A leading Federalist and vice president of George Washington.
Who is John Adams?
100
An event in which George Washington called out the militias of three states, raised an army of nearly 15,000, and personally led the troops into Pennsylvania.
What is the Whiskey Rebellion?
100
A proposal introduced by Edmund Randolph that called for a new national legislature consisting of two houses, a lower house, and an upper house.
What is the Virginia Plan?
100
An act which allowed the government to prosecute those who engaged in "sedition" against the government.
What is the Sedition Act?
100
The first ten amendments to the Constitution.
What is the Bill of Rights?
200
A Virginia Federalist, and later chief justice of the Supreme Court who was part of a bipartisan commission appointed by Adams to negotiate with France.
Who is John Marshall?
200
The United States presidential election of 1800, in which vice president Thomas Jefferson defeated president John Adams.
What is the Revolution of 1800?
200
A treaty that settled the conflict with Britain and helped prevent what had seemed likely to become a war between the United States and Great Britain.
What is Jay's Treaty?
200
An act in which Congress gave the Supreme Court the power to make the final decision in cases involving the constitutionality of state laws.
What is the Judiciary Act of 1789?
200
A document that established a democratic republic for white people, mostly white men.
What is the Constitution of 1787?
300
The most important of the many people who contributed to the creation of the American Constitution, and the most creative political thinker of his generation.
Who is James Madison?
300
An event caused by British and French threatening American shipping, in which John Adams sent three agents to France to negotiate with the French government.
What is the XYZ Affair?
300
A proposal introduced by William Paterson that would preserve the existing one-house legislature at the time, in which each state had equal representation, but gave Congress expanded powers to tax and to regulate commerce.
What is the New Jersey Plan?
300
An act which placed new obstacles in the way of foreigners who wished to become American citizens, and it strengthened the president's hand in dealing with aliens.
What is the Alien Act?
300
An amendment that reserved to the states all powers except those specifically withheld from them or delegated to the federal government.
What is the Tenth Amendment?
400
A New Jersey statesman who submitted a substantive alternative to the Virginia Plan, a proposal for a "federal" as opposed to a "national" government.
Who is William Paterson?
400
An undeclared naval war between the United States and France.
What is the Quasi War?
400
Political statements that used the ideas of John Locke to argue that the federal government had been formed by a "compact" or contract among the states and possessed only certain delegated powers.
What are the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions?
400
An act in which Congress provided for a Supreme Court of six members, with a chief justice and five associate justices; thirteen district courts with one judge apiece; and three circuits courts of appeal, each one to consist of one of the district judges sitting with two of the Supreme Court justices.
What is the Judiciary Act of 1789?
400
The first Constitution of the United States that did little more than confirm the weak, decentralized system already in operation.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
500
An influential Federalist, political genius, New York lawyer, onetime military aide to George Washington, and illegitimate son of a Scottish merchant in the West Indies.
Who is Alexander Hamilton?
500
An event in which Edmond Genet made plans to use Americans ports to outfit French warships, encouraged American shipowners to serve as French privateers, and commissioned the aging George Rogers Clark to lead a military expedition against Spanish lands to the South.
What is the Citizen Genet Affair?
500
A treaty between the U.S. and Spain which gave Americans the right to navigate the Mississippi to its mouth and to deposit goods at New Orleans for reloading on oceangoing ships.
What is Pinckney's Treaty?
500
An act in which the Federalists reduced the number of Supreme Court justices by one, but greatly increased the number of federal judgeships as a whole.
What is the Judiciary Act of 1801?
500
An agreement that resolved the difficult problem of representation, and called for a legislature in which the states would be represented in the lower house on the basis of population.