Midterm 2 Flashcards
What is the focus and purpose of Article 1 of the Constitution?
The Legislative Branch.
To Make laws.
What is the focus and purpose of Article 2 of the Constitution?
The Executive Branch.
Manage the day-to-day operations through various departments. The President is the leader of this branch.
What is the focus and purpose of Article 3 of the Constitution?
The Judicial Branch.
Power of the court system.
What is the focus and purpose of Article 4 of the Constitution?
The States.
Relationship between the states and the federal government. All states are equal.
What is the focus and purpose of Article 5 of the Constitution?
Amendment.
The Constitution can be amended
What is the focus and purpose of Article 6 of the Constitution?
Debts, Supremacy, Oaths.
All officials must swear an oath to the Constitution as it is the supreme law of the land.
What is the focus and purpose of Article 7 of the Constitution?
Details all those who signed the Constitution representing the original 13 states.
John Adams
Wrote “Thoughts on Government” which criticized Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”.
- Adams believe a republic is the only good government.
- Power should go to the most wise and good
- Legislative power should be divided (bicameral)
Who wrote “Vices of the Political System of the United States”
James Madison
Federalism
Sovereignty is divided between the states and the nation
Judicial Review
Ability of the judicial section to make actions that aren’t in the constitution.
Ability not actually stated in the Constitution.
Vices of the Political System of the United States
The national government did not have sufficient power to coerce the states when needed.
By James Madison
What were Alexander Hamilton’s 4 points to why the US government was weak in his letter to James Duane.
- States valued their liberty too much to give the national Congress any substantial power
- Congress being too willing to defer to the states
- The Articles left the Congress with too few options for sufficient funding
- Congress labored under too much uncertainty regarding the extent and nature of their powers
What was the Virginia Plan? What arguments are their against it?
By James Madison
Less power in the states. More power to all the people with each individual considered equal.
Arguments:
1. Violated state sovereignty
2. Violated small state theory of republics/democracies
What was the New Jersey Plan?
Equal state representation.
Equal representation for each state
How were the New Jersey and Virginia plans combined?
The House = The Virginia Plan
The Senate = The New Jersey Plan
What is the importance of Marbury vs. Madison?
Set the Judicial review
Constitutionalism
The idea that the Constitution is unchanging.
It is the higher law and takes precedence over any ordinary laws passed by the legislature
Brutus
Worried the Judicial branch was too powerful
Federalist No. 78
By Alexander Hamilton.
The Judicial branch is not too powerful because:
1. They can’t take people’s money or command the army
2. They are reactive. Not proactive
3. They only do judgement
4. They are the weakest branch
Articles of Confederation
Agreement among the 13 original states serving as the first constitution.
What are some problems with the articles of confederation?
- Uncontrolled self-interest
- Lack of cooperation between the states
- Weak executive branch
- Treaty and policy violations
- No taxes-revenue
- No coercion of states
- Laws were not guaranteed
- Mutability: easily changed
- Relied on virtue alone
How does the constitution’s approach to representation reflect a commitment to both the states and the nation?
- Enumerated rights
- Bicameral legislature of state and people
Crevecoeur
A patriot after the revolution, wrote letters as if he was an American farmer writing to England.
Colonists have been given opportunities to flourish
“The most perfect society existing…”
Americans are equal and free.
“Silken bands of Gov’t”
Broad drafting
Interpreting the constitution based on now
Narrow drafting
Interpreting the constitution based on what the founding fathers would have wanted.
Federalist
Believed we didn’t need a Bill of rights because:
- Why do the people need protection from themselves since the government is appointed by the people
- Listing rights could limit them
- Parchment barrier that would just be ignored like the states
- Trusted the institutions/virtue of the people
Anti-Federalist
- Wanted protection from large government
- Wanted enumerated rights
- Wanted to hold the federal government accountable
- Better to have some of the rights than none (Half a loaf is better than no bread – Jefferson)
- Didn’t trust the institutions/virtue of the systems in place
- Protect the future generation
Sojurner Truth
Wrote Ain’t I a Woman?
- The first woman God ever made was “strong enough turn the world upside down all alone”
- Imagine what we could all do together
- Christ came from a woman
EE Schattschneider
Modern mass government can’t exist without parties. You can’t get a lot of people involved without parties.
Jonathan Rauch
Without parties there would be chaos
Hamilton vs. Jefferson
Jefferson - Republican Vision
- Importance of state level politics
- Limit national power (smaller national government)
- Narrow interpretation of constitutional powers
- Promote agrarian values and benefits of rural life
- Emphasis on independence, frugality, practicality, resourcefulness (think Rome).
- The common man should be part of government
Hamilton
- Importance of the nation
- Expansion of national power… strong and united… feared in the world
- Broad interpretation of constitutional powers (if it doesn’t say you can’t to it, then you can do it).
- Promote commercial values, integrated society, and the benefits of urban life.
- Aristocratic leadership – the “rich and the wellborn”
- Suspicious of too much democracy
Hamilton vs. Jefferson
Jefferson - Republican Vision
- Importance of state level politics
- Limit national power (smaller national government)
- Narrow interpretation of constitutional powers
- Promote agrarian values and benefits of rural life
- Emphasis on independence, frugality, practicality, resourcefulness (think Rome).
- The common man should be part of government
Hamilton
- Importance of the nation
- Expansion of national power… strong and united… feared in the world
- Broad interpretation of constitutional powers (if it doesn’t say you can’t to it, then you can do it).
- Promote commercial values, integrated society, and the benefits of urban life.
- Aristocratic leadership – the “rich and the well born”
- Suspicious of too much democracy
Why did Johnson win the election of 1964?
His opponent tried to go extreme
Fisher Ames
Wrote the “Mire of Democracy”
- Doesn’t trust the voice of the people and doesn’t like direct democracy.
- Concerned about majority rule
- The majority are moved by self-interest, and other things.
- They aren’t able to fully comprehend how to act in politics.
Fisher Ames
Wrote the “Mire of Democracy”
- Doesn’t trust the voice of the people and doesn’t like direct democracy.
- Concerned about majority rule
- The majority are moved by self-interest, and other things.
- They aren’t able to fully comprehend how to act in politics.
Direct Democracy
Public Opinion -> Government Actions
Filters of Consent: Aristocratic Decision-Making
Public Opinion -> Elite Chosen representatives -> Government Actions
Representative Democracy or Republics
Public Opinion -> Voters Select Representatives -> Government Actions
Federalist #70
The Presidency must be sufficiently powerful
- Protect the community against foreign attacks
- Stable, wise, capable but can take action
- Energetic
Federalist #68
Hamilton’s Goals for the Presidency Process
- Avoid people with talents for low intrigue, and popularity
- Be able to do the unpopular thing.
- Election should be made by
- Men most capable
- Deliberation, judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements
- Little tumult and disorder
- No corruption
Henry David Thoreau
Wrote “Civil Disobedience”
The best government, is no government
Dred Scott v. Sanford
- Scott sues Sanford because he had been taken to a free state so he should be free
- Scott lost and slavery was allowed to expand
Alexander Stephens
- The government (of Lincoln) is opposite to the idea of the constitution
- Reject the declaration
1st Amendment
Cannot restrict religion, freedom of speech, of press, peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
2nd Amendment
Bear Arms
3rd Amendment
No soldiers will live in your house
4th Amendment
No unreasonable search and seizure. Warrants on probable cause.
5th Amendment
Right to due process
6th Amendment
Speedy and public trial
7th Amendment
Right to a jury
8th Amendment
No cruel or unusual punishment
9th Amendment
There are more rights than listed. Power of the people
10th Amendment
Powers to the states
13th Amendment
Prohibits slavery
14th Amendment
Defines citizenship. Everyone who is born in the US
15th Amendment
Connects the right to vote directly to citizenship
11th Amendment
States immune from suits from out-of-state citizens.
12th Amendment
Separate elections for president and vice president
Federalist No. 2
Advantages of Unified government
By John Jay
Federalist No. 1 / 9
Response to Anti-Federalists
Federalist 10
How to reconcile citizens with interests contrary to the rights of others.
- Factions are inevitable
By James Madison
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Author of Declaration of Rights and Sentiments
- Format of the U.S Declaration but about the equal rights of all.
- List of sentiments of how man has oppressed womankind
Chiafalo v. Washington
Faithless Electors
Susan B. Anthony
Author of “Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?”
- Women are citizens and have a right to vote. It has always been that way but just been neglected.
Jane Addams
Author of “If Men Were Seeking the Franchise”
- A Criticism on men and why they shouldn’t be allowed into politics.
John Calhoun
Author of “A Disquisition on Government”
- Arguing for concurrent majority as to not oppress the minority.
Frederick Douglass
Author of “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
- The U.S. has not upheld its promise made in the Deceleration.
George Fitzhugh
Authored “Cannibals All! Or, Slaves without Masters”
- Arguing that slaves have a good life and are better off as slaves than being free.
Federalist #51
The most important control on government is the people themselves
Brutus’s argument about the appropriate size of republic
In a large republic, too much diversity of interests, manners, or ideas will lead to excessive disagreement and will ultimately make governance more difficult
Federalist #78
By Hamilton.
The court system is meant to be an intermediary between the people and the legislature.
Kentucky Resolutions
Jefferson argues that when the national government exercises powers which it is not explicitly given, states are not bound by those actions.
James Madison’s view on the Bill of Rights
Madison believed that a Bill of Rights could be beneficial, but only if drafted correctly. At the same time, the absence of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution was not a major flaw.
Concurrent Majority
Only adopt things that are supported by the majorities in all regions.
