American Government Institutions and Policies, Brief Version 12th Edition by James Q. Wilson – Test Bank

∙ Power should be granted in a written document, constitution.

∙ Government should respect human liberty.

∙ The legislative branch should be superior to the executive branch.

∙ Each state had one vote in a single house Congress, regardless of size.

∙ There was no national judiciary.

∙ Amendments required the support of all 13 states.

∙ The army was small and dependent upon state militias.

∙ The office of president was meaningless.

∙ Congress could coin money, but there was little to coin.

∙ In the “state of nature” (society before government), the strong can threaten the liberty of the weak.

∙ The instinct for self-preservation leads people to want government.

∙ The power of the government must be limited by the consent of the governed.

∙ It provided for a separation of powers.

∙ It suggested a bicameral legislature.

∙ It proposed one branch of the legislature to be directly elected and the second to be chosen by state legislatures.

∙ Executive and members of the national judiciary were to be chosen by the national legislature.

∙ A council of revision could veto legislation (which could be overridden).

∙ There would be a bicameral national legislature.

∙ The House of Representatives would be directly elected by the people and membership would be based on population (larger states would have more members). The Senate would be selected by state legislatures and members would be based on equality (each state would have two Senators).

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The Great Compromise reconciled the interests of small and large states by allowing the former to predominate in the Senate and the latter in the House. This reconciliation was necessary to ensure there would be support for a strong national government from
small as well as large states.

∙ Government should mediate, not mirror, public views.

∙ Representatives should represent, not register, majority sentiment.

∙ Representative democracy may move slowly and prevent sweeping change, but it minimizes the potential abuse of power by self-serving officeholders or tyrannical majorities.

∙ Agreement to allow no prohibitions on slavery until at least 1808

∙ Guarantee that escaped slaves would be returned to their owners.

– The occasion was World War I; the impetus was the fear that Germans in this country were spies and also that radicals were seeking to overthrow the government.

∙ In Gitlow, the Court ruled that the protections of the First Amendment applied to the states as well.
∙ In Palko, the Court suggested all “fundamental” rights in the Bill of Rights that were basic to a “scheme of ordered liberty” were applicable to the states.

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• ​The Supreme Court began the process of selective incorporation by which most, but not all, federal rights also applied to the states
• The right not to have soldiers forcibly quartered in private homes (Third Amendment)
• The right to be indicted by a grand jury before being tried for a serious crime (Fifth Amendment)
• The right to a jury trial in civil cases (Seventh Amendment)
  The ban on excessive bail and fines (Eighth Amendment)

In this country, it is hard to sue for libel. You must show the statement was false—truth is an affirmative defense. It is even harder to sue and win if you are a public figure; here you must demonstrate actual malice.

-The Supreme Court has more or less consistently interpreted this vague phrase to mean that the Constitution erects a “wall of separation” between church and state.

-That phrase comes from the pen of Thomas Jefferson, who was opposed to having the Church of England as the established church of his native Virginia. (At the time of the Revolutionary War, there were established churches—that is, official, state-supported churches—in at least eight of the 13 former colonies.)

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• Since 1947, the Court has applied the wall-of-separation theory to strike down as unconstitutional most efforts to have any officially conducted or sponsored prayer in public schools, even if it is nonsectarian, voluntary, or limited to reading a passage of the Bible.
• Since 1992, it has even been unconstitutional for a public school to ask a rabbi or minister to offer a prayer—an invocation or a benediction—at the school’s graduation ceremony
• Since 2000, it has been unconstitutional for a student to lead a prayer at a public high school football game because it was done “over the school’s public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of the school faculty, and pursuant to school policy.”
• Public-school students can pray voluntarily during school provided that the school or the government did not sponsor that prayer.

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• In Kentucky, the Court struck down the posting of the Ten Commandments inside courtrooms, because of primary religious effect, even if surrounded by displays of the Declaration of Independence, the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner, etc.
• In Texas, however, the Court upheld the placement of the Ten Commandments outside of a courthouse, on a lawn, because it revealed a secular message.

∙ Telephone taps: Require court order.
∙ Internet taps: Require court order.
∙ Voice mail: Can be seized with a court order.
∙ Grand jury information: Investigators can now share information from secret hearings.
∙ Immigration: Attorney General can hold noncitizens for up to seven days.
∙ Money laundering: New powers to track the movement of money across banks and borders.
∙ Crime: No statute of limitations on terrorist crimes and increased penalties.