Constitution Quiz

[philibusters]

Since the Constitution seems to be a hot topic I made a quiz. I tried to hit the more relevant areas of the Constitution and not use questions that deal with substantive concepts rather than factoids. Some of these questions are very hard in my opinion, others are moderately hard, some are fairly simple

1. If Congress passes a statute pursuant to its delegated power under the Constitution and a state has a conflicting law, which of the following is the most accurate?

A. Federal authorities enforce the federal law, the state authorities enforce the state law.

B. The Federal law stands unless a state convention meets to nullify the federal law within the state.

C. The State law is enforced and the federal law is invalid.

D. The federal law is enforced and the state law is invalid


2. In which of the following would one have a right not testify against themself under the fifth amendment:

1. In a civil wrongful death suit

2. In a grand larceny case

3. In a case where the person has agreed to testify against another suspect in exchange for immunity.

4. In a defamation lawsuit

3. President Obama recently made six recess appointments according to one recently posted thread on this board. Which of the following is true of those recess appoints?

A. They are in all effect the same as if the President had gotten the Senate's approval so that he basically used a loophole to appoint who he wanted.

B. The appointments are only valid until Congress meets again.

C. The appoints are not for life and will expire at the end of Congress's next session unless the Senate ratifies the appointments.

D. There is no constitutional authority for recess appointments, the appointees are simply acting in a de facto role.

4. Which of the following is true?

A. A state must award all of its electoral votes to the Presidential candidate who wins the general election within that state.

B. Electors from a state can award some of its electoral votes to one candidate and some to the other candidate in a U.S. Presidential contest.

C. The amount of electoral votes a state has is determined solely by the population of the state (similar to how the House does it)

D. All states have the same amount of electoral votes in a U.S. Presidential election.

5. What Constitutional language did the Supreme Court cite as establishing a woman's right to have an abortion during the first trimester of her pregnancy?

A. The court did not cite the Constitution but simply said a woman ought to have a right to have an abortion.

B. The Privacy Clause of the 29th Amendment

C. The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment

D. The Fourth Amendments right to be free of searches and seizures

6. The Constitution as it was passed in 1789 does not prohibit a state from doing which of the following:

A. Entering a confederacy, therefore, the states were free to enter a new confederacy during the Civil War.

B. Raising a standing army, thus a state could keep an army to deal with with disturbances within the states borders.

C. Printing its own money--thus a could respond to the current federal policy of printing more money by printing its own money that will be more stable.

D. A state from passing a gun regulation.

7. Does the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, have guns, et cetera) apply to the states?

A. For the most part Yes.

B. For the most part No.

C. All Federal Amendments apply equally to the Federal and State governments so Yes completely.

D. No amendment to the Constitution in any whatsoever applies to the states.

8. The right to hold a public protest in certain situations is protected by

A. The First Amendment

B. The Fifth Amendment

C. By the fact that the Constitution did not specifically give the federal government no authority to stop public protests

D. There is no right whatsoever for citizens to protest publically

9. President George W. Bush argued for an expansive interpretation of Executive Power. Which of the following served as the basis for his interpretation of Executive

A. The list of powers given to the Executive in Article II of the Constitution that contains over 50 specifically delegated power.

B. The powers that were given to the President by implication through the term commander and chief if the armed forces

C. The Necessary and Proper Clause

D. The Commerce Clause

10. Which of the following is true of Constitutional Amendments

A. All amendments one way or the other must pass trhough U.S. Congress.

B. All Constitutional Amendments must originate in the House

C. All amendments one way or another must be ratified by a certain amount of states.

D. The President must sign a Constitutional Amendment before it is effective.

 

[Tilted]

1 D
2 B
3 C
4 B (though C could reasonably be said to be correct)
5 C
6 D (though the second part of A seems to confound the issue a bit - to the extent a state remained a member of the Union, it clearly couldn't enter into a confederation; however, if a state seceded from the Union, it would no longer be bound by the authority of the U.S. Constitution, and thus could form a confederation (at least in so far as the U.S. Constitution might prevent it from doing so); it might be argued that a state was prohibited from seceding (by the Constitution as it was passed in 1789), but that is far from clear and I believe that it is incorrect (perhaps even clearly so))
7 A (that is to say that most of the rights referred to in the Bill of Rights are now considered as applying against states)
8 A (and the 14th Amendment with regard to state action, though one might be able to argue C, as well, with regard to federal government action)
9 B
10 C

Sorry about the superfluous qualifications.

 

[itsbob]

Since the Constitution seems to be a hot topic I made a quiz. I tried to hit the more relevant areas of the Constitution and not use questions that deal with substantive concepts rather than factoids. Some of these questions are very hard in my opinion, others are moderately hard, some are fairly simple

1. If Congress passes a statute pursuant to its delegated power under the Constitution and a state has a conflicting law, which of the following is the most accurate?

D. The federal law is enforced and the state law is invalid

2. In which of the following would one have a right not testify against themself under the fifth amendment:

2. In a grand larceny case

3. President Obama recently made six recess appointments according to one recently posted thread on this board. Which of the following is true of those recess appoints?

C. The appoints are not for life and will expire at the end of Congress's next session unless the Senate ratifies the appointments.


4. Which of the following is true?

B. Electors from a state can award some of its electoral votes to one candidate and some to the other candidate in a U.S. Presidential contest.

5. What Constitutional language did the Supreme Court cite as establishing a woman's right to have an abortion during the first trimester of her pregnancy?


C. The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment

6. The Constitution as it was passed in 1789 does not prohibit a state from doing which of the following:

C. Printing its own money--thus a could respond to the current federal policy of printing more money by printing its own money that will be more stable.

7. Does the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, have guns, et cetera) apply to the states?

C. All Federal Amendments apply equally to the Federal and State governments so Yes completely.

8. The right to hold a public protest in certain situations is protected by

A. The First Amendment

9. President George W. Bush argued for an expansive interpretation of Executive Power. Which of the following served as the basis for his interpretation of Executive


C. The Necessary and Proper Clause

10. Which of the following is true of Constitutional Amendments

C. All amendments one way or another must be ratified by a certain amount of states.

I hope this isn't TOO bad!!

If nothing else maybe I can learn something.

 

[Bann]

Well, according to Tilted's answers - I missed #2 and #5. Since this quiz was multiple choice, I'm sure I did better than having to recite the answers outright.

 

[belvak]

Well Hell! And I thought I was prepared for this one...

 

[Bann]

Well Hell! And I thought I was prepared for this one...

 

[Tilted]

Well, according to Tilted's answers - I missed #2 and #5. Since they were multiple choice, I'm sure I did better than having to recite them outright.

Pfft... you're assuming I got them all right? At least one of my answers was a complete guessumption.

 

[Bann]

Pfft... you're assuming I got them all right? At least one of my answers was a complete guessumption.

Yeah, I just figured you had them all right!

 

[philibusters]

1 D
2 B
3 C
4 B (though C could reasonably be said to be correct)
5 C
6 D (though the second part of A seems to confound the issue a bit - to the extent a state remained a member of the Union, it clearly couldn't enter into a confederation; however, if a state seceded from the Union, it would no longer be bound by the authority of the U.S. Constitution, and thus could form a confederation (at least in so far as the U.S. Constitution might prevent it from doing so); it might be argued that a state was prohibited from seceding (by the Constitution as it was passed in 1789), but that is far from clear and I believe that it is incorrect (perhaps even clearly so))
7 A (that is to say that most of the rights referred to in the Bill of Rights are now considered as applying against states)
8 A (and the 14th Amendment with regard to state action, though one might be able to argue C, as well, with regard to federal government action)
9 B
10 C

Sorry about the superfluous qualifications.

100%. Electoral votes are the amount of House + Senate seats. Since all states start out with two, its not based solely on population as I interpreted that answer option--I am referring to 4, where you said C could also be correct.

 

[philibusters]

I hope this isn't TOO bad!!

If nothing else maybe I can learn something.

6 out of 9. You didn't answer one.

The ones you missed.

Number 6 asked which act was a state not prohibited from in 1789. The Constitution explicitly says the a state cannot enter in a confederacy and cannot have a standing army. The Constitution does not say a state cannot coin money, however, the Constitution gave Congress that exclusive power, so by implication the state cannot coin money. There were a couple reasons why a state could regulate guns in 1789. One is because the bill of rights which contains the Second Amendment did not pass until a couple years later.

Answer to 7 is A. Originally the Constitution did not place limits on the state governments. The Constitution set out the blue print for the federal government for example article 1 deals with Congress and its powers, article II deals with the Executive, article III deals with the Courts and so on. The only time that I can think of that the Constitution addressed state governments was to say if there was to say if a federal law conflicted with a state law, the federal law had supramcy. Since the Constitution defined the federal government, it was assumed that the amendments only affected the powers of the Federal governments. After all the Bill of Rights was in response to people's concerns that the federal government was going to be too strong. The Civil War changed that. The 14th amendment has two important clauses, the first clause says states cannot take away the privileges and immunities of citizens and teh second says the states cannot derive a citizen of life, liberty, or property with due process. The Supreme Court was faced with the issue of what does it mean that a state cannot take away ones life, liberty or property. Well one way they interpreted that is to say that "life, liberty, and property" referred to the Bill of Rights for the most part. It covers things like the first and second amendment. However, the Courts have refused to say life and liberty include the entire Bill of Rights, for example the Constitution requires a Grand Jury to indict somebody in a capital case, whereas the Court says a state does not have to use a Grand Jury to indict somebody in a capital case. But the vast majority of the Bill of Rights has been incorproated by the 14th amendment to apply to the states. A lot of the amendments had nothing to do with the states, like how many terms a President can serve, how the Senate is elected, by the time the Constitution was amended to give women the vote, a lot of states already had. Generally speaking, most amendments don't affect the staes, though the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land and it can place limit on the states if that is what the drafters and ratifiers of the Constitution want to do in the Amendment.


Answer to 9 is B. While article two does list the Presidential powers there is no long list of powers that rivals for example the list that was given to Congress or that approaches 50 items. The Commerce Clause has nothing to do with the President, the Constitution has a list of powers granted to Congress and regulating Interstate commerce is just one of the items on the list. The Necessary and Proper Clause is tempting, but the Necessary and Proper clause is in article I and only applies to Congress. Article I gave Congress a list of powers and also the power to take any actions necessary and proper to exercise the lists of powers granted to it. So for example, Congress was given the power coin money and regulate interstate commerce. They were not given the power to create the Federal Reserve. The federal reserve does things like monitor the nation's money supply. Under the necessary and proper clause Congress created the Federal Reserve to help it exercise its power to coin money and regulate interstate commerce. So like the commerce clause, the Necessary and Proper clause only applies to Congress.

 

[philibusters]

7 A (that is to say that most of the rights referred to in the Bill of Rights are now considered as applying against states)
8 A (and the 14th Amendment with regard to state action, though one might be able to argue C, as well, with regard to federal government action)
9 B
10 C

Sorry about the superfluous qualifications.

On 6 I kind of wondered about that issue and was not sure how it worked, but put that part in answer A because the issue was discussed in a thread recently.

I think you got what I was going for on 7.

I just checked the Constitution again on number 8. I thought that the Constitution would have to give Congress the power to regulate Federally owned land. There actually is no such clause in the Constitution, but I think its understood. While its arguably C is in some sense valid in regards to the Federal Government, I was think the Federal government could stop public protests on land owned by the federal government simply through their power to maintain the land. But I may be wrong.

 

[philibusters]

1. If Congress passes a statute pursuant to its delegated power under the Constitution and a state has a conflicting law, which of the following is the most accurate?

A. Federal authorities enforce the federal law, the state authorities enforce the state law.

B. The Federal law stands unless a state convention meets to nullify the federal law within the state.

C. The State law is enforced and the federal law is invalid.

D. The federal law is enforced and the state law is invalid

Article 6, Clause II of the Constitution reads "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."


2. In which of the following would one have a right not testify against themself under the fifth amendment:

A. In a civil wrongful death suit

This is wrong because the right not to testify against oneself only applies in criminal not civil cases

B. In a grand larceny case

This is the correct answer. The fifth amendment says "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"

C. In a case where the person has agreed to testify against another suspect in exchange for immunity.

Based solely on text of the Constitution, I could see somebody perhaps picking this answer, but the Supreme Court has ruled you cannot testify against yourself if you have criminal immunity--you can't be convicted for the crime. This is maybe less clear from simply reading the Constitution.

4. In a defamation lawsuit

Just like an A, a defamation lawsuit is not a criminal case.

3. President Obama recently made six recess appointments according to one recently posted thread on this board. Which of the following is true of those recess appoints?

A. They are in all effect the same as if the President had gotten the Senate's approval so that he basically used a loophole to appoint who he wanted.

B. The appointments are only valid until Congress meets again.

C. The appoints are not for life and will expire at the end of Congress's next session unless the Senate ratifies the appointments.

Article II, Section II says "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."

D. There is no constitutional authority for recess appointments, the appointees are simply acting in a de facto role.

4. Which of the following is true?

A. A state must award all of its electoral votes to the Presidential candidate who wins the general election within that state.

Maine and Nebraska currently don't award all their electoral votes to one candidate automatically. For example, there are two election districts in Maine. Whoever wins each district in a U.S. Presidential contest gets that electoral vote and whoever wins the state overall gets the two that comes from Maines Senate representation.

B. Electors from a state can award some of its electoral votes to one candidate and some to the other candidate in a U.S. Presidential contest.

See my above explanation, but Maine and Nebraska currently do this. This is the correct answer

C. The amount of electoral votes a state has is determined solely by the population of the state (similar to how the House does it)

Article II says" Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." Since each state states with two electoral votes it is not based solely on population.

D. All states have the same amount of electoral votes in a U.S. Presidential election.

Hopefully everybody quickly eliminated this choice.

5. What Constitutional language did the Supreme Court cite as establishing a woman's right to have an abortion during the first trimester of her pregnancy?

A. The court did not cite the Constitution but simply said a woman ought to have a right to have an abortion.

B. The Privacy Clause of the 29th Amendment

C. The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment says no state shall deprive a person of life and liberty without due process. The Supreme Court said one's liberty includes a privacy interest from government intrusion and within that privacy interest is a woman's right to an abortion.

D. The Fourth Amendments right to be free of searches and seizures

6. The Constitution as it was passed in 1789 does not prohibit a state from doing which of the following:

A. Entering a confederacy, therefore, the states were free to enter a new confederacy during the Civil War.

The Constitution says "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." Its pretty clear the Constitution was probably talking about economic agreements, so the civil war reference probably needlessly confused the issue.

B. Raising a standing army, thus a state could keep an army to deal with with disturbances within the states borders.

Read above quoted language from Article I.

C. Printing its own money--thus a could respond to the current federal policy of printing more money by printing its own money that will be more stable.

This answer is potentially correct. The Constitution gave Congress the power to coin money. However, contrary to what I was thinking nowhere does it say that power is exclusive. However the Supremacy clause makes clear if a state use of a power would work to counteract a Federal use of power the state use of power is invalid. So this answer is not necessarily wrong on its face, but for all practical purposes is wrong.

D. A state from passing a gun regulation.

There was no Second Amendment in 1789 and it would not be until after the Civil War, actually well after the Civil War in the case of the Second Amendment that the courts would say the Second Amendment was applicable to teh States.

7. Does the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, have guns, et cetera) apply to the states?

A. For the most part Yes.

I explained this in another post already.

B. For the most part No.

C. All Federal Amendments apply equally to the Federal and State governments so Yes completely.

D. No amendment to the Constitution in any whatsoever applies to the states.

8. The right to hold a public protest in certain situations is protected by

A. The First Amendment

This is the correct answer. Though it may not be obvious for simply reading the language of the Constitution that freedom of speech includes the right to enter public land to protest. Court decisions established that.

B. The Fifth Amendment

C. By the fact that the Constitution did not specifically give the federal government no authority to stop public protests.

I think this is wrong because the federal government has a right to maintain public land and part of that power to maintain the land naturally includes who has a rights to access the federally owed land, so even though they cannot stop freedom of speech they could regulate ones access to the public land. However, an astute person may point out that public and federally owed land are not synonmous and my reasoning is not really tight. That would be correct.

D. There is no right whatsoever for citizens to protest publically

Based off a narrow reading of the First Amendment I could see somebody thoughtfully picking this if they did not know about court decisions.

9. President George W. Bush argued for an expansive interpretation of Executive Power. Which of the following served as the basis for his interpretation of Executive

A. The list of powers given to the Executive in Article II of the Constitution that contains over 50 specifically delegated power.

Doesn't exist

B. The powers that were given to the President by implication through the term commander and chief if the armed forces

This is the correct answer. Article II is really short.

C. The Necessary and Proper Clause

Only applies to Congress, its in article I.

D. The Commerce Clause

Only applies to Congress.

10. Which of the following is true of Constitutional Amendments

A. All amendments one way or the other must pass trhough U.S. Congress.

Article 5 of the Constitution gives two ways amendments can be passed. One involves 3/4ths of designated state conventions ratifying the amendments and does not involve Congress.

B. All Constitutional Amendments must originate in the House

No basis for this in the Constitution.

C. All amendments one way or another must be ratified by a certain amount of states.

This is correct. See above Article 5 quote.

D. The President must sign a Constitutional Amendment before it is effective.

The Amendment process doesn't involve the President.

Answers in bolded. .

 

[Tilted]

100%. Electoral votes are the amount of House + Senate seats. Since all states start out with two, its not based solely on population as I interpreted that answer option--I am referring to 4, where you said C could also be correct.

Yeah, B seems to me to be the best answer (which is why I chose it), but I say that C could reasonably be said to be correct because it's true that "[t]he amount of electoral votes a state has is determined solely by the population of the state", i.e. the population of a state is the only variable (related to that respective state) which its electoral vote count depends on.

EV may not be equal to X/c, where X is the only variable on which EV depends, because c is a constant (with regard to respective states), but EV is equal to X/c + b, where X is the only variable on which EV depends, because c and b are constants (with regard to respective states). In other words, its population is the only state specific thing you need to know in order to determine its electoral vote count. I don't know, maybe I'm just wired to think of things in mathematical terms.

Number 6 asked which act was a state not prohibited from in 1789. The Constitution explicitly says the a state cannot enter in a confederacy and cannot have a standing army. The Constitution does not say a state cannot coin money, however, the Constitution gave Congress that exclusive power, so by implication the state cannot coin money. There were a couple reasons why a state could regulate guns in 1789. One is because the bill of rights which contains the Second Amendment did not pass until a couple years later.

You don't have to infer that states were prohibited from coining money, Article I, Section 10 expressly said that "No State shall ... coin Money".

 

[Tilted]

I just checked the Constitution again on number 8. I thought that the Constitution would have to give Congress the power to regulate Federally owned land. There actually is no such clause in the Constitution, but I think its understood. While its arguably C is in some sense valid in regards to the Federal Government, I was think the Federal government could stop public protests on land owned by the federal government simply through their power to maintain the land. But I may be wrong.

I think you're right with regard to federal land.