Q1.	In Federalist 51, James Madison wrote:
	If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern
	men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.  In
	framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great
	difficult lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed;
	and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

What was Madison talking about?  How did the Founders set up a government to
overcome the difficulties he expressed in the above quotation?  Discuss how the
Constitution addresses this problem.

A1.	When Madison references the angels and their lack of need for outside influence, he is
	referring to the will of man when given power.  Men who have power tend to become
	corrupt in proportion to the power given to them.  The power of government is an
	extreme power to wield for any person and as such, has the ability to corrupt a person
	to a very large extent.  Angels are said to be perfect and would therefore be immune
	to this corruption for any length of time or amount of power.  They would easily
	govern themselves as individuals and have no need for government.  Being as they are,
	angels would be fair and just if given control over man without even the slightest
	hint of malice or prejudice.  They would self regulate perfectly with no abuse of power.

	To address the issue of abuse of power, the Founders of the Constitution set up a
	government that would self regulate as well as possible and that also had external
	regulation by the people beign governed.  Their Constitution describes three
	significantly separated branches of government that each have their own powers and
	limits.  Each branch has a primary purpose to wield its powers, but each branch also has
	the secondary purpose of regulating the other two through the use of checks and balances
	set up in the constitution.  One example of this is the process of lawmaking.  Once a
	bill passes congress, it goes to the president for approval.  The president's regulation
	ability comes in the form of a veto which sends the bill back to congress to be revised
	or dropped.  Congress also has a regulatory power in the form of a veto override which
	forces the bill into law against the president's wishes, but requires agreement of 2/3
	of each house of congress.  Another example of this is congressional approval of
	appointments to public office.  Congress has the ability to reject the appointment of
	judges and other public officers.

	Additionally, the Founders set up a federal system in which the power is shared between
	a set of territorial governments and the central government.  Much of the power
	prohibited the central government is granted explicitly to the territorial governments.
	The people have significant control over the central government.  All of the members of
	congress are elected by the people and are therefore accountable to those people.  This
	makes it fairly hard for any one person to gain control of the lawmaking process.

Q2.	In his opinion in the 1926 case of Myers v. United States, Justice Louis D. Brandeis
	wrote: "The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of
	1787, no to promote efficiency, but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The
	purpose was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to
	the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the
	people from autocracy."  Discuss this quotation in terms of how the Founders
	distributed power within the national government.  What checks and balances did
	they build into the Constitution?  How does the result of their handiwork "save people
	from autocracy"--or does it?  How does it limit the exercise of arbitrary power.

A2.	To prevent a single person from gaining contol in the national government, the Founders
	setup the national government in three separate branches: the legislative to make laws,
	the executive to carry out and enforce laws, and the judicial to interpret laws when
	disputes occur.  Each having checks and balances against the other two, no one branch
	could take control of the national government, because of censure by the other branches.
	A good portion of the powers of the national government can not be exercised unilaterally.
	One example of this is the process of lawmaking.  Once a bill passes congress, it goes to
	the president for approval.  The president's regulation ability comes in the form of a
	veto which sends the bill back to congress to be revised or dropped.  Congress also has a
	regulatory power in the form of a veto override which forces the bill into law against the
	president's wishes, but requires agreement of 2/3 of each house of congress.  Another
	example of this is congressional approval of appointments to public office.  Congress has
	the ability to reject the appointment of judges and other public officers.  Some other
	examples of checks and balances are legislature's hand in treaty making and the judiciary's
	ability to declare acts of the other branches unconstitutional.

	Separation of powers and the cross-regulation of checks and balances prevent outright
	control of another branch, but make interference possible if necessary.  

Q3.	What is federalism?  Discuss how the framework of American federalism is shaped
	by the following:
	(1)	the powers delegated by the Constitution to the national government,
	(2)	the supremacy of the national government,
	(3)	the powers denied by the Constitution to both the national government and the states,
	(4)	the constitutional guarantees reserved for the states,
	(5)	the constitutional provisions giving the states a role in the composition of the national government, and
	(6)	the role of the Supreme Court in interpreting the distribution of power between teh federal government and the states.
	Refer to each of these points in your discussion and use concrete examples to illustrate you points.

A3.	Federalism is the system of government in which governmental power is divided
	between a central government and several territorial subunits that govern the
	same people.  Because powers are specifically delegated to the national
	government and that government is given supremacy by the constitution, the
	states are unable to exercise powers of the national government, lest they be
	struck down.

Q4.	The Founders were concerned, among other things, with limiting the powers of the
	national government so that the national government could not overwhelm the 
	authority of the states.  In a coherent essay, discuss how the Constitution limits the
	power of the national government through each of the following mechanisms:
		a. the Bill of Rights
		b. bicameralism
		c. elections
		d. the Electoral College
		e. the U.S. Senate
		f. the amendment process
		g. staggered terms (within Congress, as well as Congress v. the pres v. the SC)
		h. specific prohibitions in Article 1.

A4.	

Q5.	Tracing the historical development of relationships between the national goverment 
	and the states, one finds that there has been constant strife over the determination
	of the boundaries of national power in relation to the reserved powers of the states.
	The Supreme Court has played an important role in the development of the federal
	system, and som eof its most historic opinions have upheld nation power at the
	expense of the states.
		a. Discuss Marbury v. Madison (1803) and McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) in
		detail to focus on the court's power and its reasonging in the expansion of
		federal power related to these two cases.
		b. Discuss the content of at least 3 other important cases that reflect the
		expansion of either the court's power or the national government's power vis
		a vis the states.
		c. In the conclusion to your essay, address the effect of these decisions on the
		authority/power of the judicial and legislative branches of the national
		government.
	
A5.