Unit 1B: The Constitution

Separation of powers

A design of government that distributes powers across institutions (legislative, executive, and judicial branches) in order to avoid making one branch too powerful on its own.

Checks and balances

A design of government in which each branch has power that can prevent the other branches from making policy and therefore ensure that no one branch can dominate.

Constitution

A document that sets out the fundamental principles of governance and establishes the institutions of government.

Republic

A government ruled by representatives of the people.

Electoral College

The electoral system used in electing the president and vice president, in which voters vote for electors pledged to cast their ballots for a particular party's candidate.

Judicial branch

The institution responsible for hearing and deciding cases through the federal courts.

Legislative branch

The institution responsible for making laws.

Executive branch

The institution responsible for carrying out laws passed by the legislative branch.

Unicameral

A one-house legislature.

Constitutional Convention

A meeting attended by state delegates in Philadelphia, May 25 to September 17, 1787, to fix the Articles of Confederation.

Shays's Rebellion

A popular uprising against the government of Massachusetts. It highlighted the need for a strong national government just as the call for the Constitutional Convention went out.

Bicameralism

The principle of a two-house legislature.

Virginia Plan

A plan of government calling for a three-branch government with a bicameral legislature, where more populous states would have more representation in Congress.

New Jersey Plan

A plan of government that provided for a unicameral legislature with equal votes for each state.

Connecticut (Great) Compromise

Compromise that settled issues of state representation by calling for a bicameral legislature with a House of Representatives (lower house) apportioned by population and a Senate (upper house) apportioned equally (in which each state would have two senators).

Three-fifths compromise

Compromise between northern and southern states at the Constitutional Convention that a slave would count as three-fifths of a person in calculating a state's representation and determining taxation.

Federalists

Supporters of ratification of the Constitution and of a strong central government.

Antifederalists

Opponents of ratification of the Constitution and of a strong central government, generally.

The Federalist Papers

A series of 85 essays promoting ratification of the Constitution, published anonymously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison in 1787 and 1788.

Articles of Confederation

The first constitution of the U.S. that created a union of thirteen sovereign states in which the states, not the national government, were supreme. It was drafted in 1777, ratified in 1781, and replaced by the Constitution in 1789.

Federalist No. 10

An essay in which James Madison argues that a large republic and republican government can mitigate the dangers of a faction.

Brutus No. 1

An Antifederalist Paper (against ratification of the Constitution) arguing that the country was too large to be governed as a republic and that the Constitution gave too much power to the national government.

Faction

A group of self-interested people (usually united by a particular common political purpose) who use the government to get what they want, trampling the rights of others in the process.

Grand Committee

Committee organized at the Constitutional Convention that worked out the compromise on representation in the national legislature.

Slave Trade Compromise

Congress could not restrict the slave trade until 1808.

Federalism

The sharing of power between the national (aka central or federal or U.S.) government and the states.

Amendment

Process by which change may be made to the Constitution (laid out in Article V).

Federalist No. 51

An essay in which Madison argues that separation of powers and federalism will prevent tyranny.