Articles & Origins
This first national governing document gave most power to the states.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
This plan favored representation based on each state's population in both houses of the legislature.
What is the Virginia Plan?
This compromise counted three-fifths of a state's enslaved population when determining representation in Congress.
What is the Three-Fifths Compromise?
This opening section of the Constitution begins with the words “We the People.”
What is the Preamble?
This amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.
What is the Second Amendment?
This city hosted the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
What is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?
This plan proposed one legislative house with one representative per state.
What is the New Jersey Plan?
These people argued that the Constitution needed a written list of protected individual rights.
Who were the Anti-Federalists (critics or opponents of ratification who demanded a Bill of Rights?)
This article explains how the Constitution can be amended.
What is Article V?
This amendment protects freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, and petition.
What is the First Amendment?
This Founding Father led the proposal for a new form of government at the Convention
Who is James Madison?
This compromise created a House based on population and a Senate with equal representation for each state.
What is the Connecticut Compromise, also called the Great Compromise?
This group of people was denied freedom and equal political rights, yet their population was used in the Three-Fifths Compromise.
Who were enslaved populations?
This article required nine of the thirteen states to ratify the Constitution for it to take effect.
What is Article VII?
This amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures.
What is the Fourth Amendment?
Name two problems the United States experienced under the Articles of Confederation.
What are difficulties regulating commerce, raising money, or negotiating with foreign powers? (Any two.)
Name the three branches of government established in the Constitution.
What are the legislative, executive, and judicial branches?
Why did southern states support counting enslaved people toward their representation in the House of Representatives?
What is that doing so would increase their representation and political power in Congress?
These essays by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay defended the proposed Constitution.
What are the Federalist Papers?
This amendment protects people accused of crimes through rights such as due process and protection against being tried twice for the same offense.
What is the Fifth Amendment?
Explain why delegates decided to create a new Constitution instead of simply revising the Articles of Confederation.
What is that the Articles created a central government too weak to address important national problems, so delegates developed a stronger federal system?
A state with a large population wants more representation in Congress, while a small state wants equal representation. Which compromise addresses both concerns, and how?
What is the Connecticut Compromise, which gave population-based representation to the House and two senators to every state?
Explain one contradiction between the ideals of equality expressed during the founding era and the decisions made about slavery at the Convention.
What is that leaders spoke of liberty and equality while the Constitution protected the political interests of slaveholding states and did not end slavery?
Why did some Americans oppose ratifying the Constitution without a Bill of Rights?
What is that they feared the new federal government could threaten individual freedoms without specific written protections?
This amendment says that listing certain rights in the Constitution does not mean the people do not have other rights.
What is the Ninth Amendment?