Poly sci Exam #2 Review Material

26th Amendment

Prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old.

19th Amendment

Provides men and women with equal voting rights. The amendment states that the right of citizens to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Know something about each person introducing each chapter of the text. Read the last paragraph of the majority opinion in South Dakota v. Dole

Read last 3 paragraphs of Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas. Read the last two paragraphs in Part IV of the majority opinion in Gonzales v. Raich

What is "horizontal federalism"?

Refers to the ways state governments relate to one another. It refers to the separation of powers within the national government that take into account regional interests.

"If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother."

Roe v. Wade

What was the New Deal?

A series of social liberal programs enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1938, and a few that came later. They included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term (1933-1937) of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What is the full faith and credit clause?

Addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.

What were John C. Calhoun's key ideas?

Calhoun had earlier suggested that the doctrine of nullification could lead to secession. In his 1828 essay "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", Calhoun argued that a state could veto any federal law that went beyond the enumerated powers and encroached upon the residual powers of the State.

"The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."

Lawrence v. Texas

Case of DC v. Heller ruling says what about the 2nd Amendment?

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held in a 5-4 decision that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to federal enclaves and protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

"Fellow citizens, ... [t]he existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie."

Fredrick Douglass

"...any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him."

Gideon v. Wainwright

"If the States may tax one instrument, employed by the Government in the execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent rights; they may tax the papers of the custom house."

McCullough v. Maryland

"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Plessy v. Ferguson

24th Amendment

Prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials.

13th Amendment

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

15th Amendment

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

What is the Defense of Marriage Act? What is its status now? U.S. v. Windsor?

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law that, prior to being ruled unconstitutional, defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. Until Section 3 of the Act was struck down in 2013 (United States v. Windsor), DOMA, in conjunction with other statutes, had barred same-sex married couples from being recognized as "spouses" for purposes of federal laws, effectively barring them from receiving federal marriage benefits. DOMA's passage did not prevent individual states from recognizing same-sex marriage, but it imposed constraints on the benefits received by all legally married same-sex couples.

What were the positions of Federalists and Anti-Federalists on a Bill of Rights?

The Federalists were strongly in favour of adopting a Constitution. They believed that a strong central government was the only way to protect the liberties earned in the American Revolution. In the words of James Madison, a Federalist leader: the Constitution was a "Republican remedy for the diseases most incident to Republican government." On the other side were the Anti-Federalists. These men were strongly opposed to the Constitution because they believed that it gave too much power to the central government that, in their opinion, was incapable of representing the ordinary citizen. They were also concerned that the proposed Constitution didn't affirm certain liberties, like freedom of speech. As a compromise, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in 1791 in the form of the first ten amendments.

What was the Missouri Compromise?

The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free.

What was the court's ruling in the Heart of Atlanta Motel case?

The Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 14, 1964, that in passing Title II of the Civil Rights Act (1964), which prohibited segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation involved in interstate commerce, the U.S. Congress did not exceed the regulatory authority granted to it by the commerce clause of Article I of the U.S. Constitution. The court thereby declared that Title 9 was constitutional.

10th Amendment

The Tenth Amendment, or Amendment X of the United States Constitution is the section of the Bill of Rights that basically says that any power that is not given to the federal government is given to the people or the states.

27th Amendmennt

The Twenty-seventh Amendment bars members of Congress from voting to give themselves a pay raise.

14th Amendment

The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War.

What is Federalism?

The constitutional division of powers between two different LEVELS of government.

What was the ruling in Kelo v. New London?

The governmental taking of property from one private owner to give to another in furtherance of economic development constitutes a permissible "public use" under the Fifth Amendment. Supreme Court of Connecticut decision affirmed.

What is the term for government's power to take private property for public use?

The law of eminent domain derives from the so-called "Takings Clause" of the Fifth Amendment, which states, "[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The men who created the Constitution were, for the most part, landholders with a certain mistrust of government power.

"Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the Commonwealth's obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection."

United States v. Virginia

What was the purpose of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?

Was the first major legislation passed to address oppressive business practices associated with cartels and oppressive monopolies. The Sherman Antitrust Act is a federal law prohibiting any contract, trust, or conspiracy in restraint of interstate or foreign trade.