Descent, 2) constituency, 3) vengeance, 4) alacrity, 5) progenitor, 6) to underlie, 7) commitment, 8) to enfranchise, 9) to outline,10) host, 11) to assume,12) constructiona) ancestor, predecessor, source, origin; b) clarification, comment, commentary, interpretation, meaning, sense, understanding; c) a great number; multitude; d) the state of being bound emotionally or intellectually to a course of action or to another person or persons; e) to be inclined to think, to be of the opinion, to suppose; f) birth, ancestry, blood, origin; g) to give the main features or general idea of; to list or describe only the most important parts of; h) eagerness, enthusiasm, anxiety, readiness; i) electorate, electors, voters, voting district; j) to make up, to be, to form, to serve as the foundation, the basis; k) infliction of punishment in return for a wrong committed; retribution; l) to admit to the privileges of a citizen and especially to the right of suffrage;
b) Use the words descent, commitment, vengeance, construction, constituency, descent, construction, constituency, commitment, progenitor, alacrity, assumed, underlie, enfranchised, assume, a host of, outlined, underlie, a host of, outlined to complete and translate the following sentences; use the GLOSSARY: 1) There is every reason to believe that our constitutional grand jury was intended to operate substantially like its English …. 2) Cooley is important because it advances the argument that the commerce clause is not an “all or none” principle; that is, there is some role for state regulation of commerce if the subject is local and if Congress has not … jurisdiction over the subject (in this instance, pilots). 3) The Court’s decision to use less rigorous scrutiny reflects the importance of the interests that … contribution limits – interests in preventing “both the actual corruption threatened by large financial contributions and the eroding of public confidence in the electoral process through the appearance of corruption.” 4) On August 26, 1920, 26 million women became …. Ten states – Delaware and nine in the South – refused to ratify the amendment. 5) The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer, – all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation and growing … to this pleasing reward of their toils. 6) The first naturalization act enacted by the first Congress restricted naturalization to “free white persons,” which was expanded in 1870 so that persons of “African nativity and …” were entitled to be naturalized. 7) Unlike countries such as the Philippines where senators are elected at-large, U.S. presidents are elected separately if indirectly by a far broader national … than any member of the national legislature. 8) The first theory of liability was in terms of a duty to buy off the … of him to whom an injury had been done whether by oneself or by something in one's power. 9) On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order, pursuant to which more than 112,000 residents of the Western States, all of Japanese … and more than two out of every three of whom were natural-born citizens, were removed from their homes and herded into temporary camps and later into “relocation centers” in several States. 10) One would … that more than 50 years since the landmark Brown case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1954, the desegregation rulings and mandates would have proven successful in overcoming segregation in schools. However, despite the progress and forced remedies for countering racial segregation in U.S. schools, a recent study by Harvard’s Civil Rights Project has found that schools were in fact more segregated in 2000 than they were in 1970 when busing and other methods were used for desegregating schools. 11) Whatever the merits or flaws of all the arguments, the U.S. constitutional structure was built upon a … to individual choice and respect for the integrity and inviolability of the individual conscience. 12) The new discrimination can be best seen in PLESSY V. FERGUSON,(1896), where the Supreme Court upheld laws that mandated separate provisions for blacks and whites. Here, the Court stated that separate but equal facilities for members of different races were permitted. As result of Plessy, African Americans were segregated into separate school districts and otherwise were denied equal treatment when it came to housing, employment, and … other actions. 13) Federalist 1, the first to appear, as they were numbered chronologically, written by Hamilton, introduced and … the goals and subjects of the following articles. 14) He also purchased shares in other concerns conducted on the same principle; pocketed dividends made in countries which he had never visited by men whom he had never seen; bought a seat in Parliament from a poor and corrupt …, and helped to preserve the laws by which he had thriven. 15) Until recently, it was the view of most judges and scholars that this type of executive agreement did not become the ‘‘law of the land’’ pursuant to the supremacy clause because the treaty format was not adhered to. A different view seemed to … the Supreme Court decision in B. Altman & Co. v. United States, in which it was concluded that a jurisdictional statute reference to ‘‘treaty’’ encompassed an executive agreement. 16) Battles over the power of states versus the national government, prayer in public school, abortion, gay rights, censorship, peace, war, the death penalty, and … other issues inevitably reach the Constitution. 17) Harlan, a former slave owner, dissented from this narrow … of the Fourteenth Amendment by declaring that the majority’s narrow concept of state action reduced the amendment to baubles thrown to those who deserved fair treatment. 18) President George Bush was criticized for authorizing electronic surveillance of telephone and internet messages in apparent violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which … procedures to obtain warrants from a special court in cases like this. 19) The Waite Court’s narrow … of the Fourteenth Amendment in the Civil Rights Cases can be contrasted with its extension of constitutional protection to corporations. 20) In Cooper v. Aaron, the Supreme Court ruled that state officials must obey court orders resting on the Supreme Court’s authority to interpret the Constitution. This case is important because the Court rejected a serious challenge to its authority and reaffirmed its … to integration.
TASK II. a) Find the following word combinations in the text and translate the sentences with them: a) entire document; b) complete notion; c) elaborate system of checks; d) precise meanings; e) explicit separation into three branches of government; explicit enumeration of powers b)Match the adjectives to their definitions: 1) exactly or sharply defined or stated; minutely exact; strictly conforming to a pattern; standard, or convention; distinguished from every other; 2) planned or carried out with great care; marked by complexity, fullness of detail; 3) fully revealed or expressed without vagueness, implication, or ambiguity: leaving no question as to meaning or intent; open in the depiction of nudity or sexuality; fully developed or formulated; unambiguous in expression; 4) having no element or part left out; complete in degree: total; consisting of one piece; 5) having all necessary parts, elements, or steps; brought to an end: concluded; highly proficient; fully carried out: thorough; total, absolute; c) Match the adjectives to their synonyms: 1) complex, complicated, detailed, fancy, intricate, involved, sophisticated; 2) clear cut, definite, definitive, express, specific, unambiguous, unequivocal, univocal; 3) compleat, comprehensive, entire, full, grand, intact,integral, perfect, plenary, total, whole; 4) all, concentrated, whole, exclusive, focused (also focussed), undivided; 5) accurate, close, delicate, exact, fine, hairline,mathematical, pinpoint, refined, rigorous, spot-on; d) Translate the following sentences, use the GLOSSARY: 1) To appreciate Lincoln’s philosophy of the law requires considering his role in preserving the Union and the idea of democratic government during an autocratic age; how he emancipated not only the slaves but the entire middle class and the nation as a whole; and how “the Great Reconciler” implemented a non-Marxian “people’s jurisprudence” through his “with malice toward none” philosophy. 2) The Great Emancipator took steps to free the entire emerging middle class by signing into law three of the most important pieces of legislation in American history. The first was the Homestead Act of 1862, which James Buchanan had vetoed previously. The second, which Buchanan also had vetoed as unconstitutional, was the Land Grant College Act of 1862, which transformed higher education in the nation. That same year, Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act, which led to the building of the transcontinental railroad. 3) The line-item veto is a proposal that would allow the president to veto certain items from a budget bill, rather than requiring the president to veto the entire bill. This type of veto power has been requested by several presidents, and at least all since Ronald Reagan was in office. 4) Often overlooked in this compelling debate about slavery was the complete omission of Native Americans in this calculation. American Indians as a whole were not taxed at the time, and consequently, they had neither a representative link to nor a particular stake in the new republic. 5) Interpreting the First Amendment and generally following the path of increasing protection for “commercial speech” as a whole, the Supreme Court has protected much advertising by attorneys as essential freedom of speech. But that protection is not absolute, and in recent years the Supreme Court has refused to give complete protection to lawyers seeking clients through solicitation and targeted advertising. 6) The person convicted in Gregg argued that unconstitutional arbitrariness was still present because the prosecutor, as contrasted with the jury, still had complete discretion whether to try a case as a capital case. 7) The framers’ goal was to protect liberty, preserve popular government, and limit the threats of what we would now call the tyranny of the majority. It would secure these goals by setting up an elaborate machine that would use checks and balances, separation of powers, bicameralism, federalism, and self-interest to check political power. 8) Modern writers, like English philosophers John Locke (1632–1704) and William Blackstone (1723–80), offered elaborate theories based on natural law, and both Locke and Blackstone influenced many American thinkers on matters relating to natural law, natural rights, individualism, the right of revolution, and the need for limited government. 9) Fair market value is the sum that a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in the open market. No precise formula exists, however, by which the elements of just compensation can be calculated, and there is much debate over what should be considered in the valuation of the property. 10) Some authors see the insistence on precise equality of district population as curious in light of the fact that distribution of 435 seats among the 50 states inevitably entails more than 70 percent deviations among districts of different states. 11) In Bajakajian, the Court declined to provide a precise test for disproportionality, but did indicate that for a fine or forfeiture to be unconstitutional it must be “grossly” disproportional to the gravity of the offense. 12) While the commerce clause is a positive and explicit grant of authority to Congress, it is simultaneously a restriction on the authority of the states. 13) In determining the permissible scope of congressional power under the clause, the Court has dealt primarily with interstate commerce, but its explicit language also gives Congress prerogatives with regard to foreign commerce and commerce concerning Native American tribes. 14) The Communications Decency Act (1996) designed to protect minors from being exposed to obscene and indecent material on the Internet made it a crime to knowingly distribute sexually explicit content online that was patently offensive or indecent and not shielded from children who were under 18 years of age.
TASK III. Find that paragraphs in the text which explain each of the following: 1) The Founders cannot take credit for everything in their own constitution. 2) It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this practice. 3) These and other aspects of form derive from American practice rather than from foreign theories. 4) To this day, the role and functions of state governments in America are a matter of some puzzlement to many Europeans. 5) The Americans, however, pursued these principles with a vengeance that transformed them. 6) American assumptions of constitutionalism were at variance with those underlying the British political system as it existed in the late eighteenth century. 7) There was nothing else in Europe to compare with the American practice of popular sovereignty. 8) In a developed culture, practice will sometimes flow from theorizing based upon earlier practices, and the starting point is difficult to determine.
TASK IV. Translate the following sentences, use the GLOSSARY: 1) Term limits are constitutional or statutory restrictions on how long one single individual may remain in any one office. 2) In the United States, there are both constitutional and statutory provisions that serve as a protection against torture. 3) In the United States, there are also significant cases that illustrate the constitutional protections against torture in domestic interrogations—particularly related to the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 4) Attempts at making the “two term” tradition permanent through a constitutional amendment had regularly cropped up in congressional proposals and on occasional party platforms. 5) Because the U.S. Constitution permitted states to practice slavery, only a constitutional amendment could end the practice. 6) Johnson’s defense was two-pronged, as his lawyers argued that (1) he had not personally burned the flag, and (2) even if he did, the statute he was charged under was an unconstitutional violation of his free-speech rights. 7) Congress responded to the decision in Texas v. Johnson by passing the Flag Protection Act (1990), which supporterscharacterized as a way to reverse the Court’s rulingwithout resorting to a constitutional amendment. 8) Supporters of a constitutional argument typically assert that Texas v. Johnson was decided wrongly; that flag desecration involves conduct, not speech; and that the American flag is unique and thus merits special protection. 9) The Court concluded that, in the Des Moines controversy, wearing the black armbands was a form of symbolic speech and that students were “persons” whose constitutional rights were to be acknowledged by school authorities. 10) Executive agreements entered into pursuant to congressional authorization and probably through treaty obligations present little doctrinal problem; those arrangements by which the President purports to bind the Nation solely on the basis of his constitutional powers, however, do raise serious questions. 11) The world of the 21st century is vastly different from the one the constitutional framers experienced. 12) The Supreme Court ruled that state laws seeking to impose term limits upon members of Congress were unconstitutional because they violated the qualifications set for the House of Representatives and the Senate in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.
TASK V. a) Find negative sentences in the text and translate them; b) Translate the following, use the GLOSSARY: 1. There is a preamble, but it does not have constitutional status. 2. Just as Americans have no monopoly on constitutional government today, the Founders cannot take credit for everything in their own constitution. 3. These and other aspects of form derive from American practice rather than from foreign theories. 4. Bicameralism was hardly an American innovation, but the American version was neither derived from nor justified by the British precedent. 5. The explicit separation into three branches of government with coordinate powers is not British in origin. 6. Americans did not invent federalism, but they adopted it with an alacrity missing in nonmigrating British. 7. The elaborate system of checks, the explicit enumeration of governmental powers, and the creation of an independent judiciary are some of the other elements of institutional design not found in the British model. 8. Although never explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution, they underlie and tie together the entire document. 9. The British were no strangers to liberty, consent, deliberative processes, or mixed regimes. 10. There was nothing else in Europe to compare with the American practice of popular sovereignty. Nor was this a recent phenomenon in America. 11. " No state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage (equal voting power, or equal representation) in the Senate." 12. The U.S. Constitution cannot be amended to provide for unequal representation of the states in the U.S. Senate, unless such a proposed amendment is ratified by all the member-states of the federal union.. 13. Federal taxes must not be levied on or in some states, but not on or in other states. And federal tax rates must not be higher in some states than in other states. 14. In admitting new states into the American federal union, Congress may not, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned, (1) form or erect a new state within the jurisdiction, or borders, of another state or (2) form a new state by the junction, or merger, of two or more existing states or parts of states. 15. By the terms of the Twenty-fourth Amendment, the states are prohibited from denying or abridging the right of citizens to vote in federal elections by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. 16. All powers neither delegated to the central government nor denied to the states remain within the sphere of state authority. 17. Nothing in the Tenth Amendment denies the national government the right to exercise, to the fullest extent, the powers delegated to it by the Constitution. 18. Therefore, the central government under the U.S. Constitution, a government with a severely restricted and confined sphere of authority, is nothing more than an agent of the states designed to facilitate mutual cooperation and support in joint endeavors to pursue shared interests and achieve common objectives. 19. The U.S. Constitution must be interpreted as narrowly defining the powers of Congress and strictly limiting them to the enumerated powers – the powers expressly delegated to Congress by the Constitution. There are no implied powers of Congress. There are only express powers. 20. Federalism requires a written constitution and the reason is quite simple: there must be a fundamental law delineating the two spheres of authority, lest neither sphere will know the limit of its powers.
TASK VI. a) Use the text to complete the sentences which would start as follows: 1) Americans have no monopoly on … 2) Britain taught America … 3) Americans built upon the constitutional tradition … 4) The American synthesis … 5) Britain had a constitution … 6) The Americans put everything of constitutional status … 7) Americans assumed that … 8) They were overwhelmingly of British descent … 9) In American constitutions … 10) Americans had a habit of … 11) The American practice of … 12) An American innovation … 13) The American version … 14) The British precedent … 15) British in origin … 16) Americans did not invent … 17) The British model … 18) The British were no strangers to … 19) The Americans pursued the principles … 20) The British political system … 21) Americans viewed themselves as … 22) The Americans' notion of … 23) England was the envy of … 24) The least liberal American state … 25) The franchise in England … 26) The American practice of … 27) American constitutionalism …
b) Add the following words: French; Great Britain; Americans; Britain; British; English; France; Parliament’s; England’s; British The delegates to the Constitutional Convention often referred to the 1) … philosopher John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, written in 1690 just after 2) … Glorious Revolution of 1688 had strengthened 3) … hand against the king. Locke argued that all people were born with certain “natural rights” to life, liberty, and property, which governments existed to protect. Locke believed that a government should be seen as the agent of the people, not their ruler, and therefore should operate under some restraints. An equally influential book was The Spirit of the Laws, written in 1748 by the 4) … philosopher the Baron de Montesquieu. Writing while 5) … was still under the rule of an all-powerful monarchy, Montesquieu admired the 6) … system that separated the powers of the monarch, the parliament, and the judiciary. In 7) …, the king served as the head of state, performing ceremonial functions and commanding the military, while the prime minister functioned as the head of government, providing political and legislative leadership. Because the 8) … had rebelled against 9) …, the delegates modified Montesquieu’s political theories into something that differed from the 10) … parliamentary system. They created entirely separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, making sure that no single branch would hold exclusive power, but each would check and balance the others. With power so divided, the independent branches must reach some common agreement for the federal government to act harmoniously. c) Express your agreement or disagreement with Locke’s ideas and Montesquieu’s political theories.
TASK VII. a)Match the terms republicanism, popular sovereignty, federalism, bicameralism to their definitions: · The organization of a legislative body based on two chambers. In some democracies, the lower house has the greatest legislative power, and the upper or second house of the legislature has a more restricted role. In the United States, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have broadly equivalent power, and legislative differences are resolved via joint committees. In federal systems, the upper house usually represents the units of the federation, e.g., states or provinces, which may be given an equal number of seats regardless of their population size. · The exclusive right to have control over an area of governance held by the citizenry exercised directly, as in a popular assembly, or, more commonly, indirectly through the election of representatives to government. · The form of government based upon the citizenry electing representatives to carry out the functions of government. · The broad term, not mentioned in the Constitution, describes the constitutional relationship between the states and the national government, in which power is distributed between the central authority and the states.
b) Add the above terms to complete and translate the following sentences, use the GLOSSARY: 1) Events since 1787, of course, have altered both the separation of powers and the … bases of …, in particular the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment resulting in the popular election of Senators, so that the differences between the two Chambers are today less pronounced. 2) The question whether Congress’ power to regulate commerce “among the several States” embraced the power to prohibit it furnished the topic of one of the most protracted debates in the entire history of the Constitution’s interpretation, a debate the final resolution of which in favor of congressional power is an event of first importance for the future of American …. The issue was as early as 1841 brought forward by Henry Clay. Until roughly the New Deal, the Supreme Court applied a doctrine of “dual …,” under which the Federal Government and the States were separate sovereigns, each preeminent in its own fields but lacking authority in the other’s. 3) The concept of … as a form of government is guaranteed to all the states in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. However, what this type of government requires is unclear because the federal courts have refused to hear suits on this matter. 4) In the United States, … denotes limited government in the form of representative democracy when citizens elect representatives who govern on their behalf, but within the constraints of the rule of law. 5) Originally, … was simply opposed to hereditary monarchies and tyrannies. Increasingly it came to mean a commitment to popular self-government. 6) The Constitution made no provision for wholesale adoption of the common law, but, on the contrary, was premised on the view that common law rules would always be subject to legislative alteration. This “imperative of legislative control grew directly out of the Framers’ revolutionary idea of ….” 7) "Judicial review was a substitute for popular action, a device to maintain … without the need for civil unrest." Judges' decisions about the Constitution, like those of other officials, ''were still subject to oversight and ultimate resolution by the people themselves." 8) Another theme resonating among the justices was the rejection of state sovereignty and an emphasis on …, the idea that the United States was a union of people. Justice James Wilson asserted that sovereignty rested with the people of the United States, not with the states, which meant that states were subordinate to the people and therefore could be sued by them.
TASK VIII. Discuss the ideas and theories that influenced American thinking on government: During the Enlightenment in the 1600s and 1700s, many political philosophers met and discussed their ideas on government together. The Enlightenment was a period in European history when many educated people stressed the importance of learning and reasoning. Education was considered the key to understanding and solving society's problems. Many Enlightenment thinkers lived in Paris. These thinkers were known as “ philosophes”, the French word for one who searches for wisdom and knowledge. Among the most influential philosophers were John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Baron de Montesquieu. "Contract theory" of government developed by Locke (1632-1704) John Locke, an English political philosopher, helped to further develop democratic ideas. In 1690, Locke published the First and Second Treatises on Government. These two books explained Locke's contract theory of government. According to Locke, the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights protected the inalienable, or natural, rights of all British citizens. Locke wrote that all people had the inalienable "right to life, liberty, and property" Locke believed that people created government and chose to be governed in order to live in an orderly society. In other words, government arose from an agreement, or contract, between the ruler and the ruled. Thus, a ruler only had power as long as he or she had the consent of the governed. And, as a result, a ruler could not justly deny peoples' basic rights to life, liberty, and property. Many Americans had read Locke’s book, and they agreed with what it said about government. Those who had actually read Locke’s book knew his ideas from newspapers, political pamphlets, church sermons, and discussions. Most people in the American colonies believed that everyone had a right to life, liberty, and property. These rights were called natural rights.(Sometimes these are now called basic rights or fundamental rights. The idea of natural rights means that all persons have these rights just because they are human beings. Everyone is born with these rights and they should not be taken away without a person’s agreement. Many of the Founders of our government believed people receive these rights from God. Others believed that people have them because it is natural for people to have them.
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