English Political Foundations
English settlers brought these three basic concepts of government to North America.
What are ordered, limited, and representative governments?
Every English colony was established under one of these written grants of authority from the king.
What is a charter?
Britain began imposing new taxes and trade regulations during this decade.
What were the 1760s?
This individual wrote most of the Declaration of Independence.
Who was Thomas Jefferson?
Congress approved the Articles in 1777, but the final State did not ratify them until this year.
What is 1781?
Fifty-five delegates representing twelve States met in this city in 1787.
What is Philadelphia?
Signed in 1215, this document established that the English king did not possess unlimited power.
What is the Magna Carta?
These were the three major types of English colonies.
What were royal, proprietary, and charter colonies?
Colonists used this phrase to protest taxes passed by a Parliament in which they had no representatives.
What is “taxation without representation”?
According to the Declaration, all people are born possessing these rights that government must protect.
What are natural rights?
Under the Articles, the national government consisted of only this one-house institution.
What was Congress?
Instead of completing their stated purpose of revising the Articles, the delegates decided to do this.
What is write an entirely new Constitution?
This principle guarantees that the government can take a person’s life, liberty, or property only through an orderly legal process.
What is due process of law?
These colonies were ruled directly by the English Crown.
What were royal colonies?
Nine colonies sent delegates to this 1765 meeting in New York to protest British policies.
What was the Stamp Act Congress?
This principle holds that government receives its authority from the consent of the people.
What is popular sovereignty?
This number of States had to approve ordinary congressional actions under the Articles.
What is nine of the thirteen States?
The Virginia and New Jersey plans reflected disagreement between these two groups of States.
What were large and small States?
This 1628 document challenged the divine right of kings and required Parliament’s approval for taxation.
What is the Petition of Right?
Every colony except this one had a bicameral, or two-house, legislature.
What was Pennsylvania?
Twelve colonies sent delegates to this 1774 meeting after Parliament passed laws intended to punish the colonists.
What was the First Continental Congress?
According to the Declaration, the people possess this right when a government fails to protect their natural rights.
What is the right to alter or abolish the government?
Unlike amending the Articles, which required all thirteen States, Congress could do this only by requesting money from the States.
What is obtain financial support?
These three major agreements resolved disputes over congressional representation, counting enslaved people, and regulating commerce and the slave trade.
What were the Connecticut Compromise, Three-Fifths Compromise, and Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise?
This 1689 document limited the monarch, protected fair trials, prohibited cruel punishments, and restricted maintaining an army during peacetime.
What is the English Bill of Rights?
By electing representatives, debating issues, and making laws, colonists received this important preparation for independence.
What was practical experience in representative self-government?
Fighting at these two Massachusetts towns on April 19, 1775, marked the beginning of war between Britain and the colonies.
What are Lexington and Concord?
Name three common features of the first State constitutions.
What are popular sovereignty, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, and guaranteed civil rights and liberties? (Any three)
These three major weaknesses prevented Congress from governing effectively and produced economic disorder among the States.
What were the inability to tax, regulate trade, and force the States to obey Congress?
During the ratification debate, this group overcame criticism of the Constitution by promising to add a bill of rights after ratification.
Who were the Federalists?