American Government Chapter 1 Study Guide

Practice vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and political figures from Chapter 1 regarding government, power structures, and historic philosophers.

Government

The institution through which a society makes and enforces its public policies

Public Policies

All of the things a government decides to do

Legislative Power

The power to make laws and to frame public policies

Executive Power

The power to execute, enforce, and administer laws

Judicial Power

The power to interpret laws, to determine their meaning, and to settle disputes that arise within the society

Dictatorship

Form of government where those who rule cannot be held responsible to the will of the people

State

A body of people, living in a defined territory, organized politically (that is, with a government), and with the power to make and enforce law without the consent of any higher authority.

Sovereign

When a state has supreme and absolute power within its own territory and can decide its own foreign and domestic policies

Autocracy

A form of government in which a single person holds unlimited power

Oligarchy

A form of government in which the power to rule is held by a small, usually self-appointed elite

Theocracy

A form of government in which a country is ruled by religious leaders

Unitary Government

A centralized government in which all government powers belong to a single, central agency

Federal Government

A form of government in which powers are divided between a central government and a several local governments

Division of Powers

Basic principle of federalism; the constitutional provisions by which government powers are divided on a geographic basis (in the United States, between the National Government and the States)

Confederation

A joining of several groups for a common purpose

Presidential Government

A form of government in which the executive and legislative branches of the government are separate, independent, and coequal.

Parliamentary Government

A form of government in which the executive branch is made up of the prime minister, or premier, and that official's cabinet; this branch is part of the legislature

Patricians

Rich upper class, landowning aristocrats of the Roman Republic

Plebeians

The common folk in the Roman Republic

Sovereignty

Utmost authority in decision making and in maintaining order of a state

Legitimacy

The public accepts a governing body's authority and right to rule.

Divine right of kings

The belief of God grants authority to a government

Colonialism

The control of one nation over foreign lands

Mercantilism

An economic and political theory emphasizing money as the chief source of wealth to increase the absolute power of the monarchy and the nation.

Majority Rule

The principle that the majority of the people will be right more often than they will be wrong, and will be right more often than will any one person or small group.

Compromise

An adjustment of opposing principals or system by modifying some aspects of each in order to find the position most acceptable to the majority

Citizen

A member of state or nation who owes allegiance to it by birth or naturalization and is entitled to full civil rights

Free Enterprise System

An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods; investment that are determined by private decision rather than by state control and determined in a free market.

Aristotle

($384$-$322$ B.C.) Greek philosopher who viewed the lives of individual humans as linked in a social context and wrote about various types of government.

Thomas Hobbs

($1588$-$1679$) English philosopher who felt that people and nations were in a constant battle for power and wealth; he thought that an absolute monarchy was the best government for England.

John Locke

($1632$-$1704$) English philosopher who wrote about theories concerning natural rights, the social contract, separation of Church and State, and religious freedom.

Alexander Pope

($1688$-$1744$) A famous and financially successful poet who was also a satirist and translator, most famous for his use of the heroic couplet.

Abraham Lincoln

($1809$-$1865$) Elected $16th$ President of the United States in $1861$; known for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and was assassinated in $1865$.

François-Marie Arouet

AKA Voltaire ($1694$-$1778$); an important Enlightenment thinker and writer who believed in reason, science, and religious freedom.

William Blackstone

($1723$-$1780$) English judge who wrote Commentaries on the Laws of England, which influenced the writers of America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

James Bryce

($1838$-$1922$) British politician and ambassador who wrote The American Commonwealth, a favorable study of the U.S. government.

Winston Churchill

($1874$-$1965$) British statesman who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom and was the first honorary U.S. citizen.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

($1841$-$1935$) A justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from $1902$ to $1932$ who was nicknamed the Great Dissenter.

George Washington

($1732$-$1799$) First President of the United States and a Founding Father; prior to his presidency, he was a general in the American Revolution.

Theodore Roosevelt

($1858$-$1919$) $26th$ President of the United States; a Nobel Peace Prize recipient who began construction of the Panama Canal.

Social Contract Theory

A population in a given territory gave up as much power to a government as needed to promote the well-being of all, thereby creating a sovereign state.