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| Articles of Confederation |
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| the first Constitution of the thirteen American states adopted in 1781 and replaced in 1789 with the Constitution of the United States. |
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| An uprising led by a former militia officer, Daniel Shays, which broke out in western Massachusetts in 1786. Shays's followers protested the foreclosures of farms for debt and briefly succeeded in shutting down the court system. Although the rebellion was easily overcome, it persuaded conservatives of the need for a strong national government and contributed to the movement to draft the Constitution. |
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| a plan, unsuccessfully proposed at the Constitutional Convention, providing for a single legislative house with equal representation for each state. |
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| a plan, unsuccessfully proposed at the Constitutional Convention, providing for a legislature of two houses with proportional representation in each house and executive and judicial branches to be chosen by the legislature. |
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| the compromise between the New Jersey and the Virginia plans that created one chamber of Congress based on population and one chamber representing each state equally; also called the Connecticut Compromise. |
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| a compromise between Southern and Northern states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in which three-fifths of the population of slaves would be counted for enumeration purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives. |
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| advocacy of the federal system of government. |
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| a system of government in which the states and the national government each remain supreme within their own spheres. |
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| the name given to one who was in favor of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and the creation of a federal union with a strong central government. |
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| an individual who opposed the ratification of the new Constitution in 1787; opposed to a strong central government. |
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| a system of government in which power is divided between a central government and regional, or subdivisional, governments. |
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| a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. |
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| the name by which the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution are known; introduced by James Madison to the First United States Congress in 1789. |
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| the power of the Supreme Court or any court to declare unconstitutional federal or state laws and other acts of government. |
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| a form of government in which representatives elected by the people make and enforce laws and policies, may retain the monarchy in a ceremonial rule. |
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| a power that may be exercised by the head of state without the approval of another branch of the government. |
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| powers held jointly by the national and state governments. |
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| Full Faith and Credit Clause |
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| addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings" of other states. |
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| Privileges and Immunities Clause |
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| no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. |
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| the surrender of an alleged criminal usually under the provisions of a treaty or statute by one authority (as a state) to another having jurisdiction to try the charge. |
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| the constitutional provision that makes the Constitution and federal laws superior to all conflicting state and local laws. |
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| federal grants-in-aid to states or local governments that are for very specific programs or projects. |
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| federal programs that provide funds to state and local governments for general functional areas, such as criminal justice or mental-health programs. |
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| the principle of dividing governmental powers among the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches of government. |
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| a major principle of the American government system whereby each branch of the government exercises a check on the actions of the others. |
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| a power of one department or branch of a government to forbid or prohibit finally or provisionally the carrying out of projects attempted by another department; an authoritative prohibition. |
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| to prevail over; to annul. |
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| a change to the constitution of a nation or a state. |
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| the part of the First Amendment prohibiting the establishment of a church officially supported by the national government; applied to state and local government aid to religious organizations and schools. |
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| a theory or doctrine of constitutional law that those rights guaranteed by the first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution that are fundamental to and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty are incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. |
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| an advisory group selected by the president to aid in decision making; includes the heads of fifteen executive departments and other named by the president. |
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| an official elected or appointed to act as ruler, chief executive, or nominal head of a political unit. |
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| the power of an executive to veto individual lines or items within a piece of legislation without vetoing the entire bill. |
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| the granting of a release from the punishment or legal consequences of a crime. |
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| postponing the execution of a sentence imposed by a court of law; usually done for humanitarian reasons or to await new evidence. |
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| a legislature with only one legislative chamber, as opposed to a bicameral legislature, such as the U.S. Congress. |
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| a legislature made up of two chambers, or parts; the U.S. Congress, composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate. |
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| a government unit’s apportioning of part of its tax income to other units of government. |
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| an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. |
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| a political system in which states or regional governments retain ultimate authority except for those powers they expressly delegate to central government. |
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| a group of people occupying a specific area and organized under one government; may be either a nation or a subunit of a nation. |
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| rights held to be inherent in natural law, not dependent on governments. |
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| a voluntary agreement among individuals to secure their rights and welfare by creating a government and abiding by its rules. |
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| a structure of government proposed by James Madison in which the powers of the government are separated into three braches: executive, legislative, and judicial. |
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| a group of persons called electors selected by the voters in each state and the District of Columbia (D.C); this group officially elects the president and vice president of the United States. The number of electors in each state is equal to the number of each state’s representatives in both chambers of Congress. |
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| an international agreement between chiefs of state that does not require legislative approval. |
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