Hello, welcome to our Civic Literacy Workshop number one at Florida Atlantic University. My name is Jennifer Biebergau. I'm the Associate Dean for Retention and Academic Support here at FAU, and I have prepared these workshops to help prepare you for one of your graduation requirements, the Civic Literacy exam. So we're going to go ahead and get started.
This is Workshop number one, the U.S. Constitution. and the founding of our country. It's a focus on history and government. So we're going to cover in this workshop the civic literacy requirement and you'll take a short practice test.
Then we'll get into the basics of U.S. history. We'll start from when the colonists came to the United States, why they came here, why they declared their independence. the creation of the Constitution and the amendments.
There's a heavy emphasis on the civic literacy exam on the Constitution and the amendments, so we'll spend quite a bit of time on that. And then we're going to cover some other areas related to history. So a little bit, we'll touch on the wars, the presidents, other key figures that you would need to know.
Then the latter half of this workshop will focus on basic concepts of government. So the three branches of government, what each branch is responsible for, the balance between state and federal government, the powers of each, separation of powers, and the concept of federalism. Then we'll review the practice tests, see how you did and how you would do now after you've received this information. And then we're going to talk about future workshops and some testing reminders. So again, this is the first workshop.
There are two additional workshops. Workshop number two focuses on 22 landmark Supreme Court cases. that are also heavily emphasized on the civic literacy test. And the third workshop is a practice test for the exam. We go over some games, some cahoots to help you learn the information, basically a review session.
So what is the civic literacy requirement? So the civic literacy requirement was passed by the Florida legislature in 2018, and it requires that all students since fall of 2018, in order to receive... any degree, associate's or bachelor's degree, from a Florida state college or state university, they're required to demonstrate proficiency in civic literacy. So you can do that through several different ways. There are courses you can complete to meet that.
While you were in high school, you could have passed a couple of different AP tests to satisfy that. However, if you're here, chances are you haven't done either of those and you don't intend to take the Government of the U.S. or the U.S. History course that can satisfy this. So the civic literacy test is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way. In fact, it's completely free to satisfy this requirement.
So the civic literacy test, and I will show you at the end of this workshop how to sign up, it is offered through the FAU Office of Testing and Evaluation. It is completely free to take the test on campus. You just sign up, go to the testing center.
It is offered every day that the university is open, Monday through Friday, typically every hour between 9 and 2. You have two hours to take the exam, but most students finish it in well under an hour. The exam is 100 multiple choice questions. There is no penalty for guessing, and you only need to get 60% correct. Worst case, if you don't pass it on your first attempt, you can take it again as soon as you are ready, and it is no charge to take it again.
So out of 100 questions to earn 60%, clearly you only need to get 60 of the questions right. And it doesn't matter what you score. A 60 is just as good as a 98 on that test. It doesn't show on your transcript that you scored a certain score. It just shows the civic literacy requirement has been met.
So we're going to start off today finding out what you already know. We do have a practice test available to you online. And I'm going to switch over to the dot cam.
So what I'm going to do in a moment is going to ask you to stop the recording. We will pause. And for you to go onto the Canvas site and download the practice test, it is about 20 questions. You may see about 31 questions on yours. You can answer all 31 of them or just go through the first 20. Once you complete that, then you can unpause the video and continue.
When you take the test, I would like to encourage you to put a star next to the ones you feel really confident about. Like if I took the test right now, I know that I got the right answer on this. And then the questions you're not quite sure about, put a question mark next to. And hopefully by the end of this workshop, those question marks will turn into stars.
So you can go ahead and pause this video now, download and take your quiz, and then restart when you are ready. Okay, welcome back. So how did you do?
It's okay if you didn't know a lot of them because, again, that's why you're taking this course, this workshop. So we're going to start again with the basics of U.S. history. So everything from the founding of the United States, from the colonists coming from Great Britain, declaring their independence from Great Britain, the original Constitution, maybe you remember what that was called, and then the U.S.
Constitution, which we know of today and for the last over 200 years. the amendments of the U.S. Constitution and the first 10 amendments, which are called, hopefully you know, the Bill of Rights, and then a little bit of how the Constitution set up the structure of government, although the structure of government will be the second part of this workshop. And then we'll go over some other things that are in the study guides for this workshop that you may see a few questions on.
Things like presidents, political parties, wars, key figures, and how we grew the United States from the original colonies to the 50 states we have today. So, as we get started, I'm going to tell you which questions you probably want to put the most emphasis on studying or the concepts you want to emphasize studying, and those that you might not put as much time if you don't remember, because you might only see one or two questions. So, if you get a question on the Civic Literacy Test and you're not sure of the answer, hopefully through process of elimination, you can narrow down some of the incorrect choices and have a good chance of guessing the right answer.
But Don't get too hung up if you don't know something. You have 99 other questions that you can hopefully get it right. So one question you're likely to find is about the colonial period and the 13 original colonies.
So again, there were 13 original colonies in the 1600s. Groups of people came from Great Britain to the new land, and they established these 13 colonies. If you don't remember them, you may not spend too much time studying this, but the original 13 colonies are listed on your screen here.
You also should have, and if you haven't done that, you can pause this now and download the PowerPoint. You may want to even print that out so you can take notes alongside and study right along while we're going through this presentation. The PowerPoint that you see here is available for you on the Canvas site in the first module.
So there are 13 original colonies. They pretty much formed along the eastern seaboard of what is now the United States. Makes sense, right? The boats came over from Great Britain, they landed and they established along the water.
Water also made it easier for travel and for trade. So if you're asked a question, usually it's which of the following were not colonies or all of the following were original colonies except, and you would find the one that is not correct. So remember there are three colonies that started with new, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey. There is only one of the colonies that had a V in it, and that is Virginia.
So if you see West Virginia, you know that can't be right. If you see Vermont, you know that can't be right. So the colonies stretched as far north as New Hampshire, which means Vermont and Maine were not original colonies. It went from New Hampshire all the way down the southern coast through to Georgia. Florida was not part of the original colonies.
Neither was Alabama. But these are the colonies to know. So many of them you probably heard about in your history classes if you took U.S. history at any point during your education.
So things like state colonies that are now states like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia were big colonies that had a lot to do with the forming of the United States. So why did the colonists come to America? So there are three main reasons that you should remember. And again, you are often asked this as a question that might say, colonists came to America for all of the following except.
So the reasons that would be correct that are reasons they did come to the United States, religious freedom was a main one. So if you think about what was happening in Europe in the 1600s, many of the countries in Europe had state religions or religion for their country. To live in that country, you had to practice and follow the religion that was established. And they wanted religious freedom, and that is one of the key founding principles of the United States.
They also wanted to escape persecution, whether it was for their religious beliefs, their political beliefs, and to find new economic opportunities in the New World. So you may see a question about the Mayflower Compact. They might be asking about original forms of government.
So when the colonists came to America, they created this Mayflower Compact to try to create some kind of self-government. But it didn't really hold a tremendous amount of water because they were still bound to the rules of the mother country in Great Britain. So that is part of what then led the colonists to want to declare their independence.
So after about 100 years of British rule in the New World, the colonists started to be upset. They said, you know, here we are an ocean away and we're still bound by rules of people. They're taxing us. We don't have representation. You might remember the Boston Tea Party, right?
The big cry, no taxation without representation. That was one of the main reasons we declared independence. So you don't want to confuse why we came to the colonies versus why we declared independence from Great Britain.
So we declared our independence for Great Britain for different reasons. We came to the colonies for religious freedom, to escape persecution, for economic opportunity. But then we declared our independence for reasons like trying to not be taxed without representation.
Our voice isn't heard. How can you determine how to tax us? Also, they had something called quartering.
Quartering is a concept you want to remember because when we go through the amendments, the Third Amendment prohibits quartering. So your quarters, if you think of quarters, it is your home, right? You stay in your quarters. So back in this time, when the British soldiers came to the states, usually to protect the citizens here in the colonies, but sometimes to keep order, they didn't have Holiday Inn or Marriott.
They didn't have army barracks, so many of them would stay in the homes of the colonists. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't really feel good if all of a sudden I got a knock on my door and was forced without my decision to house the British soldiers. So that was called quartering. So we did not want, so we wanted to break from British rule because of taxation without representation, quartering of soldiers, and we wanted our own self-government.
Why are we under British rule when we're an ocean away? We wanted to create our own government. So not everyone believed what was going on. They didn't, not everyone felt that we should break from British rule.
So one of the things that you should know is Common Sense by Thomas Paine. It was actually pamphlets that Thomas Paine wrote and distributed trying to convince the colonists to declare independence and break from British rule. In a little while, when we're talking about ratifying the Constitution. We'll talk about another set of papers that was written to try to get by in to ratify the Constitution, and we'll come back to Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Okay, so we weren't happy because we didn't like quartering soldiers, we didn't like being taxed without representation, and we wanted self-government.
So we were convinced that we are going to go ahead and declare our independence. So hopefully you know Independence Day in the United States is celebrated on July 4th. So on July 4th, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress was meeting, they voted to accept this Declaration of Independence, which announced our independence from Great Britain.
So the Declaration of Independence has some ideas about the American system of government that we wanted to create. So you may know some of this language. It might sound familiar to this. So in the Declaration of Independence, we'll find some language such as, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
They have certain unalienable rights, which are endowed by their creator. So let's talk really quickly about some of those concepts. So when we talk about all men being created equal, remember, this is 1776. They probably meant white males, right?
They didn't mean all men. But the concept was that we're breaking from what we saw in Britain, which was a monarchy, that people were born into certain social classes. And here we're saying all people are born into this equal system that anyone can become a leader in our country. You don't have to be born into it.
These are unalienable rights endowed by our creator, by their creator. So they're given to us by that overpowering being, which I find it interesting. We wanted religious freedom. but endowed by their creator, I think implies some kind of religious belief in there, that there is a higher being. But they are given to each of us at birth.
These are unalienable rights no one can take away from us. So these were some of the concepts that we would find in our Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence also stated that all people have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
So that was one of the quiz questions maybe you got right. And I find that really a great concept that our founding fathers thought it was so important that certainly it makes sense that we have life and liberty, but that our happiness was just as important to be. in such a seminal document. So the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776. The main author was Thomas Jefferson, but it was signed by 55 men.
The one that you might recognize is John Hancock. His signature was a large Hancock on, was a large signature on the Declaration of Independence. And you may hear it referred to when someone asks for your signature, give me your John Hancock. That's because his signature was so easily recognized. So now we've declared our independence, we fought in the Revolutionary War, we won, we declared independence from Great Britain.
Now what are we going to do? We had these colonists and they had to set up some kind of self-government. We no longer have British rule. What is our government structure going to look like? So they established these Articles of Confederation.
This was our original plan for government in the United States and it looked at all the things that we didn't want to be like Great Britain. So they were so afraid of having too much federal power, too much power in one body, that they gave very little control to the federal government and left a lot of the power to the states. Well, unfortunately, this weak central government didn't really work. It was hard to build a nation when there was nothing holding it together. So it really failed.
So after about 10 years later, we declared independence in 1776. And in 1989, or sorry, 1789, we had our U.S. Constitution. So the U.S. Constitution, basically, they looked at the Articles of Confederation, and it's kind of like when you write a rough draft of a paper.
Sometimes you can make edits to improve that paper, and other times you say, I'm going to crumple that paper up, throw it away, or in modern times, just hit delete or new document, and start over from scratch. And that's what they decided to do. They really... got rid of the Articles of Confederation and built an entirely new document as the U.S.
Constitution. The U.S. Constitution has been standing since 1789, so it's over 230 years old, and it is called the Supreme Law of the Land. If you see a test question asking about the Supreme Law of the Land, you know they are referring to the U.S. Constitution. So it was written in 1787, and in 1789 it was ratified, which means it was accepted and voted on and passed by this Constitution.
the states as the supreme law of the land. It establishes what we call a representative democracy. So we are a democracy, which means people vote and make decisions, and it is representative. You may see a question that asks you, which part of our government is the closest illustration of representative democracy? And they'd be talking about the areas of government, the branches of government, being the executive, the judicial, and then the and the House of Representatives.
The House of Representatives is the most representative part of our democracy because they are most closely related, right? We would vote for two senators from the entire state of Florida, but in Palm Beach County, we have several representatives just for our area alone. So when they created the Constitution, it was listing some rights of all citizens.
And the Constitution, an important thing to know, is it protects the rights of all citizens. and people living in the United States. So that includes someone who might have a green card, illegal aliens, or undocumented citizens. If you live in the United States, you are protected by the Constitution.
So in addition to the representative democracy, we set up and defined a federalist government. So the concept of federalism comes up on the civic literacy test pretty often. Federalism means a balance of powers.
It is a balance between state and federal rights. So if you remember when we established the first constitution, which was called the Articles of Confederation, the Articles of Confederation gave all of the power to the states and that didn't work. But we were afraid of giving too much power to the federal government because we didn't want to have a type of government like we had in Great Britain.
So how are we going to get that balance? And it's the concept called federalism. So federalism is that balance of state and national power, state and federal power.
Another thing that you should be familiar with that is most likely going to show up on your civic literacy test is they might ask a question, what words in the Constitution set up this concept of self-government? And that is we the people. We the people, the first three words in the preamble of our Constitution, is basically saying we are giving you permission.
We the people of these United States are saying this is the government that we want. This is the government that we have selected. Almost always a concept that's asked about on the civic literacy test. So when they wrote the Constitution, they wrote that this is a country, a government of laws and not of men.
And no person or group is above the law. It means that everyone in these United States must follow the law. There is no person or position in the land that is not bound by these laws. And you can imagine which position. in the United States, people might feel that they might be above the law.
In fact, when I'm recording this video in 2020, I don't know how long this video will be around, but this phrase has been used quite frequently in our Congress in the past few months as Nancy Pelosi, who is our current Speaker of the House, and some other Congress people are talking about the impeachment hearings for President Trump. Donald Trump and saying that no one is above the law and Trump has to follow, the president has to follow the law of the land. When you get to workshop two, you will see there is one of the 22 cases is U.S. versus Nixon, which talks about when Nixon was president and he felt that he was above the law and they came out and said no one is above the law. That is called the rule of law. So if you see on your civic literacy test a question about what is the rule of law, It simply states no one is above the law.
Everyone must follow the law. Okay, so when we talked about earlier when we were declaring our independence, we said that there were some pamphlets written. Hopefully you remember what that pamphlet was called and who the author was. So we're going to talk about another writing now.
The original writing that was to help convince the people to declare independence from Great Britain was Common Sense by Thomas Paine. we're talking about the Federalist Papers. So the Federalist Papers were trying to convince the ratification or acceptance of the U.S. Constitution.
So this was a series of 85 essays written to support passing the U.S. Constitution. They were primarily written by Alexander Hamilton with James Madison and John Jay.
They were written under a pen name, which is Plubius, and they were published in New York papers to get the people in New York to agree to. ratify the Constitution. So very famous set of writings that talked about why we should have this type of government. So remember that concept of federalism is that balance, that there were some powers that the state has and some powers the federal government has.
So neither one could be too strong, but they were strong enough each on their own so that we can make our government work. Anti-federalists were people who opposed the Constitution because they really wanted that weak federal government. They wanted the powers to remain in the states. But ultimately, the Federalists won out because we do have a Constitution that we have today.
Okay, so when the Constitution was written, and you typically won't see a question about the structure of the Constitution, but it is a preamble that starts with we the people. Hopefully you remember, sets up that concept of self-government. And then it is followed by seven articles. Each of those articles define a function of government. So Article 1. Establish the legislative branch, Article 2, the executive branch, Article 3, I believe the judicial branch, and then some of the concepts in our Constitution.
You usually aren't asked what each article does on the test, so I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about that, but something as a citizen you should know. But they looked back four years after this was ratified, so the Constitution was ratified in 1789, it was written in 1787, and a couple years later they said, you know, the Constitution's great. but it doesn't do enough to protect the people.
It really just set up the structure of government. So in order to protect the rights of our citizens, we need to make some changes. So an amendment is considered a change or an addition. So amendments become part of the Constitution, and the first 10 amendments are called the Bill of Rights. All 10 of those amendments, the Bill of Rights, were ratified or passed at the same time in 1791. just two years after the Constitution was ratified.
It is not easy to change our Constitution, right? We said this is the supreme law of the land. You wouldn't want people to easily change it. There's only been about 30 to 32 times that something has made it on a ballot to be approved by voters in order to become an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but there have only been the first 10, and then...
There are a total of 27 amendments, so 17 times since the Bill of Rights has an amendment passed. So to make it not easy, and this is often a test question, they may ask you which of the following are required in order for to make an amendment to or for an amendment to be ratified to the Constitution. So amendments can only be made, and it's listed on your handout and on the screen here, two-third vote in Senate and the House or by a special convention requested by the states.
So far, all of our amendments that have passed have come from the two-thirds vote in the Senate and the House of Representatives. And then once they have that amendment that passes through both houses, then it goes on the ballot for each of the states in a federal election, and the amendments must then be ratified by three-quarters of the states. It's a pretty hefty process to get one passed, and like I said, there are currently 27 total amendments. So we're going to spend a significant amount of time on the amendments because probably about a third of your test questions will be in some way related.
to the amendments, possibly even more because many of the Supreme Court cases are related to amendments as well. So we want to make sure you have a really strong understanding of these amendments. So the First Amendment is probably the one that many people are familiar with and has the most kind of independent pieces in it.
So the First Amendment deals with all things related to your freedom of expression. You express yourself in many different ways. You express yourself in your oral communication, your written communication, so speech and writing.
in how you practice religion, how you assemble, how you petition government. So there are four major categories here, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, I was right, five, and freedom to petition the government. So one of those concepts that you will see time and time again on your civic literacy test is this concept of freedom of religion, which is called the free exercise clause.
So if you are asked a question, what does the Free Exercise Clause do? It is part of the First Amendment. And if you remember, one of the main reasons the colonists came to the colonies, which became the United States, was for this freedom of religion.
They did not want to have a set state religion. So what the Free Exercise Clause says is that anyone in the United States has the right to practice any religion they choose or no religion at all. And that's an important concept. there. So free exercise means the freedom to practice any religion you choose or no religion at all.
So we will talk more about the First Amendment as we go through these. So your next few slides are going to be specifically the different amendments. The first slide here is the first 10 amendments, which is called, referred to as the Bill of Rights. So we talked about the First Amendment, which deals with freedom, free exercise, right?
Free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to peacefully assemble, and right to petition the government. And remember, these are rights for everyone in the United States, regardless of citizenship. So anyone living in the United States, an undocumented immigrant, would have the opportunity to petition the government. They have the right to peacefully assemble. Second Amendment is one that's very controversial.
It comes up quite often, particularly when there are mass shootings. And many of you may know the biggest proponent for this amendment, which is the NRA or the National Rifle Association. So the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.
So a lot of debate has been about this, and we will talk about in the second workshop, a landmark Supreme Court case that deals with this. But what did the founding fathers mean when they said the right to bear and keep arms? Was it so that in these new United States, we were able to establish an army and a militia to protect ourselves? Or is it for the individual right of the individual person to protect themselves? Or what does it mean?
So that's something that's continually, but it basically deals with the right to bear arms for guns. The third amendment we talked about a little bit earlier is prohibits the quartering of soldiers in private homes. So remember.
One of the reasons that we declared our independence was we didn't like being required to house soldiers in our homes in the colonies. So the Third Amendment prohibits this. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure, and it sets out requirements for search warrants.
So we will have two landmark Supreme Court cases we will talk about that deal with Fourth Amendment. When are they allowed to use evidence that's found in a search? What are the requirements for search warrants, et cetera? The Fifth Amendment, many of you may have heard of several of these things. The Fifth Amendment has several concepts in it.
The first one that I'm going to talk about is eminent domain. Eminent domain is a little bit different here. So eminent domain is... The concept that the government has the right to take land from private landowners as long as they compensate them fairly. So the Fifth Amendment is really establishing different policies and what the steps are to do things.
So this set out what the policies are. So when would this ever happen? When would the government come and take our private homes?
So, for example, when we were building and expanding the country, we had to put things in place like highways and railroads. So imagine you're building a railroad as you're moving west through these treacherous mountain ranges, and it's really hard to navigate, and you have the perfect path, but someone's house is sitting right on that path you need for that railway, and if you don't build through where that house is, you would have to go around mountains and cause months of additional labor and might never finish this railroad. So you can then go, as long as you provide fair compensation for that individual, take their home. to continue the work. It is not done often as far as I know.
And I do want to establish one thing. I am not a political scientist. I am not a historian.
I learned this content when this became a requirement for students to graduate so that I could help you learn the material you need to graduate. So certainly if you want more information, talk to a historian, talk to a constitutional law expert, and they'll be happy to share with you. But the Fifth Amendment also deals with a lot of things in the legal realm. So it protects rights of due process.
So what is due process? Due process makes sure that every person follows the same requirements. So for example, if someone is arrested, there is a process that has to be followed. How long can you hold them before you press charges? What happens once you have pressed charges?
How long do they have until they can be arraigned? What is the process for all this? What is the process for bail?
So all of these things to keep equity, to keep fairness in the system. So we don't have one set of rules for one person and a different set for another. That's called due process.
We'll see due process come up again in the 14th Amendment. The Fifth Amendment also protects people against self-incrimination and double jeopardy. So we're going to talk about double jeopardy first.
Double jeopardy is the concept that if you are accused of a crime and then you are later acquitted of that crime, you are found not guilty, they cannot then find different new evidence. and come back and try you for the same crime twice. So for example, if I were accused of murder, and I went to trial, and I was acquitted, and later they came back with new DNA evidence, or they came back with a video showing that I had actually committed that murder, they could not charge me with that same crime. Now, if there was evidence for a new crime, they could certainly do that.
And that's called double jeopardy, when you can't be tried for the same crime twice. The other concept in the Fifth Amendment is self-punishment. incrimination.
So that means that if I am being questioned and I know that the answer to my question is going to show my guilt, I do not have to answer it. So you may have heard people on a witness stand in the movies saying, I plead the Fifth. That saying that they're pleading the Fifth Amendment, they're using their right to not self-incriminate. So that is in there. And we will be dealing with a landmark Supreme Court case, Miranda versus Arizona.
You may have heard your Miranda rights, which tells you. You have the right to remain silent. That is for the Fifth Amendment, and that is one of the Supreme Court cases we'll discuss. The Sixth Amendment deals with things like a fair and speedy public trial by jury. So it says that you're not going to have one judge necessarily making decisions, but that justice will proceed quickly, and that you do have the right to a jury trial in many cases.
You also have the right to know who accused you, to confront the accuser. to have witnesses, things like that. And the other piece that's really important is the ability to retain counsel, right? So we know from if you've watched television like I do, Law & Order, hopefully you don't know this from personal experience, the Miranda Law, which says you have the right to remain silent, right? That's that Fifth Amendment, self-incrimination.
Anything you say can and will be used against you. And you have the right to an attorney. This is the ability to retain counsel in the Sixth Amendment. We will talk about a second landmark Supreme Court case that talked about what happens if you cannot afford an attorney, and we'll talk about that in the second workshop. The Seventh Amendment is similar to the Sixth Amendment, but it's dealing with in civil cases, so a criminal case versus a civil case.
A criminal proceeding, so for example, if there's a car accident and the person was driving under the influence and injured someone, that would be considered criminal and bound by the Sixth Amendment. In Seventh Amendment, if that person was in a car accident and it was just an accident, there was no real fault that was criminally negligent, then they would have the right to a jury trial and things like that in civil cases. Eighth Amendment deals with excessive...
fines, excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishment. Basically, this was establishing that you can't have a punishment that doesn't fit the crime. So you can't be accused of jaywalking and get a $10,000 fine for that or a year in jail for something that would be considered minor.
The Ninth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment, we're going to talk about together because they're really interesting. So the Ninth Amendment protects rights not enumerated, which means spelled out, described in the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment reinforces that concept of federalism, saying that the federal government only has powers that are defined in the Constitution, and anything that's not defined in the Constitution belongs to the state. So remember we talked about this concept when the Constitution laid out what government can do. The Constitution...
only spells out what the federal government can do. Anything that is not in the Constitution is considered a state power, with a couple of exceptions. So that's where we get into the 9th and 10th Amendments. So, for example, I have my cell phone here. When they were writing the Constitution back in 1787, they didn't have a way to know that there would be video workshops and cell phones and computers.
They didn't even have electricity, right? So at that point, they couldn't necessarily think of every possibility that would be required. So there is something in our Constitution called the Necessary and Proper Clause or the Elastic Clause.
And what that means is that the Constitution spells out what the federal government can do. But there are also things that might not be spelled out in the Constitution that are necessary and proper. for the government to carry out the work they need to do. So we'll talk about that in one of the landmark Supreme Court cases, which deals with banks, right?
So the federal government has the power to print money. That is one of the powers described in the Constitution. They have the power to collect taxes. Well, it didn't say they have the power to create a bank, but that is something that was necessary and proper for them to be able to do the business that is required under the Constitution for them.
So that is considered necessary and proper. And you can think of it, it's also called the elastic clause. When we stretch an elastic band, this allows us to stretch what the Constitution allows to fit in what we need to be able to do our jobs.
But it is important to know that anything that is not spelled out in the Constitution and is not necessary and proper for the federal government to do the things that are required in the Constitution, that it is a power of the state. Okay, so that was the Bill of Rights. Deep breath.
We are moving on to the other amendments. So the other 17 amendments. The 11th amendment deals with sovereign immunity, which basically limits how the accountability for different states for people who are outside of those areas.
The 12th amendment changed the presidential election process. Before the 12th amendment, you would vote for two for different candidates. The one who got the most votes became president.
The second most would become vice president. You can imagine how that might not work, especially if they're from dueling parties. So this changed it so that the president runs on a ticket.
You elect a president and a vice president together. I haven't seen any questions on the 11th or 12th Amendment, but important for you to know anyway. Now we get into important stuff. So the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.
So think back. Who was president at the time? So this was at the end of the Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln was president. He wrote, he stated the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, which was passed, which abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime. So when someone is in prison, we can require them to work while they are imprisoned, but we cannot have slavery. After the 13th Amendment, these next couple that follow where things try and put in place.
So we didn't just abolish slavery and all of a sudden everything was wonderful for black and African-American citizens. Things didn't really change that quickly. So the 14th Amendment was put into place.
First, it defines citizenship. Before that, you might remember the three-fifths rule that slaves were not even considered a person. And we will talk about a landmark Supreme Court case, Dred Scott versus Sanford, where we see that the Supreme Court wouldn't even rule.
because the African-American slave wasn't considered a citizen. So it defines citizenship. We see this word due process again.
Again, so this is looking at the rights for people and making sure things are fair. And the most important part of this would be what we call the Equal Protection Clause. So think about what we might mean by equal protection.
Who might need equal protection? Obviously, in this time period, we were talking about the ending of slavery. So we were talking about equal protection in the eyes of the law for our black and African American citizens. But that is also encompassing other groups of people as well. So equal protection can be applied in terms of gender.
It can be applied in terms of race and ethnicity. It can be in terms of gender. disability or ability. It can be in terms of age discrimination. There are many ways, sexual orientation, many ways equal protection and the 14th Amendment is used.
And we will have several Supreme Court cases when we talk about landmark Supreme Court cases that deal with the 14th Amendment. The first and the 14th Amendment have the most landmark Supreme Court cases you will need to know for the civic literacy test. So an important one to know.
So now we abolish slavery. We've set up these things to provide them for equal. equal protection. Right after that, the 15th Amendment was passed, which allowed Blacks and African Americans the right to vote. So remember, it's still only men who are voting, right?
Before this, it was white men. Now we're allowing all men have the right to vote over a certain age at this point. So the 15th Amendment is important to know. It is one of four amendments that deal with voting.
So you will often see a question, which of the following amendments deal with voting? The 15th Amendment was the first one, and that dealt with all men could vote. So it took away the exclusion by race. The 16th Amendment looked at income taxes and how we can create taxes. And the taxes were based on the U.S.
Census. So if you are not familiar with the U.S. Census, the U.S. Census is the counting of the people in our country.
It is part of our Constitution. It is a constitutional requirement that we have a census every 10 years. So in 2020, there will be a census, and it will be again in 2030. The results of that census are then used for tax purposes, but also to determine how many House of Representative members each state has and where they are coming from within that state.
The 17th Amendment established direct election of senators by popular vote. So you go to the polls, you vote for the senator, whoever gets the most votes then wins that seat. There is currently only one major position in the country that is not elected directly and not directed directly by popular vote. Do you know which position that is? So that is the president of the United States.
The president of the United States is still voted on. The people go to the polls and vote and they are voting how they want their electoral representatives to vote for them. So it is the president is not directly elected.
It is elected by the electoral college. So you may see that on the test. The 18th Amendment is interesting because the 18th Amendment is the only amendment that is not currently active. So if you get asked how many amendments there are, there are 27 amendments, but only 26 of them are active. You may have heard of prohibition.
So this was right after World War I. They prohibited the manufacture or sale of alcohol in the United States. That lasted for about 10 to 15 years. until the 21st Amendment, which repealed that, and we were now allowed to manufacture and sell alcohol in the United States. The 19th Amendment is the second of our voting amendments, and it allowed women to vote. So we just celebrated, at the time of this recording, we just celebrated the 100th anniversary in 2020 of women gaining the right to vote.
That just happened a few weeks ago. So now, with the 15th Amendment, allowed voting by race. The 19th Amendment allowed by gender so women could vote.
The 20th Amendment just changes the date on which the president and vice president takes office, which is January 20th and January 3rd when Congress starts their new session. Okay, the last few, the 21st Amendment was just repealing, oh sorry, repealing the 18th Amendment. So it stopped, it ended prohibition. The 22nd Amendment is important. You will probably see a question on that.
It limited the number of times that a person can be elected president. So we'll talk about this a little later in the presentation, but there are reasons why. You can imagine if you think about what we were concerned about with our original being under British rule. So when we were under British rule, which was a monarchy, they had someone in power for a very long time.
So the 22nd Amendment was actually just after our only president who was elected to more than two terms had passed away. Do you know who that was? So our only president who was elected to more than two terms was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, otherwise known as FDR. He was president during the Great Depression and World War II. He was a good leader.
This was not passed because we did not think he was a good president, but people realized that without having limits, term limits, that someone could potentially get into power for a very long time. So they passed this 22nd amendment, which limits how many times someone can be elected to office. The 23rd amendment grants the District of Columbia, so you should know that our capital is in Washington, D.C., but the District of Columbia is not part of a state. So they actually do get electors in the electoral college equivalent to the least populous state.
So if the least populous state gets one electoral vote, then the District of Columbia would have one electoral vote. 24th Amendment is related to voting. So I put it up there.
That's why I say there are four amendments dealing with voting. It is not directly who is allowed to vote, but indirectly it is 100% based on who can vote. So the 24th Amendment made it illegal to charge a poll tax. A poll tax is a tax on people who are going to the voting polls. And these poll taxes were often implemented in your lowest income areas, which were typically where you would have your underrepresented minorities.
So if you can think about this, this was really a way to sway the vote so that you were discounting the votes or not allowing the votes for our black and African-American citizens and other minorities and the poor. So because if you go to vote, and they're going to charge you and you don't have money, you were turned away. So the 24th Amendment made it illegal for poll taxes. The 25th Amendment, and I have seen questions on the civic literacy test about this, addresses the succession of office. So what happens if the president can no longer complete their term?
So a president may not be able to complete a term because they die in office. That's happened a few times, either natural death or assassination. Or they step down from office. We've had one president who has resigned.
That is Richard Nixon. So if they're or if they're impeached and removed from office, what happens? So the order of succession used to be president to vice president to the secretary of state. The 25th Amendment changed that from president to vice president to the speaker of the House of Representatives. The current speaker of the House is Nancy Pelosi.
So if both the president and vice president were unable to. complete their term in office, then it would go to the Speaker of the House or Nancy Pelosi. It has happened nine times in our history that a president was unable to complete one of the terms they were elected for, but it has never gone beyond the vice president.
The 26th Amendment is the final voting amendment. So we had 15th Amendment, which dealt with race. The 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The 24th Amendment, which got rid of poll taxes.
And now the 26th Amendment. which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. And then the final amendment delayed laws based on congressional salaries. So basically, Congress, if they wanted to vote that they would have a salary increase, they can vote that it will go into effect for the next term. So the next time Congress takes office, they would get the salary increase.
So they're technically not voting themselves a salary increase, although without term limits, many of our Congress representatives. come back in every single year or every term. And so technically, in my opinion, they're still giving themselves a salary increase.
Those are our 27 amendments. You guys tired? So you've got this.
We are getting close to the end. So just a quick refresher. I talked about this. There are four amendments about voting. The 15th amendment, which said American men of all races can vote.
19th amendment, women can vote. 24th amendment made. poll taxes or fees to vote illegal, and the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age. So you will often see a question that might say all of the following are for U.S. citizens only except. So there are three things that only U.S. citizens can do.
U.S. citizen, you must be a U.S. citizen to vote in a federal election. You must be a U.S. citizen to serve on a federal jury and to run for federal office. So those are three things only citizens can do. But remember, we talked about everyone living in the U.S., regardless of citizenship, is protected by the Constitution. So anything that is in the Bill of Rights protects all people in the United States.
You may also see a question asking you, which of the following are ways that you can participate in your democracy? Or which of the following is not a way to participate in your democracy? So think about, when you see these questions, read them carefully and think about them.
So what are ways to participate in democracy? Anything that you're going to do that's going to have an impact on the democracy of our country. So voting. That's your number one civic responsibility. But if you want to have a stronger voice, running for office where you're going to represent other people, joining a civic group to get your word out, writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper or putting a blog online about some kind of a political belief that you have, publicly supporting an issue or policy, emailing your congress member or calling your congress member, working on a political campaign.
Those are all ways. So you might see a question. You can.
Americans can participate in democracy by all the following except, and it might give you any of these choices on there, and it might say volunteering at a soup kitchen or volunteering at an animal hospital. Those are all lovely things to do, and I encourage you to do them, but they are not necessarily participating in your democracy. Okay, so the next few things that we're going to go through are things that are in the study guide. They are fair game for questions on the test, but I have very infrequently seen these.
topics come up. You may get one or two questions, so we don't want to spend too much time on these, but I don't want you to be caught off guard. So knowing the political parties is something that is in the study guide. I have never seen a question asking about historic political parties.
Currently, the two major political parties in the United States are Democratic and Republican. There are hundreds of political parties. There's independents, there's green parties, there's parties for just about anything you can imagine. But if you were asked a question, Democratic and Republican are the two main parties that most of our representative government is based on. Before the modern times, there were plenty of other parties, but I have not seen questions about them.
If you do take the test and see a question about the Whig Party, I apologize that we didn't prepare you for that. Some other things you might be tested on, the last day to file federal income taxes to the IRS is April 15th. So in a few minutes, we'll talk about taxes.
Tax is the only shared power that both the federal government has the right to tax and your state government has the right to tax, but your federal taxes are due April 15th. You may also see a question about the selective service. If you are not familiar with selective service, this is a requirement that all men ages 18 to 26 who are U.S. citizens must register for this, and this is for if we ever go to a draft.
There was only a draft one time in our history, and that was during the Vietnam era. It was very unpopular. They are not expecting to have to go back to a draft. However, it is a requirement that if we are to go to war, we want to make sure that we have people to serve in that war.
I find it interesting that women are allowed to serve in the military, but they are not required to register for selective service. Students, I believe when you apply for admission to university or for federal financial aid, you have to confirm that you are registered for selective service. You can do that when you get a library card. You could do that when you register at the DMV to get your driver's license. There are many ways to register for selective service.
And if you are male and a resident citizen of the United States, hopefully you've done that already if you're between 18 and 26. Okay, you also may see a question about our economic system. So we are considered a capitalist or a market economy. That means that most of our businesses are privately owned. We don't have all of our businesses are not owned by the federal government.
where they set and regulate prices. Most of our businesses allow for competition, setting of prices. Supply and demand determines what we produce and how much of it and what we charge for things.
Within legal realms, we can produce what we want, charge what we want for them, etc. You may also, again, these are not frequently on the test, but they're on the study guide, so you may be asked about them. How did we grow the U.S.?
So a huge amount of our, we've doubled our... Space in the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 for a mere $15 million, which was not a lot of money even at that time for what we got for that, gave us a tremendous amount of land. We also have five U.S. territories. I learned this as I was preparing this presentation. I always knew that Puerto Rico and U.S.
Virgin Islands were territories. We also have American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam. Each of these has a representative in Congress.
They are not voting. members, but they do get to have their voice heard. They do not have senators, so they have a person in the House of Representatives who can be there to participate, but not vote. And citizens of territories vote in the primary election, so they can determine who potentially who would be the candidate for their party, but they don't get to vote in the general election.
I'm not sure why. Again, you can certainly talk with someone who is a political scientist about that. You may be asked about our capital.
The capital of the United States is in Washington, D.C. You also may be asked about the Statue of Liberty is located in New York Harbor or Liberty Island. Again, you may get one or maybe two questions about wars out of 100. So if you don't want to spend a lot of time learning about the wars, there are 99 or 98 other questions that you will get right. So you don't need to necessarily spend too much time on this.
And when I have seen a question about a war, it is usually very general. You don't need to know a lot of details. But here are the primary wars that we have been involved with since the Revolutionary War, since our founding of the United States. In the 1700s, we had the Revolutionary War.
That is important to know. It was when we broke away from Great Britain to gain our independence. The Civil War, also known as the War of the North versus the South, Union versus Confederates, was to end slavery, but also a huge economic war. There were three other wars in the 1800s.
The War of 1812, Mexican-American War, and Spanish-American War. I have not seen questions on that, but you can feel free to study for that as well. World War I. And I realized when I created this, I put who our allies were for World War I and who we fought against in World War II.
But in World War I, we were with Britain, France, and Italy. It ended with the Treaty of Versailles. World War II, you might remember the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, Nazi Germany. So that was the focus in there. Then most of the wars after that have been trying to stop the spread of communism and keep democracy.
So the Korean War. was trying again to create a democratic government. Vietnam War, again trying to get rid of the communist government in Vietnam. So this Cold War period was trying to stop the spread of communism and went from like the 50s until the 80s. The Gulf War and the Persian Gulf War, this is when I was in college in the 1990s, a heavy emphasis on oil to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
You may be asked a few questions about key people. So a few presidents you may want to know. George Washington, who was our first president, the father of our country, a general in the Revolutionary War.
Thomas Jefferson was our third president. He was the major author of the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln was president who did the Emancipation Proclamation, which led to the 13th Amendment, the freeing of slaves. Woodrow Wilson, and I remember this, W.W.
Woodrow Wilson. was president during World War I. FDR, we talked about, he was, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president during the Great Depression and World War II. He was elected for a fourth term. He served for 12 years because he died right after being elected, right after starting his fourth term.
And if you remember, the 22nd amendment was the amendment was passed after that in order to put term limits that no president can be elected for more than two terms. You may see a question about Benjamin Franklin. I have seen a question about him quite often.
So it's typically added Benjamin Franklin was all of the following except. So he was a U.S. diplomat. He was never president.
He was a U.S. diplomat. He was the oldest member of the Constitutional Convention that started the U.S. Constitution.
He was also our first postmaster general of the U.S. So I thank him when I get nice mail. I am sad when I get bills.
He wrote Poor Richard's Almanac and he started the first free libraries. So when you go to the Wimberley Library and you can check out 500 books, you can thank Benjamin Franklin. Someone also who has attended these workshops shared that they saw a question about Benjamin Franklin that asked about something about discovering electricity with a kite and a key. So that might be a choice you find as well. Susan B. Anthony was a leader in the women's right movement and Martin Luther King Jr., a leader of the civil rights movement.
Okay, so we're switching gears for the rest of this workshop. We're going to be talking about basic concepts of U.S. government. We are almost there, folks. Hang in there. You are doing great.
So basic concepts of U.S. government. We're going to talk about the three branches, what each of their powers are, what the terms of office, those are frequent test questions. So remember, the framers wanted to limit the powers of government.
We were really afraid. Who are those people that were afraid of too strong of a government? They were called anti-federalists.
And the Federalists were people who wanted that balance of power. So we wanted to make sure that there was this balance of power, but also checks and balances. Separation of powers, who could do what, but checks and balances to make sure no one had too much power in any area. So we're going to cover the executive branch, which is the president and the president's cabinet. The president, the executive branch, enforces laws.
So I like to remember E for executive, enforces. Executive enforces laws. The legislative branch, which is Congress, House of Representatives, and the Senate, they make the laws. The president isn't making laws, right?
The president can propose things for Congress to consider. Congress actually looks at bills. They will make the laws.
The executive branch will talk about the checks and balance that they have for that, that enforces them. And then finally, the judicial branch, which is the Supreme Court and the other federal courts, they decide if laws and actions are following the Constitution or if things are in violation of the Constitution. So when something makes it to the Supreme Court for review, it is weighing on whether or not whatever that case is about is in violation of concept in the Constitution or amendments of the Constitution. Okay. So executive branch, the president, the vice president, and the president's cabinet.
So it's the president plus 14 members of the cabinet. We'll look at those in a minute. The president or the executive branch enforces laws and makes sure that all people follow the laws.
And we remember no one is above the law, right? That's called the rule of law. So you may be asked about which of the following are presidential powers.
Presidential powers, and if you think through it, It makes sense that these are things that there should be one person in the country who's kind of the leader responsible for these things. So the president or the executive branch is the one that signs treaties, sets national policies, selects ambassadors, proposes laws to Congress. Congress can move forward on those or not. That is a choice.
The president names top leaders. So a federal department, Supreme Court justices. So if there is. If they can name the director of the FBI, the CIA, all of those, they name cabinet positions, who's going to be advising the president. And if there is a vacancy in the Supreme Court, they can nominate a Supreme Court justice.
But one of the checks and balances says that although the president is going to nominate this person, the Senate has the right to do what they call Senate confirmation hearings. They are going to vet that candidate, determine whether or not that candidate is qualified. And then they can reject that candidate or approve the president to appoint that person. So that's for all federal departments, the cabinet positions, and Supreme Court justices.
So that is a huge power of the executive branch to be able to appoint the next Supreme Court justices, because we'll learn about in a little while, that Supreme Court justice is there potentially for the rest of their life. There's no term limits for Supreme Court justice. So it's a huge power, but the Supreme Court does have that checks and balance.
They also, as a checks and balance, they sign bills from Congress to become law or they can veto the bill. So Congress can't just pass any law they want. The president has that final say whether or not that will become law or become vetoed.
And then finally, the president is commander in chief of the military. So the president oversees all the branches of the military. They're the head honcho in the military. But a checks and balance, only Congress has power to declare war. So the president can go and ask permission from Congress to declare war, but the Congress cannot take currently his, or hope one day in the future possibly her, military and go out into war.
They have to, only Congress has the ability to declare war. So terms, you will often be asked how long a term is for president or for senators or for House of Representatives. The president is elected to a four-year term, and we remember from the 22nd Amendment. A maximum of two terms, and you'll remember FDR is the only one who was elected more than two terms.
We vote for the president on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. That just sets up, so we always know it will be that first week in November on a Tuesday. We always know what election day will be.
If president can no longer serve, remember this is the 25th Amendment. It has happened nine times that the vice president became president. And then if both the president and vice president are unable to serve, then it would be the Speaker of the House, which is currently Nancy Pelosi. Okay, we talked a little bit about the President's Cabinet. There are 14 Cabinet positions, one of which is the Vice President and the Attorney General, who is like the lead lawyer for the country.
The other 12 positions all begin with Secretary. When George Washington was President, there were four Cabinet positions. They have changed. You can probably see from some of the names, things like Secretary of Homeland Security.
did not exist when George Washington was here, or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or Secretary of Veterans Affairs. They didn't have veterans at that time. Well, I guess they kind of did after the Revolutionary War, but they didn't have a cabinet position for them.
So these are the 14 cabinet positions. And remember, the president will pick who the president wants to be as a cabinet member, but then it has to go to the Senate as a checks and balance to confirm that. The second branch is the legislative branch. So the legislative branch is Congress and it is made up of two houses.
So you may hear the term bicameral. So if you see the term bicameral, no, bi means two, like a bicycle has two wheels. The root cam means house, so two houses. You have your Senate and your House of Representatives.
The Congress makes the laws, so back in my day we had the how does a bill become a law, and it's all through Congress. So we have 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives. That was one of your quiz questions. So let's talk about why.
So first of all, when we were forming the country, there were 13 colonies. Remember those colonies? And we had... The colonies that had smaller population, our smaller colonies, were saying, well, that's not fair. We should have as much of a say in our new government as these other states.
And the larger states, the more populous states, said, well, that's not fair. We have more people. We should have more representation. So you may have heard of the New Jersey Compromise. This was a compromise that the colonists came up with, and they created these two houses to meet.
both of the needs of the smaller population now states and the larger population states. So no matter what the population size is of your state, every state has two senators. Right now, we have 50 states in the U.S., so there are 100 senators. Two senators times 50 states is 100. All states have equal powers in the Senate.
The senators are elected to six-year terms, so it is even longer term. than the President of the United States. Currently there are no term limits in the legislative branch so many of our senators have been serving there for 20-30 year plus years. But being elected as a senator one of the only two representatives for your entire state comes with a lot of power but there's also a lot to learn in that in the senate so by being there for six years gives you a chance to actually make things happen and learn the law the lay of the land. Our current senators from Florida .
are Rick Scott and Marco Rubio. So I put this up there as an example of why the Senate is not considered the most representative democracy as the House of Representatives. So in Florida, we are about 50% Republican, 50% Democrat. However, the southern part of the state where FAU is located typically is more Democrat than Republican.
But with about half and half, we elected a governor, Governor DeSantis, who is a Republican. And our two senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rupio, currently, who are Republican. If you look at the House of Representatives, just in Palm Beach County, we have several Democratic representatives who are representing us in the House of Representatives.
So it is considered more representatives. So the House of Representatives has 435 members. That number is going to be the same all of the time. But it changes how many each state has based on their population.
which is done every 10 years based on the census. So we might decide, okay, well, we just had a lot of people who moved to North Dakota, so North Dakota is going to gain an extra representative, but people moved away from Iowa, so they lose a representative, and they will make adjustments like that. It also will determine where within the state people are living, so you might get more as more people are leaving Miami and moving to Broward County. Broward County might get more representatives in their area. So representatives are only elected to a two-year term, and that's because if these are the people who are most closely having to represent our interests, and we want to make sure that they are doing what we want them to do, we the people are giving them this power, then we want to hold them accountable.
And if they know they are up for re-election every two years, hopefully that holds them more accountable to the needs of the people and their constituents in their area. And our final branch, we're almost done in the home stretch, is the judicial branch. The judicial branch is the Supreme Court and other federal courts. The judicial branch decides if laws and actions follow the Constitution.
So they are not going to rule on a car accident and determine whether someone was at fault. They're looking at things like, is this something that's in violation of the Constitution? That's pretty much it.
They review laws, they explain laws, they resolve disputes, they determine if Congress passes a new law, is that in violation of the Constitution? If... Someone is being treated some way.
Is that in violation of the Constitution? There are only nine justices on the Supreme Court. One of your quiz questions, the current Chief Justice is John Roberts Jr.
The other ones that were in those choices you may have heard of more often, but John Roberts Jr. is our current Chief Justice. The Chief Justice and all of the nine justices of the Supreme Court are appointed when there is a vacancy only. They are appointed by the President, and then part of checks and balances confirmed by the Senate. and they are appointed for life or until they can no longer serve. Some last concepts to remember, the state versus federal government, and this is almost always, you'll see one or two questions about this, about who has what powers.
So we remember, we've talked about this many times, that division of power, which gives that balance between national and state governments, is called federalism. The federal government has four major powers that you should know about. They have the power to print money, and these things make sense, right? We wouldn't want the states to have the power to print money.
Can you imagine If the state of Florida printed Florida currency and we drive up to Georgia and we go to pay for something and they say, oh, no, we're not taking your Florida money. Right. So the U.S. government prints a standardized currency. So they have the power to print money.
They have the power to declare war. We don't want Florida declaring war on Cuba. So only the federal government has the power to declare war.
We also don't want Florida creating an army. So only the federal government can create an army and making treaties, although it would be lovely for different areas to create treaties with other countries. We want that to be something that's done at the federal government. So there are several powers that are given specifically to the states.
Remember, anything not specifically outlined in the Constitution is a state power. So some of those powers are things that deal with our local success. So providing schooling to making sure that education is taken care of for our people. Making sure people are safe.
So police protection, fire safety, those are things that are done at the state level. Licensing. driver's licenses. So my daughter can get her driver's license at 16 years old in Florida.
I grew up in New York. You had to be 17 years old. That is a state decision. Marriage licenses. That's why a lot of people go to Vegas to get married because marriage license requirements vary state to state.
So it is easier to get a marriage license, less hoops to jump through in Nevada than it may be in other states and other licenses as well. And then the final one, improving zoning and land use. So zoning and land use means that every part of the land in the state is determined that this can be used for commercial land, this is for agricultural land, this is for residential property, and those are decisions that are made on a state basis. The federal government does not need to be involved with that. We talked about one shared power, taxing.
The federal government can tax. Remember, our taxes are due April 15th, and the state governments can tax people, and local governments can tax as well. We need to have some basis for being able to afford the structures of government.
So states need the money to be able to provide education and safety and policing. And the federal government needs money to do all the things they're required to do. And that's done through taxes. And then again, anything not specifically outlined as a federal power belongs to the state. That was a lot of information that we went over.
So how do you feel? Hopefully you feel great. We're going to now go over. The practice quiz.
I'm going to switch here to our little dot cam. Okay. The first question, the U.S.
Constitution does all of the following except, hopefully you got these right. The U.S. Constitution does all the following except define what states can do. Remember, we know what states can do based on what is not in the Constitution. The Constitution does protect the rights of Americans through the amendments.
It sets up the structure of government and defines what the federal government can do. But the correct answer is B. It does not define what states can do. The First Amendment gives the following rights except.
So First Amendment is the freedom of religion, right? That free exercise clause, the freedom of a peaceful assembly, the freedom to petition the government. It does not deal with who can vote.
So the correct answer is D. How many amendments are there currently to the U.S. Constitution?
Correct answer, C, 27. Freedoms not outlined in the U.S. Constitution were outlined in, so remember the Bill of Rights was written just a couple of years after the Constitution because they realized the Constitution set up the structure of government but didn't do enough to protect the freedoms of the people. So the correct answer is B, the Bill of Rights. Question five. Which of the following are rights in the Declaration of Independence?
So the Declaration of Independence gives the right to B, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So C, the right to practice any religion or none at all, is the free exercise clause. That is in the First Amendment, the amendment to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Same as right to petition the government. So the correct answer for five is B. Question six, the idea of self-government is the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?
The correct answer is B, we the people. Question seven, the economic system in the U.S., we are considered a capitalist economy. B.
Question eight, the rule of law states no one is above the law. That is A. Question nine, the proper order of succession if president is no longer able to serve. The correct answer is C, vice president, then speaker of the house.
Question 10, who makes federal laws? So remember, executive enforces. They don't make the laws. The laws are made by A, the legislative branch. The legislative branch, Congress.
creates. That's how I remember it. C-C. Congress creates law. Executive enforces.
Okay, next question. Eleven. We elect a U.S. senator for how many years? The correct answer is C, six years. Senators are elected for six years.
Two years is the House of Representatives. Remember, we want to make sure they're continually accountable to us. Four years is the president, and we don't have anyone elected eight years in our federal government system. Question 12. There are how many voting members in the U.S. House of Representatives?
The answer is 435. C. Question 13. Who is commander-in-chief of the military? Commander-in-chief is the president.
A. But remember, checks and balance. Only Congress can declare war. Who is the current chief justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court? The correct answer is A, John Roberts, Jr. Question 15. Which of the following is not a power of the states? So remember, the states do provide education.
They do provide protection and safety. They do determine driver's license regulations. They do not print money.
So the correct answer is D. We don't want Florida money that can't be used in Georgia and Alabama, right? Question 16. All of the following are powers of the federal government except the federal government does not have the power to approve zoning and land use.
That is something that is local, a state level power. Question 17. Each of the following amendments the Constitution deals with, who can vote? This is a very likely question, except the correct answer is A, the 13th Amendment.
So the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, which eventually led to the 15th Amendment, which gave blacks and African-Americans the right to vote. But the correct answer, A, does not deal with voting. 15th Amendment deals with blacks and African-Americans voting. 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18. Question 18. The principle of American government that establishes concurrent state and national governments is known as federalism.
See, if you didn't get that one right, study federalism. You will definitely see that on your civic literacy test. Question 19. The Fifth Amendment protects citizens from all of the following except the Fifth Amendment does not prevent you from being tried for capital crime.
A capital crime is something like... murder or treason. There's nothing that's going to stop that.
Remember, Fifth Amendment says you can't be tried for the same offense twice, which is double jeopardy. It says you don't have to self-incriminate yourself. Remember, I plead the Fifth, and it does outline the requirements for due process. Which of the following are rights for anyone living in the U.S., regardless of citizenship? Anyone who lives in the U.S. can petition the government, but you must, so the correct answer is D, but you must be a citizen in order to vote in a federal election, serve on a jury, or run for federal office.
And these were on the attachment. I don't know if you all got them. What steps are taken to ratify an amendment? Remember, it's got to be pretty tough because we don't want to change the Constitution. So it must be ratified by two-thirds of both houses or two-thirds of the states and then ratified by three-quarters of the states.
So the correct answer is A. 22, all of the following are ways that Americans can participate in democracy except, remember we said, volunteering to help needy in your community is a lovely thing to do, but it is not a way to participate in democracy. So the correct answer is D.
23, colonists fought the British for all of the following reasons except, remember we fought the British because we didn't want to quarter them, we wanted our own government, we didn't want to be taxed without representation. So land ownership disputes, A, is the correct answer. All of the following are original colonies except, Vermont, D was not an original colony.
Remember we said only one V and that's Virginia. The Federalist Papers were written by the following authors except Thomas Jefferson was not an author of the Federalist Papers. Question 26. Benjamin Franklin is known for the following except he was not the Secretary of State.
He was a Postmaster General. He did start the first free libraries and he did serve as a U.S. diplomat. So the correct answer would be C. All the following are reasons that led to the Civil War, except... So why did we fight the Civil War?
Taxation without representation was not a reason. So slavery was the one that we most know, but dealt with states' rights, right? So which states were saying, can we prevent slavery or have slavery?
And it was definitely economic, right? If you didn't have slaves, you didn't have free labor to work on your ranches and all. 28, Susan B. Anthony is best known for fighting for women's rights. President during World War I, correct answer, W.W.
Woodrow Wilson, B. Question 30, during the Cold War, what was the main concern of the United States? Communism, A. And the last question, what part of the Constitution protects the freedom of religion? And that is in the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights in the First Amendment. Okay, well, I hope you did really well on that, before we close here. So I just want to make sure you know that some of the...
Questions you're going to find are going to be pretty easy to answer straightforward, you know, which of these amendments deal with voting. But they may ask you questions in a way such as, here is an excerpt from a letter that this person, you know, the king of England's, what, you know, the queen of England wrote to the king of England talking about this concept. How is that concept seen in the U.S. colonies? Think through what the reading is. You know your concepts and you can apply it.
I saw one about Abigail Adams wrote a letter to John Adams when he became the second president of the United States saying, don't forget the women. What was she, you know, which amendment eventually was passed that supported her concept, right? The 19th amendment, which meant don't forget the women, give them the right to vote.
So thinking through some of these, I know one of our presenters for these workshops saw a question, because the questions will change each time, that gave a description of a Supreme Court case. It is not a Supreme Court case that we studied or that you need to know. A description of it and said, based on the facts that you know about this case, which amendment was this case questioning? So, you know, it was a case potentially about quartering soldiers. So you'd have to know that quartering soldiers was the third amendment.
Think through, read through these questions. If you get stuck on one, it's not stressful. Go to the next question.
You don't have to get 100%. You just need 60% to pass. So how do you schedule your test?
If you go to fau.edu slash testing, if you go to that website, there are three different places you can register. So I'm going to click here, register for your exam. You click the civic literacy test, register, and it gives you information about the test. You do need to know, again, you only need a 60 on the test. Sets out the regulations for the testing center.
You do need to have an ID when you get that has the same name that you registered. You can use your L card, a current driver's license, your passport, military ID. You cannot wear a hoodie, sweaters, jackets, coats, watch.
You cannot bring your phone in. They do have lockers there, small lockers to put things. Don't come with a lot of stuff.
Don't wear a big hoodie with nothing under it because you're going to have to take that off. You're going to select your campus. You're going to check twice, civic literacy test, so civic literacy test, civic literacy test, and you can see it says no charge, tells you it's 120 minutes, you do not need to be there the whole 120 minutes. Everyone I have spoken to is out much faster than that.
No food, drink, even gum is allowed in the testing area, it's pretty hardcore. And then you pick your date, so you can all see today is February 26th when we're doing this. You select...
but if you can see it is offered every day, Monday through Friday, that FAU is open. You pick the date you want and it is offered every hour from 9 to 2. Once you pick that, you're going to fill out your information, your name and your Z number. Add it to your cart, submit it, and make sure that you register.
Go and take it. Good luck. Keep practicing. You can watch the video again and I hope you will proceed to our second video on the landmark Supreme Court cases.
If you thought this was a lot of information, you will in under 75 minutes learn 22 landmark Supreme Court cases and feel so confident you will be ready to go in and take this test. See you soon. Thank you.