CATEGORIES:
BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism
LANGUAGE PRACTICE AND COMPREHENSION CHECK
USEFUL VOCABULARY offspring, deliberations, drastic, uniform, inherent, conciliator, recast, terse, embarrassment, palatable
TASK I. a) Use the above words in the following sentences, translate the sentences, use the GLOSSARY: 1. After long … they accepted the order. In a long line of cases, the Court had held that no constitutional right to jury trial existed in trials of criminal contempt, but in Bloom v. Illinois, 80 the Court announced that “our … have convinced us that serious contempts are so nearly like other serious crimes that they are subject to the jury trial provisions of the Constitution.” In Adams v. Texas the Court formulated the rule holding Witherspoon applicable to capital sentencing procedures and voiding a statute permitting exclusion of any juror unable to swear that the existence of the death penalty would not affect his …on any issue of fact. 2. Her … remark was very short and showed that she was annoyed. The boss gave … instructions to his secretary and left. 3. The policy ensures the … standard of healthcare throughout the country. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court was “to declare the sense of the law” through “inflexible and … adherence to the rights of the constitution and individuals.” In Bagley, the Court established a … test for materiality, choosing the most stringent requirement that evidence is material if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. 4. The company will be taking … measures to reduce its debt. Reagan delivered on two of his pledges, cutting taxes and increasing defense spending; however, his reluctance to call for … cuts in domestic spending, coupled with a Congress more willing to spend than save, caused the national debt (the accumulated annual deficits) to more than double in four years. Although temporary restraining orders (injunctions) may be warranted in certain situations, this extraordinary remedy may have … consequences for the adverse party by depriving that party of the use of his property or the exercise of his rights. 5. The committee made an attempt to … the statement in less formal language. A further consideration was that eliminating review of Miranda claims would not significantly reduce federal habeas review of state convictions, since most Miranda claims could be … in terms of due process denials resulting from admission of involuntary confessions. 6. … were called in to negotiate between the warring factions. A trained … discusses and explores the issues with each side, explains any legal issues involved, tries to find opportunities for settling the dispute, helps both parties agree to a legally binding agreement. 7. The allegations have been an … to the administration. “Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the potentiality of … from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.” 8. In a world where profit usually beats principle, how can socially responsible investment become …? From this point of view, … religious liberty developed more from competitive circumstances, experimental learning, and the advent of federalism than from purposeful design. 9. I am afraid the problems you’ve mentioned are … in the system. “Outrageousness” in the area of political and social discourse has an … subjectiveness about it which would allow a jury to impose liability on the basis of the jurors’ tastes or views, or perhaps on the basis of their dislike of a particular expression. Obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment. We acknowledge, however, the … dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression. 10. Conflicts between parents and their … are quite common. The offices of Ambassadors, other public Ministers, and Consuls depend for their original existence upon the law, but are the … of the state of our relations with foreign nations, and must necessarily be governed by distinct rules.
TASK II. a) Determine the meanings the word actual has in the text: - emphasizing what is really or true, exact as compared with a general idea – The actual number of people killed is not yet known. - emphasizing what is really true or exact as compared with what people expected –How does your department’s actual performance compare with your plan and budget? - emphasizing that something is real and not imaginary or part of an idea or a plan – The play is based on actual events. - emphasizing the word that follows – All I have to do now is to write the actual letter. b) Determine the meaning of actual in the following: 1. The 12th amendment establishes the Electoral College that casts the actual votes for President and Vice-President. 2. If actual conflict is present in a case, it has a 33 percent chance of gaining Court review. 3. Some variation existed among state laws, but most allowed defamed individuals to seek two kinds of monetary damages: compensatory, for actual financial loss (e.g., an individual loses his or her job because of the story), and punitive, to punish the offender. 4. Previously, despite its use of separation-of-powers language, the Court did little to involve itself in actual controversies, save perhaps the Myers and Humphrey litigations over the President’s power to remove executive branch officials. 5. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.
TASK III. a) Match the “re”- verbs to their definitions: to reorganize, to restate, to rephrase, to reword, to recall, to repatriate, to repay, to reboot, to reconstruct, to reduce, to represent, to resemble, to remove, to recast, to resolve 1) to start a computer again; 2) to express something using different words; 3) to send someone back to the country that is legally their own; 4) to give someone money that you have borrowed from them; 5) to state or write sth. again or using different words 6) to call or summon back; 7) to say or write the same thing using different words; 8) to pay back, give in return for; 9) to act for or in behalf of (a constituency, State, etc.) 10) to make over; 11) to bring down to a lower rank, authority; 12) to shift to another place or position, transfer; 13) to remodel, to reconstruct (a document); 14) to find an answer or solution to, to settle or solve 15) to be like or similar to; b) Translate the following sentences containing the words with re- prefix: 1. Regardless of the specific design of a legal system, in many countries jurists must confront the task of “deciding to decide” – that is, choosing which cases among many hundreds or even thousands they will actually resolve. 2. In Korematsu v. United States (1944) the justices endorsed the government’s program to remove all Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast states and relocate them to inland detention centers. 3. In Benton v. Maryland, 48 however, the Court concluded “that the double jeopardy prohibition represents a fundamental ideal in our constitutional heritage. Once it is decided that a particular Bill of Rights guarantee is ‘fundamental to the American scheme of justice,’ the same constitutional standards apply against both the State and Federal Governments.” 4. The strategic argument can be restated in this way: the choices of justices can be best explained as strategic behavior and not merely as responses to ideological or jurisprudential values. 5. It will be recalled that in Boyd the Court fused the search and seizure clause with the provision of the Fifth Amendment protecting against compelled self-incrimination. 6. Previously, despite its use of separation-of-powers language, the Court did little to involve itself in actual controversies, save perhaps the Myers and Humphrey litigations over the President’s power to remove executive branch officials. 7. If neither factual error nor defamatory content suffices to remove the constitutional shield from criticism of official conduct, the combination of the two elements is no less inadequate. 8. The question is ‘‘whether the ruling of the judge, whatever its label, actually represents a resolution, correct or not, of some or all of the factual elements of the offense charged.’’ 9. Should the government betray the trust placed in it through a series of abuses by either its executive or legislative branch, then the people can regard it as having revolted from them and may exercise their right to recall their trust through, if necessary, an armed rebellion. 10. Statute providing, under circumscribed conditions, that indigent defendant, who receives state-compensated counsel and other assistance for his defense, who is convicted, and who subsequently becomes able to repay costs, must reimburse State for costs of his defense in no way operates to deny him assistance of counsel or the equal protection of the laws 11. Material on the boundaries of free expression has been reorganized so that we focus not only on the traditional topics of libel and obscenity but also on emerging areas of government concern—for example, cruelty and violence. 12. The Court ruled that deferring the trial was an abuse of discretion by the district court because delay would increase the probability of denying justice to Jones due to a loss of evidence, the inability of witnesses to recall specific facts, or the possible death of one of the parties. 13. Congress can restrict the Court’s jurisdiction to hear cases, enact legislation or propose constitutional amendments to recast Court decisions, and hold judicial salaries constant. 14. The Whig Party reorganized as the Republican Party later that year. (1854) 15. Not only did the Court reject the state of California’s request to remove the sale of violent video games to minors from First Amendment protection, the majority informed the state that all laws prohibiting the sale of such games would be subject to strict scrutiny (meaning that they could be very unlikely to survive). 16. The Court restated the principle in Booker, “any fact (other than a prior conviction) which is necessary to support a sentence exceeding the maximum authorized by the facts established by a plea of guilty or a jury verdict must be admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.” 17. “When the taxpayer acquires earnings, lawfully or unlawfully, without the consensual recognition, express or implied, of an obligation to repay and without restriction as to their disposition, “he has received income, even though it may still be claimed that he is not entitled to retain the money, and even though he may still be adjudged liable to restore its equivalent.”
TASK IV. a) Use the nouns memorandum, phenomenon, criterion, datum, curriculum, medium in the plural or singular form in the following sentences; b) Translate the sentences, use the GLOSSARY: 1) The government’s efforts to control the dissemination of child pornography – whether via traditional or new … – represent only one side of the equation. 2) Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative … developed by the Court over many years. 3) Prohibition was also supported by Robert Woods, Lillian Wald, Jane Addams, and other stalwarts of the Progressive movement who believed in using law for uplift and thought that their program was supported by the best scientific … and expertise. 4) Although it has not been the subject of serious controversy for much of American history, modern political … such as legislative vetoes, the line-item veto, and presidential signing statements have all raised interesting questions regarding what policy-making actions and procedures require presentment to the president as stipulated by the Constitution. 5) The Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice prepared for the White House counsel an elaborate … that disputed all aspects of the Dillon opinion. 6) Historically, racial segregation has a long and varied past in the United States. This is not to say that integrationist ideas are a new or 20th-century …, as the inclusion of the right to vote for free blacks contained in the original Tennessee state constitution of 1796 illustrates. 7) Five members of the Court said the ruling did not mean that the Commandments could never be used in the school …, but that merely posting them served only to make them objects of religious veneration. 8) Fundamentally, the Pendleton Act began to set … for public employment that called for qualified individuals to fill government jobs. 9) Since 1968, the American Bar Association (ABA) has proposed and updated guidelines designed to achieve a balance between the interests of the … and those of defendants facing trial. 10) Laird v. Tatum is a case that called to question the constitutionality of military intelligence units’ collecting … on civilians and civilian social and political organizations. 11) The … vigorously pursues a “plain-meaning” rule of constitutional construction. 12) Campaign financing has been an integral part of the election process and a documented … since the pre-Constitution days. 13) Because Louisiana proposed to develop special … and provide teaching resources for the clear purpose of advancing creation theory but none for evolution theory, this excessively involved the state and education authorities in advancing a theistic viewpoint in violation of Lemon and the First Amendment’s establishment clause. 14) The Court has also said that judges seeking to protect the fair trial interests of defendants must have a very high justification before they may restrict what the … may publish. 15) The OLC … argued that the proper mode of interpretation of Article V was to “provide a clear rule that is capable of mechanical application, without any need to inquire into the timeliness or substantive validity of the consensus achieved by means of the ratification process.” 16) Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that the individuals who brought suit lacked standing to do so, because there was no evidence that they had been negatively affected by the gathering of intelligence … collected about their actions. 17) While the highly contentious political debate over whether to recognize same-sex marriage in the law is relatively recent, the … of two persons, both or one of whom are not heterosexual, antedates the issue, as it was not uncommon for a gay man and a lesbian to marry each other so as to pass as “normal” for family, work, or other social purposes, especially during the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when homosexual persons were sought out and dismissed from government service. 18) Schools should be able to teach courses about the history of religion or comparative religion, as long as the … does not promote religion. 19) In many jurisdictions, judges must first deal with pretrial publicity by questioning the jurors carefully about their knowledge of the case, by sequestering the jury, or by moving the trial to another location in order to find a jury pool that has not been exposed to too much … coverage. 20) The Tinker standard – protecting student speech except when clearly disruptive of the school’s educational mission – was not the only … for deciding school speech cases.
TASK V. Make up word combinations to discuss the government created under the new Constitution: 1) legislative, executive, and judicial 2) executive 3) quasi-judicial 4) drastically limited 5) state 6) state's 7) one supreme 8) the lower, the upper 9) a bicameral 10) unanimously elected 11) unconditional 12) an equal a) branches b) jurisdiction c) tribunal d) house e) veto power f) legislature g) departments h) legislatures i) president j) representation k) bodies l) vote TASK VI. Use the missing prepositions in the following phrases to discuss the composition and functions of the new legislature: on, over, to, for, in, by, to, in 1. to legislate … all areas 2. to be apportioned … the basis of population 3. to have equal representation … 4. to remove … impeachment 5. to be referred … committees … 6. to appoint … a committee 7. to preside … the Convention's deliberations
TASK VII. Use reference books or Glossary to explain the following: direct taxation; unconditional veto power; quasi-judicial bodies
TASK VIII. Find the words in bold type in the text and replace them by their synonyms where possible: to credit with – believe, consider, ascribe to a person; to credit for –bring honor, esteem to; to draft – draw up, design, construe; to revise – adapt, change, amend, modify, alter, review, transform; ultimately – finally, eventually, at last; nominee - candidate; to constitute – make up, form up; to resemble – be or look like, take after, be similar to, appear like; to empower – grant, authorize, permit; to underscore - accentuate, bring out, italicize, stress, underline,emphasize to persuade –convince, talk smb into smth; to convince –prove, persuade, assure; to prompt – instigate, arouse, provoke, inspire; palatable – agreeable, savory; rival – competitor, emulator; endorsement – support, sanction, approval, confirmation. bias – influence, prejudice.
TASK IX Translate the following sentences: 1. Washington emerged out of formal retirement from public life to serve as a member of the Virginia delegation, persuaded to do so despite personal doubts about the chances for the Convention's success. 2. Though he gave only one brief speech during the four months of the Convention, his presence alone was assurance that many Americans would find the Constitution palatable. 3. His acceptance of the office, his endorsement of the Constitution, and his signing of that document and the Convention's letter transmitting the Constitution to the Confederation Congress were essential contributions to the ultimate success of the ratification campaign. 4. Furthermore, Washington's silent dignity and reserve in presiding over the Convention's deliberations helped to preserve the delegates' sense of the seriousness of their task and to hold the Convention together.
TASK X. Use the text to complete the chart about various plans offered at the convention:
STATE AUTHORS MAIN IDEAS
Virginia plan New Jersey plan South Carolina plan
TASK XI Comment on Madison’s words: “Constitution was "not like the fabled goddess of wisdom the offspring of a single brain [but] ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands.”
Text 3 "We the People of the United States"
Originally, those words referred to little more than the ratifiers of the Constitution. But in the nearly two centuries since 1787, numerous amendments have given the phrase new meaning, so that now it signifies all Americans. In the draft of the Constitution first proposed, the Preamble – closely modeled on the introductory statement of the Articles of Confederation – included no statement of purposes and carefully identified each of thirteen states in the new Union. However, because the Constitutional Convention had decided that the Constitution would go into effect upon being ratified by nine states, rather than all thirteen, it seemed foolish to list all the states. Anyway, it was by no means clear which states would accept or reject the new charter. So Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania artfully evaded the issue by using the shorthand designation "We the People of the United States." Although Patrick Henry of Virginia subsequently denounced the wording of the Preamble in his state's ratifying convention, demanding to know who the people of the United States were, no delegate to the Convention found fault with the revised wording: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. At the time the Constitution was being written, each state had adopted qualifications for voting that excluded many Americans from the political process. The qualifications limited the right to vote to those who could show that they had sufficient property – either in cash or real property – to entitle them to vote. Many states also restricted voting to those who took an oath subscribing to certain religious doctrines, such as a belief in God, or in God and Jesus Christ, or in the Christian religion. Almost nobody even conceived that anyone but sufficiently wealthy white men would vote, and restrictions on who could hold office in the states were even more stringent. The Framers of the Constitution refused to impose similar religious "test oaths" or property qualifications for holding federal positions such as member of the House of Representatives. But they provided that voting qualifications for election to the House would be the same as those set by the states for electing the "popular" branch of their legislatures. Even this provision – which made the Constitution the most liberal and democratic government charter in the world – nevertheless excluded many Americans. As the Constitution settled into use over the next two hundred years and amendments were added, Americans whom the Framers never dreamed would take part in American politics were included in the national political community. For example, the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed blacks, most of whom were newly freed slaves, the right to vote. Under the Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, the Constitution finally recognized women's right to vote – a right that had been recognized in twelve states by 1914. In 1961, the Twenty-third Amendment extended the right to vote in presidential elections to residents of the District of Columbia – which would have amazed the Framers, who never anticipated that the seat of government would grow to become one of the ten largest cities in the nation, with hundreds of thousands of residents who were effectively disenfranchised, because they did not live in a state. In 1964, the Twenty-fourth Amendment – by abolishing the poll tax – rejected once and for all the old doctrine that a person had to demonstrate some "stake" to be allowed to vote. Finally, in 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment guaranteed the right of eighteen-year-olds to vote in federal, state, and local elections. Before this amendment was passed, each state was free to establish its own minimum voting age because the federal Constitution did not do so. Thus, before 1971, while eighteen-year-olds could vote in Georgia and Kentucky, nineteen-year-olds in Alaska and twenty-year-olds in Hawaii, most states had set their minimum voting age at 21. Thus, two centuries later, "We the People of the United States" means far more than it did in 1787 – and the United States is far more than ever a democracy. NOTES TO THE TEXT poll tax – A fixed tax levied on each person within a jurisdiction. The 24th Amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from imposing poll taxes as a condition for voting. Also termed per capita tax; capitation tax; capitation; head tax.
LANGUAGE PRACTICE AND COMPREHENSION CHECK
ACTIVE vocabulary to signify, to evade, designation, to denounce, tranquility, posterity, to ordain, disenfranchise TASK I. a) Insert the missing words from the list above into (1-8); b) Translate the rest (9-25), use the GLOSSARY: 1. As a result of the voting reform some categories of voters who were … got the right to vote. 2. The king … that the feast should be prepared. 3. Everybody enjoyed the … of the scene. 4. Japan … the Washington treaty about the size of navies. 5. We must preserve these songs for … 6. If you try to … paying taxes, you risk going to prison. 7. Her official … is Systems Manager. 8. Recent changes in climate may … that global warming is starting to have an effect. 9. The school district, by its control of the graduation ceremony, and the theoretically required nature of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, places public and peer pressure on students to stand and maintain silence which may signify their participation or approval. 10. Hamilton stated that “in seasons of insurrection or rebellion, there are often critical moments when a well-timed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquility of the commonwealth.” 11. The point is made more clearly in Justice Scalia’s concurrence, in which he denounces all forms of nonretroactivity as “the handmaid of judicial activism.”
12. Because the amending process was intentionally made to be difficult, of the 10,000 amendments proposed, only 33 have received approval by both the House and Senate, and just 27 have been ratified by the states. The amendments make a statement to the world and to posterity about what governmental principles the United States most cherishes. 13. Preemption of state law by federal statute or regulation is not favored ‘in the absence of persuasive reasons—either that the nature of the regulated subject matters permits no other conclusion, or that the Congress has unmistakably so ordained. 14. The Framers understood the Elections Clause as a grant of authority to issue procedural regulations, and not as a source of power to dictate electoral outcomes, to favor or disfavor a class of candidates, or to evade important constitutional restraints. 15. The last cluster—which includes the Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth Amendment—gave the vote in presidential elections to the disenfranchised and predominantly black citizens of the District of Columbia, to men and women too poor to pay poll taxes or any other kinds of levy as a prerequisite to suffrage, and to 18-year-olds, respectively. 16. The grant of power to Congress over commerce, unlike that of power to levy customs duties, the power to raise armies, and some others, is unaccompanied by correlative restrictions on state power. This circumstance does not, however, of itself signify that the States were expected to participate in the power thus granted Congress, subject only to the operation of the supremacy clause. 17. Among the acts for which loss of citizenship is prescribed are (1) obtaining naturalization in a foreign state, (2) taking an oath of allegiance to a foreign state, (3) fleeing or remaining outside the United States in wartime or a proclaimed emergency in order to evade military service. 18. The designation of the executive as the ‘‘President of the United States’’ was made in a tentative draft reported by the Committee on Detail and accepted by the Convention without discussion. 19. Whether the ‘‘licensed’’ trade shall be permitted at all is a question for decision by the State. This, nevertheless, does not signify that Congress may not often regulate to some extent a business within a State in order to tax it more effectively. 20. Where the right to vote has been restricted, the principle is used to advocate universal suffrage, thereby broadening the electoral base to include everyone, particularly minorities and all others who are disenfranchised. 21. In areas that the 1964 Civil Rights Act did cover, many employers and unions were able to evade portions regarding job discrimination. 22. The Court wrote that States may enact legislation touching upon aliens coexistent with federal laws, under regular preemption standards, unless the nature of the regulated subject matter precludes the conclusion or unless Congress has unmistakably ordained the impermissibility of state law. 23. The great question raised in the early days with reference to the postal clause concerned the meaning to be given to the word “establish” — did it confer upon Congress the power to construct post offices and post roads, or only the power to designate from existing places and routes those that should serve as post offices and post roads? As late as 1855, Justice McLean stated that this power “has generally been considered as exhausted in the designation of roads on which the mails are to be transported.” 24. Muckraking journalists – a term that Theodore Roosevelt applied to investigative journalists in 1906 – raised the alarm that wealthy individuals were bribing legislatures to win Senate seats, where they protected special interests rather than the general public. In a series of magazine articles that ran under the title of “The Treason of the Senate,” the muckraker David Graham Phillips denounced the senators as “perjurers,” “bribers,” and “thieves.” 25. “I think that the Constitution of the thirteen states was made, not merely for the generation which then existed, but for posterity; undefined, unlimited, permanent, and perpetual – for their posterity, and for every subsequent State which might come into the Union, binding themselves by that indissoluble bond.” – Henry Clay, Senate speech, February 6, 1850.
TASK II. a) Match the verbs 1) disenfranchise, 2) discharge, 3) disbar, 4) disallow, 5) discount, 6) disclose, 7) disinherit to their definitions: a) to make legal arrangements so that your close relative will not receive any of your money or property when you die; b) to no longer allow someone to have the right to vote; c) to officially stop a lawyer from doing any legal work; d) to say officially that something cannot be accepted because it is illegal or not allowed by the rules; e) to consider that something is not important, possible or likely; f) to be officially allowed or forced to leave an institution such as a hospital, a prison, or the army; g) to give information to people especially the information that is revealed;
b) Translate the following sentences, use the GLOSSARY: 1) The phrase ‘‘due process of law’’ first appeared in a statutory rendition of chapter 39 of Magna Carta in 1354. “No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law.” 2) The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited denying someone the right to vote because of race. However, the Southern states soon undermined this amendment with a series of tactics, such as poll taxes and literacy requirements, that effectively disenfranchised their black citizens for another century. 3) In Rhode Island, the leaders of a popular movement protested that the state disenfranchised half of the men in the state (no women were eligible to vote) because the royal charter, which still served as the state’s constitution, allowed only freeholders (landowners) to vote. 4) The Court upheld the public disclosure provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which required that both contributions and expenditures by candidates, political parties, and political committees be publicly disclosed. 5) Within weeks, in a private letter, the chief justice disclosed his view that if the Court had decided the McCardle case, it “would doubtless have held that his [McCardle’s] imprisonment for trial before a military commission was illegal.” 6) In 1938, it was reported that Democratic Party politicians had misused Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds and staff in order to influence the 1938 congressional elections. Upon investigation, it was disclosed that WPA employees had indeed used their positions to win votes for the Democratic Party. 7) In re Neagle, the Court held that “The Executive Power” included the power to assign a federal marshal to serve as the bodyguard to a Supreme Court justice and insulated the marshal from murder charges stemming from his discharge of that duty. This case expanded the scope of the implied powers of the executive branch through an expansive reading of the president’s duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, Section 3), confirming the existence of inherent executive prerogative power in domestic affairs. 8) Subsequently charged with murder by California, Neagle successfully sued for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal circuit court, which discharged him from California’s custody. The sheriff appealed to the Supreme Court. 9) The opinion of the Court, delivered by Justice Samuel Miller, held that Neagle, as an officer of the United States, could not be tried by California, and thus was properly discharged. 10) The Court’s general approach, some have argued, severely discounts the vital importance of allowing citizens to control the form, and therefore, potentially, the power and effectiveness, of their speech. 11) The Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice prepared for the White House counsel an elaborate memorandum that disputed all aspects of the Dillon opinion. First, Dillon’s discussion of contemporaneity was discounted as dictum. 12) In personal reflection, Douglas had often said that one of his most shameful moments was his vote to uphold President Roosevelt’s relocation of Japanese Americans in Korematsu v. United States,(1944), and one of his proudest moments was his vote to disallow President Richard Nixon to use executive privilege to keep the Watergate tapes from Congress in United States v. Nixon. 13) The Court generally disallows attempts to condition benefit eligibility on loyalty declaration, as it would have a chilling effect on free speech. 14) Lawyer may not be disbarred solely because he refused on self-incrimination grounds to testify at a disciplinary proceeding. 15) Included within the general power to decide cases are the ancillary powers of courts to punish for contempts of their authority, to admit and disbar attorneys.
TASK III. Insert the missing words into the passage that follows: a) opponents; b) votes; c) prosecute; d) proceedings; e) Anti-Federalists; f) secret; g) Convention; h) inaccuracies; i) Constitution: The idea to keep the discussions 1) … was not surprising in the eighteenth century. Both legislative debates and 2) … were only rarely, if ever, open to the public in Britain and America, and legislatures did not hesitate to 3) … printers for publishing reports of debates and 4) … without permission. Such reports, it was widely and justly believed, frequently contained gross 5) … and should not benefit from even an implied legislative endorsement. Only rarely in the ratification process did 6) … of the new 7) … criticize the rule of secrecy. And neither the 8) … nor the few published criticisms of and comments on the rule during the 9) … appealed to any notion whatsoever about the public's "right to know."
TASK IV. Match the dates 1870, 1914, 1920, 1961, 1964, 1971 to the following events: · Women’s right to vote is recognized in twelve states. · Eighteen-year olds get the right to vote. · The right to vote in presidential elections is extended to residents of the District of Columbia. · Blacks are guaranteed the right to vote. · Women’s right to vote is recognized. · The poll tax is abolished.
TASK V. Match Voting Rights Amendments to their contexts: Amendment 19 – Proposed June 4, 1919; Adopted August 18, 1920; Amendment 23 – Proposed June 16, 1960; Adopted March 29, 1961; Amendment 24 – Proposed September 14, 1962; Adopted January 23, 1964; Amendment 26 – Proposed March 23, 1971; Adopted July 1, 1971;
Amendment … addresses the voting rights of a different group of people, namely the residents of the nation's capitol: the District of Columbia. Before the enactment of this amendment, people living in Washington D.C. were forbidden to vote for the President or Vice President, as they had no representation in the electorate. Now, like the state with the smallest population, Wyoming, each election D.C. residents have three electoral representatives. The final act of Congress to date regarding voting rights and restriction is the adoption of Amendment … . At that time, massive protest movements against the Vietnam War had swept the nation's colleges and universities. Prior to the adoption of this amendment, men were being drafted into service before they were even legal to vote. They were risking their lives without having any bearing on the actions of the men sending them to do so. Thus, the amendment set the voting age at 18, forbidding Congress or the States to set it any higher. Women finally got the right to vote in the United States with the … Amendment. This development came from the work of the Suffragettes in the Women's Rights Movement of the early twentieth century. Famous Suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton led the movement, and together they drafted the amendment which would become Amendment Nineteen: "Universal Suffrage." The … Amendment further protects the votes of free men and women by forbidding Congress and the States from charging poll tax for voting. Similar to the Black Codes of the Reconstruction era, Poll Taxes were commonly used to keep black Americans from voting. The timing of Amendment Twenty-Four's adoption coincides with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, when attention was on the unequal treatment of black American citizens in many of the Southern states.
TASK VI. Make up sentences which would start as follows: 1. The ratifiers of the Constitution … 2. Numerous amendments … 3. The introductory statement … 4. Statement of purposes … 5. The wording of the Preamble … 6. State's ratifying convention … 7. The revised wording … 8. A belief in God, or in the Christian religion … 9. More stringent restrictions (on ) … 10. The Framers of the Constitution … 11. Voting qualifications for election to the House … 12. Newly freed slaves … 13. Residents of the District of Columbia … 14. The seat of government … 15. The most liberal and democratic government charter in the world … 16. The right of eighteen-year-olds to vote … 17. Federal, state, and local elections … 18. Sufficient property … 19. Property qualifications … 20. Women's right to vote … 21. National political community … 22. The minimum voting age …
TASK VII. Make up word combinations to describe the extension of franchise: 1) to propose 2) to list 3) to take 4) to hold 5) to impose (to set) to adopt 6) to guarantee, to recognize to limit 7) to abolish 8) to pass a) an amendment b) office, federal positions c) a draft d) all the states e) qualifications f) the right to vote g) an oath h) the poll tax
TASK VIII. a) Add the prepositions: to, into, in, upon, to, from, into, with to the following phrases; b) Write a paragraph on the development of voting rights: 1. to go … effect … being ratified by… 2. to exclude … the political process 3. to find fault … 4. to restrict voting … 5. to settle … use 6. to extend the right to vote … 7. to vote … presidential elections
TASK IX. Find the highlighted verbs in the text and replace them by their synonyms where possible: 1) to refer to – to apply, to be about, to include, to cover, to relate; 2) to signify – to imply; 3) to go into effect – to go into force, to take affect, to effectuate; 4) to accept – to agree to, 5) to reject – to decline, to renounce, to repudiate; 6) to insure – to guarantee; 7) to secure – to guard, to make safe, to ensure; 8) to adopt – to pass, to make into law, to enact; 9) to entitle – to authorize, to empower, to qualify; 10) to restrict – to limit, to restrain, to confine, 11) to conceive – to consider, to formulate, to speculate, to form a concept of; 12) to impose – to force upon, to fix, to set; 13) to recognize – to acknowledge the legality of; 14) to extend – to enlarge, to spread, to expand; 15) to anticipate – to foresee, to expect, to hope for, to hold in view, to have in prospect; 16) to abolish – to annul, to repeal, to prohibit, to quash, to invalidate, to do away with; 17) to pass – to enact, to make into law, to adopt;
TASK X. Translate the following sentences, use the GLOSSARY: 1. The Court has read the preamble as bearing witness to the fact that the Constitution emanated from the people and was not the act of sovereign and independent States. 2. The preamble expresses the purpose of the U.S. Constitution. The federal government gains its power from the people rather than from the states. The government exists to maintain peace at home, provide national defense, promote the well-being of the people, and protect their liberties. 3. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress declared America’s independence from Great Britain and converted the thirteen colonies into the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence’s justification for that break later influenced the language of the preamble to the Constitution. 4. The Supreme Court held, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), that the preamble itself is not a source of federal power or individual rights. 5. States’ rights advocates invoked the Preamble to support their contention that the Constitution was “ordained and established” by “We the People” of the states, and if the federal government exceeded its constitutional authority, the states as representatives of the people, not the federal courts, had the right to police the boundaries of federal power. 6. Through the Preamble, the Constitution and all laws stemming from it embodied the fundamental will of the people. 7. Although the Preamble does not grant or inhibit power, the phrase “We the People” represents one of the Constitution’s core values—the idea that power emanates from the people. 8. The purpose of the Preamble is to introduce the Constitution and the rationale behind it. 9. The Preamble to the United States Constitution, while notable for its prose, has no legally binding effect. 10. Although the preamble is not a source of power for any department of the Federal Government, the Supreme Court has often referred to it as evidence of the origin, scope, and purpose of the Constitution. 11. In five days, the committee produced a nearly final draft almost identical to the text of the Constitution that was subsequently approved. 12. Morris hoped that such a turn of phrase would protect the new government from embarrassment if a state chose not to ratify the Constitution. 13. But those who have studied the Convention's work — and, indeed, Morris, Madison, and James Wilson themselves — also knew that those opening words underscored the nationalist thrust of the Constitution, that the new government would not be another mere confederation of states. 14. Anyway, it was by no means clear which states would accept or reject the new charter. 15. The qualifications limited the right to vote to those who could show that they had sufficient property — either in cash or real property — to entitle them to vote. 16. Many states also restricted voting to those who took an oath subscribing to certain religious doctrines, such as a belief in God, or in God and Jesus Christ, or in the Christian religion. 17. Almost nobody even conceived that anyone but sufficiently wealthy white men would vote, and restrictions on who could hold office in the states were even more stringent. 18. The Framers of the Constitution refused to impose similar religious "test oaths" or property qualifications for holding federal positions such as member of the House of Representatives. 19. As the Constitution settled into use over the next two hundred years and amendments were added, Americans whom the Framers never dreamed would take part in American politics were included in the national political community. 20. In 1961, the Twenty-third Amendment extended the right to vote in presidential elections to residents of the District of Columbia — which would have amazed the Framers, who never anticipated that the seat of government would grow to become one of the ten largest cities in the nation, with hundreds of thousands of residents who were effectively disenfranchised, because they did not live in a state. 21. In 1964, the Twenty-fourth Amendment — by abolishing the poll tax — rejected once and for all the old doctrine that a person had to demonstrate some "stake" to be allowed to vote. 22. Thus, two centuries later, "We the People of the United States" means far more than it did in 1787 — and the United States is far more than ever a democracy.
TASK XI. Comprehension check: · Rephrase the Preamble to the US Constitution in plain English. · Justify the need for the constitutional amendments. · Is there a Preamble to the Constitution of your country? · Do you think the Preamble is important?
TEXT 4 Date: 2015-02-16; view: 470
|