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Test 1
Political Science
16
Political Studies
Undergraduate 2
02/20/2011

Additional Political Studies Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Thomas Jefferson
Definition
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
Term
Social Contract
Definition

The idea that government is the result of an agreement amont people to form one, and that people have the right to create an entirely new goverment if the terms of the contract have been violated by the existing one.

A philosophical device, used by Englightenment thinkers, such a Locke, Rousseau, and Harrington to suggest that governments are only legitimate if they are created by a voluntary compact among the people.

 

Term
Constitution
Definition
The basic framework of law that prescribes how government is to be organized, how decisions are to be made, and what powers and responsibilities it shall have.
Term
Checks and Balances
Definition
The constitutional principle that government power shall be divided and that the fragments should balance or check on another to prevent tyranny.
Term
Seperation of Powers
Definition
The distribution of government legislative, executive, and judicial powers to seperate branches of government.
Term
Federalism
Definition
A system in which significant governmental powers are divided between a central government and smaller units,such as states.
Term
Supremacy Clause
Definition
The provision in Article VI of the Constitution that the Constitution itself and the laws and treaties of the United States are the supreme law of the land, taking precedence over state laws and constitutions.
Term
Full faith and credit clause
Definition
This means that private contractual or financial agreements among people or companies in one state are valild in all the other states and that civil judgements by the courts of one state must be recognized by others. Ex: avoiding debt by moving from one state to another
Term
Necessary and Proper clause
Definition
Articel I, Section 8, of the Constitution, also known as the elastic clause; gives Congress the authority to make whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated responsibilities.
Term
Devolution
Definition
the delegation of power by the central goverment to state or local bodies.
Term
14th Amendment
Definition
no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws
Term
Due process Clause
Definition
The section of the Fourteenth Amendment that prohibits states from depriving any one of life, liberty, or property, "without due process of law" a guarantee against arbitrary or unfair goverment action.
Term
2nd Amendment
Definition
Right to Bear Arms
Term
Dispersed Power
Definition
To seperate or cause to seperate and move into different directions.
Term
Interstate Compacts
Definition
Agreements among states to cooperate on solving mutual problems; requires approval by Congress.
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