what's up everybody here's everything you need to know about unit one so let's go in this video I'm going to walk you through the most important Concepts from unit 1 using the study guide from the ultimate review packet so click the link below to get a free preview download the study guide and fill it in as you watch the video and be sure to smash that like button and subscribe because I'll be with you every step of the way from now through the AP exam unit 1 is foundations of American democracy there are three big ideas to look for first the balance of power between the federal and state government's second individual rights versus governmental power and third how the Constitution impacts us today let's get started the Declaration of Independence is the logical place to begin it provides the ideals of American democracy Jefferson described natural rights or what he called unalienable rights the idea that their rights that all people enjoy simply by being human then he gives us his version of the social contract the fundamental purpose of government is to protect People's Natural Rights saying that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men the rest of the sentence describes popular sovereignty that people are are the source of governmental power and people have the right to abolish a government that doesn't protect our rights our other main founding document the Constitution gives us our other two ideals it sets up a limited government but federal government has some Powers but those powers are limited the federal government only has powers granted to it by the Constitution additionally it sets up a Republican or representative form of government instead of people voting directly on laws people vote for Representatives who make the laws for them the U.S is not a pure democracy rather it's a republic or a representative democracy people do get a chance to vote but for people not policies there are three models of representative democracy that attempt to explain just how much political power people have and how they can influence policy this will definitely be on the exam participatory pluralist and Elite democracy participatory democracy emphasizes broad citizen participation in politics and Civil Society its focus on individuals getting involved and taking action for example people attending Town Hall meetings are protesting and demonstrating second pluralist democracy focuses on the role of group-based activism and groups competing for power and influence over policy for example there are multiple political parties and interest groups battling it out over various policies third Elite democracy suggests a more limited or filtered role for individuals like when people vote for Representatives instead of voting on the policies this model focuses on the role of a small group of Elites who have a disproportionately large share of political power there's also debate over the proper balance between governmental power and individual rights this is one of the major themes of apgov and kind of implicit in that question is another question what's the right balance of power between states and the federal government both of these debates are highlighted by two of the most important required documents Federalist number 10 and Brutus number one in Federalist number 10 James Madison argued that the biggest threat to the nation was factions Madison was most concerned about majority groups that were opposed to the rights of smaller groups or the community as a whole He argued that in a pure democracy majority factions would trample the rights of minorities because there's nothing to stop the bigger group from doing whatever it wants whether it's good or bad so it's not wrong to say that Federal summer 10 is anti-democracy his solution was a larger public that would delegate power to elected representatives and would include so many different factions or groups that it would limit the ability of the majority to trample minority rights an anti-federalist paper Brutus number one argued in favor of democracy and local control over policies wanting people to have as much power as possible he preferred for power to be decentralized and warned about the threat to personal Liberty posed by a large centralized government that had the power to tax he warned that the necessary and proper clause would give Congress unlimited powers and of the supremacy clause would lead to the federal government obliterating state power since Federalist number 10 focuses on the role of groups you can use it to support pluralist democracy while you can use Brutus number one and its advocacy for the role of the individual to support participatory democracy but before we get to the Constitution we need to travel a little bit further back in time to the Articles Confederation which set up the original framework for U.S government the Articles of Confederation were based on the principle of State sovereignty where States had the ultimate authority over themselves it delegated a few specific powers to the national government like the power to declare war make treaties borrow money and create a currency but the only Branch was the legislative branch it had no enforcement Powers it couldn't regulate interstate commerce and most importantly it couldn't tax but this was totally on purpose remember they just got out of a super toxic relationship with Britain the last thing they wanted to do was create an overly strong central government unfortunately it ended up being too weak to most observers and when Shay's rebellion occurred the slow response from the federal government left a lot to be desired and it helped to shift public opinion in favor of expanding the power of the central government and this meant a new constitution tuition it's obviously important to know key features of the Constitution don't worry we'll get to that soon this section is all about negotiation and compromise this is one of the big ideas in all of apgov to get things done politically it usually takes negotiation and compromise nobody gets exactly what they want and then everybody can be upset together first example is the Great Compromise small states wanted each state to have equal representation in Congress while large states wanted representation based on population so the Great Compromise established a bicameral legislature in which the House of Representatives would be based off population and the Senate equally represented the states there was also the debate over whether Congress or the people should choose the president so the compromise was that instead the Electoral College would select the president and tell me that's not a perfect example of a compromise that leaves everybody confused and yelling at each other there's also the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise which decided that slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning the house and the Electoral College and this led to Southern States being overrepresented of the house and the presidency for the first 70 years of the nation's history and lastly was the compromise on the importation of slaves which was an agreement that the slave trade could not be abolished for 20 years this compromise being the only way to secure Southern support for the constitution in Article 5 the Constitution set up an amendment process so that changes could be made in the future but not too easily the primary method requires two-thirds of both houses of Congress to propose an amendment followed by three-fourths of the states to ratify it the Federalists supported the new Constitution and a stronger central government while the Anti-Federalists oppose the constitution and advocated for states rights and demanded the inclusion of a Bill of Rights but this debate over the role of states and the federal government was far from settled by the Constitution in fact that debate is at the heart of the rest of unit 1. in Federalist number 51 Madison describes the difficulty the framers are facing how do you establish a government that's strong enough to control the governed but is still limited and can't become come too strong the solution Madison proposes is a system of separation of powers where the different jobs of governing were split between three branches of the federal government the legislative branch makes laws the executive branch enforces laws and the Judiciary interprets laws additionally through checks and balances each branch would have certain ways to influence or limit the other branches on the AP exam be super careful because those terms are not interchangeable the key to recognizing checks and balances is that they involve interaction between branches not just one branch doing its job for example Congress has the power to impeach and remove the president or a federal judge from office if they are deemed to have abused their power but the framers weren't done dividing a Powers the Constitution set up an experiment with federalism the division of powers between the states and federal government under the Articles Confederation the states were Sovereign but now they agree to the Constitution which established shared sovereignty so now it depends on the issue whether the state or the federal government is in charge but but let's get specific delegated powers are powers the Constitution gave to the federal government things like coining money declaring war and regulating interstate commerce these are powers that belong only to the national government and are sometimes called exclusive Powers everything not delegated to the national government or denied to the states is reserved to the states there isn't a specific list instead it's basically everything left over including things like Education Health and Welfare licensing and a general police power and concurrent powers are exercised by both the states and the federal government they can both raise taxes and borrow money for example one of the things the AP exam loves to focus on is dynamic federalism which indicates the balance of power between states and the federal government has changed and continues to change over time in the past the relationship between states and the federal government could be described as dual or layer cake federalism meaning that it was pretty clear whether something was a federal or a state issue they each remain separate and supreme in their own spheres of influence and they didn't overlap educate patient was a state issue war was a federal issue simple but by the time of FDR and the New Deal we saw a shift to Cooperative or marble cake federalism this means that the lines between state and federal powers they became blur and the administration and costs of major programs are often shared between the two the primary way this happened is through government grants to the States Congress provides money to the state and in exchange the federal government gets influence over State policies there are four ways that money has gone from the federal to the state governments and trust me the AP exam loves to ask about them categorical grants provide money to States for a specific purpose the states get the money but Congress gets to tell the states exactly how to spend that money and Congress often includes incentives or conditions of Aid that states must follow to qualify to receive the money a classic example is when Reagan wanted to raise the drinking age to 21. Congress made doing so a condition of Aid to receive money for transportation technically states have the option to say yes or no but I'll let you tell me what happened Statesboro prefer to receive block grants because the money is for a broader purpose so they have more discretion but not total freedom over how the money gets spent until the late 80s there used to be something known as federal revenue sharing which states liked even more because they could spend the money on anything they wanted but this program ended decades ago on the other end of the spectrum are funded and unfunded mandates this is where the federal government establishes rules that states must follow and they may or may not provide money for implementation but either way states have no option and must follow those rules the big takeaway is that grants have helped shift the balance of power towards the federal government since it can now influence policy areas that are outside of its constitutional purview the other major explanation for the growth of federal power can be traced to three key constitutional Clauses in article 6 of The Constitution the supremacy clause tells us that when there is a conflict between state and federal law the federal law and Constitution are superior another big one is the necessary Syrian Proper Clause Article 1 Section 8 lists all the powers of congress and then the last line basically comes along and says oh yeah Congress can do other stuff as long as it's necessary and proper for carrying out their enumerated powers enumerated powers are ones that are directly written down but with this Clause Congress also has implied powers expanding their power beyond what is directly written down the last of our big three the Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate interstate commerce this Clause has been reinterpreted extremely broadly to allow Congress to regulate anything affecting interstate commerce and therefore is a major cause in the expansion of federal power there are two required federalism cases let's look at McCulloch vs Maryland First after Congress created National Bank some states got salty and tried to tax it the Supreme Court said that the necessary and proper clause means Congress has implied powers and can create a national bank and States can't tax the national government because of the supremacy clause total victory for the federal government US versus Lopez is a different story though Congress passed a law regulating guns at school and claimed that they could do so through their Commerce Clause Powers however the courts struck down that law and for the first time in nearly 60 years how that there actually is a limit to congress's power under the Commerce Clause and reaffirmed that the 10th Amendment does reserve some powers to the states so the federal system gave citizens multiple ways to influence policy including federal state and local government institutions and like Madison wanted federal policy making is at times constrained by this sharing of powers between the three branches of government federalism allows for the federal government to make unified policies when necessary Nationwide but at the same time states can make their own policies in the absence of a national consensus and can also experiment with new policies this means they serve as Laboratories of democracy where we can observe What policies work in one state and don't work in another and then we can take the best ones and get rid of the worst alright that's it for unit one but there's a lot more in the ultimate review packet like tons of multiple choice practice 3 free full-length practice exams complete with frqs and tons of exclusive content that you can't get anywhere else so do yourself a favor and check it out until next time this has been a la money production