Questions on the United States Constitution and John Locke

Q: The phrase “ a lawyer’s brief justifying a revolution” has been used to describe the ___
A: Declaration of Independence

Q: What the colonists sought in proclaiming independence from Great Britain was political power embodied in a
A: Written constitution

Q: ____ rights are based on nature and Providence
A: Unalienable rights

Q: Where were the essential rights demanded from the British-life, liberty, and property- derived from?
A: Certain natural rights ordained by God

Q: The principal goal of the American Revolution was ___
A: Liberty

Q: One of the basic liberties sought by the colonists through independence from Great Britain was___?
A: Freedom from taxation without representation

Q: The theory of ___ provided the basis for the colonists’ justification of the liberties they sought
A: Natural Law

Q: Jefferson’s phrase, “the pursuit of happiness,” stated in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, was more specifically interpreted by the colonists to mean the right to
A: Property

Q: The list of the essential rights demanded by the colonists included life, liberty, and ___?
A: Property

Q: The Constitution was signed in ___ and ratified by the 13 states.
A: 1787

Q: The purpose of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was to
A: Revise the Articles of Confederation

Q: James Madison’s conclusions of examination of historical data on republics, confederations, and aristocracies to learn about the formation of government are found in
A: Federalist papers

Q: John Lock’s notion of the “___” might best be exemplified today by international relations between the superpowers
A: state of nature

Q: What was the central issue in the framing of the US Constitution?
A: how strong to make the central government

Q: Who were the two leaders that were conspicuously absent from the Constitutional Convention?
A: Thomas Jefferson & Patrick Henry

Q: IN the early test of the powers of the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress failed to deal with an uprising in western Massachusetts known as ___.
A: Shay’s Rebellion

Q: What was significant about Shay’s Rebellion to the colonists?
A: It showed how weak the national government was and that it lacked the power to maintain peace and order

Q: A “council of revision” for acts of the national legislature was proposed in the
A: Virginia Plan

Q: The Virginia Plan would have granted the national legislature the power to veto ___ any time it chose
A: state laws

Q: The ___ was a reaction by some states primarily to the fear that the Virginia plan gave too much power to populous states
A: New Jersey Plan

Q: The New Jersey Plan would have allotted votes in Congress to states on the basis of ___?
A: Equality

Q:The __ was intended merely to adopt amendments to the Articles of Confederation
A: New Jersey Plan

Q: What effect has the nature of the amendment process had on amendments to the US Constitution?
A: It has kept the number of amendments relatively few in number

Q: In the US Constitution, a limitation on democratization was imposed with the creation of the
A: Supreme Court

Q: Relative to the notion of democratic government, the Supreme Court’s power to ____ places limits on democracy
A: Judicial review

Q: What was a way the power of the people – popular majority rule – limited by the US Constitution?
A: By making the amending of the US Constitution relatively difficult

Q: The goal of the Framers of the US Constitution was to create a ____ based on a system of representation.
A: Republic

Q: What was another compromise worked out at the Constitutional Convention after the Great Compromise relating to the election of the president?
A: the use of an electoral college for choosing a president

Q: Seats in Congress were allocated on the basis of both equality (Senate) and population (House) under the
A: Great Compromise

Q: Dividing power between the states and the national government is referred to as
A: Federalism

Q:What are the two ways an amendment to the Constitution can be progressed?
A: A 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress or a national convention called by Congress at the request of 2/3 the states

Q: What are the two key principles in the framing of the US Constitution that involves a system of checks and balances in which power is dispersed?
A: Separation of power and federalism

Q: The concept of the ____ involves the division of the functions of government
A: Separation of powers

Q: Generally, the __ felt that the government created by the US Constitution was too strong and too centralized
A: Antifederalists

Q: How did ratification of the US Constitution take place?
A: By special conventions elected by the people

Q: To James Madison, an important source of national unity and guarantee of liberty in society was
A: Self-interest

Q: What are three ways in which Congress can check the federal courts?
A: Refusing to confirm a nominee (Senate only) Changing the number and jurisdiction of the lower courts Impeaching a judge

Q: _____ is when a person cannot be imprisoned without first being brought before a judge, who in turn finds sufficient cause for his or her detention
A: Habeas corpus

Q: Why didn’t the Founders include a bill of rights in the beginning?
A: they believed they were creating a government of limited powers & thought was unnecessary

Q: James Madison’s main argument in favor of a federalist position, stated in Federalist 10 and 51, was in defense of
A: Large Republics

Q: In which Federalist Paper does James Madison warn against the danger of factions?
A: Federalist 10

Q: __ of the slaves were counted for purposes of allotting seats in the House of Representatives
A: 3/5

Q: The Bill of Rights of the US Constitution was intended to limit the power of
A: the Federal Government

Q: Ratification of the US Constitution was opposed by
A: Patrick Henry

Q: What were the three reasons why state delegations at the Constitutional Convention voted down the bill of rights?
A: The US Constitution already had a number of guarantees of individual freedom Most states in 1787 had a bill of rights Most individuals rights were implied by the Constitution

Q: Why did the Constitution fail to outlaw slavery?
A: Southern support was essential to the adoption of the document

Q: What did the US Constitution provide for slaves escaping to free states?
A: be returned to their masters

Q: Until 1808, the national government was prohibited from
A: restricting the slave trade

Q: How did the fact that some of the Founders of the US Constitution held government IOUs influence their support for the Constitution?
A: If you owned IOUs, you had a strong economic motive for wanting the national government to survive

Q: __ tended to favor a weak decentralized government as a protection of liberty
A: Antifederalists

Q: Most amendments to the US Constitution have been ratified by the vote of
A: ¾ of the state legislatures

Q: What is one of the reasons given why the US government is poorly equipped to handle problems such as dependence on foreign oil?
A: it is due to its separation of powers

Q: One of the criticisms of the separation of powers is that the president is supposed to be in charge of the bureaucracy, however, he has to share this authority with
A: many members of Congress

Q: What is a major argument in favor of reducing the separation of powers called for in the US Constitution?
A: it would allow prompt, decisive leadership in times of crisis

Q: the __ would allow a president to veto part of a bill while approving the rest
A: line item veto

Q: Thomas Jefferson originally included ___ in his list of rights in drafting the Declaration of Independence
A: Property

Q: Under the __, the national government could neither levy taxes nor regulate commerce.
A: Articles of Confederation

Q: __ was elected president in 1785, but never showed up for the job
A: John Hancock

Q: George Washington believed the country could survive only with a
A: Strong National Gov’t

Q: __ between the states was greatly hampered during the era of the Articles of Confederation
A: trade

Q: Shay’s Rebellion was put down with a
A: Volunteer army

Q: the __ called for the creation of a two-house legislature with representation based on the size of the state
A: Virginia Plan

Q:The __ reconciled the interests of the small and large states over representation
A: Great Compromise

Q: The Founders sought to limit the __ spirit of their times
A: Democratic

Q: __ was conceived as a system for keeping some factions from dominating others
A: Federalism

Q: A __ is a government in which a system of representation operates
A: Republic

Q: The __ favored a strong national government
A: Federalists

Q: The proponents of the US Constitution were called
A: Federalists

Q: The great issued before the state conventions in 1787 was __, not democracy.
A: liberty

Q: At the time the US Constitution was written, __ accounted for about 1/3 of the population of the southern states
A: slaves

Q: The __ is favored by those who wish to put tighter controls on federal spending
A: line-item veto

Q: The Constitution forbade outlawing __ for 20 years
A: slavery

Q: What is needed to give the president a true line-item veto?
A: A Constitutional amendment

Q: Each state had __ votes under the Articles of Confederation
A: one

Q: John Locke believed that the “end of government” was
A: preservation of property

Q: Reflecting the natural rights philosophy, the Declaration of Independence stated that government derived their just powers from
A: The consent of the governed

Q: John Locke’s ideas on natural rights were related to human law in that natural rights were considered __ than human law
A: higher

Q: The Declaration of Independence is based on John Locke’s two concepts of
A: concept of natural rights and the idea that gov’t be built on the consent of the governed

Q: What were the four basic concepts of John Locke’s theory of government?
A: natural rights, consent of the governed, limited government, and property rights

Q: In __ philosophy, the requirements that standing laws be known and private property be preserved impose two major limits on government
A: John Locke’s

Q: The justification for separation from England in the Declaration of Independence was based heavily on the ideas of the English philosopher
A: John Locke

Q: What was the sole purpose of government according to John Locke?
A: to protect natural rights

Q: Thomas Jefferson’s phrase “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” was a modification of John Locke’s phrase “ Life, liberty and ___”
A: property

Q: The foundation of John Locke’s philosophy was that human beings derive their rights from
A: Nature

Q: At the top of the political agenda during the period of the Articles of Confederation was
A: economic issues

Q:___ was an uprising by farmers to prevent judges from foreclosing on farms
A: Shay’s Rebellion

Q: Which state boycotted the Constitution Convention?
A: Rhode Island

Q: What was the significance of Annapolis meeting?
A: It issued the original call for the constitutional convention in Philadelphia

Q: Shay’s rebellion was a dramatic example of the ___ of the national gov’t under the Articles of Confederation.
A: Weakness

Q: What were the three major groups that met at Constitutional Convention in 1787?
A: wealthy planters, lawyers, and merchants

Q: Besides Shay’s rebellion, what happened after the Revolutionary War that showed the weakness of the Articles of Confederation?
A: Postwar depression that severely hurt small farmers and many others

Q: What was the original, sole and express purpose of the convention in Philadelphia?
A: to revise the Articles of Confederation

Q: The first two weeks of the Constitutional Convention were spent debating the nature of
A: Republican gov’t

Q: The most influential man at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was
A: James Madison

Q: The view of human nature most prevalent among the Founding Fathers was that people are self-interested in acquiring
A: wealth and power

Q: According to James Madison and many of the delegates at the constitutional convention, what was the primary source of political conflict?
A: Unequal distribution of wealth and property

Q: The philosophy of the writers of the Constitution was based in part on the belief that the principal object of gov’t was the preservation of
A: Property

Q: Most delegates to the Constitutional Convention believed that the secret of good gov’t is a
A: balanced gov’t

Q: Most of the delegates at the constitutional convention regarded __ as the greatest threat to gov’t
A: factions

Q: The Virginia plan was based on __ while the New Jersey Plan was based on ___.
A: Population; equal representation

Q: How did the Constitutional Convention deal with slavery?
A: It recognized it by providing for the return of escaped slaves

Q: The Connecticut Compromise gives more representation in Congress to people who live in states with __ populations than it does people who live in __ states.
A: small; large

Q: On the issue of slaves, the Constitution specified that slaves would count as ___ persons for counting the nation’s population and determining seats in the House.
A: 3/5ths

Q: The government designed at the Constitutional Convention allowed the voters to directly elect
A: Only the House of Representatives

Q: Under the Constitution, the number of Senators is based on __ and the members of the House are based on __.
A: two per state; population

Q: The framers of the Constitution gave the chief economic policy making role to
A: Congress

Q: How was the debate at the Philadelphia convention over eligibility to vote resolved?
A: it was left up to the individual states

Q: What were the four major prohibitions of states under the Constitution?
A: printing paper money, placing duties on imports from other states, interfering with lawfully contracted debts, harboring slaves

Q: What negated the Constitution requirement of states to return runaway slaves to their rightful owners?
A: 13th Amendment

Q: What did the Constitution do to put the nation economy on sound footing?
A: IT required the national gov’t to repay all gov’t debts incurred under the Continental Congress

Q: What are the four violations of individual rights forbidden in the original Constitution?
A: suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, passing ex post facto laws, passing bills of attainder, and strict limits on the prosecution of treason

Q: Madisonian principles in the Constitution were based on a concern that gov’t would be dominated by a
A: Majority of minority faction

Q: What were the two key elements of the Madisonian model?
A: keep most of the gov’t beyond the control of a popular majority ; separate the powers of different institutions

Q: The system of ___ in the Constitution means that change usually comes slowly, if at all, and moderation and compromise are typical in our political system
A: checks and balance

Q: The Constitution prohibits Congress of the states from passing __ , which punish people without a trial.
A: bills of attainder

Q: Congress is prohibited under the Constitution from passing __, which punish people or increase the penalties for acts that were not as punishable when committed
A: ex post facto laws

Q: The Constitution includes a provision that persons detained by authorities must be held on specific charge or released. This is known as
A: Habeas corpus

Q: the Madisonian system has a ___ bias favoring the status quo
A: conservative

Q: Ratification of the Constitution needed the approval of ___ states.
A: nine

Q: What was added to the constitution in order to get it ratified?
A: the Bill of Rights

Q: The Constitution was ratified by __ in each of the states.
A: Special conventions

Q: The __ were essays in support of ratification of the Constitution.
A: Federalist Papers

Q: The “unwritten constitution” may have an impact on the __ of the Constitution.
A: interpretation

Q: Political parties are an important example of the
A: Unwritten constitution

Q: To propose a formal amendment to the Constitution, one needs to have a __ vote in Congress
A: 2/3rds

Q: Constitutional amendments are usually ratified by
A: legislatures of 3/4ths of the states

Q: what did the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment show?
A: That a national majority in favor of an amendment is not sufficient to add it to the Constitution.

Q: What has been the impact of the amendments to the Constitution?
A: it has made it more equalitarian and democratic

Q; The development of a two-party system is an example of informal constitutional change through
A: political practice

Q: The__ has increased in significance and power as a result of increased public demands for a broader scope of gov’t
A: presidency

Q: The Supreme Court case __ asserted the power of the Court to check the actions of the other branches through judicial review
A: Marbury v. Madison

Q: How has the Constitution changed in regard to voter eligibility?
A: it has been amended several times to expand the electorate

Q: The US has the oldest written __ in the world
A: Constitution

Q: what have some scholars suggested was a consequence of separation of powers and checks and balances?
A: a fragmented policy-making policy

Q: The Jamestown colonists set a political precedent by instituting a ___
A: Representative Assembly

Q: The major historical and political significance of the __ was that it was the start of the first settlement in America by the British and it served as a prototype for many similar compacts
A: Mayflower Compact

Q:As a political document, the Mayflower Compact was a constitution of
A: general principles

Q: Why were taxes imposed on the colonists?
A: to pay for England’s war debt

Q: The tax called “taxation w/o representation” was the
A: Stamp Act

Q: Why was the resolution of Independence significant?
A: b.c it established the legitimacy of the new nation

Q: The colonists’ fury over taxation climaxed in the
A: Boston Tea Party

Q: Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, advocate the idea that a gov’t of our own is our
A: natural right

Q: What was one of the main actions of the Second Continental Congress?
A: to establish an army and appoint a commander in chief

Q: What was stated in the resolution passed by the First Continental Congress?
A: it expressed colonial grievances to King George

Q: Why was the British response to the First Continental Congress?
A: it treated the congress’s first actions as an open act of rebellion

Q: What was the political significance of the First Continental Congress?
A: it represented the first formal act of cooperation among the colonies

Q: What did the Republicans oppose?
A: The monarchy, a strong central gov’t, and any restraint of the power of local groups

Q: The original draft of the Declaration of Independence included a
A: Condemnation of slavery

Q: What wer the state gov’ts doing during the time of the Revolution, 1776 to 1781?
A: Adopting their own written constitution

Q: What were two of the major powers under the AOC?
A: to regulate foreign affairs and establish coinage and weights and measures.

Q: What was the Annapolis convention ostensibly called to do?
A: to discuss commercial problems

Q: What kind of gov’t did the majority of delegates to the Philadelphia convention advocate?
A: a strong central govt

Q: What does the Supremacy doctrine assert?
A: the superiority of national law over state law

Q: What kind of gov’t did Alexander Hamilton advocate?
A: monarchy

Q: ___ drafted the Bill of Rights from over 200 state recommendations.
A: James Madison

Q: How does the gov’t act as an enabler according to Stossel?
A: by providing money and benefits to the people it enable them to stay addicted

Q: Name the two major approaches to the religion clause in the Constitution
A: secular; accomodationist

Q: what is the difference between civil liberties and civil rights?
A: civil liberties is the protection of individuals against the power of the state, civil rights are gov’t programs designed to make all citizens fuller participants in American society

Q: Name two key arguments in favor of illegal immigration
A: we are a nation of immigrants; economic asset

Q: What are three explanations given by Tocqueville as to why democracy flourished in America?
A: geography; the manners and customs of the people; the attitude of Americans about the merits of democracy

Q: Name three ways in which close-ended polls can be deceptive
A: deceptive phrasing; yes/no answers; intensity of their beliefs

Q: What are three prongs of the Lemon Test?
A: it has strictly secular purpose; its primary affect neither advances nor inhibits religion; it doesn’t foster an excessive gov’t entanglement with religion

Q: How did Roe v Wade operationally establish abortion on demand in the US?
A: mental health equals stress

Q: What are two reasons why culture way issues are more difficult to resolve?
A: difference of permissiveness; political correctness, the moralism of the new class

Q: Why don’t Darwin’s finches provide compelling evidence for evolution?
A: their beak size returns to its average size when rain returns, they only have a temporary change

Q: what are three major arguments in favor of censoring pornography?
A: it violates and degrades women; it influences people; people’s private act shouldn’t be viewed to the public

Q: Which of the following was not among the ideas underlying the American Revolution?
A: the need for a strong executive

Q: By 1776, eight states
A: had written constitutions

Q: The public mood in the thirteen states between the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the ratification of the US Constitution can best be described as
A: fearful and tumultuous

Q: If a new constitutional convention were called today and the delegates modeled their behavior precisely on that of delegates to the original Constitutional Convention, the first group to be outraged by the delegates’ behavior would probably be
A: the media

Q: Who said he ”smelled a rat” and would not attend the Constitutional Convention?
A: Patrick Henry

Q: John Locke suggested that the chief limitation on gov’t should derive from the fact that it
A: is created by the consent of the governed

Q: A majority of the states at the Convention __ the Great Compromise
A: voted for

Q: the Great Compromise was supported by the votes of delegates from __ states
A: five

Q: The goal of the Framers of the US Constitution was to create a(n)
A: republic based on a system of representation

Q: Relative to the notion of democratic gov’t, the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review
A: places limits on majority rule

Q: The nature of the amendment process has probably kept the amendments added to the US Constitution
A: relatively few in number

Q: those power that are given exclusively to the states are __ powers
A: reserved

Q: Separation of powers and federalism were two key principles in the framing of the US Constitution. These two principles are related in that each
A: involves a system of checks and balances in which power is dispersed

Q: the text suggests the Federalists might more accurately have been called the
A: nationalists

Q: the text suggests that perhaps the “most democratic feature of the Constitution” was
A: its requirements for ratification

Q: Generally, the Antifederalists felt that the gov’t created by the US Constitution
A: too strong and too centralized

Q: The Antifederalists voiced several concerns with a strong national gov’t, including the fear that Congress would tax heavily. In general, over time, their fears have
A: largely been recognized

Q: IN which notable Federalist paper does James Madison warn against the danger of factions
A: Federalist # 10

Q: All of the following are addressed in the text of the Constitution except
A: freedom of speech

Q: The Bill of Rights to the US Constitution was intended to limit the power of
A: the federal gov’t

Q: The first amendment addressed the issue of
A: freedom of speech

Q: The issue of importation of slaves addressed by the Constitutional Convention is what way?
A: it allowed regulation of such trade after 1808

Q: After reviewing Beard’s economic interpretation of the US Constitution, historians found
A: very little support for it

Q: A number of the Framers of the US Constitution held gov’t IOUs. Why should ownership of gov’t debt have influenced a Framer’s support for the Constitution?
A: if you owned IOUs, you had a strong economic motive for wanting the national gov’t to survive

Q: A reduction in the separation of powers mmight also assist voters in that they would be able to
A: hold the president and his party accountable

Q: Typically, the result of today’s bargaining processes is legislation that
A: dissatisfies most of the major participants

Q: Most proposals to reduce the separation of powers in the US gov’t have as their implicit model the political system of
A: Great Britain

Q: Most amendments to the US Constitution have been ratified by the vote of
A: ¾ of state legislatures

Q: An individual who thinks that gov’t does too much, not too little, would be likely to support
A: a constitutional amendment that requires a balanced budget each year