch. Their members are known as ministers and secretaries
What is the Cabinet?
Locke argued that there were these kind of laws that everyone understood without them being written down, an inborn sense of right and wrong.
What are Natural Laws?
England has this type of Government where a leader, usually a King or Queen serving as head of state, but their powers are restricted by a constitution or law giving people more power in their government.
What is a Limited Monarchy?
This influential document from 1200's England limited the power of government by limiting the king’s power. It turned England into a limited monarchy and established important rights.
What is the Magna Carta?
This founding principle of government helps prevent power from being abused, by dividing governmental power between central (whole country) and regional (individual states) bodies.
what is Federalism?
Both of these chambers, known together as congress make up the Legislative Branch work together to pass legislation. One has members based on state population while the other has two members per state.
What are the House of Representatives and the Senate?
Montesquieu's ideas about the separation of government were inspired by the government of this country, that had a King to enforce laws, courts to interpret laws and a parliament to create laws
What is England?