Saturday, February 28, 2009

All the answers (to the prior post)

1) 3. Judicial, Executive, Legislative.

2) Trick question---Hamilton was never president. As RBG will tell, he was the first Secretary of the Treasury.

3) Article 4 section IV: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government"

4) (The first 10 amendments are also known as "The Bill Of Rights", and was needed to get the Constitution ratified by the 13 states) Amendment 10---"The powers NOT delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people"

5) C

6) None. Nowhere.

7) False

8) Executive, but don't feel bad if you said Legislative. The VP is President of the Senate, which is part of the Legislature, and has a vote in the event of a tie.

7 comments:

keeka said...

Ok, I did pretty well. I, however, just became a citizen of this country a few years ago. The only reason I know this stuff is because I was required to go to "Citizenship" classes! I even went to school here! I went through preschool, elementary school and college here, but if you graduate high school at 18 but you learned all about this stuff (kind of)in elementary and again in my senior year of HS, it isn't the easiest thing to remember! Gee, maybe citizenship classes should be available to everyone at community centers for a minimal cost, put that money towards the government and then you would have more enlightened people voting! Hmm...I know what you are thinking...some people don't want to know...and yet they vote anyway.

flyingvan said...

You know what I'm thinking?????

- Rob said...

Steve,
I thought that I had a 100% on your quiz, but I got tripped up on "separation of church and state". I could argue that a combination of Article 6 of the Constitution and the 1st amendment to that document imply this. However, you are correct that the statement "separation of church and state" is not explicitely called out in the Constitution.

On the other hand, just because that phrase is not there does not mean that the concept is not. The concept and the specific phrase have been affirmed in writings by the Founding Fathers and court opinions since then.

Still, I will take the -1 on your quiz and still be happy with my results. More importantly, I endorse completely your idea and the concept that most Americans have only vague knowledge of our nation's founding documents and the related rights.

flyingvan said...

The question I had trouble researching the answer to was which branch of government the Vice President belonged to. I know he's elected into the Executive, but I think his paycheck comes from the Senate. It's actually a pretty clever bridge between the powers when you think about it.

Unknown said...

I've always wondered what the relevance of knowing what number, or really even if, someone served as President. Its trivia.

- Rob said...

Hey Jim,
I agree that what number he was (or if he was) is trivia. That information in and of itself is not very relevant to everyday life.

However, if you want to really understand your rights as a citizen or, more importantly, assert that you do or don't have certain rights, then you should understand the founding principles of the country. That includes reading commentary about the intentions of the founding as expressed by the "Founding Fathers" of the US. Since Hamilton is one of those founding fathers, then some of his thoughts would be a relevant thing to understand. Someone that is familiar with him due to that should know the trivia answer as a side effect. That makes the trivia question a good litmus test for how well the quiz taker knows of the Founding Fathers and therefore if they know anything about thier intentions.

I have no problem with the fact that many US citizens don't know this kind of information. However, I do find it ironic and annoying when these uninformed people claim that they have certain Constitutional rights (and are often inaccurate about that).

princess slea said...

i did pretty well on this quiz. i think to myself "i though hamilton was secretary of something"
lol