AP Government Chapter 2

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.