Unit 1
This term refers to the institutions and procedures through which a territory and its people are ruled.
What is government?
This 1787 meeting in Pennsylvania was called to revise the Articles of Confederation but ended up creating a new Constitution.
What is the Philadelphia Convention (Constitutional Convention)?
This is a system of government where power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units.
What is federalism?
These first ten amendments to the Constitution protect individual freedoms from government interference.
What is the Bill of Rights?
This ongoing effort seeks to ensure equal treatment and opportunities regardless of race, gender, or other characteristics.
What is the struggle for equality?
This is the struggle over power or influence within organizations that can grant benefits or privileges.
What is politics?
This government system lasted from 1776-1787 and ultimately failed due to its weak central authority.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
This doctrine prevents state or local governments from interfering with federal government operations.
What is the supremacy clause (or national supremacy)?
This First Amendment protection prevents government from establishing an official religion or favoring one religion over another.
What is freedom of religion (or the Establishment Clause)?
These landmark laws and court decisions, including Brown v. Board and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, dismantled legal segregation.
What are Black Americans' civil rights victories?
This system involves a series of steps through which policy ideas become actual policies affecting citizens.
What is the policymaking system?
These three critical issues divided delegates at the Constitutional Convention: representation, slavery, and this.
What is the power of the national government?
The 10th Amendment reserves these powers to the states.
What are reserved powers?
This First Amendment right protects speech, press, and symbolic expression from government censorship.
What is freedom of expression (or freedom of speech)?
These groups, including Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, have fought for equal protection under the law.
Who are other people of color (or minority groups)?
This principle means that government gains its authority from the people and their elected representatives.
What is democracy?
This system of separation of powers, federalism, and checks and balances was designed by James Madison to control factions.
What is the Madisonian System?
This clause requires states to give full faith and credit to the public acts and judicial proceedings of other states.
What is the Full Faith and Credit Clause?
This First Amendment right protects citizens' ability to gather peacefully and petition the government.
What is freedom of assembly?
This movement achieved major victories including the 19th Amendment and Title IX protections against discrimination.
What is the women's rights movement?
These are the boundaries and extent of governmental power and action in American society.
What is the scope of government?
Nine out of thirteen of these were required to approve the Constitution, leading to intense debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists.
What are state ratifying conventions?
These are relationships and interactions between different levels of government, including cooperative and dual federalism models.
What are intergovernmental relations?
This constitutional right, though not explicitly stated, was established in Griswold v. Connecticut and affirmed in Roe v. Wade.
What is the right to privacy?
These policies give preferential treatment to members of historically disadvantaged groups in employment and education.
What is affirmative action?