Power Point Project

1. Power Point Project Asbed Mardirossian Period 4 December 2009

2. U.S. Constitution • The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government to the states, to citizens, and to all people within the United States .

3. The Bill of Rights • A bill of rights is a list of the rights that are considered important and essential by a nation. The purpose of these bills is to protect those rights against infringement by the government. The term "bill of rights" originates from Great Britain, where it referred to a bill that was passed by Parliament in 1689. • An entrenched bill of rights exists as a separate instrument that falls outside of the normal jurisdiction of a country's legislative body. In many governments, an official legal bill of rights recognized in principle holds more authority than the legislative bodies alone. A bill of rights, on the other hand, may be weakened by subsequent acts passed by government, and they do not need an approval by vote to alter it.

4. The Great Compromise • The Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman's Compromise, was an agreement between large and small states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It proposed a bicameral legislature, resulting in the current United States Senate and House of Representatives. • On July 16, 1787, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, both of the Connecticut delegation, forged a compromise for a bicameral, or two-part, legislature consisting of a lower and upper house.

5. 13th 14th 15th Amendments • The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was adopted on December 6, 1865, and was then declared in a proclamation of Secretary of State William H. Seward on December 18. • The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution, along with the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, was adopted after the Civil War as one of the Reconstruction Amendments on July 9, 1868. The amendment provides a broad definition of citizenship, overruling the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had excluded slaves, and their descendants, from possessing Constitutional rights; this was used in the mid-20th century to dismantle racial segregation in the United States, as in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Its Due Process Clause has been used to apply most of the Bill of Rights to the states. • The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (i.e., slavery). It was ratified on February 3, 1870.

6. 15th 19th 26th Amendments • The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits each state and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920. • The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution standardized the voting age to 18. It was adopted in response to student activism against the Vietnam War and to partially overrule the Supreme Court's decision in Oregon v. Mitchell. It was adopted on July 1, 1971.

7. 18th and 21st Amendments • Amendment XVIII (the Eighteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution, along with the Volstead Act (which defined "intoxicating liquors" excluding those used for religious purposes and sales throughout the U.S.), established Prohibition in the United States. Its ratification was certified on January 16, 1919. It is the only amendment to the Constitution that has been repealed (by the Twenty-first Amendment) (1933). • The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which mandated nationwide Prohibition

8. Legislative Branch • A legislature is a type of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend and repeal laws.The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. Legislatures are known by many names, the most common being parliament and congress, although these terms also have more specific meanings. In parliamentary systems of government, the legislature is formally supreme and appoints a member from its house as the prime minister which acts as the executive. In separation of powers doctrine, the legislature in a presidential system is considered a power branch which is coequal to and independent of the both the judiciary and the executive.In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise taxes and adopt the budget and other money bills.

9. Executive Branch • In the study of political science the executive branch' of government has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy.The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the democratic idea of the separation of powers • In many countries the term "government" connotes only the executive branch. However, this branch fails to differentiate between despotic and democratic forms of government. In authoritarian systems, such as a dictatorship or absolute monarchy, where the different powers of government are assumed by one person, the executive branch ceases to exist since there is no other branch with which to share separate but equal governmental powers.

10. Judicial Branch • The judiciary (also known as the judicial system or judicature) is the system of courts which interprets and applies law in the name of the sovereign or state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the judiciary generally does not make law (that is, in a plenary fashion, which is the responsibility of the legislature) or enforce law (which is the responsibility of the executive), but rather interprets law and applies it to the facts of each case. • This branch of government is often tasked with ensuring. It usually consists of a court of final appeal (called the “supreme court" or “constitutional court"), together with lower courts.

11. Articles of Confederation • The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, customarily referred to as the Articles of Confederation, was the first constitution of the United States of America and legally established the union of the states. The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft the Articles in June 1776 and sent the draft to the states for ratification in November 1777. • The ratification process was completed in March 1781, legally federating the sovereign and independent states, already cooperating through the Continental Congress, into a new federation styled the "United States of America". Under the Articles the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the central government.