18 Week BenchmarkUS History

1

What century did the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia occur?

Eighteenth Century

2

Common Sense, written by Thomas Paine, was most influential in persuading American colonists to support what?

Colonial independence

3

What were the major weakness of government under the Articles of Confederation?

The national government could not enforce its laws.

4

What did the Federalists agree to in order to address the concerns of many Antifederalists during the debate over ratification of the Constitution?

A bill of rights would also be added.

5

Who achieved dominance of North America as a result of the French and Indian War (1754 – 1763)?

Great Britain

6

Who led a rebellion in 1676 that forced Virginia’s leaders to recognize the growing discontent among small landowners. He burned Jamestown to the ground.

Nathaniel Bacon

7

In this speech, what was George Washington warning America about?

Citizens should be wary of sectionalism in the US.

8

How did the decision in Marbury vs. Madison (1803) expanded the power of the Supreme Court?

Established the power of judicial review.

9

“….Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers form the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government….”

The excerpt expresses the basic concept of which document?

The Declaration of Independence

10

What were three characteristics of the Jamestown settlement?

House of Burgesses, Bacon’s Rebellion, and Founded by the Virginia Company

11

What American Colonies were created as an attempt to escape religious persecution?

Pennsylvania and Maryland

12

What did King Philip’s war represent?

The last major Indian effort to halt New Englanders’ encroachment on their lands.

13

List several important results of the Great Awakening?

Contributed to greater religious liberalism and toleration in the churches

14

What was the British Proclamation of 1763?

Banned colonial movement West of the App Mountains Angered colonists who thought that it deprived them of land for settlements.

15

List several advantages that the colonists held over the British during the American Revolution.

Fighting defensively on a large, agriculturally self sufficient continent.

16

How did Shay’s Rebellion contribute to the movement for a new constitution?

Raising the fear of anarchy and disorder among politicians and wealthy conservatives.

17

The Declaration of Sentiments, adopted during the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, discussed whose rights?

Women

18

What was Jefferson’s greatest concern in purchasing Louisiana?

The Constitutionality of the purchase.

19

What 3 things did the Missouri Compromise state?

Maine was free, Missouri was slave, and Slavery would not be permitted anywhere in the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri, except Missouri itself.

20

Why did Jacksonians cry “corrupt bargain” when John Q. Adams won the presidency?

Clay was named Secretary of State after throwing his support to Adams

21

What did President Andrew Jackson do to promote his policy of Indian removal?

Defied rulings of the US Supreme Court that favored the Cherokees.

22

What did the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 serve to restrict?

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

23

One major compromise at the Constitutional Convention settled the difference between large states and small states over what issue?

Representation in Congress

24

Which was a belief held by John Brown (1800–1859)?

Slavery should be abolished by violent means, if necessary.

25

Use the quotes below to answer the question.

“The Slaveholding states will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the federal government will become their enemy. . . .”

South Carolina Legislature, Declaration of the causes of Secession, 1860

 

“The Union is older than any of these states, and, in fact, it created them as states.” -Abraham Lincoln, 1861

 

These quotes represent two sides in which important conflict in American history?

The conflict over the rights of states in the federal system of government.

26

Where did the new Republican Party of the 1850’s draw much of its northern support from?

Antislavery Whigs

27

What was the main factor in the nullification confrontation of 1832-1833 between President Andrew Jackson and South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun?

Calhoun’s claim that a state has the power to ignore federal laws.

28

What were Eli Whitney’s 2 most impactful inventions?

Interchangeable parts and the cotton gin

29

What was the agricultural system used during Reconstruction that allowed white landowners to benefit from the labor of former slaves without paying wages?

Sharecropping

30

By 1863, why did most military planners say that the South could not continue to fight?

The Southern industrial base was too weak to support the expense of waging war.

31

Read the excerpt from Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address. (SSUSH9)

 

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds . . . to do all which many achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

-March 4, 1865

What did Lincoln want to restore?

National Unity

32

What was the name of the Cherokee Indians forced removal from Georgia to Oklahoma?

The Trail of Tears

33

The Seneca Falls Convention launched the modern women’s rights movement with its call for what?

Equal rights, including the right to vote

34

What did reformer Dorothea Dix work for?

Better treatment of the mentally ill.

35

What did the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War, provide?

American acquisition of about ½ of Mexico and payment of several million dollars in compensation.

36

What was “Manifest Destiny”?

God had destined the US to expand across the whole North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

37

What is important about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

Greatly strengthened northern antislavery feelings

38

What were the terms of the Compromise of 1850?

California was admitted to the Union as a free state, and slavery in Utah and New Mexico territories would be left up to popular sovereignty

39

What did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott decision?

Ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories because slaves were private property

40

Who did the Emancipation Proclamation free?

Slaves under the control of the rebellious Confederate states

41

Why was Grant’s capture of Vicksburg especially important?

It cut the Confederate access to the Mississippi

42

Why was Sherman’s march “from Atlanta to the sea” especially important?

Its brutal use of “total war” tactics of destruction and pillaging southern civilian populations

43

What did the Freedman’s Bureau provide?

Food, clothes, and education for emancipated slaves

44

What did the Black Codes, passed by many of the Southern State governments in 1865, aim to accomplish?

Ensure a stable and subservient labor force under white control

45

What was the result of the radical Republicans’ impeachment of President Andrew Johnson?

A failure to convict and remove Johnson by only one vote in the Senate

46

What battle is considered the ending of the American Revolution because it represented a crushing defeat to the British?

Yorktown

47

What was the intent of the Homestead Act?

Encourage white families to develop the West

48

Who was the Dawes Act designed to benefit?

White settlers

49

What were the requirements of readmission of former Confederate states under the Reconstruction Act of 1867?

1. They would be divided into military districts headed by Union generals.

2. Voters would elect delegates to draft new constitutions.

3. They had to ratify the 14th Amendment to be readmitted to the Union.

50

What outlawed slavery in the United States?

Thirteenth Amendment

51

What was Lincoln's original plan for Reconstruction, which Johnson largely followed?

Be lenient

52

Which area did the Monroe Doctrine aim to free from European influence?

The Western Hemisphere

53

What was a result of passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Popular sovereignty for Kansas and Nebraska

54

What was transported during the “middle passage”?

Africans from Africa to the West Indies and North America

55

For which action is Nat Turner well known?

Leading a violent slave revolt

56

SKIP

57

Why did many European nations seek new settlements in the New World during the 1600’s?

Obtain more wealth

58

Why was the House of Burgesses significant?

It was the start of representative government in Virginia

59

Describe the British colonial policy called mercantilism.

Exercising British control over economic activities in the colonies

60

What is John Winthrop arguing in the following passage?

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in their work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.”- John Winthrop (1630)

That the settlers were forming a morally righteous society that would serve as a model for a reformed England

61

Of what importance were men such as the Marquis de Lafayette and Fredrick von Steuben to the American cause during the American Revolution?

The provided expertise

62

Why did William Penn Found Pennsylvania?

Provide refuge for persecuted English Quakers

63

Which American was a model for the Enlightenment?

Benjamin Franklin

64

As part of the Compromise of 1877, what occurred?

Union troops withdrew and white southerners regained control of state governments

65

What was the foremost reason for the War of 1812?

The British policy of search and seizure of American ships

66

After the War of 1812, Henry Clay called for an “American System.” What did he mean by this?

Internal improvements that would make the nation self sufficient

67

The Erie Canal allowed boats to travel from the Hudson River in the east to Lake Erie in the west. What effect did the opening of the Erie Canal have on American expansion?

It helped expand commerce to the country’s interior

68

What was the main reason for the French settlement in Quebec?

To spread the Catholic faith

69

Why did the House of Representatives vote to impeach President Andrew Johnson?

He was not supportive of Radical Republicans