US Government - GED Social Studies

A Presidential election takes place every four years so if an election takes place in 1860 the next election will be in 1864. The most recent election was in 2012, so the next election will be in 2016.

The head of the Executive Branch of the Federal government, the President, is limited to two terms. Originally this was enforced by tradition alone, following the precedent established by George Washington; however, after Franklin D. Roosevelt exceeded this limit during World War Two and the Great Depression, the limit was codified into the Constitution with the passage of the Twenty-Second Amendment.

The structure of Congress and the powers reserved for Congress are established in Article I of the Constitution.

The House of Representatives may bring charges of impeachment against a President, and if the vote carries, he is tried for impeachment in the Senate. Only two Presidents have ever had charges of impeachment brought against them by the House (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton), but neither were found guilty in the Senate.

Pork-barrel legislation is the name given by any attempt, successful or otherwise, by a representative to gain some benefit for his or her home district at the expense of national interests.

The House of Representatives is the lower house in the United States’ Legislative Branch. The American Legislative Branch operates as a bicameral legislature, with an upper house (The Senate) and a lower house (The House of Representatives).

Being a Justice on the Supreme Court is a tenured position. This means Justices cannot be removed from office by either the President or by Congress. They are effectively in power for life, or until they decide to retire.

There were originally six Supreme Court Justices. This was quickly changed to seven in 1807, to prevent the obvious problem of there being frequent ties. In 1837, the number of Justices was expanded to nine, where it has remained—apart from a brief time with ten—ever since.

During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt met with a lot of opposition from the Supreme Court, which ruled that many of his policies were in violation of the Constitution and attempted to take the powers of the government and the Presidency too far. To try to remedy this situation, Roosevelt attempted to expand the number of Supreme Court Justices to give himself a majority of supporters on the Court; this was of course met with a great deal of opposition, and is now known as "court packing."

Powers of the Federal government include regulating interstate commerce, maintaining the armed forces, coining and regulating money, declaring war, and collecting taxes. Of these answer choices only deciding marriage laws are not powers of the Federal government. States may set their own laws regarding who can and cannot marry, a contributing factor to the present-day debates over whether same-sex couples may marry.

The First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution guarantees certain inalienable rights that cannot be infringed upon by the government. They are the freedom of speech, religion, the press, petition, and peaceful assembly. The First Amendment is the first of ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights.

The women’s suffrage movement picked up steam during World War One, when many women stepped into the jobs and roles in society vacated by men off fighting in the war. The movement culminated in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which prohibits any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of gender. The Amendment was ratified in 1920.

The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the sale, use, and consumption of alcohol. It represented the culmination of a decades-long temperance movement. The amendment was passed in 1919; however, the prohibition of alcohol led to a rise in organized crime and was repealed fourteen years later, in 1933, by the passage of the Twenty-First Amendment.

The Eighth Amendment to the United States' Constitution protects Americans from cruel and unusual punishment (including torture) or excessive fines. The Second Amendment protects the right to carry guns; the Third Amendment protects Americans from the forced quartering of soldiers; the First Amendment protects the right to freely assemble; the Sixth Amendment protects the right to a speedy trial, and the Seventh Amendment protects the right to trial by jury.

The 25th Amendment formally sets Presidential succession, and in doing so, makes the VP the official President in the event of a death, resignation, or impeachment. Although that sounds a little goofy, it’s important mainly for somewhat attenuated legal reasons, the majority of which are beyond the scope of your course. Put simply, the 25th Amendment removed any confusion about whether the VP (in the event she needed to step up to the Presidency) was simply the “acting” President, or was actually the president.

The correct answer is 18 years old. The 26th Amendment forced the states to set their voting age no higher than 18. The states are free, however, to lower their voting age to (presumably) whatever they want. Remember: the states control who gets the franchise (bounded, obviously, by voting amendments).

The Department of Treasury has existed from the very beginning of United States political history under the Constitution (1789). The Department of Justice was created in 1870, Transportation in 1967, Education in 1979, Homeland Security in 2002.

The State Department is responsible for advising the President on foreign policy, as well as negotiating foreign treaties and engaging in diplomatic practices.

As part of the American system of checks and balances, the President can override an action of Congress with a Presidential veto; however with a two-thirds vote, Congress can in turn override the Presidential veto.