The Constitution

4. supporting ideas of freedom, change, and progress
5. Ordinance: a law passed by Congress in 1787 that specified how western lands would be governed.
8. Convention: a meeting held in Philadelphia in 1787 at which delegates from the states wrote the U.S. Constitution.
10. College: the group established by the Constitution to elect the president and vice president. Voters in each state choose their electors.
14. the use or purpose of something.
15. Branch: the part of government, consisting of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, that interprets the laws.
17. Commerce: trade and other business dealings between two or more states.
19. a group of people or things with obvious differences among them.
20. Branch: the part of government that carries out, or executes, the laws.
21. relating to issues within a country.

1. a country governed by elected representatives.
2. Rule: a basic principle of democracy that says laws are passed by majority vote and elections are decided by a majority of the voters
3. the constitutional system that shares power between the national and state governments.
6. a written plan that provides the basic framework of a government.
7. Madison: Hailed as “father of the constitution”.
9. Compromise: the plan of government adopted at the Constitutional Convention that established a two-house Congress.
11. Branch: the lawmaking part of government, called the legislature. To legislate is to make a law.
12. to treat a person or group unfairly.
13. the “Age of Reason” in 17th- and 18th-century Europe.
16. Territory: a region of the United States bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes.
18. Federalist Papers: a series of essays written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay.