Government Exam

What important event occurred three weeks before the Second Continental Congress met?

"The shot heard 'round the world'

The framers relied on the writings of which Enlightenment philosophers as they decided how to best protect economic freedom and rights to property

Adam Smith

Republican ideas can be traced back to which of the following?

Ancient Greece and Rome

The New Jersey Plan was designed to stay closer to which document

Articles of Confederation

The forms of government in which one perosn controls most of the governing decisions is a(n)

Autocracy

The first ten amendments to the constitution are traditionally called the

Bill of Rights

The right to a speedy trail is guaranteed by the

Bill of Rights

What is the main responsibility of the executive branch agencies?

Carrying out Programs assigned by congress

Thomas Jefferson argued in the Declaration of Independence that, if a government disregards the will of the people, the people are free to do which of the following?

Change their government

The petition of Right resulted from a conflict between which two groups?

Charles I and Parliament

Which type of colony enjoyed the most independence from the Crown?

Charter

What principle of american democracy is exemplified when people vote, obey the law, serve on juries, keep informed about current issues

Citizen participation

What principle of American democracy is at work when two opposing groups relax some of their demands in an attempt to reach an agreement

Compromise

Which type of government system did the united states have in its earliest days?

Confederal

which system of government gives the least power to the national government

Confederal

Which of the following was a weakness of the Articles of Confederation

Congress lacked the power to tax

Which of the following is an example of legislative action?

Congress passes a law to create a new government agency

"My political curiosity... leads me to ask, who authored them to speak the language of 'We the people,' instead of 'We, the states?'" - Patrick Henry, June 4, 1788 What document is Patrick Henry talking about in the quote?

Constitution

According to the Three-Fifths Compromise acceptable to the smaller states?

Counted when determine representation in Congress

According to the Three-Fifths Compromise, three-fifths of a state's slave population would be

Counted when determine representation in congress

One of the purposes of the New England Confederation was to

Defend against threats posed by Native Americans

The chinese concept of " Mandate of heaven" is an example of rule by

Divine Right

Why did our nation founders believe deeply in safeguarding economic freedom

Economic freedom allows people to build wealth

Under the Constitution who holds the actual power to elect the president

Electoral college

Which document was passed by Parliament in the Glorious Revolution

English Bill of Rights

Which of the following is a basic function of the government

Ensuring national security

The president heads which part of the government

Executive

The power of the president to enter agreements with foreign leaders or governments is an example of which of the following

Executive Implementation

In a presidential system, the president is in charge of the

Executive branch of government

The power to carry out, enforce, and administer the law is known as

Executive power

Which system of government is largely an American invention?

Federal

which of the following factors led to the passage of the twenty-second amendment limiting presidents to two terms

Franklin Roosevelts stay in office

In the early days of the American republic, people generally thought of liberty as

Freedom

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedoms of speech, or of the press; or the rights of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government Forna redress of grievances" - First Amendment to the US Constitution, 1791 Which phrase in the First Amendment specifically relates to an individual's right to ask the governemnt to correct an injustice?

Freedom of the press

Which of the following was a set of laws that limited the power of government and gave all free men the right to choose judges

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

Which colony did not send delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia?

Georgia

For which reason is James Madison hailed as the Father of the Constitution

He greatly influenced the outcome of the convention

Parliament imposed a series of taxes on the colonies beginning in 1764 in order to

Help pay Britain's debts resulting from the French and Indian War

What ideal did the Antifederalists find the Constitution lacked?

Individual right's

"all men are created equal" reflects the founders commitment to which principle

Individual worth

What did the Constitution do about Atlantic slave trade?

It bared congress from banning the slave trade for 20 years

Which philospher believed that the formation of societies and governmet corrupted the human condition and introduced inequality

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Which power involves the authority to interpret the laws and to settle disputes between members of society

Judicial

The Supreme Court applies the Constitution to modern-day cases in a process called

Judicial Interpretation

The 1803 landmark Supreme Court case Marbury v Madison established the principle of

Judicial review

What three basic types of power do people in government exercise?

Legislative, Executive, Judicial

What two ideals of democracy did Alexis de Tocqueveille think must be kept in balance in order to prevent democratic despotism

Liberty and equality

What is the function of a government in a free enterprise system?

Limiting its interference

Which of the following is an example of providing for the public good?

Maintaing an army

Which form of government has been the most common throughout world history?

Monarchy

The Framers took the idea of separation of powers from which philosopher?

Montesquieu

For the Confederation Congress to pass any major legislation, how many states had to agree?

Nine

Magna carta was originally intended to protect the rights of which group

Nobles

The Executive and legislative branches of government are fused in which type of government?

Parliamentary

Which of the following was the Confederation of Congress's greatest success?

Passage of the Northwest Ordinance

Which of the following was the most pressing challenge facing the Confederation Congress

Paying off the war debt

Integral to the idea of self government is the notion that ultimate government authority comes from

People

Civic virtue is the idea that people should do which of the following?

Place the common good over private interest

Which of the following are a characteristic of a state?

Population and Sovereignty

The main purpose of the Bill of Rights is to

Protect individual freedoms

Americans believe strongly that a balance should be struck between majority rule and

Protecting minority rights

Which of the following is another name for the term general welfare

Public good

Why did large states favor the Virginia Plan?

Representation in the legislature would be based on population

The people are the ultimate source of authority in which governmental system

Republic

What form of democracy are most democracies in large, industrialized nations?

Republic

Which system of government is an indirect form of democracy, placing political decision making at least one step away from the people?

Republic

Delegates gathered in Philadelphia in May of 1787 to do what?

Revise the Articles of Confederation

What event showed how feeble the Confederation Congress was and hastened moved to revise the Articles of Confederation

Shay's Rebellion

Which of the following authorized the federal government to collect an income tax?

Sixteenth Amendment

In an oligarchy, who runs the government

Small group of peole

Which theory holds that the first governments formed as a result of people agreeing among themselves to submit to authority of state

Social Contract Theory

Why did the Civil War amendments have little effect in the South until 1965?

Southern States passed Jim Crow laws

The supreme power of a state to act within its territory and have absolute authority over its internal and external affairs is callled

Sovereignty

The U.S. federal system consists of a national government and what other government level

State

In order for a national convention to be called to propose an amendment to the Constitution, who must take action

State legislature and Congress

What is the purpose of the preamble of the constitution

State the goals for the new government

Under the Articles of Confederation, most government power was retained by which?

States

Why was the Great Compromise acceptable to the smaller states?

States would be represented equally in the Senate

In the preamble what does the phrase "form a more perfect union" mean

Strengthen the relationship among the state

Who has the ultimate authority to decide whether or not a federal law or action is constitutional

Supreme Court

The Stamp Act marked Parliament's first attempt to

Tax the colonists directly

How did the Northwest Ordinance differ from the Constitution on the issue of slavery?

The Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in the territory, while the Constitution temporarily protected the slave trade

Which of the following descirbes a confederal system?

The central government has only the power given to it by the states

Why did the colonist resent the taxes imposed by Parliament beginning in 1764?

The taxes were excessive and unfair

How did the Framers bypass Congress and state legislatures in the process of ratifying the new Constitution?

They called for voters in each state to elect representatives to a state ratifying convention

Why did colonial assemblies reject the Albany Plan of Union?

They feared that the plan gave too much power to the Crown

Why did Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison write the Federalist Papers?

They wrote the articles in dense of the new Constitution

Which philosopher argued that government must have great power to force obedience to its laws and to defend itself?

Thomas Hobbes

Who said the life without a government was like a war ptiing each individual against the other

Thomas hobbes

Which of the following is one way an amendment to the Constitution can be ratified

Three-fourths of State legislature

What does an authoritarian regime become at its most extreme?

Totalitarian

The vast majority of the world's nations have which system of governemnt

Unitary

Antifederalists believed that representative government

Was less important than state sovereignty

For ideas on how to use the law to protect people's natural rights to life, liberty and property, the Framers looked to

William Blackstone

which of the following is one of the goals that populists supported in the late 1800s

bank regulation

What is the name of the group of executive department heads who advise the president?

cabinet

One way political parties influence how the Constitution is interpreted is by

helping determine canidates

Rulers who are seen as right and proper by key segments of thier nations population have

legitimacy

which political movement influenced congress to give women the right to vote

progressives

Why did strict constructionists argue that the government should not create a national bank?

there is no provision for the bank in the constitution