Nasty, Brutish & Perfectly Free
This philosopher believed that people establish government primarily to escape violent insecurity and disorder.
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
This term means the rightful authority to govern, rather than merely the ability to force obedience.
What is legitimacy?
This ancient civilization gave the American tradition an early example of direct citizen participation in government.
What is Athens?
Madison defines this as a group united by an interest or passion opposed to the rights of others or the common good.
What is a faction?
Under the Articles of Confederation, most political authority remained with these governments.
What are the state governments?
Article I creates this branch of the federal government.
What is the legislative branch or Congress?
Locke identified life, liberty, and property as examples of these rights that exist before government.
What are natural rights?
This agreement explains why people leave the state of nature and create a government.
What is the social contract?
This ancient republic contributed ideas about civic duty, representation, mixed government, and written law.
What is the Roman Republic?
Madison refuses to eliminate faction by destroying this, because he calls it essential to political life.
What is liberty?
Congress could request money from the states, but it lacked the reliable power to impose this.
What are taxes?
This term describes a government in which citizens ordinarily govern through elected representatives.
What is a republic?
For Locke, government becomes rightful because political authority ultimately comes from this.
What is consent of the governed?
Under this principle, established laws apply to government officials as well as ordinary citizens.
What is the rule of law?
This 1215 English document established the enduring principle that rulers are subject to the law.
What is the Magna Carta?
Madison’s two major remedies for faction are representation and this large-scale constitutional structure.
What is an extended republic?
The Articles created neither a separate executive branch nor this branch responsible for resolving national legal disputes.
What is the judicial branch?
The House and Senate must approve the same bill before sending it to the president. This two-chamber arrangement is called this.
What is bicameralism?
Locke argued that political society remedies three problems: the absence of known law, an impartial judge, and this third necessity or "want."
What is lawful or reliable enforcement?
A legislature follows every constitutional procedure but passes a law violating natural rights. The law possesses this quality but may lack legitimacy.
What is legality?
Unlike the Magna Carta, which began as an agreement between the king and leading nobles, the English Bill of Rights more clearly established this broader constitutional principle.
What is that the monarch is limited by law and Parliament?
Also acceptable: What is parliamentary supremacy or limited monarchy?
Unlike Madison’s emphasis on majority faction, Cato IV particularly fears the concentration of power in this office.
What is the presidency?
The Preamble’s promise to “form a more perfect Union” responds most directly to this weakness under the Articles.
What is disunity among the states?
The Senate’s authority to approve or reject a presidential nominee is an example of this constitutional principle.
What are checks and balances?
Hobbes emphasizes the need for government strong enough to preserve order. Locke adds that government must meet this additional standard to exercise rightful authority.
What is protecting natural rights through consent and law?
Also acceptable: What is legitimacy?
Under Locke’s social contract, government does not create the people’s fundamental rights. Its authority is legitimate only when it performs this central purpose.
What is protecting natural rights?
Also acceptable: What is protecting life, liberty, and property?
Montesquieu argued that liberty is endangered when legislative, executive, and judicial authority are concentrated. His solution was this constitutional arrangement.
What is separation of powers?
Madison’s extended republic and Cato’s warnings about consolidated power begin from the same assumption about human beings in government.
What is that people may use political power to advance ambition or self-interest?
Also acceptable: What is that political power is vulnerable to abuse?
The Articles protected liberty chiefly by keeping national power weak. The Constitution adopted this different strategy for preventing tyranny.
What is granting necessary power while dividing, checking, and limiting it?
Virginia regulates its public schools while Congress regulates interstate commerce. This division of authority between two levels of government illustrates this principle.
What is federalism?