Unit 2 Lesson 5 Articles of condfederation

Question 1

Where did American revolutionaries look for inspiration for goverment format?

Answer 1

Many American revolutionaries looked to the ancient past for inspiration.

Question 2

What example of government did the Roman Republic provide?

Answer 2

The Roman Republic provided an example of republicanism, the idea that a state does not need a king; instead, citizens appoint or select leaders to represent them.

Question 3

What people did Republicanism appeal to?

Answer 3

Republicanism as a political philosophy appealed to elite and wealthy merchants and landowners such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington since it relied on a select few, instead of an unruly majority, to govern the new nation.

Question 4

What is a democracy?

Answer 4

A democracy is a form of government in which the citizens, rather than a ruler, have the power.

Question 5

What concept did democracy depend on?

Answer 5

majority rule

Question 6

What is majority rule (refering to democracy)?

Answer 6

Democracies depend on the concept of majority rule, in which the ideas that have the most public support are adopted.

Question 7

How is the democracy of US differnt from the actually meaning of democracy?

Answer 7

But in the democracy of the United States, citizens do not have direct power except at the local level of government. At the state and national level, citizens elect people to represent them and to make laws.

Question 8

In 1776, John Adams had urged the 13 colonies to do what?

Answer 8

In 1776, John Adams had urged the 13 colonies to write their own state constitutions.

Question 9

Under john Adams what would the goverment look like?

Answer 9

It would be up to the states themselves, not the national government, to decide how much democracy was just enough and how much was too much.

Question 10

What did the state consistutions look like?

Answer 10

The state constitutions proved to be a testing ground of different styles of government. Some embraced democratic practices, while others adopted far more Republican ones.

Question 11

Give examples of states more on the democratic side?

Answer 11

• In Pennsylvania, a man did not have to own property in order to vote. There was no governor, and there was only one branch of government.
• In New Hampshire, every small town and village—not just the larger cities where more wealthy people lived— could send representatives to make laws for the state.

Question 12

Give examples of states more on the republican state?

Answer 12

• Maryland restricted office-holding to wealthy planters.
• The governor of Massachusetts had strong veto powers and had to own a large estate.

Question 13

Was US a unfied country if not explain how its was like once it gained indepdence

Answer 13

Most revolutionaries pledged their greatest loyalty to their individual states. There had not been one unified country before the revolution, so the colonists had considered themselves Virginians or Georgians, rather than Americans. And recalling the experience of British laws imposed in the 1760s and 1770s, they feared a strong national government.

Question 14

What was the Articles of Confederation?

Answer 14

Instead of creating a new federal government, the Articles of Confederation created a league of friendship between the states. Congress adopted the Articles in 1777, but they were not ratified by all the states until 1781.

Question 15

What form of government did the Articles of Confederation provide?

Answer 15

The Articles of Confederation created a legislature, but not an executive or judicial branch of government. Among other things, the Articles of Confederation named the new country the United States of America.

Question 16

Congress claimed the following powers for the federal government:

Answer 16

• declaring war and peace
• conducting foreign affairs
• coining and borrowing money
• regulating Native American affairs
• settling disputes among states

Question 17

The following powers were reserved for the states:

Answer 17

• enforcing laws
• regulating commerce
• administering justice
• levying taxes
• raising militias

Question 18

How was the Articles of Condferdation designed?

Answer 18

The representatives chosen by the state legislatures to attend the unicameral (one house) Congress were forbidden to serve for more than three years to avoid forming a political class. The Articles of Confederation were designed to keep power at the local and state level of government.

Question 19

Which had the stronger powers, the federal government or the states?

Answer 19

States had stronger powers than the federal government. The power to make laws or enact policies is not effective unless there is a means to enforce them.

Question 20

Why did the authors of the Articles of Confederation choose to keep most of the power in the states?

Answer 20

The authors of the Articles of Confederation were afraid of centralizing power because of their past experience with strong government. They were afraid that a strong central government would lead to tyranny.

Question 21

Even though it was a weak document, the Articles of Confederation did allow the national government to make laws. Which laws were very benifical for the new nation?

Answer 21

Land ordinances, in particular, proved very beneficial for the new nation.

Question 22

What marked the start of US westward expansion?

Answer 22

Recall that in the Treaty of Paris, Britain had to surrender its previously owned land. These new land ordinances legalized the settlement of this land now under the control of the United States and established the country’s westward expansion.

Question 23

These land ordinances had the following important effects on the new nation:

Answer 23

• They established rules of settlement and admission of states.
• They expanded the boundaries of the United States.
• They provided the national government with much-needed money.

Question 24

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was one such land ordinance. This ordinance had the following key points:

Answer 24

• Territory would be divided into 3–5 states.
• Territories would become eligible for statehood with 60,000 settlers.
• Settlers would have religious freedom, the right to trial by jury, and free access to the major rivers in the region.
• Slavery would be banned north of the Ohio River.
• Townships would be six square miles.
• One plot of land would equal 640 acres.
• Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin were created. Part of Minnesota was included in the territory as well.

Question 25

How did paper lose its value?

Answer 25

Each state had issued large amounts of paper money. In the aftermath of the revolution, people used this paper money for convenience, and the states and Continental Congress had to print more of it. Soon people realized that the paper was not backed by gold or silver, and was therefore worth very little. As a result, people lost confidence in paper money.

Question 26

There were many causes for these economic problems, but most can be traced back to the weaknesses of

Answer 26

the Articles of Confederation.

Question 27

Did congress of the power to tax citizens?

Answer 27

Congress did not have the power to tax citizens of the United States. This would soon have serious consequences for the republic.

Question 28

What was the result of states not ebing able to repay their debt?

Answer 28

During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress had sent requests for funds to the individual former colonies (now revolutionary states). These states already had an enormous financial burden because they had to pay for militias as well as supply them. In the end, the states failed to provide even half the funding requested by the Congress during the war. This led to a national debt in the tens of millions by 1784.

Question 29

What was the results of states imposing tariffs?

Answer 29

Under the Articles of Confederation, states could impose tariffs, or taxes on imports and exports, on the goods created in other states. These tariffs interfered with neighboring states’ trade.

Question 30

Establishing workable foreign and commercial policies under the Articles of Confederation also proved difficult. Why was that?

Answer 30

Each state could decide for itself whether to comply with treaties between the Congress and foreign countries, and there was no way to enforce the treaties.

Question 31

Why did Great Britan and Spain refuse to mskr comerical agreements with US?

Answer 31

Both Great Britain and Spain understood the weakness of the Congress, and they refused to make commercial agreements with the United States because they doubted they would be enforced.

Question 32

What the result of an unstable commercial policy?

Answer 32

Without stable commercial policies, American exporters found it difficult to do business. Cheap British goods flooded U.S. markets in the 1780s. This repeated the economic imbalance that existed before the Revolutionary War.

Question 33

Why were some people enraged when some state legislatures passed favorable debtor laws?

Answer 33

The people who had expected to be paid by the debtors were outraged when the new laws gave debtors extended repayment terms and did not throw debtors into prison if they could not pay. They may have thought they would never get the money they were owed.

Question 34

James Madison noted that the struggles were between “the class with, and the class without, property.” What did he mean?

Answer 34

Madison might have meant that the rich were pitted against the poor since the rich had made loans to poor people who could not repay their debts. The states’ laws could not side with both.

Question 35

These economic problems came to a head in 1786 and 1787, in western Massachusetts. What was it like for farmers?

Answer 35

Farmers were in a difficult position: they faced high taxes and debts, which they found nearly impossible to pay with the worthless state and Continental paper money. For several years after the peace in 1783, these indebted citizens had petitioned the state legislature for help. Many were veterans of the Revolutionary War.

Question 36

In 1786, the state legislature again refused to address the petitioners’ requests. What did this result in

Answer 36

Massachusetts citizens took up arms and closed courthouses across the state to prevent banks from foreclosing on farms in debt. The farmers wanted their debts forgiven, and they demanded that the 1780 constitution be revised to address the needs of poor citizens. They thought that since elite, wealthy citizens were serving in the state legislature, they only cared about the aristocratic class.

Question 37

Why was the rebellion called Shays rebellion?

Answer 37

Captain Daniel Shays was only one of those protesting, but he was singled out as a leader by authorities, causing the uprising to become known as Shays’s Rebellion.

Question 38

How did the government react to Shays rebellion?

Answer 38

To address the uprising, the governor of Massachusetts raised a private army of 4,400 men, funded by wealthy Boston merchants, without the approval of the legislature.

Question 39

How did Shays Rebelllion come to an end?

Answer 39

The climax of Shays’s Rebellion came in January 1787, when the rebels attempted to seize the federal armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. A force loyal to the state defeated them there, although the rebellion continued into February.

Question 40

What was the underlying cause of Shays’s Rebellion?

Answer 40

The underlying cause of Shays’s Rebellion was the weakness of the Articles of Confederation. The national government was unable to raise money to pay its debts and some states refused to honor promises to its veterans.

Question 41

What leader came out of retirement to help solve the problems that Shays’s Rebellion exposed?

Answer 41

George Washington came out of retirement to help amend or rewrite the Articles of Confederation.