American Government I: Foundations, Federalism, Liberties, Rights

This is Unit Seven of Social Sciences and History, part one of two: American government from what government is for to the instruments of federalism. Unit six closed on the institutions of nineteen ninety-one. This unit turns to the government the exam weights at twenty percent, and this part carries one idea. The framers faced two fears, and every structure in the Constitution answers one of them. The Anti-Federalists feared central power; the Federalists feared central weakness, the Articles' failure repeated; and the design that passed, separated powers, two levels of government, a promised bill of rights, was the tradeoff between them. Read any passage from the debate by asking which fear it speaks, and read federalism's instruments as that tradeoff still being negotiated. By the end you will be able to sort a good by access and supply. To classify a claim about who governs. To say what the Articles could not do and what the Convention settled. To read a ratification passage for its fear. And to name a federal instrument by money and discretion.

Six entries on what government is and who governs: what it does, four kinds of goods, five forms of rule, three theories of who governs, and how people engage.

What government does.

SSH 0601 What Government Does and Who It Is For

Government is the means by which a society organizes itself and allocates authority to accomplish collective goals. It provides stability, services and access to common goods, and it gives people a structure to make their needs known. Politics is deciding how resources are allocated and which policies to pursue. Political power is influence over institutions, leadership or policies.

Four kinds of goods.

SSH 0602 Four Kinds of Goods: Sorting by Access and Supply

The anchor sorts goods by two questions, who may use them and whether use exhausts them, and the exam asks which kind a given good is. Private goods are provided by businesses and used only by those who pay. Public goods are provided by government, open to anyone, available to all without charge. Common goods may be used by all but are of limited supply. Toll goods are available to many but used only by those who pay the price. A loaf of bread is private. National defense is public. Fish in a public lake are common. A turnpike or a cable subscription is a toll good. Public land that overgrazing can ruin is common, the anchor's example of what government regulates. Ask first whether paying is required, then whether one person's use leaves less for others. The trap is calling anything the government provides a public good; a toll road is government-run and still a toll good. The second trap is public against common: both are open, but the common good runs out. Unit thirteen owns the economists' version of this table.

Forms of government.

SSH 0603 Democracy, Republic, Oligarchy, Monarchy, Totalitarianism

Democracy puts power in the people's hands: direct when they decide themselves, representative when voters elect lawmakers, with majority rule bound by minority rights. A republic is representative rule without a monarch. Monarchy is one hereditary ruler; oligarchy, a handful of elites; totalitarianism, an all-powerful state with citizens without rights. The United States is both a representative democracy and a republic.

Who governs.

SSH 0604 Elite Theory Against Pluralism: Classifying a Claim

The exam asks which theory of who governs a statement expresses, and the anchor gives three positions. Elite theory: a small, wealthy, powerful elite controls government and makes policy to benefit its members and perpetuate their power. Pluralist theory: groups representing the people's interests attract politicians' attention and influence policy. The anchor's own resolution, tradeoffs: policy is usually the result of groups and elites fighting for influence while politicians balance competing interests, including their constituents'. The same few families and firms getting their way whatever the election says is elite theory. The farm lobby, the teachers' union and the retirees' association each winning a clause is pluralism. A bill giving the banks most of what they wanted, the consumer groups some, and the district a bridge is tradeoffs. Ask who the statement says holds power: a class, organized groups, or a negotiated mix. The trap is treating the theories as exclusive; the anchor presents tradeoffs as what usually happens, not as a third theory on equal terms. The second trap is confusing pluralism with direct democracy; pluralism works through groups, not individual votes.

Preferences.

SSH 0605 Intense Preferences, Latent Preferences, Social Capital

Intense preferences rest on strong feelings held over time; latent preferences are not deeply held and change. The engaged are wealthier, older and more educated, especially when their preferences are intense. Social capital is connection with others and willingness to interact and aid them, and ideology is the beliefs shaping opinion and policy. Partisanship, in the anchor's key term, can mean blind allegiance.

Engagement.

SSH 0606 Who Engages, and How

Engagement lets politicians know how people feel, improves lives, and builds connection. Individuals can learn the issues, write their representative, complain at city hall, attend a rally, or vote. Groups can campaign, raise funds, volunteer, or protest an injustice or an unpopular policy. Representative democracy depends on ordinary people speaking up. Younger, poorer people can still change their communities.

Five entries from the broken contract to the Constitution: English liberties, the Articles' deliberate weakness, the two plans and the Great Compromise, the bargain on slavery, and separated powers.

The broken contract.

SSH 0607 English Liberties and the Broken Contract

Colonists prized their English liberties. They came to see life, liberty and property as natural rights no government could take, not the monarch's gifts. The Proclamation of seventeen sixty-three, jury-less smuggling trials, taxes without consent, and interference with self-government convinced them the social contract was broken, and independence was declared in seventeen seventy-six. Unit one carries the sequence.

The Articles.

SSH 0608 The Articles: Weak by Design

The Articles of Confederation, adopted in seventeen eighty-one, deliberately limited the national government: a unicameral Congress over sovereign states in alliance. It could declare war, coin money and conduct foreign affairs, but not tax, regulate commerce, or raise an army, so it could neither defend itself nor pay its debts. The Articles were hard to amend. The drafters feared abuse.

The Convention.

SSH 0609 Virginia, New Jersey, and the Great Compromise

Delegates met in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty-seven. The Virginia Plan proposed two houses, the lower elected by population and choosing the upper; the New Jersey Plan one house with one vote per state. The Great Compromise made a House apportioned by population and a Senate of equal states: a republic, not a confederation. Bicameral means two houses; unicameral, one.

The bargain on slavery.

SSH 0610 Three-Fifths and the Convention's Bargain on Slavery

The Three-Fifths Compromise let slaveholding states count all their free population and three-fifths of their enslaved population for both apportionment and federal taxation, though no taxes were collected; three-fifths is sixty percent, the anchor's phrasing. Another bargain traded import taxes for a twenty-year ban on ending the slave trade. It satisfied no one truly, the anchor says.

Separation of powers.

SSH 0611 Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances

To calm fear of a strong central government, the framers separated powers among three branches and let each check the others, which requires the parts to work together; the president's veto rejects a law Congress proposes. Some still feared federal power. Unit eight carries each branch's checks in detail. Separation shares power; checks limit it. This is the first fear answered by structure.

Six entries on powers, ratification and the Bill of Rights: enumerated and reserved powers, the two sides and their essays, the ninth state, amendment, the first ten amendments, and reading an argument for its fear.

The clauses.

SSH 0612 Enumerated, Reserved, and the Supremacy Clause

Enumerated powers are those Article One, Section Eight gives the federal government explicitly: commerce, armies, war, money, foreign affairs. Reserved powers are any not prohibited or delegated, kept by the states. Concurrent powers are shared: taxing, borrowing, courts. The supremacy clause in Article Six makes federal law superior to state law. Part two sorts a power by these categories.

Ratification.

SSH 0613 Federalists, Anti-Federalists, and the Eighty-Five Essays

Anti-Federalists objected to federal power and the missing bill of rights. Federalists answered that a strong government was necessary and promised a bill of rights. The Federalist Papers, eighty-five essays by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, argued the new government would not turn tyrannical; unit one's entry on reading a founding document applies. The promise of a bill of rights carried ratification.

The ninth state.

SSH 0614 New Hampshire Makes Nine

In June seventeen eighty-eight New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify, making the Constitution the law of the land; nine of thirteen was the threshold the document set for itself. Virginia and New York, large and prosperous, followed shortly, and the remaining states joined. The exam asks the ninth state and the year, not the order of all thirteen.

Amendment.

SSH 0615 How the Constitution Changes

Because the Articles had been nearly impossible to change, the framers set a method: two-thirds of both houses of Congress propose, and three-quarters of the states approve, three-quarters of state legislatures in the anchor's words. The possibility of amendment helped ratification, since the promised Bill of Rights could be added. Later amendments ended slavery and extended the vote.

The Bill of Rights.

SSH 0616 The Bill of Rights, 1791

The first ten amendments were formally added in seventeen ninety-one, most designed to protect fundamental rights and liberties, as the Federalists had promised to allay fear of the new federal government. Originally they bound only the national government, while state constitutions protected their own, differing, sets of rights. Part two covers how the Fourteenth Amendment changed that.

Reading a ratification argument.

SSH 0617 Reading a Ratification Argument for Its Fear

The exam gives a passage from the ratification debate and asks which side wrote it, and the anchor's two positions supply the test. An Anti-Federalist passage fears the power the Constitution gives the federal government, the distance between rulers and ruled, and the absence of a bill of rights to protect individual liberties. A Federalist passage fears the opposite: a government too weak to lead, defend or pay, the Articles' failure repeated. It argues, as the eighty-five essays did, that the new government's structure, separation of powers and checks and balances, would keep it from tyranny. The Federalists' concession was the promise of a bill of rights. What security have we that the rulers will not become our masters: Anti-Federalist. A feeble government invites its own ruin: Federalist. The structure itself, each branch checking the others, is the guarantee: Federalist. Where is the guarantee of the liberty of the press: Anti-Federalist. Ask what the writer fears: central power, or central weakness. The trap is assuming the side that won was the side that wanted a bill of rights; the Anti-Federalists demanded it, and the Federalists promised it to win. The second trap is treating the essays as neutral explanation; the anchor calls them arguments for ratification. This is the lecture's idea made into a test.

Five entries on federalism and its instruments: three systems, the interstate clauses, two cakes, new federalism, and the instruments the federal government uses to move a state.

Federal, unitary, confederal.

SSH 0618 Federal, Unitary, Confederal

Federalism creates two relatively autonomous levels of government, each able to act directly on the people with authority from the national constitution, and each drawing on different revenue sources. A unitary system concentrates authority in the national government. A confederation concentrates authority in the subnational governments, as the Articles did. Devolution is delegation within a unitary system.

The interstate clauses.

SSH 0619 Full Faith and Credit; Privileges and Immunities

The full faith and credit clause, Article Four Section One, requires states to accept other states' court decisions, public acts and contracts. The privileges and immunities clause, Section Two, forbids states to discriminate against out-of-staters in courts, legal protection, property and travel; comity is the anchor's other name for it. Bills of attainder and ex post facto laws are forbidden.

The two cakes.

SSH 0620 Layer Cake to Marble Cake

In the era of dual federalism, both levels stayed within their own jurisdictional spheres, distinct layers of a layer cake. In cooperative federalism the federal government entered policy areas the states had handled, and the layers blended like a marble cake. Two cakes, one exam question. The anchor dates neither era; the exam asks for the sequence.

New federalism.

SSH 0621 New Federalism and Devolution

The nineteen seventies brought new federalism, premised on the idea that decentralizing policy improves administrative efficiency, cuts public spending, and improves outcomes. Competitive federalism since has redefined policy areas as the roles of the two levels shifted, with the Supreme Court sorting the disputes, and immigration federalism has states moving into a federal domain. The anchor's present-day examples are not voiced.

Grants and mandates.

SSH 0622 Categorical Grants, Block Grants, Mandates: Naming the Instrument

The exam asks which instrument the federal government is using to move a state, and the anchor's section names four. A categorical grant transfers money formulated to limit the recipient's discretion, under strict administrative criteria. A block grant comes with less stringent conditions and more latitude over spending. General revenue sharing places minimal restrictions. An unfunded mandate is not money at all: a federal law or regulation that imposes obligations on state and local governments without fully compensating them, backed by penalties. Creeping categorization is the process by which the national government attaches new requirements to block grants or replaces them with categorical ones. Funds for a highway program, spendable only on approved projects with federal reporting, are categorical. A lump sum for community development the state allocates as it sees fit is a block grant. A requirement that every state provide a service, with no funds attached, is an unfunded mandate. A block grant that acquires new strings each reauthorization is creeping categorization. Ask two questions: does money come with it, and how much discretion does the recipient keep. The trap is calling a mandate a grant; the anchor separates subsidy, which invites cooperation, from mandate, which compels. The second trap is thinking block grants stay block; the anchor's key term names the drift. Here the two fears are still being negotiated, one grant at a time.

Look at what you can now do. You can sort a good by asking whether paying is required and whether use leaves less for others, and you know a toll road is government-run and still a toll good. You can classify a claim about who governs as elite theory, pluralism, or the tradeoffs the anchor says usually happen. You can say the Articles could declare war and coin money but not tax or raise an army, and that the Great Compromise, three-fifths and separated powers were what the Convention settled. You can read a ratification passage by asking which fear it speaks, central power or central weakness, which is the idea this lecture was built on. And you can name a federal instrument by money and discretion. Part two opens on venue shopping and the Court as referee, then carries civil liberties, incorporation, the standards of scrutiny and civil rights to the constitutional frame assembled.