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Legislation&Court
Term | Definition |
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U.S. Constitution | This is the supreme law of the US. It was originally composed of seven articles. It established the basic rights for American citizens. It’s goal was to bring the states together for a strong federal government. |
Bill of Rights | The first ten amendments to the Constituion that guaranteed rights like speech, assembly, and worship. |
1st Amendment | Freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition. |
2nd Amendment | Right to bear arms. |
4th Amendment | Protection from illegal searches and seizures. |
5th Amendment | Rights protection of the accused, no double jeopardy, due process. |
6th Amendment | Right to a speedy trial. |
7th Amendment | Trial by jury in civil cases. |
8th Amendment | No cruel and unusual punishment. |
10th Amendment | The people hold more rights than listed in the constitution, rights retained by the people. |
13th Amendment | Slavery abolished. |
14th Amendment | Rights of citizens: all people born in the US are granted citizenship, no state can deny any person the equal protection of the laws, no state can deny any person life, liberty, property without due process of law. |
15th Amendment | Black suffrage, no denial to vote because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. |
Pacific Railroad Amendment | Acts that gave government land and loans that would allow for the construction of the transcontinental railroad. |
Homestead Act | Gave 160 acres of land to any American, including freed slaves. The only requirement was that they had to improve and cultivate the land. |
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 | The first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. |
Munn v. Illinois | A United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the power of government to regulate private industries. |
Dawes Act | A federal law intended to turn Native Americans into farmers and landowners by providing cooperating families with 160 acres of reservation land for farming or 320 acres for grazing. |
Interstate Commerce Act | A United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices |
Sherman Antitrust Act | A United States antitrust law that was passed by Congress under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison, which regulates competition among enterprises. |
16th Amendment | allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. |
17th Amendment | established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states |
18th Amendment | established the prohibition of "intoxicating liquors" in the United States |
19th Amendment | Gave women the right to vote |
Pendleton Act | mandated that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. |
Interstate Commerce Act | regulated the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices |
Pure Food and Drug Act | prevented the manufacture, sale, or transportation of or misbranded or poisonous foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors |
Clayton Antitrust Act | focuses on topics such as price discrimination, price fixing, and unfair business practices |
Open Door Policy | protection of equal privileges among countries trading with China and in support of Chinese territorial and administrative integrity. |
Roosevelt Corollary | stated that the United States would intervene as a last resort to ensure that other nations in the Western Hemisphere fulfilled their obligations to international creditors, and did not violate the rights of the United States |
Executive Order 9066 | a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. |
Federal Reserve Act of 1913 | passed by the 63rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913. The law created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. Wikipedia |
Selective Service Act | authorized the United States federal government to raise a national army for service in World War I through conscription. |
Social Security Act | created the Social Security program, establishing a basic right to a pension in old age, as well as insurance against unemployment |
Agricultural adjustment act | designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The Government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. |
Plessy v. Ferguson | upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality – a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". |
Schenck v. The US | a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I |
Scopes trial | John Thomas Scopes violated a Tennessee state law by teaching evolution in high school; Scopes was prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan and defended by Clarence Darrow; Scopes was convicted but the verdict was later reversed |
Sacco and Vanzetti trials | DescriptionNicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born American anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the April 15, 1920 armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company |
The new deal | was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1936. It responded to needs for relief, reform, and recovery from the Great Depression. |
Cash and Carry | a policy by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a special session of the United States Congress on September 21, 1939, subsequent to the outbreak of war in Europe |
Lend-lease | an American program to defeat Germany, Japan and Italy by distributing food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945 |