Topic Quiz: Civics and Government

The Virginia Convention adopted this declaration on June 12, 1776, about three weeks before the Declaration of Independence. George Mason wrote most of it.

(1) Section I: "That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

(2) Section II: "That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them."

(3) Section V: "That the legislative and executive powers of the state should be separate and distinct from the judicative…"

Word help: inherent = part of a person by nature; compact = agreement; divest = strip away; posterity = future generations; magistrates = government officials; trustees = people trusted to manage something for others; amenable to = answerable to; judicative = judicial (relating to courts).

Article I, Section 8 (selected clauses)

(1) "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"

(2) "To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;"

(3) "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"

(4) "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;"

(5) "To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"

(6) "To declare War…; To raise and support Armies…; To provide and maintain a Navy;"

(7) "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

Tenth Amendment (1791)

(8) "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Word help: duties, imposts, excises = kinds of taxes; commerce = trade; foregoing = listed before; delegated = given or assigned.

Meridia is a fictional continent with 20 countries. A research group classified the government of each country in 1960, 1990, and 2020.

Excerpt 1: Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748; English translation by Thomas Nugent, 1750)

(1) "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner."

(2) "Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive."

Excerpt 2: James Madison, The Federalist No. 47 (1788)

(3) "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

Excerpt 3: James Madison, The Federalist No. 51 (1788)

(4) "But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. … Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."

(5) "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

Word help: magistrates = officials; apprehensions = fears; accumulation = piling up; department = branch of government; encroachments = intrusions on another's power.

Policy experts often describe five stages of policy-making: agenda setting (a problem gets officials' attention), formulation (options are developed and studied), adoption (officials choose and approve a policy), implementation (the policy is put into action) and evaluation (results are measured and judged).

(1) For years, every household in the fictional city of Harlow paid the same trash fee — $20 a month — no matter how much it threw away. In 2017, the operators of the city landfill warned that it would be full within 12 years. A news series and several crowded neighborhood meetings made landfill space a top issue for the city council.

(2) A council committee studied three options: building a new landfill, trucking trash to another county, or a pay-as-you-throw system, in which households pay by the size of their trash cart and recycling is collected for free. City staff estimated the cost of each option, and the committee held two public hearings.

(3) In June 2019, the council voted 6–1 to adopt pay-as-you-throw starting in January 2020. The monthly fee became $14 for a small cart, $20 for a medium cart and $30 for a large cart. Low-income households could apply for a 50% discount. The one member who voted no worried that some residents would dump trash illegally to avoid the fee.

(4) During the second half of 2019, the city mailed guides to every home, delivered new carts and trained collection crews. Starting in January 2020, inspectors began issuing warnings and fines for illegal dumping.

(5) In 2024, city staff reported the results shown in the graph. Staff also reported that reports of illegal dumping rose from 85 in 2019 to 120 in 2020, then fell to 90 by 2023. The landfill's expected life grew by about five years.

(1) The Supreme Court can overrule its own earlier decisions. Over the 1900s, the Court also ruled, one right at a time, that most protections in the Bill of Rights limit state governments as well as the federal government. It based these rulings on the Fourteenth Amendment, which says no state may deprive any person of liberty "without due process of law." The summaries below are written for this app.

(2) Betts v. Brady (1942) and Gideon v. Wainwright (1963). In Betts, the Court ruled that a state did not have to give a free lawyer to every poor person accused of a felony; a lawyer was required only in special circumstances. Twenty-one years later, Gideon overruled Betts. The Court held that a state must provide a lawyer to any person accused of a serious crime who cannot afford one.

(3) Wolf v. Colorado (1949) and Mapp v. Ohio (1961). In Wolf, the Court said the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches applies to the states, but it did not require state courts to throw out evidence that police had gathered illegally. Then, in 1957, police in Cleveland, Ohio, forced their way into Dollree Mapp's home without showing a valid search warrant and found materials that were later used to convict her. In Mapp, the Court ruled 6–3 that evidence gathered in an unconstitutional search may not be used in state courts. This is called the exclusionary rule. On this point, Mapp overruled Wolf.

(4) Engel v. Vitale (1962). New York state officials wrote a short prayer that did not favor any one religion, and some public schools had students recite it each morning. Students who did not wish to pray could stay silent or leave the room. The Court ruled 6–1 that the practice violated the First Amendment's ban on an "establishment of religion." Government officials may not write official prayers for students to recite in public schools, even when the prayer favors no religion and taking part is voluntary.

(5) New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985). A teacher found a 14-year-old student smoking in a school bathroom. An assistant vice principal searched her purse and found evidence that she had broken the law. The Court ruled 6–3 that the Fourth Amendment does apply to searches by public school officials, but that they do not need a warrant or probable cause. A school search is allowed if there are reasonable grounds to suspect it will turn up evidence that the student broke the law or a school rule, and if the search is not excessively intrusive.

(6) Texas v. Johnson (1989). During a protest outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag. He was convicted under a Texas law against damaging a flag. The Court ruled 5–4 that burning a flag as a political protest is expression protected by the First Amendment. The government may not ban the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable.