 Welcome to Unit 1 of Introduction to American Politics. The first part of this unit focuses on government and democracy, specifically looking at the foundations of American government. The second part of this unit will examine how the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land, came into being. During the writing of the Constitution, there was a lot of concern about what type of government the United States wanted. The Constitution is a great example of how Americans were able to use, debate, and compromise to create a workable solution to a complex problem. One of the chief causes of controversy over the Constitution was balancing the sovereignty of individual states against the power of a strong central government. What resulted was the idea of federalism, and that will be the focus of the final part of this unit. Now, before you begin, there are a few things I'd like you to remember. First, this unit should take approximately 22 hours to complete. And second, there is an end of unit assessment. It's not graded, but it will help a lot towards passing your final exam. Good luck.