The Federal System

Confederation

Type of government in which the national government derives its powers from the states; a league of independent states.

Iroquois Confederacy

A political alliance of American Indian Tribes established in the seventeenth century that featured aspects of the federal system of government adapted by the Framers.

Monarchy

The form of government in which power is vested in hereditary kings and queens who govern the entire society.

Totalitarianism

A form of government in which power resides in leaders who rules by force in their own self-interest and without regard to rights and liberties.

Oligarchy

A form of government in which the right to participate depends on the possession of wealth, social status, military position, or achievement.

Democracy

A system of government that gives power to the people whether directly or through elected representatives.

Federal System

System of government in which the national government and state governments share power and derive all authority from the people.

Unitary System

System of government in which the local and regional governments derive all authority from a strong national government.

Enumerated Powers

The powers of the national government specifically granted to Congress in Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution.

Implied Powers

The powers of the national government derived from the enumerated powers and the necessary and proper clause.

Tenth Amendment

The final part of the Bill of Rights that defines the basic principle of American federalism in stating that the powers NOT delegated to the national government are reserved to the states or to the people.

Reserved Powers

Powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment that lie at the foundation of a state’s right to legislate for the public health and welfare of its citizens.

Concurrent Powers

Powers shared by the national and state governments.

Bill of Attainder

A law of declaring an act illegal without a judicial trial.

Ex Post Facto Law

Law that makes an act punishable as a crime, even if the action was legal at the time it was committed.

Full Faith and Credit Clause

Section of Article IV of the Constitution that ensures judicial decrees and contracts made in one state will be binding and enforceable in any other state.

Privileges and Immunities Clause

Part of Article IV of the Constitution guaranteeing that the citizens of each state are afforded the same rights as citizens of all other states.

Extradition Clause

Part Article IV of the Constitution that requires states to extradite, or return, criminals to states where they have been convicted or are to stand trial.

Interstate Compacts

Contracts between states that carry the force of law; generally now used as a tool to address multistate policy concerns

Dillon’s Rule

A premise articulated by Judge John F. Dillon in 1868 which states that local governments do not have any inherent sovereignty and instead must be authorized by state governments that can create or abolish them.

Charter

A document that, like a Constitution, specifies the basic policies, procedures, and institutions of local government. _______ for local governments must be approved by state legislatures.

Counties

The basic administrative units of local governments.

Municipalities

City governments created in response to the emergence of relatively densely populated areas.

Special District

A local governments that is restricted to a particular function.

John Marshall

The longest- serving Supreme Court Chief Justice, _______ served from 1801-1835. His decision in Marbury V. Madison (1803) established the principle of judicial review in the United States.

McCulloch V Maryland

The Supreme Court upheld the power of the national government and denied the right of a state to tax the federal bank, using the Constitution’s supremacy clause. The Court’s board interpretation of the Necessary and Proper Clause paved the way for later rulings upholding expansive federal powers.

Gibbons V Ogden (1824)

The Supreme Court upheld broad Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The Court’s broad interpretation of the Constitution’s commerce clause paved the way for later rulings upholding expansive federal powers.

Barron V Baltimore (1833)

Supreme Court ruling that, before the Civil War, limited the applicability of the Bill of Rights to the federal government and not to the states.

Roger B. Taney

Supreme Court Chief Justice who served from 1835-1864, Taney supported slavery and states’ rights in the pre-Civil War era.

Dual Federalism

The belief that having separate and equally powerful levels of government is the best arrangement, often referred to as layer-cake federalism.

Nullification

The belief in the right of a state to declare void a federal law.

John C. Calhoun

A politician and political theorist from South Carolina who supported slavery and states’ rights in the pre-Civil War era and served as vice president from 1825 to 1832.

Dred Scott V Sandford (1857)

A supreme court decision that ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and denied citizenship rights to enslaved African Americans. Dred Scott heightened tension between the pro-slavery South and the abolitionist North in the run up to the Civil War.

Civil War

The military conflict from 1861 to 1865 in the United States between the Northern forces of th