Chapter 2: Constitional Democracy: Promoting Liberty and Self-Government

What are inalienable rights?

(Natural Rights), including those of life, liberty, and property, which are threatened by individuals who steal, kill, and otherwise act without regard for others. To protect against such individuals, people agree among themselves to form a government [the social contract]

What is the Electoral College?

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What is a Constitution?

A Constitution is the fundamental law that defines how a government will legitimately operate- the method for choosing its leaders, the institutions through which these leaders will work, the procedures they must follow in making policy, and the powers they can lawfully exercise.

Define democracy

By the term democracy, the framers meant a government in which the power of the majority is unlimited, whether exercised directly (as in the power of the majority is unlimited, whether exercised directly [as in the case of town meetings open to all citizens] or through a representative body.

What are the Bill of Rights?

Include rights such as freedom of speech and religion and due process protections (such as the right to a jury trial) for persons accused of crimes [ these rights, termed civil liberties ]

Define a Constitutional Democratic Repulic

It is the type of government created in the United States in 1787. It is constitutional in its requirement that power gained through elections be exercised in accordance with law and with due respect for individual rights' democratic in its provisions for majority influence through elections'a and a republic in its mix of deliberative institutions, each of which moderates the power for the others.

What are Separation of Powers?

Separation of Powers [a concept developed by the French theorist Montesquieu] was widely admired in America, and when the states drafted new constitutions after the start of the Revolutionary War, they built their governments around the ideal .

What are the Anti-Federalists?

The Anti-Federalists raised arguments that still echo in American politics. They claimed that the national government would be too powerful and would threaten self-government in the separate states and the liberty of the people.

What [Who] are the Federalists?

The Federalists [as the Constitution's supporters called themselves] responded with a persuasive case of their own. Their strongest arguments were set forth by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, who along with John Jay wrote a series of essays that were published in a New York City newspaper under the pen name Publius. Madison ad Hamilton argued that the government of the Constitution would correct the defects of the Articles' it would have the power necessary to forge a secure and prosperous union.

Define Delegates

The Progressives rejected the Burkean idea of representatives as trustees, instead embracing the idea of representatives as delegates- officeholders who are obligated to carry out the expressed opinions of the people they represent.

What are, 'denials of power'?

The framers also used denials of power as a means to limit government, prohibiting certain practices that European rulers had routinely used to oppress political opponents.

What is the judicial review?

The power of the judiciary to decide whether a government official or institution has acted within the limits of the Constitution and, if not, to declare its action null and void.

In the context of Political Science, how would you define tyranny of the majority?

To the framers, the great risk of popular government was tyranny of the majority: the people acting as an irrational mob that tramples on the rights of the minority.

What are Trustees?

Trustees are where representatives are obliged to serve the interest of those who elect them, but the nature of this interest is for the representatives, not the voters, to decide.

Define Primary Election

Which gives rank-and-file voters the power to select party nominees.

In the context of Political Science, what is liberty?

liberty- the principle that individuals should be free to at and think as they choose, provided they do not infringe unreasonably on the freedom and well-being of others- was the governing ideal that the framers sought most to uphold.

What is Self-Government?

one in which the people would be the ultimate source of governing authority and would have a voice in their governing.

What are grants of power?

the framers chose to limit the national government in part by confining its scope to constitutional grants of power.

Define Republic?

the framers meant a government that consists of carefully designed institutions that are responsive to the majority but not captive to it.

What is a limited government?

the framers of the Constitution sought to create a limited government - one that is subject to strict legal limits on the uses of power, so that it would not threaten the people's liberty.