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| 130331358 | Constitution | A set of principles, either written or unwritten, that makes up the fundamental law of the state. | |
| 130331359 | Natural Rights | Rights of all human beings that are ordained by God, discoverable in nature and history, and essential to human progress. | |
| 130331360 | Patrick Henry | Individual who refused to attend the Constitutional Convention because he "smelled a rat". | |
| 130331361 | Declaration of Independence | A document written in 1776 declaring the colonists' intention to throw off British rule. | |
| 130331362 | Articles of Confederation | The government charter of the states from 1776 until the Constitution of 1787. | |
| 130331363 | Constitutional Convention | A meeting of delegates in Philadelphia in 1787 charged with drawing up amendments to the Articles of Confederation. | |
| 130331364 | Reserved Powers | Powers that are given exclusively to the states. | |
| 130331365 | Pennsylvania Constitution | A governing document considered to be highly democratic yet with a tendency toward tyranny as the result of concentrating all powers in one set of hands. | |
| 130331366 | Massachusetts Constitution | A state constitution with clear separation of powers but considered to have produced too weak a government. | |
| 130331367 | Shay's Rebellion | An armed attempt by Revolutionary War veterans to avoid losing their property by preventing the courts in western Massachusetts from meeting. | |
| 130331368 | Concurrent Powers | Those powers that are shared by both the national and state governments. | |
| 130331369 | John Locke | A British philosopher whose ideas on civil government greatly influenced the Founders. | |
| 130331370 | Federalist Papers | A series of political tracts that explained many of the ideas of the Founders. | |
| 130331371 | Virginia Plan | A constitutional proposal that the smaller states' representatives feared would give permanent supremacy to the larger states. | |
| 130331372 | New Jersey Plan | A constitutional proposal that would have given each state one vote in a new congress. | |
| 130331373 | Thomas Jefferson | Author of the Declaration of Independence. | |
| 130331374 | Great Compromise | A constitutional proposal that made membership in one house of Congress proportional to each state's population and membership in the other equal for all states. | |
| 130331375 | Separation of Powers | A constitutional principle separating the personnel of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. | |
| 130331376 | Federalism | A constitutional principle reserving separate powers to the national and state levels of government. | |
| 130331377 | James Madison | A principal architect of the Constitution who felt that a government powerful enough to encourage virtue in its citizens was to powerful. | |
| 130331378 | Enumerated Powers | Those powers that are given to the national government exclusively. | |
| 130331379 | Charles A. Beard | A historian who argued that the Founders were largely motivated by the economic advantage of their class in writing the Constitution. | |
| 130331380 | Constitutional Convention | A meeting of delegates in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation. | |
| 130331381 | Checks and Balances | The power of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government to block some acts by the other two branches. | |
| 130331382 | Republic | A form of democracy in which leaders and representatives are selected by means of popular competitive elections. | |
| 130331383 | Coalition | An alliance between different interest groups or parties to achieve some political goal. | |
| 130331384 | Inalienable Rights | Rights thought to be based on nature and providence rather than on the preferences of people. | |
| 130331385 | Amendment (constitutional) | Change in, or addition to, a constitution. | |
| 130331386 | Faction | A group of people sharing a common interest who seek to influence public policy for their collective benefit. | |
| 130331387 | Judicial Review | The power of the courts to declare acts of the legislature and of the executive unconstitutional and therefore null and void. | |
| 130331388 | Bill of Rights | The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. | |
| 130331389 | Federalist Papers | A series of eighty-five essays published in New York newspapers to convince New Yorkers to adopt the newly proposed Constitution. | |
| 130331390 | Federalists | Supporters of a stronger central government who advocated ratification of the Constitution and then founded a political party. | |
| 130331391 | Line-item Veto | The power of an executive to veto some provisions in an appropriations bill while approving others. | |
| 130331392 | Anti-federalists | Those who opposed giving as much power to the national government as the Constitution did, favoring instead stronger states' rights. | |
| 130331393 | Bill of Attainder | A law that would declare a person guilty of a crime without a trial. | |
| 130331394 | Ex-Post Facto Laws | A law that would declare an act criminal after the act was committed. | |
| 130331395 | Madisonian view of human nature | A philosophy holding that accommodating individual self-interest provided a more practical solution to the problem of government than aiming to cultivate virtue. | |
| 130331396 | Confederation | An agreement among soverneign states that delegates certain powers to a national government. | |
| 130331397 | Writ of Habeas Corpus | A court order requiring police officials to produce an individual held in custody and show sufficient cause for that person's detention. |
