The institutions and procedures through which a land and its people are ruled.
What is Government?
100
This document, and its author, were the first written piece to openly declare a need for independence in the American colonies.
What are "Common Sense" and Thomas Paine?
100
Most democracies in the world are this type of government, in which the central government alone establishes national policies, through which local governments are required to carry out.
What is a Unitary System of Governance?
100
These are the legal or moral claims citizens are entitled to make on the government, while these are protections against government action.
What are Civil Rights and Civil Liberties?
100
These protections against governmental tyranny were adopted by the Congress in 1791.
What is the Bill of Rights?
200
The form of government in which people play a significant role in the process of government.
What is a Democracy?
200
This revolutionary idea spawned the belief that government is not all-powerful, but instead, derives its authority from the people under which it takes care.
What is Consent of the Governed?
200
These are seen by the textbook to be the three qualifications for a federal system of governance.
What are Uniformity, Independence, and Mutual Influence?
200
This Supreme Court decision ruled that slavery could not be impeded in the territories by the federal government.
What is Dred Scott v. Sandford?
200
This clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that government shall make no laws instituting a national religion.
What is the Establishment Clause?
300
This is the actual influence officeholders have with other officeholders, while this is the acknowledged right to make a particular decision.
What are Power and Authority?
300
This institutional principle created a tripartite system of checks and balances, and was crafted from the ideas of the Baron de Montesquieu.
What is Separation of Powers?
300
This type of federalism describes two separate "spheres of sovereignty," in which the national government has limited authority to do what it deems necessary.
What is Dual Federalism?
300
This amendment to the Constitution guaranteed the right to vote for all citizens regardless of race.
What is the Fifteenth Amendment?
300
This important Supreme Court decision ruled that a person has "dual citizenship," that is, they are citizens of both the national government and their respective states.
What is Barron v. Baltimore?
400
This sort of action, transient throughout the political process, frequently involves the trading off of various deals to achieve a common purpose.
What is the Prisoner's Dilemma?
400
This document of American governance created a weak central government and contained no standing army. Ultimately, it led to the creation of a more perfect Union.
What is the Articles of Confederation?
400
These two amendments to the U.S. Constitution say that all power not delegated to the federal government is reserved to the people, or to the states.
What are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments?
400
This important Supreme Court decision upheld the doctrine of "separate equality," that is, men and women of different skin colors were allowed segregation, as long as facilities were provided for both.
What is Plessy v. Ferguson?
400
This is the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment did not originally apply to the states, yet over time, various aspects of it have been transferred to the states as necessitated by the Supreme Court.
What is Selective Incorporation?
500
When these are low, decisions are made more quickly, though people are frequently left unsatisfied.
When these are low, the transaction is considered to be more costly.
What are Transaction Costs and Conformity Costs?
500
This clause of the Constitution is cited most expressly as giving Congress greater power than written in the text of the Constitution. It may be drawn from Article I, Section 8.
What is the Necessary and Proper Clause, or the "Elastic Clause?"
500
This important Supreme Court decision ruled that only Congress possesses the authority to regulate commerce (as opposed to the states?)
What is Gibbons v. Ogden?
500
This is the idea of unequal treatment in the interest of justice, that is, that there is a necessity for favoritism in the pursuit of racial equality.
What is Affirmative Action?
500
This apparent right, drawn from the ideas of the U.S. Constitution, establishes that certain rights, particularly reproductive rights, remain within the conscience of the individual.