American Government 2
Terms
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- What are checks and balances?
- The government is divided into three branches of government, each branch having particular powers.
- What are the three branches of government?
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Legslative
Executive
Judicial - What is Judicial review?
- The power of a court to review a law for constitutionality or for the violation of basic principles of justice. The court has the power to strike down that law, to overturn the executive act, or order a public official to act in a certain manner if it believes the law or act to be unconstitutional or to be contrary to law in a free and democratic society.
- What are the articles of confederation?
- The original constitution of our country after we signed the declaration of independence
- What is seperation of powers?
- The idea that the powers of a government should be split between two or more strongly independent entities, preventing any one person or group from gaining too much power.
- What is the great compromise?
- It was the proposal of a two houses: one lower which elected officals based on population of state, and one higher which elected one official from each state
- What are the methods of ammending the constitution?
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Stated in the 5th ammendment
An amendment must first be proposed, and then ratified. Amendments may be proposed by 2/3 vote of Congress in both the House and Senate.
Another method of proposing an amendment is for two-thirds of state legislatures to request Congress to call a Constitutional Convention; the Constitutional Convention proposes an amendment. After an amendment is proposed, 3/4 of the state legislatures must ratify the amendment, or, a majority vote in 3/4 of state conventions called to vote on the amendment - What is the confederal system?
- A confederal system of government is a group of independent states that form a central government that is very limited in power. In a confederal system, each state is ultimately given all powers to run their own state, and the central government is very weak. The United States operated under a confederal system for 10 years, under the Articles of Confederation.
- What is a unitary system?
- A unitary system of government gives control of the government to one central government, and that central government has all of the power. The central government can regulate certain powers to local governments if they deem it necessary.
- What is a federal system?
- A federal system of government is a combination of the unitary system and the confederal system. In a federal system of government, powers are divided among the central federal government and the state/regional governments. The powers given to these governments are usually listed in a written constitution.
- What are block grants?
- Funds given to states by the federal government to run programs within defined guidelines.
- What are grants-in-aid?
- Monies passed from the federal to state governments
- What are categorical grants?
- Categorical grants for specific purposes; often require local matching funds
- What are concurrent powers?
- Duties shared by both the national government and state governments, such as collecting taxes, building roads, and making/enforcing laws.
- What is the supremacy clause?
- Everyone must follow federal law in the face of conflicting state law
- What is the elastic clause?
- It gives Congress the powers that can be inferred from the Constitution, but are not stated exactly. This clause provides flexibility to our federal government.
- What is police power?
- Allows the states to pass legislation regulating things like marriage, divorce, education, criminal laws, etc. This power allows the state to determine what legislation will be designed to protect the people of each state.
- What is the tenth amendment?
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The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Powers for states and people, not government, IE Education - What is the eleventh amendment?
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The Amendment limits the jurisdiction of the Federal judicial system to exclude any suit initiated by a person against a state government.
You can't sue the government without consent - What is the defense of marriage act?
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First, it allows each state to recognize or deny any marriage-like relationship between persons of the same sex which has been recognized in another state.
Second, it explicitly recognizes for purposes of federal law that marriage as "a legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife" and by stating that spouse "refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." - What are civil liberties?
- Protections from the power of governments
- What is the establishment clause?
- The government cannot endorse any given religion or establish a state religion
- What is the free excersise clause?
- The government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion
- What is libel?
- Defamation in writting
- What is slander?
- Defamation used in speech
- What is symbolic speech?
- An action that consists of no writing or speaking, but still express an opinion
- What is prior restraint?
- A legal term which refers to a government's actions that prevent materials from being published
- What is a poll tax?
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A tax of a uniform, fixed amount per individual
Used to keep AA from voting - What is the grandfather clause?
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An exception which allows something pre-existing to remain as it is, despite a change to the contrary in the rules applied to newer situations
Example: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution specified term limits for future presidents, but did not apply to the president (Truman) in office when Congress passed it.
Used in America to limit AAs from voting unless their grandfather had voted - What is a literacy test?
- A hard test given to AAs before voting to see if they were literate, a hard test
- What are civil rights?
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Those legal rights granted to citizens by the government
Voting, anti-discrimination laws - What is affirmative action?
- Specific preference given to groups considered by some to be victims of social discrimination
- What is reverse discrimination?
- Discriminatory policies or acts that benefit a historically socially undominant and/or minority group, rather than the historically socially dominant and/or majority group
- What is suffrage?
- The right to vote, or the exercise of that right
- What is feminism?
- Social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women
- What is the americans with disabilites act?
- It is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability
- What is the civil rights act of 1964?
- The original purpose of the Bill was to protect black men from job (and other) discrimination, it was expanded to include protection for women.
- What is the voting rights act of 1965?
- An act that outlawed requiring would-be voters to take literacy tests and provided for federal registration of African American voters in areas that had less than 50% of eligible voters registered
- What is Marbury v Madison?
- A landmark case in American law where the U.S. Supreme Court established judicial review as a legitimate power of the Court on Constitutional grounds. Specifically, the Court ruled that it had the power to declare a statute void that it considered in contravention to the Constitution.
- What is McCulloch v Maryland?
- In this case, the state of Maryland attempted to destroy a branch of the Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on its notes.
- What is Baron v Baltimore
- The effect of the Court's decision in this case was that the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are restrictions on the federal government alone, and that state governments are not necessarily bound by them.
- What is Missouri v Holland?
- The United States Supreme Court found that the federal government's ability to make treaties is supreme over any state concerns about such treaties having potentially abrogated any states' rights arising under the Tenth Amendment.
- Slaughterhouse cases
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Represented a block appeal to the United States Supreme Court testing the relatively new Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It is viewed as a pivotal case in early civil rights law since the Supreme Court refused to extend due process to property rights.
The Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company
Paul Esteben, L. Ruch, J. P. Rouede, W. Maylie, S. Firmberg, B. Beaubay, William Fagan, J. D. Broderick, N. Seibel, M. Lannes, J. Gitzinger, J. P. Aycock, D. Verges, The Live-Stock Dealers' and Butchers' Association of New Orleans, and Charles Cavaroc v. The State of Louisiana, ex rel. S. Belden, Attorney-General
The Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company - What is Gibbons v Ogden
- The United States Supreme Court ruled on March 2, 1824 that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution reserved to Congress the power to regulate interstate navigation.
- What is NLRB v Jones-Laughlin Steel Corp.
- A case that the NLRB went after JLSC about using interstate commerce and stuff
- What is Engel v Vitale?
- Was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that determined school prayer, even when relatively non-denominational and voluntary, is unconstitutional.
- What is Everson v Board Of Education?
- A New Jersey law authorized payment by local school boards of the costs of transportation to and from private schools. As some of these schools were parochial Catholic institutions, a taxpayer in Ewing Township filed a lawsuit alleging that this indirect aid to religion through the mechanism of reimbursing parents and students for costs incurred as a result of attending religious schools violated both the New Jersey state constitution and the First Amendment of the federal Constitution.
- What is Minersville v gobitis?
- A 1940 U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Jehovah's Witnesses named Gobitas (their name was misspelled), in which the court had held that Witnesses could be forced against their will to pay homage to the flag. This decision had led to increased persecution of Witnesses.
- What is West Virginia v Barnette?
- Was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protected students from being forced to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
- What is Dred Scott v Sanford?
- Dred Scott was a slave who was taken first to Illinois, a free state, and then to Minnesota, a free territory, for an extended period of time and then back to the slave state of Missouri. After his original master died, he sued for his freedom. After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against him, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of the Missouri court, but also used the case to fundamentally change the legal balance of power in favor of slaveholders.
- What is Gitlow v New York?
- The Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had extended the reach of certain provisions of the First Amendment — specifically the provisions protecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press — to the governments of the individual states.
- What is Tinker v Des Moines School District?
- A case before the United States Supreme Court which resulted in a significant decision for defining the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools.
- What is Texas v Johnson?
- A decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated a Texas prohibition on desecrating the American flag.
- What is New York Times v Sullivan?
- a United States Supreme Court case which established the actual malice standard before press reports could be considered to be defamation and libel; and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States.
- What is Griswold v Connecuit?
- a landmark United States Supreme Court case. It invalidated a Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraception by married couples.
- What is Roe v Wade
- DUH, if you don't know, you should be shot
- What is Mapp v Ohio?
- a United States Supreme Court decision that Fourth Amendment protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures" must be extended to states as well as the federal government.
- What is Miranda v Arizona?
- a landmark 5-4 decision of the United States Supreme Court which was argued February 28-March 1, 1966 and decided June 13, 1966 . The Court held that suspects, prior to being interrogated by police, must be informed of their rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
- What is Schenck v United States?
- a United States Supreme Court decision concerning whether the defendant possessed a First Amendment right to free speech against the draft during World War I. The defendant, Charles Schenck, a Socialist, had circulated a flyer to recently drafted men. The flyer, which cited the Thirteenth Amendment's provision against "involuntary servitude," exhorted the men to "assert [their] opposition to the draft."
- What is Brandenburg v Ohio?
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a United States Supreme Court case based on the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution. The case was argued before the Court on February 27, 1969 and decided June 9, 1969.
Brandenburg was a Ku Klux Klan leader convicted of advocating violence under Ohio's Criminal Syndicalism law. The Court overturned his conviction on the grounds of the statute violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments. - What is Brown v Board of Education?
- was a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court which explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities (legal establishment of separate government-run schools for blacks and whites), ruling so on the grounds that the doctrine of "separate but equal" public education could never truly provide black Americans with facilities of the same standards available to white Americans.
- What is Gideon v Wraiwright?
- In the latter half of the twentieth century, Gideon v. Wainwright represents an important step in Constitutional law made by the Supreme Court in applying the Sixth Amendment (right to counsel) and the Fourteenth Amendment (no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law) to all citizens.
- What is full faith and credit?
- a mutual understanding between courts of the 50 states of the United States to recognize, honor and enforce each other's actions
- What is the bill of attainder?
- was an act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime, and punishing them, without benefit of a trial.
- What are implied powers?
- are powers not specifically given to the Federal Government of the United States. They derive mostly from the Constitution's Supremacy clause (Article Six, Clause Two).
- What are reserved powers?
- a power that may be exercised by the head of state of a country in certain exceptional circumstances.
- What is secular?
- outside religion
- What is sectarian?
- an adherence to a particular sect or party or denomination, it also usually involves a rejection of those not a member of ones sect. A sectarian conflict usually refers to conflict along religious lines such as the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
- What is due process?
- a legal concept that ensures the government will respect all of a person's legal rights instead of just some or most of those legal rights, when the government deprives a person of life, liberty, or property. Due process has also been interpreted as placing limitations on laws and legal proceedings in order to guarantee fundamental fairness, justice, and liberty.
- What is interstate compacts?
- an agreement between two or more U.S. states. The United States Constitution provides that states may not enter into such agreements without the consent of Congress
- What is interstate commerce?
- When you trasfer people or things over state lines
- What is sedition?
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a deprecated term of law to refer to non-overt conduct such as speech and organization that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order.
Words that can cause a revolution - What is original jurisdiction?
- a court refers to matters on which the court rules on directly, rather than on matters which are referred to it after being heard by another court.
- What is appellate jurisdiction?
- refers to matters which a court can hear after being ruled on by another court.
- What is the bill of rights?
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a statement of certain rights that citizens and/or residents of a free and democratic society have (or ought to have) under the laws of that society.
The first 10 ammendments in the constitution - What is eminent domain?
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Taxation
term in law to describe the power of the state to appropriate private property for public use - What is a penumbra?
- is the portion of a shadow that results from the source of illumination being only partially blocked. Penumbras only occur when the source of light is not a point-source. As the sun is a visible disc, solar shadows have penumbras. The penumbra part of a shadow is contrasted with the umbra part of the shadow in which the light source is completely blocked.
- What is the preamble?
- Indution to the constitution
- What is article one?
- Creates legslative brance, house and senate
- What is article two?
- the executive branch of the government, comprising the President and other executive officers.
- What is article 3?
- establishes the judicial branch of the federal (national) government. The judicial branch comprises the Supreme Court of the United States along with lower federal courts established pursuant to legislation by Congress.
- What is article 4?
- elates to the states. It provides for the responsibilities states have to each other, and the responsibilities the federal government has to the states. Furthermore, it provides for the admission of new states and the changing of state boundaries.
- What is article 5?
- describes the process whereby the Constitution may be amended. Amendments may be proposed by Congress or a constitutional Convention. To be valid, they must be ratified by either legislatures or Conventions in three-fourths of the states.
- What is article 6?
- Supremacy clause, test oath
- What is a test oath?
- Formed after civil war; must swear to swear not to follow confederate rules or no licenses for anything
- What is the first ammendment?
- Religion, speech, press
- What is the second ammendment?
- Power to posess firearms
- What is the third ammendment?
- Quartering of soilders
- What is the fourth ammendment?
- Unreasonable search and seizure
- What is the fifth ammendment?
- Grand jury, self incrimination, due process, etc.
- What is the sixth ammendment?
- Speedy trial, fair trial, public
- What is the seventh ammendment?
- Jury trial
- What is the eight ammendment?
- Cruel and unusual punishment
- What is the ninth ammendment?
- Rights that aren't stated
- What is the tenth ammendment?
- What isn't given to federal is given to states
- What is the 11th ammendment?
- States can't be sued by citizens
- What is article one section eight?
- Delegated powers, necessary and proper clause
- What is article one section 9?
- What congress can't do, habeous corpus, etc.
- What is article one section 10?
- What states can't do, treaties or declare war
- What is the 13th ammendment?
- Slavery
- What is 14th ammendment?>
- Citizenship
- What is the 15th ammendment?
- Black men can vote!
- What is the 24th ammendment?
- Poll taxes go away
- Who is elizabeth cady stanton?
- sufferage
- Who john marshall?
- Cheif justace
- Who is montesquieu
- Seperation of powers guy
- Who is george mason?
- Cheif justace
- What is federal mandate?
- Federal can tell states what to do, bitch!
- What is cooperative federalism?
- When fed and state work together to solve problems
- What is dual federalism
- Coequal soverign powers, layer cake
- What is the necessary and proper clause?
- Government can do whatever is necessary and proper on the expressed power
- What is the writ of habeous corpus?
- Bring a person before court and have just cause
- What is commercial speech?
- ADVERTISING
- What is incorporation theory?
- Bill of rights applies to states
- What is the clear and present danger test?
- The government can restrict speech if it presents a clear and present danger
- What is the exclusionary rule?
- You can use illegally obtained evidence
- What is actual malace?
- When you know something is false, disregard for the truth
- What is the white primary?
- Only whites can vote in state primary
- What is de facto segregation?
- Socioeconomic status, black people live in one place and whites in another
- What is de juro segregation?
- Segregation by law
- What is seperate but equal?
- Although seperate, not equal
- What is age discrimination in employment act?
- Can't force to retire or not hire becuase of age
- What are privladges and immunities?
- Can't disriminate against others because of state
- What is interstate rendition?
- Within US
- What is extradition?
- Outside of us
- What are express/delegated powers
- Powers reserved to federal government
- What is cummings v missouri?
- Test oath, preist wanted to be a preist but had to take oath, wouldn't arrested, supreme court said it was atainment
- What is williams v north carolina?
- Bigamy, full faith and credit
- What is kentucky v dennison?
- Kentucky wanted rendition, supreme court said it was moral issue and didn't have to do it
- What is puerto rice v brandstad?
- Extradition, ran over woman
- What is heart of atlanta motel v U.S.
- Segregation, wouldn't let blacks stay, violated civil rights
- What was katzenback v McClung?
- Ali barbecque, refused to serve black, supreme court said interstate commerce was involved
- Horizontal federalism?
- State to state
- Vertical federalism?
- State to federalism
- Walz v tax comission?
- Bought land, no taxes because of church, supreme court said benevelant nurtality
- What is us v seeger?
- Going into Army was against religion, supreme court said okay but it has to take up part of life and has to be genuine
- Reynolds v united states?
- Mormon, not violating freedom religion
- What is westside school district v mergens?
- Girl wanted to create christian group, supreme court said girl wins, equal access act
- What is marsh v chambers?
- Nebraska paid minister with state money, supreme court said it was okay, becuase it was just praying, and difference between school
- What is widmar v vincent?
- Equal access rule, students wanted to use room for religion pruposes, you can't discriminate against someone because of viewpoint
- What is torcaso v watkins?
- Man wanted to hold office, but had to say you believe in God, supreme court said he was right
- What is lemon v kurtzman?
- Money to schools, it has to be secular, can't make religion worse or better, and can't get tangled in religion
- What is weeks v United States?
- exclusionary clause, lottery tickets, federal case
- What is near v minnesota?
- Prior restraint, near published bad stuff about people, etc.
- What is new york times v us?
- Pentagon papers, prior restraint
- What is plessey v ferguson?
- Seprate but equal
- What is pure speech?
- Spoken word
- What is speech plus?
- Speech plus conduct