PS 499

Essay by suckulantpeachUniversity, Bachelor's January 2005

download word file, 5 pages 4.7

Social Contract-A voluntary agreement among individuals to create a government and to give that gov't adequate power to perform it's duties.

John Locke argued that people are born with natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

Authority can be defined as the ability to exercise power legitimately.

The founding fathers did not want a direct democracy because they feared Mob rule.

A representative democracy is a system of gov't in which the will of the majority is expressed through smaller groups of individuals elected by the people.

Elitist theory is a perspective holding that our nation is governed by a small number of wealthy or well-educated people.

In the Mayflower compact, the Pilgrims set up a gov't and promised to obey its laws.

The fundamental Orders of Connecticut is considered America's first written constitution.

A confederation is a voluntary association of independent states.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the central governing body was The Congress of Confederation.

The Constitutional Convention was called for the "sole and express purpose" of revising the Articles of Confederation.

The plan put fourth at the Constitutional Convention , which favored small states by proposing to create a legislature in which each state would have only one vote was the New Jersey Plan.

By the 3/5th Compromise, the framers agreed that 3/5th of all Slaves would be counted both for tax purposes and for representation in the House of Representatives.

In Federalist paper No. 10, Madison argued that the nation's size was actually an advantage in controlling Factions, (being a group of people coming together for the same cause against the controlling main body).

The idea that no one is above the law is called The rule of law

The separation of powers is part of a system Checks and Balances that was devised to ensure...