Articles & Challenges
This first national plan of government left most power with the states.
What were the Articles of Confederation?
This law organized western land into townships and lots and set aside land for schools.
What was the Ordinance of 1785?
This branch makes laws; the executive enforces them, and the judicial branch interprets them.
What is the legislative branch?
These supporters of the Constitution wanted a stronger national government.
Who were the Federalists?
This name refers to the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
What is the Bill of Rights?
Under the Articles, Congress had to ask the states for money because it lacked this power.
What is the power to collect taxes?
This 1787 law created a process for forming new states in the Northwest Territory and prohibited slavery there.
What was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787?
This compromise created a population-based House of Representatives and a Senate with equal representation for each state.
What was the Great Compromise?
These opponents feared that the proposed national government could threaten individual and state rights.
Who were the Antifederalists?
Name THREE freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
Accept any three: religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly, and petitioning the government.
This Massachusetts farmer led a rebellion in 1786 after debt and taxes threatened farmers with losing their land.
Who was Daniel Shays?
Delegates met in this city in 1787 to discuss revising the Articles of Confederation.
What is Philadelphia?
Compare the Virginia Plan and New Jersey Plan on representation in Congress.
The Virginia Plan based representation on population. The New Jersey Plan gave each state equal representation.
Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote this collection of essays supporting ratification.
What was The Federalist (the Federalist Papers)?
This amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
What is the Fourth Amendment?
To change the Articles, this many states had to approve, making changes very difficult.
What are all 13 states?
Name the convention's presiding officer and the delegate known as the Father of the Constitution.
Who were George Washington and James Madison?
Explain what the Three-Fifths Compromise counted, and whether it gave enslaved people voting rights.
It counted three-fifths of the enslaved population for representation and direct taxation. It did not grant enslaved people voting rights.
George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Mercy Otis Warren argued that the Constitution needed this protection.
What is a bill of rights?
Describe the two approval steps needed to add an amendment to the Constitution.
Proposal by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or a convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Explain how Shays's Rebellion strengthened the argument for replacing the Articles.
It showed the national government was too weak to respond effectively to a domestic crisis, increasing support for a stronger government.
In republicanism, citizens choose representatives. In federalism, power is divided between these two levels of government.
What are the state and national governments?
Name the system used to select the president, then explain the purpose of checks and balances.
The Electoral College selects the president. Checks and balances let each branch limit the others to prevent any one from becoming too powerful.
Identify TWO compromises involving slavery or trade beyond the Three-Fifths Compromise.
Accept any two: Congress could not ban the importation of enslaved people for 20 years; the fugitive slave clause required the return of people who escaped slavery; Congress could not tax exports.
Explain how the Ninth and Tenth Amendments protect rights and limit federal power.
The Ninth protects rights not specifically listed. The Tenth reserves powers not delegated to the federal government or prohibited to the states to the states or the people.