Topic 2: Government Vocab Part 2

Ratification

formal approval or final consent to the effectiveness of a constitution, constitutional amendment, or treaty

Declaration of Independence

It was an official act taken by all 13 American colonies in declaring independence from British rule.

Federalist

those persons who supported the ratification of the Constitution in 1787–1788

Anti-Federalist

those persons who opposed the ratification of the Constitution in 1787–1788

Virginia Plan

plan presented by the delegates from Virginia at the Constitutional Convention; called for a three-branch government with a bicameral legislature in which each State's membership would be determined by its population or its financial support for the Federal Government

New Jersey Plan

plan that was presented as an alternative to the Virginia Plan at the Constitutional Convention; called for a unicameral legislature in which each State would be equally represented

Connecticut Compromise

an agreement reached during the Constitutional Convention that Congress should be composed of a Senate, in which each State would be represented equally, and a House, in which each State would be represented based on the State's population

Three-Fifths Compromise

an agreement reached at the Constitutional Convention that a slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person when counting the population of a State

Full Faith and Credit

clause requiring that each State accept the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State

Framers

group of delegates who drafted the United States Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787

Veto

chief executive's power to reject a bill passed by a legislature; literally (Latin) “I forbid”

Republicanism

a political ideology centered on citizenship in a state organized as a republic. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self-rule and ranges from the rule of a representative minority or oligarchy to popular sovereignty.

First Continental Congress

formed in response to the British Parliament's passage of the Intolerable Acts (called the Coercive Acts in England), which aimed to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. A meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 British colonies that became the United States.

Northwest Ordinance

chartered a government for the Northwest Territory, provided a method for admitting new states to the Union from the territory, and listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory. A land agreement that created the Northwest Territory, letting the United States to expand into the Great Lakes area and it told the territories how to become a state. statehood.

Second Continental Congress

the late-18th-century meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and its associated Revolutionary War that established American independence from the British Empire.

Adam Smith

Smith (1723–1790) was a Scottish philosopher whose ideas are credited with pushing forward the nineteenth-century era of free trade. His book The Wealth of Nations (1776) influenced many intellectual and political leaders of the time, and his theories continue to have credibility among modern economists.

John Locke

(1632–1704) English philosopher who wrote about his theories concerning the natural rights of man, the social contract, the separation of Church and State, religious freedom, and liberty. Locke's theories influenced the American and French revolutions.

Baron De Montesquieu

Montesquieu (1689–1755) was a French political philosopher of the Enlightenment whose major work, The Spirit of Laws, was a major contribution to political theory. His theory of the separation of powers had a great impact on the Framers of the Constitution of the United States.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

A Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist, Rousseau's (1712–1778) treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution. His famous work, The Social Contract, expresses his idea that humans are essentially free, but the progress of civilization has substituted subservience and dependence to others for that freedom. To overcome this, people must invoke their free will to reconstruct themselves politically along democratic ideals.

William Blackstone

Blackstone (1723–1780) was an English judge who wrote the Commentaries on the Laws of England, a series of four books that had a profound influence on the writers of America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Blackstone, an important Enlightenment figure, believed in protecting the rights of the innocent, and in basing judgments on common law, that is, on previous decisions about similar issues.