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U.S. Government and Civics

Unit 1

Foundations of Government

6 topics · 24 practice questions · Free responseNot yet reviewed

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Notes

Government and the state

  • A state has population, territory, sovereignty and government. Legitimacy is the belief that a government has the right to rule.
  • The Preamble lists government's purposes, such as establishing justice, providing for the common defense and securing liberty.

Forms of government

  • Autocracy (one ruler), oligarchy (a few) and democracy (the people). Democracy can be direct or representative (a republic).
  • Unitary, federal and confederal systems divide power differently. The U.S. is federal, with a presidential system.

Ideas behind American government

  • Locke: natural rights, consent of the governed, social contract. Montesquieu: separation of powers. Hobbes: strong government for order. Rousseau: popular sovereignty.
  • English roots: Magna Carta (1215), Petition of Right (1628), English Bill of Rights (1689). Colonial roots: House of Burgesses (1619), Mayflower Compact (1620).

Early national government

  • The Declaration of Independence (1776) justified breaking from Britain. The Articles of Confederation were too weak: no taxing power, no executive, no courts. Shays' Rebellion led to the Constitutional Convention.

Models of democracy

  • Participatory (broad citizen involvement), pluralist (group competition) and elite (influence of a few) all describe parts of U.S. politics.

Topics in this unit

Each topic has its own short notes and practice.

Practice

A country's national government can redraw or abolish its provinces at will. The country has a:
Which document said that people may "alter or abolish" a government that destroys their rights?
The U.S. Constitution splits power among Congress, the president and the courts. This reflects the ideas of:
Which was a weakness of the Articles of Confederation?
Under a confederation, most power is held by:
A business group, a labor union and a consumer group each try to influence a new trade law. This best illustrates:

Free response

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Free-response question

The founders of the United States drew on earlier ideas and experiences when they designed a new government.

(a) Describe ONE idea of John Locke and explain how it appears in the Declaration of Independence.

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Locke argued that people have natural rights to life, liberty and property, and that government gets its power from the consent of the governed. The Declaration says people have unalienable rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and that governments get "their just powers from the consent of the governed."

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(b) Identify ONE English document and explain how it limited the power of the monarch.

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The Magna Carta (1215) forced King John to accept that the king must follow the law and could not take free men's rights, such as trial by their peers, at will. This established the idea of limited government.

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(c) Explain why the Articles of Confederation were replaced, using ONE specific weakness.

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Congress under the Articles could not collect taxes, so it could not pay war debts or raise an army. When Shays' Rebellion broke out, the national government could not respond, which convinced leaders to write a stronger constitution in 1787.

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