Cobblestone articles from January 2003

Cobblestone archives from January 2003

Editor's note.(United States federal government)(Editorial)
January 1, 2003... How does the federal--or national--government of the United States of America work? You may know that the government has three "arms": the executive, legislative, and judicial. Let's define those three key words. Executive is concerned with the...

`A republic, if you can keep it'.(United States Constitution)
January 1, 2003... The title of this article is the answer Benjamin Franklin gave outside the 1787 Constitutional Convention when he was asked what form the new American government would take. His reply does not seem to hold much optimism or confidence, does it?...

A republic or a democracy? A discussion of governments.
January 1, 2003... Is the United States a republic or a democracy? Or do those terms mean the same thing? Many Americans probably could not explain the difference. In actuality, the two words help answer two questions about a government. Who leads a country? And...

A product of argument and compromise.(United States Constitution)
January 1, 2003... The men who wrote the U.S. Constitution had various goals, and they disagreed about many of them. They wanted a strong national leader, but not a king. They wanted laws made by representatives of the people, but not rule by a mob. And, they...

TR and trustbusting.(Theodore Roosevelt)
January 1, 2003... A company that has the exclusive ability to provide certain goods or services is said to have a monopoly. In the late nineteenth century, a few powerful U.S. capitalists established monopolies in railroads, oil, and other businesses. Some of...

The court-packing plan.(Franklin D. Roosevelt's effort to get politically sympathetic justices appointed to United States Supreme Court)
January 1, 2003... Can a president stack the U.S. Supreme Court with yes men? In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to do just that. After Roosevelt took office in 1933, the Democrat-led Congress turned almost all of his New Deal programs into laws....

Did you know?(presidential powers)
January 1, 2003... The president is the commander in chief of the military, but only Congress can declare war. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Although the president participates in treaty negotiations, Congress must approve any formal agreement involving the...

Weighing in on civil rights.
January 1, 2003... The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s created new issues regarding the balance of power among the three branches of government. In those decades of tremendous social change, the federal government rarely spoke with one united voice....

Justice for Scott and Plessy.(Dred Scott, Homer Plessy)
January 1, 2003... Dred Scott and Homer Plessy learned that Supreme Court justices are not always just. Dred Scott's case involved the 1820 law known as the Missouri Compromise. That law admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in...

Sound government. (Quote of the Month).(word-find puzzle)
January 1, 2003... HOW does a sound government sound? This month's quote offers one idea. It is by an American scholar of political studies. His name and message are contained in the word-find puzzle below. Take a look at the quote. The number of dashes after...

Protecting freedom of the press from presidential censorship.
January 1, 2003... Secrets and censorship cannot avoid the U.S. Constitution. So declared the ruling of the Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. United States. This case revolved around the Pentagon Papers--a forty-seven-volume collection of classified...

Not above the law.(Richard M. Nixon)
January 1, 2003... During the 1972 presidential campaign, Republican president Richard M. Nixon's "plumbers" engaged in dirty tricks and political spying. They worked--sometimes illegally--to protect the president's good standing in the eyes of the American...

A balancing act: crossword puzzle.
January 1, 2003... Test your knowledge of the system of government the Framers of the U.S. Constitution devised. If the puzzle is filled in correctly, you will uncover a phrase in the highlighted squares. That will spell the name of the limits the Constitution...

Brain ticklers.(American government)
January 1, 2003... Give your brain a little tickle to see how well you read and understood this issue on the three branches of the U.S. government. If you believe the answer to be false, give yourself the ultimate test and see whether you can explain why it is...

Final word.(contested presidential election)
January 1, 2003... Can you think of any occasions or circumstances--times of war or extreme economic hardship, for example--when one branch of the federal government should have the power to make changes without interference from the other two arms? In...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... I Hold in My Hand I hold in my hand a piece of cloth with a patriotic design. Although it is a simple piece of cloth with fifty stars and thirteen stripes, it is honored by all Americans. I...

Dear Cobblestonians.
January 1, 2003... When the first European explorers and settlers landed in the southeastern part of the New World, they came in contact with many different Indian groups, such as the Tuscaroras, the Natchez, the Timucuas, and the Cherokees. Imagine that you are...

Books to read. (Digging Deeper).(American government)
January 1, 2003... Oxford Student Companions to American Government by John J. Patrick, Richard M. Pious, and Donald A. Ritchie (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) is a three-volume set. The Supreme Court of the United States gives biographies of all the...

More media. (Digging Deeper).(United States government)(Video Recording Review)
January 1, 2003... United States Government is an eleven-volume video series that examines the people, documents, laws, and events that make the government in America function. Titles include The Executive Branch, The Judicial Branch, The Legislative Branch, and...

On the Web. (Digging Deeper).(United States government)
January 1, 2003... Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids is located at bensguide.gpo.gov/ index.html. At this site, Ben Franklin assists students in the grade ranges of K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 with topics such as branches of government, how laws are made,...

Places to visit. (Digging Deeper).(Washington, D.C.)
January 1, 2003... National Archives, Washington, D.C. This facility contains the federal records of the U.S. government from 1774 to the present, including the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court...

From the archives.
January 1, 2003... COBBLESTONE has devoted previous issues to discovering how the U.S. Constitution addresses some important rights for Americans as individuals and as a nation. Check out Our First Amendment: Freedom of Religion (COB0001), Our First Amendment:...