Britain
Revolution
Enlightenment
Declaration of Independence
Misc
100
What influential document was forced upon a British king by his barons (rich landowners who served as advisors and cabinet members to the king) to force the king to create official guaranteed rights to those barons, representing one of the first documents ever written "by the people" to limit the rule of kings?
Magna Carta
100
Up until even just a few years before the Revolution, how did the average American colonist identify themself?
As a British citizen, and perhaps a proud one at that, as they had just participated in a war with France on American soil, and won in the name of the British crown.
100
What was the Enlightenment, in terms of a historical movement?
A 17th- and 18th-century European intellectual and cultural movement that emphasized reason, science, and individual liberty over blind faith and traditional authority
100
What day was the Declaration of Independence signed during the Second Continental Congress?
July 4, 1776
100
What is limited government?
A nation in which the laws dictate and define the boundaries of governmental powers. For instance the practice of having terms of office for the President ensures that no one person can hold power for too long, thus limiting and defining the boundary for how much and how long that branch of government can hold power.
200
What concept gave kings their power?
The divine right of kings - the idea that kings naturally have the right to rule with absolute authority, since they were given those rights at birth by God Himself, meaning that to challenge the king was the same as challenging God and defined every word and action of the king as divinely inspired or blessed or approved.
200
What are two of the Taxes that became the catalyst for Revolution?
The Stamp Act Tax - A wide ranging sales tax on all paper goods, levied to help pay for the expenses of the French and Indian War that the Americans had just helped the British to win. Notoriously, because of how paper products were classified, violating this tax would have you tried by a Naval Court, that is, without a jury of your peers. Colonists protested that this Act had been made without their representation in Parliament, which was a typical and long held British custom. They forced the British stamp collector in MA out office and the British crown repealed the Act.
The Tea Tax - At this time, due to unrest in the India colonies, the East India Company had been bought out by the British government in order to maintain a hold over India. To pay for this, they restricted trade on tea (at the time a business worth millions in today's money) to only British ships and sold tea at rates that couldn't be competed with by local tradesmen and merchants. This resulted in the famous Boston Tea Party protest being staged by the Colonists in Boston, MA.
200
What did John Locke say were the rights all humans possessed based on a natural social contract communities hold to preserve fundamental and necessary rights, as laid out in his 1690 work, Two Treatises of Government.
According to Locke, where did these rights come from?
Life, Liberty, and Property, which would inspire the Declaration of Independences Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness being named as basic God-given rights.
As opposed to the traditional view of the right and sovereignty of kings, Locke held these rights came from God and were naturally provided to all people. Therefore, rationally, a government existed to ensure these rights at the approval of the governed, not the other way around as had long been the case under monarchy rule.
200
In short, what is the purpose of the Declaration of Independence?
To create an official document that justifies the separation of the American Colonies and the British monarchy, both with an appeal to Enlightenment philosophy about the need for a people to self-govern in the hopes of producing a society that provides its citizens basic unalienable rights, and with an appeal to legal justice, laying out the facts in an orderly way and pointing to them as cause of the break.
The document, while being a message to the British monarchy, also was a call for allies among the other nations of the world who might sympathize with their conflict with the most powerful nation on the Earth at that time.
200
What is a parliamentary government?
In a parliament there is not a president, but a prime minister, who leads a representative body or national assembly of representatives, and is often the leader of a majority party seat. Often in parliamentary systems there can be more than two parties represented in the assembly. For example, in the UK today, the Parliament has a majority Labour Party, a Conservative Party runner up, but also a powerful Liberal Democrats party as well as delegates from Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, among other small parties.
300
What kinds of special rights did one have as part of the nobility that weren't shared by the non-noble classes?
Membership and political power in the House of Lords, in British Parliament.
Social positions, titles, authority, and land.
The right to bear arms and hold military power.
Special trials overseen by other nobles with a bias towards their defense most likely.
Exemption from taxation.
300
In what three ways did the delegates of the Constitutional Congress address the concerns people had with a stronger central Government?
Delegated Powers - The Federal government would have specific limited authority laid out in the Constitution, while all other powers would remain with the States.
Separation of Powers - The Federal Government would be split into three departments, the legislative, executive, and judicial, each overseeing a particular arena of power.
Checks and Balances - These departments would each have special powers over the others, but would also be checked as well, meaning that no one set of people would have all the power.
300
How did Baron de Montesquieu suggest that government should separate its powers in his 1748 Spirit of the Laws?
Into three branches: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.
This was a clear influence on the system adopted by the founding fathers as laid out in the Constitution.
300
Select Three of the Grievances and Explain their meaning with at least a little historical precedent.
Answers vary.
300
Name three ways that Ancient Greece influenced the American Government.
Democracy - Coming from the Greek words for "rule or judge by the people", first developed in the city of Athens to described the system they invented in which a Council of Five hundred men were put in charge of the laws, judgements, and major decisions of the city, issues they voted on by a show of hands, with majority rule. These men had set term limits and were selected from the city populace by a drawing of lots, meaning not just the rich and influential served, but everyone had a chance (as long as you weren't a woman or a slave!)
Constitutions - Greek city states were some of the first in the world to set down in writing official rules for how government would be organized.
The Polis - Greek city states were self-governing entities with their own sets of laws and governmental customs.
Civic Duty - assembly members who did not attend to their duties were publicly shamed by having their clothes smeared in red paint.
400
During the period in which America was first being settled by English peoples, what events were taking place in Britain that revealed the instability of the British governmental system?
1642 - English civil war breaks out between Anglicans and Puritans.
1649 - Puritans, led by Oliver Cromwell, defeat King Charles I and execute him, abolish the monarchy and set up a new puritanical government.
1660 - The Puritan government is ousted and King Charles II is installed by Parliament.
1688 - Charles II dies but Parliament is troubled by his Catholic ties, so instead invite William of Orange from the Netherlands to rule and passed a law that the king had to be Anglican, increasing the power of Parliament.
1714 - When Queen Anne dies without an heir, the crown reverts to George I, the king of Hanover in Germany. Parliament increases its power and the first prime minister, Robert Walpole, serves during this time.
400
What were the Articles of Confederation?
The first official set of documents laying out the organization of the United States Government, that were finalized in 1777, early in the War, but were not ratified until toward the end of the war, in 1781.
These articles created an extremely limited and weak central government, putting most power into the hands of the states, but also binding those states together into an official union, especially important during the war effort. The articles provided no executive office or president, or a national court system, and any major issue in the articles could only be made by the unanimous approval of all 13 colonies
400
What were the four Enlightenment Ideals that the United States was founded on?
Natural Rights - The idea that all humans have an equal, natural, and God-given set of privileges that cannot be denied and are the purpose of a government to provide.
Popular Sovereignty - The people are the authority that put the government in power, not birthright or tradition, but democracy.
Social Contract - Governments are instituted in order to maintain natural rights, but if those natural rights are infringed on by that government, then it is the duty of the people to remove said government and replace it.
Limited Government - Government is organized in such a way as to ensure it is not all powerful and that the people have the authority to change and mold it as they see fit.
400
What two appeals have the British Colonials made to the monarchy, without any change to their treatment, thus necessitating the separation?
An appeal to justice. They "warned...of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us". As in, the powers that have been exerted over the colonies are not in keeping with the way British law is set up, and the actions named in the Grievances are illegal by British standards.
An appeal to "consanguinity" or brotherhood. They "appealed to their native justice...and conjured them by the ties of our common kindred". As in, by right, as British citizens, they should have the same rights, including representation in Parliament, that other British citizens do. To be treated otherwise is as if to say that the Americans are NOT British citizens, and are therefore not subject to British rule.
400
Name four way the Roman Empire influenced the American Government.
Republicanism - Representative government in which people do not directly decide governmental matters, but select representatives to make those decisions for them in a National Assembly.
Twelve Tables - For a time, most power lay in the hands of the patricians: the wealthy land owners, making the plebeians: farmers, merchants, artisans, and traders, powerless, despite the fact that they were the majority of the population and necessary to produce the goods, services, and manpower the patricians depended on. The Twelve Tables were a set of laws that ensured that the plebeians had a greater amount of power in the national assembly.
Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances - Roman Government did not centralize power, but separated it between the military, the Caesar, and the Assembly, and each of these, theoretically, had certain limits and the ability to keep the other parts from achieving too much power.
Architecture - Our nations capitol and its iconic buildings and monuments were designed to evoke ancient Rome, creating a message that this new government would emulate their style of rule by representatives, but also achieve the same level of legacy and greatness.
500
What is the meaning of this provision in the Magna Carta and what is its significance?: "And if we shall not have corrected the transgression...within forty days...those five and twenty barons shall, together with the community of the whole realm, distrain and distress us in all possible ways, namely, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any way they can, until redress has been obtained as they deem fit."
If the king does not abide by the rules set out in the Charter, then the barons have the right to put pressure on the king by confiscating his wealth as ransom until he acts.
This is significant, since it provides the people, the governed, a large amount of power to check the power of the king, an act that would usually be titled treason. At the same time it provides requirements for the king to act in a specific time frame, meaning he cannot ignore the needs of his subjects to pursue his personal interests and goals.
500
What kind of compromises were made in creating the Constitution?
Congress would be made of two houses, one to favor the States with smaller populations, the other to favor larger states.
The United States would have a President, but one with limited power that could be overruled by the State-run Congress.
The President would not be chosen by the people directly, but by an electoral college.
Slavery would not be mentioned in the Constitution as not to offend the slave holding states.
Slaves were counted as 3/5 a person, so as to maintain population counts for Southern states in Congress, but also to not overburden these states with taxes they protested.
The Central government was made stronger, but also organized to maintain a limited status.
The Constitution did not have to be ratified by all 13 states, but only 9 of them.
500
What is Federalism?
A type of separation of powers in which authority is shared between a nation level government (the Federal Government) and the local level government (the State Government) creating a balance between the need for larger oversight, while keeping power in the hands of the people, rather than the select few at the top.
500
Name five lines from the Declaration of Independence that include Enlightenment Ideals.
"the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them" - Natural Rights
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" - Natural Rights
"Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and institute a new Government" - Social Contract
All the Grievances - Limited Government
"By the authority of the good people of these Colonies...have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do" - Popular Sovereignty
500
Name five different forms of government, and their definitions.
Dictatorship - all power is given to a single individual.
Oligarchy - A small group of people have control of the government.
Monarchy - a king or queen runs the government, obtaining the position through heredity.
Republic - citizens are given sovereignty over the government by voting for representatives.
Democracy - a government of all the people who have a right to take part in passing laws and perform governmental authority.