Basic Principles
System of overlapping the powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches to permit each branch to check the actions of the others ...
Answer: checks and balances.
Formal approval, final consent to the effectiveness of a constitution, constitutional amendment, or treaty ...
Answer: ratification.
Presidential advisory body, traditionally made up of the heads of the executive departments and other offices ...
Answer: Cabinet.
Basic principle that government and those who govern must obey the law; the rule of law ...
Answer: constitutionalism.
A change in, or addition to, a constitution or law ...
Answer: amendment.
A formal agreement between two or more sovereign states ...
Answer: treaty.
The power of a court to determine the constitutionality of a governmental action ...
Answer: judicial review.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution ...
Answer: Bill of Rights.
Custom that the Senate will not approve a presidential appointment opposed by a majority-party senator from the state in which the appointee would serve ...
Answer: senatorial courtesy.
Basic principles of American system of government that the executive, legislative, and judicial powers are divided among three independent and coequal branches of government ...
Answer: separation of powers.
Change or addition that becomes part of the written language of the Constitution itself through one of four methods set forth in the Constitution ...
Answer: formal amendment.
Group of persons chosen in each state and the District of Columbia every four years who make a formal selection of the president and vice president ...
Answer: Electoral College.
Basic principle of the American system of government which asserts that the people are the source of any and all government power, and government can exist only with the consent of the governed ...
Answer: popular sovereignty.
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1868, that makes all persons born or naturalized in the United States -- including former slaves -- citizens of the country and guarantees equal protection of the laws ...
Answer: 14th Amendment.
A pact made by the president directly with the head of a foreign state; a binding international agreement with the force of law but which (unlike a treaty) does not require Senate consent ...
Answer: executive agreement.