The Constitution: Study Questions

The Constitution: Study Questions

1) What are the three branches of government and what are the powers of each?
The legislative Branch (House of Representative & the senate): collecting taxes, coining money, and regulating trade. They can declare war and raise and support armies. They also makes all laws needed to fulfill the functions given to it as stated in the constitution.
Executive Branch (The president): There job is to carry out the nation’s laws and policies, be commander in chief of the armed forces and conduct relations with foreign countries.
Judicial branch (Supreme Court and other lower federal courts the congress establish): They hear cases involving the constitution, laws passed by congress and disputes between states.

2) How can these branches check and balance each other?
Executive serves as a check or limit on congress, by which they can vetoing the bill. But congress can override or vote down the veto by having two thirds of both the houses voting for the bill.
Also the president chooses the supreme court justices and the senate must approve. The supreme court checks the congress and president by ruling on the constitutionality of the laws and presidential acts.

3) What were the compromises to the constitution?
A two- house legislature and slaves would only count as 3/5 of a free person for both taxation and representation.
4) Who wrote the Federalist papers?
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay

5) What was the Bill of Rights? Why did some states demand its inclusion before they ratified the constitution?
Because they believe that no government could be trusted to protect the freedom of its citizens and the bill of rights is what protected individual freedoms
6) What were the anti-federalists main fears about the constitution?
They feared that the constitution would take away the liberties Americans had fought to win from Great Britain. They didn’t want the power going back to the rich.