Articles of Confusion
A decade before the Constitution, the Continental Congress approved this "loose union" of states in November 1777.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited this in the newly established territories.
What is slavery?
This future first president was elected presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention.
Who is George Washington?
This clause allowed slaves to count as a fraction of a person toward a state’s population census.
What is the Three-Fifths Clause?
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay collectively wrote 85 essays known by this name to campaign for ratification.
What are The Federalist Papers?
Under the Articles, every state, regardless of size, had this many votes in all matters.
What is one?
This Continental Army veteran led angry, indebted farmers in an uprising that proved to be "the last straw that broke the camel’s back."
Who is Daniel Shays?
James Madison’s plan that took sovereignty away from the states, let the federal government overturn state laws, and based both houses of Congress on population.
What is the Virginia Plan?
This clause allowed slave owners to reclaim runaway slaves who fled into free states.
What is the Fugitive Slave Clause?
This group argued that the Constitution, unlike most state constitutions, lacked a declaration of individual rights, and feared a central government ruled by wealthy men.
Who are the Antifederalists?
Important laws under the Articles needed the approval of this many of the thirteen states.
What is nine?
With the central government nearly bankrupt by 1780, America looked to this man to find financial solutions, just as it had during the Revolution.
Who is Robert Morris?
This deal kept Madison’s bicameral legislature but based the House of Representatives on population and the Senate on equal representation, two per state.
What is the Great Compromise?
The convention voted to end the slave trade, but not until this year, giving the Southern states twenty years to adjust and prepare.
What is 1808?
This Antifederalist worried the Constitution would re-create British rule: high taxes, an oppressive bureaucracy, a standing army, and "a great and mighty president."
Who is Patrick Henry?
The Articles’ government had neither a chief executive nor this branch of government, and it lacked the power to tax either the states or the people.
What is a judiciary?
Under the Northwest Ordinance, once a territory’s population reached this number, it could devise a republican constitution and apply to join the Confederation.
What is 60,000?
The primary author of the Declaration of Independence, he was surprisingly NOT one of the 55 delegates, and neither were John Adams, Samuel Adams, or Patrick Henry.
Who is Thomas Jefferson?
These two Southern states vehemently opposed the plan to end the slave trade.
What are South Carolina and Georgia?
Along with Montesquieu’s theories, The Federalist Papers drew on this John Adams work to describe a separation of powers that would keep the three branches in "checks and balance."
What is Thoughts on Government?
Complete the Articles’ own description of the union: each state "retained its own sovereignty, freedom, and ______."
What is independence?
The Northwest Ordinance created territories that would eventually become these five states. Name at least four.
What are Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin?
This man’s New Jersey Plan preserved state control over state laws and gave each state one vote in a unicameral legislature.
Who is William Paterson?
This delegate condemned slavery at the convention as a "nefarious institution."
Who is Gouverneur Morris?
The ratification vote was close in these two states, 89 to 79 and 30 to 27, and their support was so needed that a Bill of Rights was added despite Hamilton’s disapproval.
What are Virginia and New York?