Unit 3: United States Government
Unit Overview:
Unit 3 describes the government of the United States. The first two lessons cover the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. After this, federalism and states rights and responsibilities are briefly discussed, then the lessons go into a detailed description of each of the three branches of government: the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch. The final lessons of this unit cover how a bill becomes law and briefly describe the American party system.
Unit Essay: Checks and Balances
The United States as we know it was born on March 4th, 1789 after the US Constitution had been ratified, or voted in by all thirteen colonies. It had taken months to draft the constitution and the battle over whether to ratify or not had been fierce, but in 1789, a kind of miracle had happened: a confederation of fiercely independent colonies had by their own will abandoned their individual sovereignty and elected to become members of a single and unified nation. The colonies had done this only because the government the US constitution created creatively allowed individual states to share power with the national government, and this national government itself was designed to limit itself through a system of checks and balances on its power. In a detailed essay of 600 or more words, describe the responsibilities of the three branches of US government and explain how each branch checks and balances the other branches.Helpful links for this essay: Checks and Balances Essay Class Recording Federal Government of the United States Separation of Powers under the US Constitution
Key Terms:
For this project you must define the terms listed below and explain each term's significance to the unit/era being studied. Your definition should be 2-3 sentences long and may be copied and pasted from a source like Wikipedia, but the significance of the term must be in your own words and based on your own understanding. To fill out a term's significance, ask yourself, "Why is this item included in my study of this unit? Why is this term in a history book?" The answer to this question is your term's significance.
Unit 3 Key Terms:
Legislative branch
Executive Branch
Judicial branch
conference committee
jurisdiction
impeachment
Continental Congress
Articles of Confederation
Constitutional Convention
Great Compromise
Bill of Rights
Anti-Federalists
Electoral College
standing committee
conference committee
Speaker of the House
President Pro Tempore
Below is an example of a key term done with the proper format:
William the Conqueror: William I (c. 1028[2] – 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquérant), was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II. Before his conquest of England, he was known as William the Bastard because of the illegitimacy of his birth.To press his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Frenchmen (from Paris andÎle-de-France) to victory over the English forces of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.[3] (I copied and pasted this definition from Wikipedia)
Significance: William the Conqueror is significant because his conquest of England created the first nation state in Europe. His rearrangement of English feudal territories to give himself dramatically more power than the the barons and nobles around him caused him to be the most powerful monarch in Europe and eventually led to the rise of other nation states over the next few centuries. (These are my words based on my knowledge of English and European history.)