The Original 13 Colonies
This region had rocky soil and a short growing season, so colonists relied on shipbuilding and trade.
What is New England?
Colonists protested this 1765 act by refusing to buy British goods, which put a tax on many legal documents and even playing cards!
What is the Stamp Act?
According to the Declaration, all people are born with these three unalienable rights.
What are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
This landmark document from 1215 established the foundation of common law or Rule of Law for government.
What is the Magna Carta? (or the Great Charter)
This principle divides government power among three branches.
What is the separation of powers?
This Southern colony was originally founded as a place for debtors and prisoners from England.
What is Georgia?
This popular phrase summed up colonial anger over taxes passed without their voices heard.
What is "No taxation without representation"?
After the preamble, the Declaration lists these complaints or crimes committed by King George III to justify breaking away.
What are grievances?
This compromise created a two-house Congress during the Constitutional Convention.
What is the Great Compromise?
This addition to the Constitution protects citizens’ rights and freedoms.
What is the Bill of Rights?
Most enslaved people in the Southern Colonies worked on this type of farm.
What is a plantation?
This event in 1770 resulted in the death of five colonists and increased tensions between Patriots and the British.
What is the Boston Massacre?
In 1781, this final major battle of the Revolutionary War led to British surrender.
What is the Battle of Yorktown?
He is known as the Father of the Constitution.
Who is James Madison?
This branch of government interprets laws and can declare them unconstitutional
What is the judicial branch?
Many colonists, like the Pilgrims and Puritans, came to America for this reason.
What is religious freedom?
Colonists blamed this British monarch for unfair laws and called him a tyrant. (He responded by singing a song titled, "You'll Be Back.")
Who is King George III?
This patriot, Francis Marion, earned this nickname for his hit-and-run tactics against the British in South Carolina.
Who is the Swamp Fox?
This political group supported ratifying the Constitution and favored a strong central government. They published a series of essays in local newspapers.
Who are the Federalists?
This system ensures no one branch of government can become too powerful by giving each branch some control over the others.
What is checks and balances?
Many colonies developed this political system where colonists elected assemblies to make local laws.
What is self-governing?
He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.
Who is Thomas Jefferson?
The First plan for the national government in the U.S. failed due to weak central powers.
What is the Articles of Confederation?
These sections at the beginning of the Constitution outline the powers of the three branches of government.
What are the Articles? ( of the Constitution)
A key principle based on the idea that government's power comes from the consent of the governed (the people).
What is popular sovereignty?