Chapter 3 The Federal System Alexander Johnson

Question 1

Abraham Lincoln

Answer 1

An American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis.

Question 2

Andrew Johnson

Answer 2

The 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson assumed the presidency as he was Vice President of the United States at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Question 3

Barack Obama

Answer 3

An American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from January 20, 2009, to January 20, 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency and previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois.

Question 4

Barron v. Baltimore

Answer 4

A landmark United States Supreme Court case in 1833, which helped define the concept of federalism in US constitutional law. The Court established a precedent that the Bill of Rights did not apply to the state governments.

Question 5

bill of attainder

Answer 5

an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them, often without a trial.

Question 6

block grant

Answer 6

A large sum of money granted by the national government to a regional government with only general provisions as to the way it is to be spent

Question 7

Calvin Coolidge

Answer 7

An American politician and the 30th President of the United States. A Republican lawyer from New England, born in Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor.

Question 8

categorical grants

Answer 8

Grants issued by the United States Congress which may be spent only for narrowly defined purposes.

Question 9

Civil War

Answer 9

A war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U.S. history.

Question 10

charter

Answer 10

A written grant by a country’s legislative or sovereign power, by which an institution such as a company, college, or city is created and its rights and privileges defined.

Question 11

concurrent powers

Answer 11

Powers a federal system of government that are shared by both the federal government and each constituent political unit. These powers may be exercised simultaneously within the same territory, in relation to the same body of citizens, and regarding the same subject-matter.

Question 12

Confederate States of America

Answer 12

An unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865.

Question 13

Confederation

Answer 13

A union of sovereign states, united for purposes of common action often in relation to other states.

Question 14

cooperative federalism

Answer 14

A concept of federalism in which national, state, and local governments interact cooperatively and collectively to solve common problems, rather than making policies separately but more or less equally (such as the dual federalism of the 19th-century United States) or clashing over a policy in a system dominated by the national government.

Question 15

counties

Answer 15

A political and administrative division of a state, providing certain local governmental services.

Question 16

democracy

Answer 16

A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Question 17

Dillon’s Rule

Answer 17

A municipal government has authority to act only when : (1) the power is granted in the express words of the statute, private act, or charter creating the municipal corporation; (2) the power is necessarily or fairly implied in, or incident to the powers expressly granted; or.

Question 18

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Answer 18

A landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on U.S. labor law and constitutional law. The Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories.

Question 19

dual federalism

Answer 19

A political arrangement in which power is divided between the federal and state governments in clearly defined terms, with state governments exercising those powers accorded to them without interference from the federal government.

Question 20

enumerated powers

Answer 20

Listed in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. In summary, Congress may exercise the powers that the Constitution grants it, subject to the individual rights listed in the Bill of Rights.

Question 21

ex post facto law

Answer 21

A law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law.

Question 22

extradition clause

Answer 22

The Extradition Clause or Interstate Rendition Clause of the United States Constitution is Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2, which provides for the extradition of a criminal back to the state where he or she has committed a crime.

Question 23

federal system

Answer 23

The mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government with regional governments in a single political system.

Question 24

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Answer 24

An American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.

Question 25

full faith and credit clause

Answer 25

Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, known as the “Full Faith and Credit Clause”, addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.”

Question 26

Gibbons v. Odgen (1824)

Answer 26

A landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation.

Question 27

Great Society

Answer 27

A set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice.

Question 28

Herbert Hoover

Answer 28

An American engineer, businessman and politician who served as the 31st President of the United States from 1929 to 1933 during the Great Depression.

Question 29

implied powers

Answer 29

Powers authorized by the Constitution that, while not stated, seem implied by powers that are expressly stated.

Question 30

interstate compacts

Answer 30

An agreement between two or more states. Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution provides that “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress… enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State.”

Question 31

Iroquois Confederacy

Answer 31

A confederation of Native American Indians which was originally composed of 5 tribes consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca peoples.

Question 32

John C. Calhoun

Answer 32

An American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina, and the seventh Vice President of the United States from 1825 to 1832.

Question 33

John Marshall

Answer 33

An American politician who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835. Marshall remains the longest-serving chief justice in Supreme Court history, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential justices to ever sit on the Supreme Court.

Question 34

Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ)

Answer 34

An American politician who served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Formerly the 37th Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963, he became president after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Question 35

McCulloch v. Maryland

Answer 35

A decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland.

Question 36

monarchy

Answer 36

A form of government in which a group, generally a family representing a dynasty, embodies the country’s national identity and its head, the monarch, exercises the role of sovereignty. The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic.

Question 37

municipalities

Answer 37

A single urban administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and state laws to which it is subordinate.

Question 38

New Deal

Answer 38

A series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted by liberal Democrats led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They responded to needs for relief, reform and recovery from the Great Depression.

Question 39

New Federalism

Answer 39

A political philosophy of devolution, or the transfer of certain powers from the United States federal government back to the states.

Question 40

nullification

Answer 40

A legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional with respect to the United States Constitution (as opposed to the state’s own constitution).

Question 41

oligarchy

Answer 41

A form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or corporate, religious or political, military control.

Question 42

privileges and immunities clause

Answer 42

This clause prevents a state from treating citizens of other states in a discriminatory manner. Additionally, a right of interstate travel may plausibly be inferred from the clause.

Question 43

programmatic requests

Answer 43

Guidance solicited by the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees from Members of Congress. Programmatic requests function in lieu of earmark requests ever since the outright ban on earmarks in 2011.

Question 44

progressive federalism

Answer 44

Most recent form of federalism; allows states to have greater control over certain powers usually reserved for the national government.

Question 45

Reconstruction

Answer 45

The period from 1863 to 1877 in American history. The term has two applications: the first applies to the complete history of the entire country from 1865 to 1877 following the American Civil War; the second, to the attempted transformation of the 11 ex-Confederate states from 1863 to 1877, as directed by Congress.

Question 46

reserved powers

Answer 46

The powers which are neither prohibited nor explicitly given by law to any organ of government. Such powers, as well as general power of competence, are given because it is impractical to detail in legislation every act allowed to be carried out by the state.

Question 47

Roger B. Taney

Answer 47

The fifth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864.

Question 48

Ronald Reagan

Answer 48

An American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to the presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and trade union leader before serving as the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975.

Question 49

secession

Answer 49

The withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Threats of secession can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.

Question 50

Seventeenth Amendment

Answer 50

The popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures.

Question 51

Sixteenth Amendment

Answer 51

It allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on the United States Census.

Question 52

special district

Answer 52

Independent, special-purpose governmental units that exist separately from local governments such as county, municipal, and township governments, with substantial administrative and fiscal independence.

Question 53

Tenth Amendment

Answer 53

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. Ratified on December 15, 1791.

Question 54

totalitarianism

Answer 54

A system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.

Question 55

unitary system

Answer 55

A system of political organization in which most or all of the governing power resides in a centralized government.