Terms to Know Flashcards
Limited Government
A government limited in its power.
Natural Rights
Rights that are God-given or under natural law, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Popular Sovereignty
The principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political power.
Social Contract
An implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection.
Representative Democracy
A type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people.
Participatory Democracy
A model of democracy in which citizens have the power to decide directly on policy and politicians are responsible for implementing those policy decisions.
Pluralist Democracy
A model of democracy in which no one group dominates politics and organized groups compete with each other to influence policy.
Elite Democracy
A model of democracy in which a small number of people, usually those who are wealthy and well-educated, influence political decision-making.
Anti-Federalist
A person that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and the ratification of the Constitution.
Federalist
A person that advocated a strong central government and supported the ratification of the Constitution.
Democracy
A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Faction
A group of people that has interests or opinions different from the rest of the entity.
Shay’s Rebellion
An armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government’s increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades. Highlighted the weaknesses of the federal government under the articles, specifically the lack of power to tax or raise a national army.
Great Compromise or Connecticut Compromise
An agreement reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation each state would have under the United States Constitution.
Electoral College
A body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.
Three-Fifths Compromise
Determined that three out of every five slaves was counted when determining a state’s total population for legislative representation and taxation.
Constitutional Convention
A formal meeting held in 1787 for the purpose of creating a constitution for the United States.
Ratification
The action of signing or giving formal consent to a treaty, contract, amendment, or agreement, making it officially valid.
Separation of Powers
The division of a government into “branches”, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches.
Checks and Balances
A system that allows each branch of a government to amend, override, or veto acts of another branch so as to prevent any one branch from exerting too much power or power beyond its authority.
Impeachment
A charge of misconduct made against the holder of a public office.
Concurrent Powers
Powers that are shared between federal and state governments and that occur simultaneously.
Categorical Grants
Funds the federal government gives to state and local governments to spend on specific activities within specific programs.
Block Grants
A form of grant-in-aid that the federal government uses to provide state and local governments a specified amount of funding to assist them in addressing broad purposes
