chapter questions

1.What kind of financial problems faced the Continental Congress during the war?

2.How did foreign aid assist the American cause?

3.What advantages did the Patriots possess in the War for Independence? (No, not under-inflated footballs!) IMAGE 2

4.For Americans at the time of the Revolution, what did republicanism come to mean?

5.What were the flaws of the Articles of Confederation? IMAGES 6-11

6.What was the Northwest Ordinance? IMAGES 3-5

7.What did the nationalists want?

8.In brief, what were the differences between the Virginia and New Jersey Plans presented at the Constitutional Convention?

9.What compromises did the framers of the Constitution have to arrive at in order to create the new government?

10.Who were the Federalists?

11.Who were the Anti-Federalists?

12.Do you think that the Constitution still works today, or do we need a new one? Or does the amendment process provide enough ability to change so that we can continue to use the same government that was written over 200 years ago?

13.What did the Judiciary Act of 1789 do? IMAGES 3-6

14.What did the Bill of Rights do? IMAGE 7

15.In brief, how did Alexander Hamilton propose to solve the nation’s financial crisis? (pgs. 194-196)

16.How did Thomas Jefferson envision the future of the United States?

17.What brought about the birth of the First Party System?

18.What was the “constitutional crisis” of John Adam’s presidency?

What was the problem with Indians and assimilation?

19.What did Thomas Jefferson do about

20.What problems did the Napoleonic Wars create for American shipping and how did Thomas Jefferson and James Madison deal with them? IMAGE 11

21.Who were Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa and how were they involved in the War of 1812? IMAGES 12-17

22.Think about what was happening with the Supreme Court at this time under John Marshall?

a. What was the significance of Marbury v. Madison ?

b. What was the significance of McCulloch v. Maryland ?

23.How did the Second Great Awakening affect American thinking?

24.What was a business cycle and how was it problematic?

25.What was the Commonwealth System?

26.What were the factors that led to the growth of manumission?

27.Henry Clay was a slaveowner, but like Thomas Jefferson, was also critical of the institution; what did he have to say about slavery?

28.Who was Richard Allen and why was he significant?

29.How did the debate over Missouri point to a developing problem between North and South over the issue of slavery?

30.What was the Second Great Awakening?

31.How did the Boston Manufacturing Company gain an edge over British and American rivals?

32.What technological innovations were occurring in the U.S. at this time?

33.What were machine tools

34.What was the “Labor Theory of Value”?

35.To what does the phrase “Market Revolution” refer?

36.What were the major features of the Transportation Revolution, between 1815-1860? In other words, how did transportation change during this period?

37.How did Charles G. Finney’s brand of revivalism and reform change American society?

38.What were the causes and the impact of the surge of immigration into the United States in the 1840s?

39.What was nativism?

40.How is it that more Americans had the right to vote by the mid-1820s?

41.What was significant about the Election of 1824?

42.How did the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson win the Election of 1828?

43.Discuss Jackson’s ideas about rotation and decentralization?

44.Why and upon what theory did South Carolina adopt an ordinance nullifying the tariffs of 1828 and 1832?

45.What was Andrew Jackson’s problem with the Second Bank of the United States?

46.Take a position, and justify it: Do you agree or disagree with Andrew Jackson’s policies toward Native Americans?

47.How and why did the Whig Party come into being? What issues did southerners have with Whig politics?

48.After having read about the presidency of Andrew Jackson, do you think he could have been elected president in our most recent presidential election if he was running? Would you vote for him? Why or why not?

49.What was meant by the term “manifest destiny”?

50.How did horses and European weapons change the Plains Indians?

51.What were the benefits of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo for the United States?

52.What was the Free Soil movement?

53.Briefly discuss the land and racial issues that emerged in California after the Mexican American War?

54.Why was California’s application for statehood problematic, and what was the Compromise of 1850?

55.What was the Kansas/Nebraska Act and what effect did it have?

56.Describe the emergence of the Republican Party; what did it stand for?

57.What is the meaning of the term “Bleeding Kansas”?

58.What was the Dred Scott Decision and what effect did it have?

59.What was Abraham Lincoln’s view of slavery from the 1840s into the late 1850s, and how did it evolve?

60.What was “popular sovereignty” and what was Stephen Douglas’ Freeport Doctrine?

61.Who was John Brown?

62.How did secession come about, and where did the sentiments for it originate?

63.Discuss the Upper South’s reaction to the secession of the Lower South?

64.According to Jefferson Davis, what was the South fighting for, and what did they need to do to achieve independence?

65.Why did Lincoln dismiss General McClellan?

66.What did “total war” mean in the context of the Civil War?

67.Briefly, how did the North and South mobilize resources with which to fight the war? How was the war financed?

68.What was contraband, and how was it controversial?

69.Why did Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation when he did and what did it mean?

70.What were the consequences of the victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg happening at the same time?

71.What was General Sherman’s “hard war,” what was his “bold strategy” after taking Atlanta, and how did he justify his unconventional plan to Grant and Lincoln?

72.What was the reasoning behind the need for the Thirteenth Amendment?

73.Was the Civil War necessary? Many argue that it was not, that slavery would have died out within a few decades (it certainly would have, that’s unquestionable), and that the war was a tremendous loss of money, lives, and resources that could have been avoided. What do you think?