8th Grade Document Glossary

Document / Who created the document? Why? What effect did it have? List any people from the people glossary associated with the document under the document’s name.
Colonial Era (chapter 2-5)
Magna Carta
(1215) / English document that granted rights to noblemen and freemen. Limited the power of the king included the ideas of due process and the right to a fair and speedy trial. The English viewed it as a guarantee of law and justice.
Mayflower Compact
(1620) / Agreement drafted in 1620 by Pilgrim leaders and signed by the 41 men aboard the Mayflower prior to going ashore at Plymouth Bay
in Massachusetts. It outlined a form of government based on
a social compact It set a precedent for later documents in the development of self-government.
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
(1639) / Created in 1639, it was a frame of government for the colony of Connecticut. It is considered the first constitution in the American colonies. The Fundamental Orders extended voting rights to non-church members and limited the powers of the governor, thus expanding the ideas of representative government, written by Thomas Hooker.
English Bill of Rights
(1689) / English Document that guaranteed certain rights to English citizens and declared that elections for Parliament would happen frequently. It supported a limited monarchy, a system of shared power with Parliament and the people.
Revolution (chapter 6 & 7)
Proclamation of 1763
(1763) / After the French and Indian War, the proclamation, in effect, closed off the frontier to colonial expansion. The proclamation provided that all lands west of the heads of all rivers which flowed into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or northwest were off-limits to the colonists. This excluded the rich Ohio Valley and all territory from the Ohio to the Mississippi rivers from settlement. American colonists were very unhappy with its passing and was the first step towards the Revolution.
Stamp Act
(1765) / Despite the revenue raised by the Sugar Act, Britain's financial situation continued to spiral out of control. Prime Minister George Grenville thought that the American colonists should bear a heavier tax load. To ensure this, Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765. The act required Americans to buy special watermarked paper for newspapers and all legal documents. To many colonists, the Stamp Act seemed to represent all of the problems between England and the colonies, especially “Taxation without Representation.” It affected every one of the thirteen colonies equally, and every rank in society.
Intolerable Acts
(1774) / The name given to a series of acts passed in response to the Boston Tea Party. The British called their responsive measures the Coercive Acts. Boston Harbor was closed to trade until the owners of the tea were compensated. Town meetings were banned, and the authority of the royal governor was increased. General Gage, the British commander of North American forces, was appointed governor of Massachusetts. British troops and officials would now be tried outside Massachusetts for their crimes. Greater freedom was granted to British officers who wished to house their soldiers in private dwellings.
Declaration of Independence
(1776) / The Declaration of Independence is a document adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. It established the 13 colonies as independent states, free from rule by Great Britain. The committee appointed to write the Declaration of Independence included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson wrote the majority of the declaration. In the Preamble, Jefferson explained that it was necessary to list the reasons why the colonies sought their own government. In three sections, Jefferson outlined the reasons: people have the right to control their own government; the British government and King used their power unjustly to control the colonies; and the colonies had tried to avoid separating from Britain, but Britain refused to cooperate.
Common Sense
(1776) / Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Thomas Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain. The widespread success of Common Sense in the colonies lead to a greater acceptance of the idea of the need for a complete break from England among the American colonists.
Treaty of Paris
(1783) / The treaty, signed on September 3, 1783, between the American colonies and Great Britain, ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation. Two crucial provisions of the treaty were British recognition of U.S. independence and the creation of boundaries (Canada to the north and the Mississippi River to the west and Spanish Florida to the south) that would allow for American western expansion.
Creating a Government and putting it in Place (chapter 8, government, & 9)
Articles of Confederation
(1781) / The Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first constitution, was created and adopted by the Second Continental Congress in 1781 during the Revolution. It provided guidance to government for seven years and gave the Confederation Congress limited authority to make laws and to draw up treaties with other nations. The Articles were limited in providing solutions to many challenges facing the new Republic because the states held most of the power, and Congress lacked an executive, the power to tax, regulate trade, or control coinage. These weaknesses as well as the lack of power to create a national army to put down Shays’ Rebellion led to the Annapolis Convention which proposed the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles.
Northwest Ordinance
(1787) / The Northwest Ordinance is considered one of the most significant achievements of the Articles of Confederation. It established a system for setting up governments in the western territories so they could eventually join the Union on an equal footing with the original 13 states. This ordinance referred to the Northwest Territory, an area bounded by the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and the Great Lakes and included present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota. When the territory opened, a governor and three judges were appointed by Congress. After 5,000 adult males moved to the area, they could elect an assembly and send a nonvoting delegate to Congress although the governor retained veto power over the assembly. When 60,000 persons moved into one of the political subdivisions, that area could draft a constitution, submit it to Congress for approval, and become a state. Its constitution had to provide for a representative government, and it had to prohibit slavery.
Constitution
(1787) / A constitution is a document that outlines the powers of government. One of the foundations of the American system of government is the use of a written constitution defining the values and principles of government and establishing the limits of power.
The U.S. Constitution evolved from the Articles of Confederation. Congress announced a call for delegates to a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising” the Articles of Confederation. Fifty-five delegates from 12 of the 13 states participated.
James Madison formulated many of the ideas included in the Constitution and is known as the “Father of the Constitution.” He proposed that the U.S. government be organized in three branches: a legislative branch (Congress), an executive branch (the President) and a judicial branch (Supreme Court).
The “Great Compromise” related to representation of states in the federal government. Other compromises made during the drafting process included the “three-fifths compromise” which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person when apportioning direct taxes or counting representation in the House of representatives. Another compromise related to the slave trade, which the convention agreed to end in 1808. Article VII, The Federalists, who favored a strong central government, supported the Constitution while the Anti-Federalists, who favored states’ rights and the protection of individual rights through a Bill of Rights, opposed ratification
Bill of Rights
(1791) / The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution ratified in 1791. In several states, ratification of the Constitution was only obtained when Federalist supporters promised to add a Bill of Rights to the Constitution.
Federalist Papers
(1788) / A series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison in order to convince Americans that the new nation would not last if the proposed Constitution was not adopted. The Federalist Papers helped to persuade Americans to approve the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson called them the best explanation ever written about the principles of government.
Anti-Federalist writings / Writings by Anti-Federalists, including George Mason, Patrick Henry and others that contained arguments against ratification of the Constitution. The writings appeared in various forms, by various authors, many of whom used a pseudonym. Collectively, these writings have become known as the Anti-Federalist Papers. They contain warnings of dangers from tyranny that weaknesses in the proposed Constitution did not adequately provide against. They also insisted on the inclusion of Bill of Rights to secure the rights of the people.
Washington’s
Farewell Address
(1796) / In 1796 George Washington decided not to pursue a third term as President of the United States thereby allowing the election of a successor. His farewell address to his cabinet, delivered on September 17, stressed three dangers facing the nation. The first related to the rise of political parties which he believed could divide Americans and destroy the cooperation needed in government. The second was sectionalism, or political divisions based on geographic loyalties. The third was the involvement in European rivalries that repeatedly drove those nations to war. The last served as a cornerstone of American foreign policy until this country’s involvement in World War I. He also supported the preservation of religion and morality as “the great pillars of human happiness” and educational institutions for the “general diffusion
of knowledge.”
The Nation Expands and Experiences Growing Pains (chapter 10-14)
Marbury v. Madison
(1803) / U.S. Supreme Court case over a judicial appointment by John Adams before he left office. William Marbury took Sec. of State James Madison to court due to his appoint not being delivered. The Court’s opinion stated that they did not have original jurisdiction to rule in the case, it should have been heard by a lower court. Also, Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle of judicial review, reviewing state and national laws, by the court ruling that an article of the Judiciary Act of 1789 was unconstitutional.
McCulloch v. Maryland
(1819) / Supreme Court case heard by the John Marshall led court. The case centered around a state tax on the 2nd National Bank of the U.S. The head of the Maryland branch, McCullough, argued that as a national institution they were not under the jurisdiction of a state tax and refused to pay it. The state sued and the court’s opinion was that the state tax was unconstitutional.
Gibbons v. Ogden
(1824) / Supreme Court case heard by the John Marshall led court. The case centered around Thomas Gibbons wanting to utilize his federal license to operate a steamboat from New York to New Jersey. Aaron Ogden held a New York state license as the monopoly on steamboat travel and sued Gibbons to stop the competition. The court’s opinion stated the state law was in conflict with the Constitution and was unconstitutional; only Congress could regulate interstate commerce.
Monroe Doctrine
(1823) / Due to the growing revolutionary ideas in the Spanish colonies of North and South America trying to win their freedom, President James Monroe issued this during his annual address to Congress in 1823. Monroe built on Washington’s precedent of neutrality saying the U.S. would oppose any attempt by Europe to establish new colonies or to restore Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere.
Missouri Compromise
(1820) / Henry Clay engineered this compromise in Congress to help ease the growing sectional tension over slavery. Missouri wished to enter the union in 1820 as a slave state but the northern states hoped to stop the expansion of slavery and keep a balance of power in the Senate. So, they allowed the entrance of MO, added Maine as a free state to keep the balance, and banned slavery in any new territory north of the (36° 30’ N) parallel.
Indian Removal Act
(1830) / Passed by Congress under Andrew Jackson which called for the immediate removal of all American Indians in the southern states to a newly created Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. It was fought with force and using the legal system. This led to the Trail of Tears.
Worcester v. Georgia
(1832) / Georgia passed a law that any white person living among the Indians without a license from the governor could be sent to prison. State legislators feared white missionaries were encouraging resistance to Indian removal. Samuel Worcester was arrested and sued to obtain his freedom. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that if a state law conflicts with a federal law, the federal law surpasses it. Jackson ignored the case and continually pushed for removal.