american government quiz questions

Beginning in the 1760's, the American colonists' major complaint against the British government was over

British taxes collected in America.

The belief that free men would choose a limited, moderate, constitutional government to protect, rather than threaten them is associated with

John Locke

The imprint of which political philosopher is heavy on the Declaration?

John Locke

Political thinking of the American eighteenth century was underlain by John Locke's Social Contract theory and

Montesquieu's description of the separation of powers

The First Continental Congress was called in reaction to

Parliament's Intolerable Acts.

In which system do members of the majority party in the legislature select the executive and Cabinet officers from among themselves?

Parliamentary

A mixed state, in which monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic principles are mixed, usually with a strong executive and participation both by the few wealthy and the many poor in the legislative power, is known

Republic

Both members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate must be what?

Residents of the state from which they are elected

One key difference between Rome and Athens was that

Rome was a world-empire while Athens was a much smaller city-state.

What has turnout averaged in the last three presidential elections?

Slightly more than 60%

In the 1920s, what expansion of the electorate occurred?

The enfranchisement of women

Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution denies which of the following powers to the states

The power to coin their own money

The structure of colonial governments included which of the following?

The separation of powers

The commitment to science and progress that came to dominate thinking in Western Europe and later America was best represented by men like

Thomas Hobbes John Locke Francis Bacon

What statesman championed a state-centered view of federalism

Thomas Jefferson

The Continental Congress established by the Articles of Confederation worked more like

a league of states

The Virginia Plan envisioned

a powerful national government.

Which portion of the Constitution enumerates the powers of Congress in seventeen specific clauses?

article I, section 8

As voter attachments to the parties have declined, candidates increasingly have

avoided taking positions on issues

In the later half of the 20th century, the process of running for president has shifted to

candidates, their handlers, and voters

A device making federal funds available to the states and local governments for specific, often narrow activities in compliance with federal requirements for program design, service delivery, and reporting is

categorical grants

Which of the following is organized as a set of small-scale, face-to-face meetings, in which voters debate the merits of the candidates before selecting among them?

caucus

A written constitution allows for

citizens to ensure that powers neither expand nor move within the system, a precise distribution of power, and a limitation of power between the institutions of government.

What are the principal vehicles through which the House and Senate do most of their legislative work?

committees

Which committees are composed of members from both houses charged to resolve the differences between bills on the same topic passed in separate chambers?

conference

The Constitution grants the power to declare war to:

congress

In the early nineteenth century, how were presidential candidates nominated?

congressional caucuses

The return of political authority from the national government to the states beginning in the 1970s and continuing today is known as

devolution

In contrast to the demands of the large states, the small states wanted

each state to have one vote in each house

Compared to most of the advanced industrial countries in the world, the U.S. fails to employ

either mandatory or automatic voter registration

In the Electoral College, each state is assigned

electors equal to the number of their congressional delegation

The Founders based their understanding of legislatures on the theory and practice of what nation?

england

The power to tax, to regulate commerce and coinage, to declare war, and to raise armies and navies, are all classified in the Constitution as

enumerated powers

Traditionally, the service a congressperson has been most likely to perform for a constituent has been to invervene on their behalf with unresponsive:

federal agencies

The 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the greatest expansion of

federal regulation of state and local governments in American history

The Declaration of Independence makes the argument that

free men create governments.

The confederal form of government leaves individual republics

fully sovereign

In which of the following are all states equally in play at the same time and throughout the process?

general election

The Founders took from Polybius and Cicero the lesson that the mixed constitution would

generate great power and stability

Adam Smith argued that when unregulated by the state, commerce and markets

have a natural order.

Turnout depends heavily upon whether the candidates are popular and

how competitive the main election is

Among voters who could name only one candidate in a race, most often the person they named was the what?

incumbent

Low turnout is a problem for the American political system because

it has occurred despite improvements in education, income, and other factors that traditionally have increased turnout and other forms of participation

The concept that the lawmaking power is supreme is known as

legislative supremacy

It was widely assumed that the core of the new federal government would be the

legislature

The Supreme Court case of Buckley v. Valeo ruled that

limiting the amount of money candidates could spend on their own campaigns was a violation of their right to free speech

The implied powers grant Congress the right to

make all laws, which shall be necessary and proper for executing the enumerated powers

The stage after committee hearings have been held is referred to as:

markup or bill-rewriting

Federal systems are found in

most of the countries than have become democratic

To the Founders of the Constitution, the lesson of Christian Middle Ages was

negative and it showed them ways of thinking about politics that they did not wish to emulate.

The Founding Fathers agreed with Plato and Aristotle that

neither democracy nor oligarchy were adequate forms of government.

The idea that a state could suspend the operation within its borders of a law passed by Congress that the state did not agree with is known as

nullification

The basis of John Locke's Social Contract theory is that

only reasoned consent can produce governmental legitimacy.

The population of all of the colonies in America was

overwhelmingly rural and agrarian.

One fundamental idea behind federalism is that

particular powers are best assigned to a particular level of the federal system

The Greeks believed that the main obstacles to be overcome in the formation of the political community were

political instability and injustice

The Anti-Federalists argued that

popular governments could exist only in "small republics."

Which of the following is a statewide election in which the voters select from among the available candidates for their party's nomination?

primary

A citizen who goes to another state has the same freedom as the citizens that live in that state through the Constitutional provision known as the

privileges and immunities clause

As the cost of elections has increased, candidates have had to rely increasingly on

raising funds from national sources

Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress could not

regulate trade and commerce.

When new voters are given the franchise, turnout of the eligible electorate usually

remains unaffected

The word "democracy" in Ancient Greek can be translated as

rule by the people

Under current House rules, which of the following determines whether and how a bill will reach the floor for debate?

rules committee

What norm used to provide that the majority party member with the longest continuous service on the committee be given the opportunity to chair the committee?

seniority

The McCain-Feingold Act prohibited what kind of contributions to national political parties?

soft cash

In the government created by the Articles of Confederation, the reality was that the states remained

sovereign

The idea that in any political system, final political authority must rest somewhere specific is known as

sovereignty

What Committees with fixed jurisdictions automatically continue from one Congress to the next?

standing

Until well into this century up to two-thirds of government spending was accounted for by

state and local governments

One key difference between the Constitution and the earlier Articles of Confederation was that

the Constitution was an act of the people themselves whereas the Articles of Confederation had been an agreement among states.

The Declaration of Independence argued that the King of England had violated

the Social Contract

The statement that powers not delegated to the national government nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states is found in

the Tenth Amendment

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were aware of the new nation's problems and they shared a sense that

the central government had to be strengthened.

The states are required to recognize the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state in the Constitution by what is known as

the full faith and credit clause

The theorists of the Protestant Reformation acknowledged the importance of

the individual but were unwilling to accept the political implications of individualism.

In all of the state constitutions of 1776, most of the power was held by

the legislature.

Who has the job of holding together opposition to the majority's agenda in the House?

the minority whip

The powers reserved to the states do NOT include

the power to regulate interstate commerce

What person or group serves as the chief executive in the parliamentary system?

the prime minister

The enumerated powers listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution include all of the following EXCEPT

the right of the Supreme Court to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional

The hierarchical views developed by the medieval Christians were dissolved by

the rise in individualism.

The Constitution specifies that the responsibility to try impeachments belongs to whom?

the senate

During the period between 1890 and 1910 who held the dominant power in the House of Representatives?

the speaker

The drama of American federalism has been the struggle for power between the national government and

the states

In a parliamentary system, the strength of the government depends on:

the strength and cohesion of the majority party

According to the Constitution, who presides over the Senate?

the vice president

The medieval Christian vision held that the goal of politics should be

to enforce strict order so that religious life could proceed in peace.

Most colonists came to America

to establish societies in a particular form and for particular purposes.

The Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary primarily because

to list some rights might suggest that rights not listed were not retained or claimed by the people

An example of a concurrent power is the power

to tax

A nation with a single centralized government under one authority is classified as a

unitary government

The United States was the first nation to adopt

universal manhood suffrage

The Senate's president pro tempore is:

usually the most senior member of the majority party

The basic idea behind the notion of the separation of powers

was argued for in the writings of Locke and Montesquieu.

The views of Plato and Aristotle

were well known and deeply respected by the American Founders.

The first American electorate was restricted to

white males

The last expansion of the right to vote in the United States has been to

young people between the ages of 18 and 21

Unlike Plato, Aristotle differed in his view of government, in that

Aristotle was much less interested than Plato in describing the best conceivable government.

The Christian view of political life was most forcefully stated by

Augustine