POLI SCI 220- Final Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam ( 36 pages long!)
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28 Mar 2018
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NU
POLI SCI 220
Final EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
1/18
4 views of the Constitution
1. A philosophical document
2. An ‘agreement with Hell’ (William Lloyd Garrison)
3. Economic self interest (Charles Beard)
4. Political, not philosophical (Roche)
Dahl: is Americans’ reverence for the Constitution warranted?
● Democratic deficiencies of Constitution rooted in necessity of federalism
○ Senate (living in California vs living in Nevada)
○ Slavery
○ Electoral college
○ Suffrage
○ However, sees recognition of states as political units as both inevitable and
desirable in the United States
● Call for a new constitutional convention?
The Great Compromise/Connecticut Compromise
● House: by population
○ Close to the people
○ Direct election and 2 year term
● Senate: 2 per state
○ More distant from the people
○ Selected by state legislatures (until 1913) and 6 year term
Slavery
● Madison: “the states were divided into different interests not by their difference of size,
but principally from their having or not having slaves”.
● Count slaves as part of population?
●⅗ Compromise
○ “Three fifths of all other persons”
○ Vague wording “an endeavor to conceal a principle of which we were ashamed” -
John Dickinson, Del.
● Slave trade
● National regulation of slavery?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
C= strong commercial policy
c= no commercial policy
S= pro slavery
s= anti slavery
Northerners:
Cs>CS>cs>cS
Southerners:
cS>CS>cs>Cs
Compromise: CS - policy with strong commercial language AND a provision permitting slave
trade. To win their most important preference, each side conceded something.
Anti-federalists:
● Against ratification
● Philosophical critiques
○ Human nature
○ Scale of political life
○ Representation
● 4 criticisms of Constitution
○ Strips power from people, places it in national government
○ President looks too much like a king
○ Standing armies a threat to peace/liberty
○ No bill of rights
● Other issues
○ Politics: many anti-federalists were powerful political figures in their own states,
so feared losing their status if the national government became stronger
The Federalists
● Federalist Papers written under pseudonym but actually Madison, Hamilton, Jay
● 85 short essays to defend constitution to people of NY
● Single best guide to the thinking that guided the Constitution
○ But also remember these are propaganda
The fight for ratification
● Bill of Rights: protection from government that every citizen has
○ Limits on Congress: no law est. religion, abridging freedom of speech, press,
assembly, right to petition government (I)
○ Limits on executive: may not infringe on right to bear arms (II), no quartering of
soldiers without consent (III), no unreasonable searches or seizures (IV)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com