Exam 2: The Founding and the Constitution

Some of the framers wanted an executive council, as opposed to a single chief executive of the sort they eventually settled upon, to avoid the evils that many associated with a monarch.

Explain the process for amending the Constitution and use specific examples to discuss the types of amendments that have actually been ratified.

A legislative assembly, such as Congress, that is divided into two chambers (or houses) is best described as:

Why might the delegates to the Constitutional Convention have rejected a motion to include a bill of rights in the Constitution?

The Constitution grants the president the unconditional power to accept ambassadors from other countries.

The division of power, created by the Constitution, between a strong central government and sovereign state governments, is known as:

During the winter of 1786-1787, John Adams of Massachusetts was sent to negotiate a new treaty with the British to cover disputes left over from the war.The British government responded that it would:

List and describe the various sectors of colonial society, and explain the role of each during the events leading up to the American Revolution and writing of the Constitution.

Why did the framers believe that a new Constitution was necessary?

The presidential veto power over legislation, the power of the Senate to approve presidential appointments, and judicial review over acts of Congress and presidential actions are examples of the American political system's principle of:

Three of the Constitution's framers-James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay-wrote, under the pseudonym "Publius," a series of essays in favor of the new document in order to:

In 2018, the five smallest states held roughly 1 percent of the seats in the U.S.House of Representatives and 10 percent of the seats in the U.S.Senate.These differing levels of representation of the five small states were the result of which decision during the Constitutional Convention?

Although the national Constitution seems to limit federal power by its suggestion that any powers not explicitly given to the national government were denied it, the framers nonetheless gave the national government a broad grant of power through:

The Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol, and the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed that prohibition, were unusual among constitutional amendments in that ____________________.

The Constitution's Article VI asserts that the national government's laws, and all treaties between the United States and foreign countries, come before those adopted by any state.This has come to be known as the:

The Three-Fifths Compromise gave the South an advantage in the Electoral College.

To give federal judges some isolation from political pressure, the Constitution's framers:

The Antifederalists, a group of elites in the postrevolutionary era who opposed the new Constitution, argued in favor of a bill of rights.

In the years immediately following the Revolutionary War, Congress slowly took command of the country, as the power of states (or former colonies) diminished.

The Declaration of Independence was remarkable for its assertion of the idea that governments could not deprive citizens of the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," because this was an era when: