Constitution Test Flashcards
Article 1
Legislative (Congress)
Article 2
Executive (President/Vice-President)
Article 3
Judicial (Federal Courts)
Article 4
States’ rights
Article 5
Amending the Constitution
Article 6
National Supremacy
Article 7
Ratify the Constitution
1st Amendment
RAPPS
Freedom of religion, assembly, petition, the press, and speech
2nd Amendment
Right to bear arms
3rd Amendment
Easily remembered with three words; no housing troops. The 3rd amendment is the right to freedom from being required to house troops during peacetime.
4th Amendment
The protection against unreasonable search and seizure, is easily remembered with by asking the question: What are you searching 4?
5th Amendment
Rights of the accused. All five wore GEDDS; grand jury, eminent domain, due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination
6th Amendment
Public speedy trials, a phrase that contains only 6-letter words, is the mnemonic for the 6th amendment. This is also the amendment that says someone accused in court has the right to confront his accusers, and the right to a defense counsel.
7th Amendment
Right to jury trial
8th Amendment
Imagine that you’ve been convicted of a crime in a village of cannibals, and as punishment, they ate you! This seems like cruel and unusual punishment, doesn’t it? The 8th amendment, fortunately, protects you from cruel and unusual punishments like this.
9th amendment
Users of the Major/Peg system already associate 9 with the letter P, as the letter P looks like a 9 facing the other way. That helps with remember the 9th amendment, where P stands for Power and People. The 9th amendment makes it clear that individuals do have rights that aren’t explicity mentioned in the Constitution.
10th Amendment
While 9 says people have rights not spelled out in the US Constitution, 10 says that the United States (as in, the federal government) has only those powers explicitly spelled out in the US Constitution. The remaining powers are delegated to the states or the people. This is sometimes known as the “state’s rights” amendment. Since the phrase “state right” has 10 letters, it’s easy to remeber that it’s the 10th amendment.
11th Amendment
1 citizen may not sue 1 state that isn’t the citizen’s own with permission from the defending’s states court.
12th Amendment
Covers the elections of America’s jobs “1” and “2”, that of the US President and US Vice-President. This amendment requires separate ballots to be cast for each office.
13th Amendment
Freed the slaves (outlawed slavery). It’s not too hard to think of how there were only 13 colonies when America liberated itself from the British. Just remember that 13 amendments after the 13 colonies were liberated, the slaves were liberated as well.
14th Amendment
Equal protection; foreign-born citizens and natural-born citizens having the same rights. Equal rights to “Foreignteen”-born citizens, and this should be easy to remember.
15th Amendment
Every man may vote, regardless of whether or not he was a former slave (women excluded). The phrase “Every man may vote” has 15 letters, making this one easy to remember.
16th Amendment
Gives the federal government power to tax, just link April 16th, as the day when the federal government should have their money, to amendment 16, as the reason why they’re getting that money. Legal to work at 16 and pay income taxes.
17th Amendment
First, the phrase “elect your senators” has 17 letters. Also, 7-1 (from the number 17) equals 6, which is the number of years for which a senator serves. Senators are directly elected.