Why Government? Why Politics?
This refers to the institutions and procedures by which a territory and its people are governed.
What is Government?
This philosopher described life in the state of nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
This belief system emphasizes individual rights, limited government, and government by consent. It is often called classical liberalism.
What is Lockean liberalism?
The colonists' famous slogan objected to acts like the 1765 Stamp Act and the 1767 Townshend Acts.
What is "no taxation without representation"?
This system divides power between the national government and state governments.
What is federalism?
One famous definition of this concept is "who gets what, when, and how." The other describes it as the process by which a group makes collective decisions or resolves conflict.
What is politics?
Locke said all people have these three natural rights, which the government exists to protect.
What are life, liberty, and property?
Rogers Smith argues that American political culture is not just liberalism but a mix of liberalism, republicanism, and a third tradition. This argument is called this thesis.
What is the multiple traditions thesis?
This was the first governing document of the United States. It created a weak national government that could not tax or regulate commerce.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
This amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.
What is the First Amendment?
Government, the market/private sector, and this third sector (nonprofits, churches, and voluntary associations) organize life in a community.
What is civil society (the nonprofit/voluntary sector)?
This agreement is the idea that people give up some freedom to a government in exchange for protection and order.
What is the social contract?
Smith uses this term for the tradition that ties full citizenship to race, gender, ethnicity, or religion.
What is ascriptive Americanism?
In 1786–87, indebted Massachusetts farmers led by a Revolutionary War veteran staged this uprising, which exposed the national government's weakness.
What is Shays' Rebellion?
Also called the elastic clause, this provision allows Congress to make laws necessary to carry out its enumerated powers.
What is the Necessary and Proper Clause?
This dilemma captures why we need government: we need it powerful enough to provide order and security, but not so powerful that it threatens our liberty.
What is the power problem?
Hobbes believed people should surrender their rights to this kind of ruler, after which he named his 1651 book.
What is an absolute sovereign (the Leviathan)?
Morone identifies two moral traditions. This one, from the Puritans, blames the individual and focuses on reforming the sinner. The other, from the Social Gospel, focuses on reforming society.
What is the neo-Puritan tradition?
This agreement settled the fight between large and small states by creating a House based on population and a Senate with equal representation.
What is the Great (Connecticut) Compromise?
Taxing, borrowing money, establishing courts, and making and enforcing laws are examples of powers shared by federal and state governments.
What are concurrent powers?
The U.S. is considered this kind of government because it blends monarchy (the president), aristocracy (the Senate and courts), and democracy (the House).
What is a mixed government?
In Common Sense, Thomas Paine distinguished between these two things. He said our wants produce the first and are a blessing, while our wickedness produces the second and is at best a necessary evil.
What are society and government?
Morone studies American politics from this direction, starting with ordinary people, social movements, and moral panics rather than elites and institutions.
What is bottom-up?
Changing the Articles of Confederation required the approval of all 13 states. The Constitution, by contrast, needed ratification by only this many states to take effect.
What is nine?
This amendment says powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or the people. It was especially important to the Anti-Federalists.
What is the Tenth Amendment?