AP GOV Units 1 and 2

Long before time had a name

1607, Jamestown, hella colonies, started to expand because of the 3 G’s

wtf happening in 1750s?!

southern colonies need slaves and cash crops, middle colonies that are very diverse, and New England got some ppl protesting and shit against England

Salutary Neglet

England was like fuck it do whatever you want and the colonies were like oh fuck yeah so they practiced self-governing

7 year war (cockblock)

Britian is in debt and those bitches decide to tax America

• sugar act

• stamp act

• other acts prolly idk

John Locke’s Natural Law

there are natural rights that aren’t given by kings but something from nature

Rousseau’s social contract theory

everyone got rights but the government can take some of it so there isn’t total anarchy 

popular sovereignty

government gotta open their ears to the people so this republican shit can work 

initiatives

anyone can push for a law. people put a law on a ballot, gets signed, blah blah, becomes a law 

referendum

same thing as initiatives but getting rid of a law

faction

same thing as an interest group

AoC

was hella ass and written out of fear from what Britain did

Shays’s Rebellion

Because of the shitty tax rules under the AoC, Shays’s land was gonna get taken, so he starts this rebellion that captures the eyes of Washington who ends it, but it led to a massive turning point cuz they realized “oh fuck, if someone with more popularity did ts, we would get dicked down soo hard since under the AoC as well, you can’t make a fucking military for some cock-and-balls reason”

Who tf is Maddison?

some goat who took notes and really created the idea of the Constitution 

“How can we have a better congress?”

the Virginia Plan

The Virginia Plan

strong central government with Congress based on population

The New Jersey Plan

“Yo, let’s have a Senate not every state’s equal and everyone gets 2 representatives type” 

Connecticut Compromise aka The Great Compromise

created a House of Representatives based on population and a Senate based on statehood 

Wtf we gonna do about slavery?

“let’s lowkey keep slaves, but how is that gonna play out with representation” 

3/5 Compromise

Southerns realized their populations are smaller, so they needed slaves to count towards their population, guaranteeing them more representatives. So, for every 5 slaves, they counted them as 3 people (a population count) to that southern state’s total population. 

Now what about Federalism?

Came to the agreement there will be a federal system, so a separation of powers. Gonna be 3 branches, executive, legislative, and judicial, and there’re gonna be checks and balances on all of them. 

how to memorize the Constitution

Legs Execute, Judges State, Amending, Super, Ratification 

Legs

Article 1: all about the legislative branch (the rules, powers)

Legs Execute

Article 2: Executive Branch

Judges

Article 3: Judicial Branch

State

Article 4: States rights and the relationship between states

Amending

Article 5: The amendment process (how can we ratify amendments, make new ones, etc)

Super

Article 6: The Supremacy Clause (if federal law having beef with state law, federal law is gonna win) 

Ratification

Article 7: 9 states need to pass (2/3)

Federalist Papers

basically glazed tf out of the Constitution and why we should support it

Federalist believe

in the US constitution

Anti-Federalists believe in

they just like hating on the Constitution (preferred states rights and most notably, small states)

Economy standpoint

federalists believe in a more diverse economy, anti-feds believe in a more farmer type of lifestyle 

Government beliefs

Feds: strong gov to deal with world issues

Anti-Feds: nah, let’s stay out of the world’s view 

The Anti-Feds conspiracy theory

this shit is all gonna lead up to a unitary system on the d-low and ultimately bring back a monarchy

Response to the Anti-Feds conspiracy theory

James maddison just whips out 20 amendments from his dih 🥀

Representative Democracy

We have so hella people and hella ideas so we created a House of Representatives with a Senate. We also built this idea of Separation of Powers  

Necessary and Proper clause aka Elastic Clause

allows Congress to “stretch” out its powers to handle issues the founding fathers didn’t protect 

National Supremacy

the idea federal laws and the Constitution are the highest laws in the country

How is the Bill of Rights written

in negatives; the government can’t actually take things away from you 

Nicknames for Federal Powers (or national government)

National powers, delegated powers, enumerated powers, expressed powers

Nickname for states

reserved powers

nickname for shared

concurent

10th Amendment

nothing not in the Contestation is left to the people and the states 

mcculloch v maryland

McCulloch is working for the Bank of United States in Maryland and the state didn’t like this. They wanted to kick out the bank cuz it was creating competition with their other banks, so they passed a law to tax the federal bank, and McCulloch (who was the head of the bank), said, “I’m not paying,” so they sue him. John Marshal then argues that there are “implied plat powers” because in Article 1 Section 8: United States can coin money and do all this stuff, and you need to be able to do all of thee things, you need access to a national bank. In addition, he said states can tax federal governments because “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”

dual-federalism

federalist 51

checks and balanance and seperation

Fiscal-Federalism

a type of federalism set by FDR to stimulate the economy by handing out federal taxes to the states

block grants

the federal governments would hand money to the states and say, “spend however you want to spend” 

categorical grants

the federal government would give money and tell you how you could spend it, but they only do this if the government says, “Alright, you can spend $10 million on roads, but we’ll only pay you back if you show us the receipts,” and things like that. Called strings attatched, and is more favored by the categorical grants. 

Ronald Regan’s Devolution

Moving backwards and giving up some states powers; therefore increasing state’s power. 

Lopez vs. United States

A case about federal powers vs states rights. The federal government attempted to make an act to keep schools safe called the Guns Free School Zone Act, or GFSZA: you can’t bring drugs around school, yet still, this dumb student down in Texas brings gun to school and the teachers get word of it, so it gets reported to the administration. The school district calls up the federal government and explain what happened, so now the student is getting tried for breaking a federal law, which is incredibly bad. The parents good lawyers and sue, arguing that keeping guns away from schools has to do with commerce, and the federal government can regulate commerce. It was a very weird arguement to make. Ultimately, policing powers are left to the states, so when the court case comes up, the defendant and his parents Lopez argue that this is an incredibly far stretch going way beyond their rightful powers. The Supreme Court then agreed with them, arguing that this GFSZA was unconstitutional and an overreach by the ederal government. This is important about the understanfing about develotuon.

Education and Money

No child gets left behind: if schools don’t hit this standard in their education, the government would take away part of their funding 

Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise)

How could states get representation in Congress? Big states wanted this through population and small states wanted equal representation without being pushed around, so they create the HoR based on population and the Senate, so each state can get represented with 2 seneators. This all createss a checks and ballance . 

Brutus 1

argued for no Constitution cuz a strong government could take powers away from the states

Fed 10

Maddsion said factions are bad, but in order to solve them, you need a large republic because with so many people, no single group can truly dominate

Article VII - Ratification 

tried to prove that the Constitution was a choice made by the people