AP®︎ US History: Unit 3 Flashcards

Pre-1763 pattern of uneven British enforcement that allowed colonial assemblies and merchants substantial practical autonomy

Global imperial war, 1756–1763, whose North American fighting began in 1754; Britain defeated France, gained extensive territory and debt, and then sought more colonial revenue and control

Contested interior region claimed for British settlement and trade, needed by France to connect Canada with Louisiana, and defended by Native peoples as their homeland

Benjamin Franklin’s rejected plan for a Crown-appointed president-general and colonial grand council to manage defense, western affairs, and shared funds

Colonial leader who proposed the Albany Plan of Union and promoted cooperation through the “Join, or Die” cartoon

Peace treaty giving Britain Canada, French claims east of the Mississippi except New Orleans, and Spanish Florida, while Spain received western Louisiana and New Orleans

1763 multi-Nation Native resistance that attacked British forts and settlements around the Great Lakes and Ohio country in defense of land, trade, and autonomy

Crown order barring private settlement west of the Appalachian boundary and reserving western lands for Native peoples under imperial supervision

Lowered the foreign-molasses duty but strengthened collection, expanded import duties, and used juryless vice-admiralty courts to raise revenue

Direct tax requiring paid stamps on printed and legal materials, provoking broad intercolonial resistance and boycotts

1765 meeting of nine colonies that affirmed British rights, demanded taxation through colonial representatives, and petitioned for repeal

Resistance organization that led demonstrations, intimidated stamp distributors, enforced boycotts, and later helped carry out the Boston Tea Party

Women activists who promoted homespun, organized spinning gatherings, and substituted colonial products for British imports

Merchant pledges not to import British goods, using commercial pressure to make British businesses lobby Parliament

Britain said Parliament represented all subjects virtually; colonists said only elected, locally accountable assemblies actually represented them

Colonial claim that Parliament could not tax colonists who elected no members of Parliament and had not consented through their assemblies

Law accompanying Stamp Act repeal that claimed Parliament could bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever

1767 measures imposing revenue duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea while strengthening customs enforcement

March 5, 1770 confrontation in which British soldiers killed five colonists, becoming Patriot evidence of military tyranny

Networks beginning in Massachusetts in 1772 that circulated grievances and coordinated resistance among towns and colonies

Allowed the East India Company to sell cheaper tea directly in the colonies while retaining the Townshend tea duty

December 16, 1773 protest in which Sons of Liberty associates dumped 342 chests of taxed East India Company tea into Boston Harbor

1774 punitive laws that closed Boston’s port, restricted Massachusetts government, altered official trials, and broadened troop quartering

1774 meeting of twelve colonies that condemned the Coercive Acts, petitioned the king, asserted colonial rights, and organized collective resistance

Patriots supported resistance and independence in the name of liberty and self-government, while Loyalists remained faithful to the British Crown and aided Britain politically or militarily

Specially prepared colonial militia members trained to mobilize rapidly in an emergency, including those who confronted British troops at Lexington and Concord

April 19, 1775 clashes begun during Britain’s attempt to seize colonial military supplies, marking the start of the Revolutionary War

Colonial assembly convened in 1775 that directed the war effort, created the Continental Army, appointed Washington commander, pursued reconciliation, and ultimately approved independence

National army created by the Second Continental Congress in June 1775 whose soldiers enlisted for longer service and sustained conventional resistance

The Second Continental Congress’s July 1775 appeal asking George III to restore peace and address colonial grievances, which the king rejected

June 1775 British capture of American fortifications on Breed’s Hill at the cost of more than 1,000 British casualties

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century movement emphasizing reason, individual capacity, and rational evaluation of inherited institutions and political authority

Enlightenment thinker who argued that government rests on consent and exists to protect natural rights to life, liberty, and property

Rights inherent in every person, not granted by rulers and therefore not legitimately surrendered or taken away

The theory that people accept government in exchange for protection of their rights, making authority conditional on fulfilling that purpose

Claimed protections including property rights, jury trials, and taxation only with consent

The belief that government should derive authority from the people, serve the public good, and operate without a hereditary monarch

Citizens’ willingness to place the public good above narrow private interests and resist corruption

The principle that ultimate political authority resides in the people rather than in a monarch or hereditary ruling class

English-born writer who used accessible language in Common Sense to popularize immediate independence and republican government

Paine’s January 1776 pamphlet attacking monarchy and hereditary succession while urging immediate independence and representative republican government

The July 4, 1776 statement declaring independence and justifying it through equality, natural rights, consent, grievances, and the right of revolution

Principal drafter of the Declaration of Independence who expressed natural rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Continental Army commander who preserved the army through defeats, maintained political unity, restored morale, and coordinated the allied victory at Yorktown

December 1776 surprise attack after Washington crossed the Delaware that captured nearly 900 German soldiers and revived Patriot morale

1777 American victory and surrender of Burgoyne’s army that convinced France to recognize and ally with the United States

1778 agreements by which France recognized the United States and entered the war, providing loans, weapons, troops, officers, and naval power

French nobleman who served with Washington and helped strengthen military and political cooperation between France and the United States

Continental Army’s winter 1777–1778 encampment, where it endured severe shortages and disease while becoming more disciplined and cohesive

1781 combined American-French siege, supported by French naval control, that forced Cornwallis to surrender about 8,000 troops and broke British support for the war

Peace treaty in which Britain recognized an independent United States with territory extending west to the Mississippi River

The ideal that women served the republic by educating children in virtue, patriotism, and the principles of self-government

Her 1776 appeal to John Adams to prevent husbands from exercising unchecked power over women in the new legal order

Abolition that freed future generations only after specified dates or lengthy service rather than immediately freeing everyone enslaved

A 1776 declaration describing religion as a matter of reason and conviction rather than governmental force

The 1786 law ending Virginia's Anglican establishment and prohibiting government from compelling religious belief or worship

The revolution beginning in 1789 that challenged monarchy and privilege, proclaimed rights and national sovereignty, and eventually created a republic

The 1791–1804 revolt that abolished slavery, defeated French rule, and created the first independent Black republic

The first written U.S. constitution, effective in 1781, which created a loose confederation in which sovereign states granted limited powers to a national government

Postindependence governing documents that affirmed popular sovereignty, often protected rights, and generally concentrated power in frequently elected legislatures while weakening governors

Law that surveyed western land into six-mile-square townships of 36 sections, reserved section 16 for schools, and organized land sales to raise revenue

Law that governed the Northwest Territory, created a path to equal statehood, protected rights and property, promoted education, and prohibited slavery except as punishment for crime

A 1786–1787 Massachusetts farmers' uprising against taxes, debts, and foreclosures that exposed national military and financial weakness and accelerated demands for reform

1786 interstate-commerce meeting attended by only five states that recommended a broader convention in Philadelphia

Philadelphia meeting from May to September 1787 where delegates from 12 states replaced revision of the Articles with a new constitutional framework

The Virginia Plan favored a strong three-branch government and population-based bicameral legislature, while the New Jersey Plan preserved equal state representation in a strengthened unicameral Congress

Created a bicameral Congress with population-based representation in the House and two senators for every state

Counted three-fifths of enslaved people for House representation and direct taxes, increasing slave-state power in Congress and the Electoral College

Granted Congress power over interstate and foreign commerce, prohibited federal taxes on state exports, and prevented Congress from banning the international slave trade before 1808

Required people held to service or labor who escaped into another state to be returned rather than freed by that state's laws

The 1787 framework, operating in 1789, that replaced the loose confederation with a federal republic whose stronger national government could act directly on individuals

The constitutional division of sovereignty between the national government and state governments, with each exercising authority over the same people

The horizontal division of national authority among legislative, executive, and judicial branches to prevent concentrated power

The system in which each branch can limit the others through powers such as vetoes, overrides, confirmation, impeachment, and judicial review

A national government restrained by federalism, separated powers, checks, and a written constitution but empowered to tax, regulate commerce, enforce laws, and address national problems

Compromise system in which each state appoints electors equal to its representatives and senators to choose the president rather than using a direct national vote

The clause allowing Congress to use reasonable means not expressly listed when carrying out its enumerated powers

The rule that the Constitution, valid federal laws, and treaties are the supreme law, prevailing over conflicting state laws

Federalists supported ratification as necessary for effective but limited national government, while Anti-Federalists feared centralized power and demanded stronger protections for states and individual rights

Eighty-five essays written as “Publius” by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay to defend ratification and explain Federalist constitutional principles

Madison's argument that faction is unavoidable but a large representative republic can prevent any one faction from dominating

Madison's argument that divided governmental power and institutional checks are necessary because both citizens and rulers are fallible

First ten amendments, ratified in 1791, that enumerated individual liberties and explicitly restricted federal power after Anti-Federalist pressure

Convention intellectual leader whose ideas shaped the Virginia Plan; coauthored the Federalist Papers and later introduced Bill of Rights amendments

Created federal district and circuit courts beneath the Supreme Court and initially set the Supreme Court at six justices

Washington’s advisory body of executive department heads, including Thomas Jefferson at State and Alexander Hamilton at Treasury

Plan to fund federal debt, assume state debts, raise revenue, and establish a national bank to build credit and strengthen the federal government

Hamilton proposed paying federal securities at full face value and having the federal government assume state Revolutionary War debts to establish credit and strengthen national authority

Federally chartered bank created in 1791 to hold deposits, transfer funds, issue notes, and provide credit

Jefferson limited federal power to what the Constitution expressly authorized; Hamilton allowed implied powers through the necessary and proper clause

Western Pennsylvania resistance to the whiskey excise that Washington suppressed with militia in 1794, demonstrating federal power to enforce laws

Washington’s 1793 declaration that the United States would remain impartial in the war between revolutionary France and its enemies

French minister Edmond-Charles Genêt recruited American privateers and appealed to the public against neutrality, leading Washington to demand his recall

1794 agreement securing British evacuation of western forts and avoiding war but failing to end impressment or fully protect neutral shipping

1795 agreement with Spain setting Florida’s border at the 31st parallel and granting U.S. navigation of the Mississippi and deposit rights at New Orleans

Anthony Wayne’s 1794 victory over the Northwest Indian Confederacy, after which nearby British troops refused to intervene

1795 treaty forcing Native nations to cede most of present-day Ohio and other strategic lands after their defeat at Fallen Timbers

Alliance including Shawnee, Miami, Delaware, and other Native nations that resisted U.S. settlement north of the Ohio River

Washington’s 1796 defense of national unity and warning against sectionalism, political factions, and permanent foreign alliances

Federalists favored strong national power, loose construction, commerce, manufacturing, and Britain, while Democratic-Republicans favored limited federal power, strict construction, agrarianism, popular participation, and France

Washington’s treasury secretary and Federalist leader who promoted public credit, a national bank, commerce, manufacturing, and broad federal power

1797–1798 scandal in which French intermediaries demanded a bribe and loan before negotiating with U.S. diplomats, provoking anti-French anger

Undeclared naval conflict between the United States and France from 1798 to 1800 following French seizures of American ships and the XYZ Affair

Four 1798 Federalist laws that lengthened naturalization, authorized action against certain noncitizens, and restricted opposition speech

1798 responses by Madison and Jefferson arguing through compact theory that states could oppose unconstitutional federal laws

Compact theory held that the states created the federal government and could judge its constitutional limits, while nullification claimed a state could declare an unconstitutional federal measure void

Second president and Federalist who faced the XYZ Affair and Quasi-War, signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, and avoided full war with France

Jefferson defeated Adams after the House resolved his electoral tie with Aaron Burr, producing a peaceful transfer between opposing parties

Settlements that expanded Spanish control through coerced Native labor and conversion while promoting cultural blending and some frontier social mobility

Whitney’s machine for separating seeds from short-staple cotton, making cotton more profitable and contributing to the expansion of slavery

Inventor who patented the cotton gin in 1794, exemplifying practical ingenuity while helping expand cotton cultivation and enslaved labor

Architecture modeled on ancient Greece and Rome and used by Americans to associate public buildings with republican government and civic virtue

Webster’s widely used 1783 textbook that taught reading and standardized spelling while promoting patriotic and moral lessons

Movement of settlers across the Appalachians into Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Northwest Territory, increasing land speculation, regional diversity, and conflict with Native nations

Northern states increasingly pursued gradual abolition under revolutionary ideals, while southern states preserved and expanded slavery as cotton cultivation and westward settlement made enslaved labor more profitable