Causes of the Revolution
After 1763, Britain abandoned this hands-off policy toward its American colonies.
What is salutary neglect?
These 1775 clashes in Massachusetts marked the first armed fighting between British regulars and colonial militia.
What are Lexington and Concord?
Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress lacked this important power needed to raise national revenue.
What is the power to tax?
This group supported independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution.
Who are the Patriots?
This 1787 meeting was originally prompted by concerns over the weakness of the Articles of Confederation.
What is the Constitutional Convention?
He became the first president of the United States under the Constitution.
Who is George Washington?
Colonists formed this resistance organization in response to measures such as the Stamp Act.
Who were the Sons of Liberty?
This commander led the Continental Army and was one of its major strengths.
Who is George Washington?
Unlike the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation did not create either a national judiciary or this branch headed today by the president.
What is the executive branch?
Women supported colonial resistance by making this type of cloth instead of purchasing imported British goods.
What is homespun?
This compromise created a Senate with equal representation and a House based on population.
What is the Great Compromise?
Washington established this group of executive advisers as a presidential precedent.
What is the Cabinet?
Colonists dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to resist this parliamentary measure and Parliament’s authority to tax them.
What is the Tea Act?
This 1777 American victory became the turning point of the war because it helped secure an alliance with France.
What is the Battle of Saratoga?
This Massachusetts uprising revealed the weakness of the Articles and strengthened demands for a more powerful national government.
What is Shays’ Rebellion?
These Americans generally supported a stronger national government and ratification of the Constitution.
Who are the Federalists?
This principle divides government authority among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
What is separation of powers?
Alexander Hamilton proposed creating this institution as part of his financial program.
What is a national bank?
Colonists gave this name to the Coercive Acts because they punished Massachusetts and threatened colonial self-government.
What are the Intolerable Acts?
During the winter of 1777–1778, Baron von Steuben helped transform the Continental Army at this Pennsylvania encampment.
What is Valley Forge?
These two laws governing western lands were major achievements of the national government under the Articles of Confederation.
What are the Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance of 1787?
These opponents of the Constitution feared that the new national government could become oppressive and objected to the absence of a declaration of individual rights.
Who are the Anti-Federalists?
This principle allows each branch of government to limit the power of the other branches.
What are checks and balances?
These controversial laws during John Adams’s presidency created a major political and constitutional crisis.
What are the Alien and Sedition Acts?
Britain’s attempt to raise revenue after the French and Indian War transformed colonial resistance into a broader constitutional dispute over these two closely related political issues.
What are taxation and representation?
At this 1781 battle, Franco-American forces and a French fleet trapped Cornwallis, helping break Britain’s resolve to continue the war.
What is the Battle of Yorktown?
Shays’ Rebellion exposed weakness under the Articles, while this later rebellion demonstrated the new federal government’s ability to enforce its laws under the Constitution.
What is the Whiskey Rebellion?
Disagreements over Hamilton’s financial program helped produce these two political parties during the 1790s.
What are the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans (Republicans)?
This constitutional clause allows Congress to pass laws needed to carry out its specifically granted powers.
What is the Necessary and Proper Clause?
Written in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, these documents asserted that states could judge the constitutionality of national laws.
What are the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions?