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Related Flashcards
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Cards In This Set
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Charles A. Beard
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A historian who argued that the Founders were largely motivated by the economic advantage of their class in writing the Constitution
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Constitution
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A set of principles, either written or unwritten, that makes up the fundamental law of the state
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Articles of Confederation
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The governemnt charter of the states in 1776 until the Constitution in 1787
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Constitutional Convention
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A meeting of delegates in Phili in 1787 charged with drawing up amendments to the Articles of Confederation
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Declaration of Independence
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A document written in 1776 declaring the colonists' intention to throw off British rule
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Federalism
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A constitutional principle reserving separate powers to the national state levels of government
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Federalist paper
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A series of political tracts that explained many of the ideas of the Founders
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Great Compromise
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A constitutional proposal that made membership in one house of Congress proportional to each state's population and membershup in the other equal for all states
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John Locke
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A British philosopher whose ideas on civil government greatly influenced the Founders
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James Madison
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A principal architect of the Constitution who felt that a government powerful enough to encourage virtue in its citizens was too powerful
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Massachusetts Constitution
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A state constitution with clear separation of powers but considered to have produced too weak a government
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Natural rights
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Rights of all human beings that are ordained by God, discoverable innature and history, and essential to human progress
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New Jersey Plan
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A constitutional proposal that would have given each state one vote in a new congress
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Pennsylvania Constitution
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A governing document considering to be hightly democratic yet with a tendency toward tyranny as the result of concentrating all powers in one set of hands
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Separtion of powers
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A constitutional principle separating the personnel of the legislative, executive, and judical branches of government
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