History Ch 8

Under the Articles of Confederation, the confederation government lacked

an executive and judicial branch as well as the power to levy taxes.

Under the Articles of Confederation,

each state had a single vote in Congress.

The Articles of Confederation were finally approved in 1781 when all the states agreed to surrender their

claims to western lands.

Most of the new states spelled out their citizens’ rights and liberties in written contracts because

the unwritten nature of British political traditions led to Americans being denied liberties they had assumed they possessed.

A shared feature of all the state constitutions drawn up during the American Revolution was

the conviction that government rests on the consent of the governed.

In devising their new constitutions, most states

reduced the powers of the governor.

Virginia’s constitution was the first to

include a bill of rights.

Writers of the new state constitutions believed that voting requirements should

include property ownership because property owners had independence of mind.

Which state allowed free blacks and women to vote in the early years of the republic?

New Jersey

Some states were reluctant to include "equality language" in their bills of rights and constitutions because

they were afraid the words could be construed to apply to slaves.

In the quarter century after 1775, legislatures provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery in

most northern states.

Factors leading to the postwar depression that began in the mid-1780s included

huge state and federal war debts, private debt, and rapid expenditure.

Robert Morris proposed to increase the revenue of the confederation government by

passing a 5 percent import tax (called an impost).

In the land ordinances of 1784 and 1785, Congress

set out a rectangular grid system for surveying land and established township perimeters.

Under the Ordinance of 1785’s guidelines for land sales in the Northwest Territory, land would be sold

by public auction at a minimum purchase price of a dollar per acre and in minimum parcels of 640 acres each.

The most serious obstacle to settlement in the Northwest Territory was

clashes with the Indian tribes that occupied the land.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory.

Shays’s Rebellion of 1786 was the result of

increased taxes on farmers in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts responded to Shays’s Rebellion with a

dispatch of a private army of militiamen.

The major legacy of Shays’s Rebellion was

the realization that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate and thus a reworking of national government was needed.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 generally

were concerned about the weaknesses in the government under the Articles of Confederation.

The fundamental issue raised at the Constitutional Convention was

how to balance the conflicting interests of large and small states.

At the Constitutional Convention, the proposal to create a two-chamber legislature, with representation in both houses based on each state’s population, was known as the

Virginia Plan.

The major objection to the Virginia Plan by the smaller states at the Constitutional Convention was

that the representation of the states in both houses of the congress would be based on population.

The New Jersey Plan proposed at the Constitutional Convention

called for a one-chamber legislature in which each state would have one vote.

The Constitutional Convention deadlocked over the issue of

representation.

As a part of the Great Compromise, delegates at the Philadelphia convention agreed

on a lower house whose seats would be apportioned on the basis of population, and an upper house—the Senate—that would have two senators per state.

At the Philadelphia convention, which of the following was the compromise reached on the issue of who counted as population for the purpose of deciding representation?

Slaves were counted under the three-fifths clause

When the Constitution was drafted, slavery was

not named, but its existence was recognized and guaranteed.

In a new distinction between democracy and republicanism, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention

gave a direct voice to the people only in the House.

To create a presidency out of the reach of direct democracy, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention

devised the electoral college.

Before the Constitution could go into effect, it had to be ratified

by ratifying conventions in nine of the thirteen states.

The Constitution most clearly shifted the balance of power in favor of

national over state governments.

Pro-Constitution forces called themselves

Federalists

The first state to ratify the Constitution was

Delaware

Antifederalists were united mainly by

their desire to block the Constitution.

Antifederalism in New York centered on

the state’s size and power in relation to the new federal government.

The authors of the series of essays known as The Federalist Papers originally wrote them

as newspaper articles detailing the failures of the Articles of Confederation.

In essay number 10 of The Federalist, James Madison maintained that the constitutional government would

prevent any one faction from subverting the freedom of other groups.

The core of Antifederalists’ opposition to the Constitution centered on

fear that distant power might infringe on people’s liberties.