The recognized right of officials to exercise power as a result of the positions they hold.

Free Market System

An economic system based on the idea that government should interfere with economic transactions as little as possible. Free enterprise and self-reliance are the collective and individual principles that underpin free markets.

Public Policies

Decisions by government to pursue particular courses of action.

Democracy

A form of government in which the people govern, either directly or through elected representatives.

Inalienable (natural) Rights

Those rights that persons theoretically possessed in the state of nature, prior to the formation of governments. These rights, including those of life, liberty, and property, are considered inherent and, as such, are inalienable. Since government is established by people, government has the responsibility to preserve these rights.

Separated Institutions Sharing Power

The principle that, as a way to limit government, its powers should be divided among separate branches, each of which also shares in the power of the others as a means of checking and balancing them. The result is that no one branch can exercise power decisively without the support or acquiescence of the others.

Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution. They include rights such as freedom of speech and religion.

Republic

A form of government in which the people’s representatives decide policy through institutions structured in ways that foster deliberation, slow the progress of decision making, and operate within restraints that protect individual liberty. A republic is designed, not to prevent the people from governing, but to filter popular sentiment in ways that reduce the likelihood of hasty, ill-conceived, and injurious policies. To the framers, the Constitution’s separation of powers and other limits on power were hallmarks of a republican form of government, as opposed to a democratic form, which places no limits on the majority.

Primary Election

A form of election in which voters choose a party’s nominees for public office. In most states, eligibility to vote in a party’s primary election is limited to voters who are registered members of the party.

Enumerated (expressed) Powers

The seventeen powers granted to the national government under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. These powers include taxation and the regulation of commerce as well as the authority to provide for the national defense.

Implied Powers

The federal government’s constitutional authority (through the “necessary and proper” clause) to take action that is not expressly authorized by the Constitution but that supports actions that are so authorized.

Fiscal Federalism

A term that refers to the expenditure of federal funds on programs run in part through states and localities.

Devolution

The passing down of authority from the national government to the state and local governments.

“Necessary and Proper” (elastic) Clause

The authority granted Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” for the implementation of its enumerated powers.

Slander

Spoken words that falsely damage a person’s reputation.

Imminent Lawless Action Test

A legal test that says government cannot lawfully suppress advocacy that promotes lawless action unless such advocacy is aimed at producing, and is likely to produce, imminent lawless action.

Prior Restraint

Government prohibition of speech or publication before the fact, which is presumed by the courts to be unconstitutional unless the justification for it is overwhelming.

Clear-and-Present-Danger Test

A test devised by the Supreme Court in 1919 in order to define the limits of free speech in the context of national security. According to the test, government cannot abridge political expression unless it presents a clear and present danger to the nation’s security.

Civil Liberties

The fundamental individual rights of a free society, such as freedom of speech and the right to a jury trial, which in the United States are protected by the Bill of Rights.

Equal-Protection Clause

A clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that forbids any state to deny equal protection of the laws to any individual within its jurisdiction.

Strict-Scrutiny Test

A test applied by courts to laws that attempt a racial or ethnic classification. In effect, the strict-scrutiny test eliminates race or ethnicity as a legal classification when it places minority-group members at a disadvantage.

Affirmative Action

Refers to programs designed to ensure that women, minorities, and other traditionally disadvantaged groups have full and equal opportunities in employment, education, and other areas of life.

De Facto Discrimination

Discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, ethnicity, and the like that results from social, economic, and cultural biases and conditions.

De Jure Discrimination

Discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, ethnicity, and the like that results from
a law.

a. 1867

b. 1920

c. 1848

d. 1923

e. 1903

a. Referendum

b. Primary Election

c. Initiative

d. Recall Election

e. All of the above