Constitution Test Flashcards
Article 1
Legislative (Congress)
Article 2
Executive (President/Vice-President)
Article 3
Judicial (Federal Courts)
Article 4
States’ rights
Article 5
Amending the Constitution
Article 6
National Supremacy
Article 7
Ratify the Constitution
1st Amendment
RAPPS
Freedom of religion, assembly, petition, the press, and speech
2nd Amendment
Right to bear arms
3rd Amendment
Easily remembered with three words; no housing troops. The 3rd amendment is the right to freedom from being required to house troops during peacetime.
4th Amendment
The protection against unreasonable search and seizure, is easily remembered with by asking the question: What are you searching 4?
5th Amendment
Rights of the accused. All five wore GEDDS; grand jury, eminent domain, due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination
6th Amendment
Public speedy trials, a phrase that contains only 6-letter words, is the mnemonic for the 6th amendment. This is also the amendment that says someone accused in court has the right to confront his accusers, and the right to a defense counsel.
7th Amendment
Right to jury trial
8th Amendment
Imagine that you’ve been convicted of a crime in a village of cannibals, and as punishment, they ate you! This seems like cruel and unusual punishment, doesn’t it? The 8th amendment, fortunately, protects you from cruel and unusual punishments like this.
9th amendment
Users of the Major/Peg system already associate 9 with the letter P, as the letter P looks like a 9 facing the other way. That helps with remember the 9th amendment, where P stands for Power and People. The 9th amendment makes it clear that individuals do have rights that aren’t explicity mentioned in the Constitution.
10th Amendment
While 9 says people have rights not spelled out in the US Constitution, 10 says that the United States (as in, the federal government) has only those powers explicitly spelled out in the US Constitution. The remaining powers are delegated to the states or the people. This is sometimes known as the “state’s rights” amendment. Since the phrase “state right” has 10 letters, it’s easy to remeber that it’s the 10th amendment.
11th Amendment
1 citizen may not sue 1 state that isn’t the citizen’s own with permission from the defending’s states court.
12th Amendment
Covers the elections of America’s jobs “1” and “2”, that of the US President and US Vice-President. This amendment requires separate ballots to be cast for each office.
13th Amendment
Freed the slaves (outlawed slavery). It’s not too hard to think of how there were only 13 colonies when America liberated itself from the British. Just remember that 13 amendments after the 13 colonies were liberated, the slaves were liberated as well.
14th Amendment
Equal protection; foreign-born citizens and natural-born citizens having the same rights. Equal rights to “Foreignteen”-born citizens, and this should be easy to remember.
15th Amendment
Every man may vote, regardless of whether or not he was a former slave (women excluded). The phrase “Every man may vote” has 15 letters, making this one easy to remember.
16th Amendment
Gives the federal government power to tax, just link April 16th, as the day when the federal government should have their money, to amendment 16, as the reason why they’re getting that money. Legal to work at 16 and pay income taxes.
17th Amendment
First, the phrase “elect your senators” has 17 letters. Also, 7-1 (from the number 17) equals 6, which is the number of years for which a senator serves. Senators are directly elected.
18th Amendment
Illegal to drink alcohol at 18. Outlawed manufacture, transportation and distribution of alcohol.
19th Amendment
Women’s suffrage
20th Amendment
It states that the president takes office on January 20th, so you can just think of it as the January 20th amendment. Congress takes office on January 3rd. It not only covers what happens when a president goes into office, but also when a president goes out, such as a death in the office. The other parts concern how often Congress must meet and what happens when a state representative dies.
21st Amendment
Repeals the 18th amendment. Legal to drink at 21. You can’t drink at 18, but you can drink at 21.
22nd Amendment
Another one that nearly writes its own mnemonic. It limits a President “2”(to) 2 terms.
23rd Amendment
Can be thought of as the “23-D-C” amendment, because it allows citizens of Washington, D.C. to vote for the president.
24th Amendment
Unconstitutional to charge people for registering to vote. If you link this amendment with December 24th, when Santa is very busy at the North Pole (or “No Pol”), you can easily recall that this is the “no poll tax” amendment.
25th Amendment
Details the order of succession when the President dies. An easy way to remember this is the short poem, “Prez not alive? See 25!”
26th Amendment
This amendment lowered the voting age to 18. You can remember this by recalling that 26-(2+6)=18. True, we’re throwing some arithmetic into the mix, but focusing on this fact can help you remember it all the more.
27th Amendment
says that Congress can vote themselves a pay raise, but it won’t take effect until after the next Congressional election. Imagine Congress voting themselves to a pay level of $270,000. It was first proposed on September 25, 1789, and wasn’t ratified until May 7, 1992 - over 202 years!
A simple mnemonic for memorizing the 16th through 19th amendments in order as a group
“In come senators with wine and women.” “In come” refers to the income tax amendment (#16). “senators” refers to the 17th amendment, dealing with the election of senators, “wine” referring to the prohibition amendment (the 18th), and “women“, of course, referring to the women’s vote amendment.
