U.S. History Ch. 7
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- 1787
- Constitutional Convention
- Jonathan Dayton
- The youngest delegate to the Constitutional Convention
- tariffs
- fees on imported goods
- Three-Fifths Compromise
- determined that 3/5 of a state's slave population would be counted for both taxation and representation
- Federalists
- those who wanted the new Constitution adopted
- The Federalist
- a series of 85 essays which gave sound arguments in favor of the Constitution; helped bring victory to the Federalists in New York
- the year of the Constitutional Convention
- 1787
- confederacy
- a voluntary union in which the central government is subordinate to the local governments and has only the powers they grant it
- Anti-Federalists
- those who opposed the Constitution
- implied powers
- powers not specifically mentioned in the Constitution but implied therein
- elastic clause
- necessary and proper clause; added to ensure that Congress should not be bound in any important matters by mere oversights or omissions in the Constitution
- Alexis de Tocqueville
- Frenchman who came to America in 1831; one of the greatest political thinkers of the Modern Age; published Democracy in America in 1833
- Bill of Rights
- the first 10 amendments to the Constitution
- checks and balances
- a system devised to check the power of the various branches of the national government; protects citizens against tyranny
- bicameral legislature
- A legislature composed of two houses
- Articles of Confederation
- a plan for union adopted by Congress in November of 1777; had several weaknesses, but did accomplish a successful land policy for the Northwest Territory
- three weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation
- At least nine states had to approve a measure before it could be passed by Congress, and all thirteen states had to approve for the articles to be amended. The central government had no executive or judicial branches. Congress lacked the power to tax and to perform other essential duties
- George Washington
- Former commander of the colonial army; presided over the Constitutional Convention; first President of the United States
- James Madison
- A delegate of Virginia who attended the Annapolis Convention and the Constitutional convention; remembered as the Father of the Constitution
- Land Ordinance
- (1785) provided for the entir Northwest Territory to be surveyed and and divided into townships
- Benjamin Franklin
- Great American statesman who attended the Constitutional Convention
- Northwest Territory
- the area bound by the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and the Great Lakes
- foreclosure
- seizure of property for nonpayment of debts
- New Jersey Plan
- called for a unicameral legislature with equal representation for all states and for the creation of executive and judicial branches; in essence, the governmental system would continue as it did under the Articles of Confederation, but the national government would have power to tax and regulate commerce
- 1781-1789
- the Critical Period
- democratic republic
- rule by the people with a written constitution to protect the basic rights of the minority from bein infringed upon by the majority
- Northwest Ordinance
- (1787) proed for the gradual development of self-government in the Northwest Territory
- Shays' Rebellion
- incident in which Daniel Shays and an army of farmers and debtors forced several courts to close down in western Massachusetts in 1786 to prevent any further foreclosures
- the three branches of government
- executive, legislative, and judicial
- the first and last states to ratify the Constitution
- Delaware was first; Rhode Island was last
- "Great Decision"
- the decision of the Convention delegates to draft a new Constitution
- Daniel Shays
-
A former military officer who led a rebellion of farmers and debtors in western Massachusetts in 1786
- Alexander Hamilton
- A delegate of New York who attended the Annapolis Convention and the Constitutional Convention
- "Critical Period"
- the years (1781-1789) during which the Articles of Confederation served as the basis for America's national government
- the two most famous Americans to attend the Constitutional Convention
- George Washington and Ben Franklin
- John Leland
- The most influential leader of the Virginia Baptists
- Constitutional Convention
- a convention held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to revise the Articles; produced the Constitution of the United States
- Virginia Plan
- called for a bicameral legislature with representation based on state population and for the creation of executive and judicial departments; gave a number of specific powers to the national government
- five states carved out of the Northwest Territory
- Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin
- the two states where the connection between church and state was the closest
- Virginia and Massachusetts
- 1789
- U.S. Constitution ratified
- 1791
- Bill of Rights
- Noah Webster
- The great American educator who wrote History of the United States
- William Paterson
- Presented the New Jersey Plan to the Convetion
- Independence Hall
- name for the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia; where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed
- Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise
- granted Congress power to regulate commerce with certain limitations; it could not levy export tariffs; and it could not regulate the slave trade, at least until 1808
- Edmund Randolph
- Proposed the Virginia Plan to the Convention
- John Dickinson
- Led the committee which drafted the Articles of Confederation and proposed them to Congress in 1776
- Great Compromise
- established a bicameral legislature to satisfy both the large and small states; often called the Connecticut Compromise
- the size of a township and section of the Land Ordinance
- Townships were six miles square; sections were one mile square
- the religious group most harassed by established religion
- Baptists
- Isaac Backus
- A Baptist leader who became the most influential figure in the long battle for religious freedom in Massachusetts
- the document called a "bundle of compromises"
- U.S. Constitution
- Connecticut Compromise
- the Great Compromise; so-called because Connecticut delegates played an important role in the compromise