US HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT

REGENTS STUDY PACKET

Geography

  • Appalachian Mountains: colonial border of the US (Proclamation of 1763)
  • Mississippi River: physical border of the US in 1783 (end of American Revolution, Treaty of Versailles)
  • Rocky Mountains: physical border of the US in 1803 (Louisiana Purchase)
  • Colonial Location: settlement influenced by rivers along the Atlantic Coast
  • Development of farming among pre-Columbian Native Americans ensured a more stable food supply

Colonies

  • Colonial Self-Government
  • Mayflower Compact
  • Virginia House of Burgesses (representative)
  • New England town meetings (representative)
  • New England
  • Shipbuilding, lumbering, fishing (soil too rocky/growing season too short for farming)
  • Middle
  • Commerce: trade like NYC
  • Southern
  • Plantation economy: relies on slave labor; produces cotton
  • Warm climate and fertile soil make it ideal for farming
  • Economic development relied on the labor of slaves
  • Mercantilism
  • US sends raw materials to Britain
  • US must buy finished products from Britain
  • Limits the economic development of the colonies
  • Enlightenment thinkers influenced the writings of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
  • John Locke: natural rights; gov’t needs to protect its people’s natural rights
  • Baron de Montesquieu: separation of powers, 3 branches of gov’t (executive, legislative, judicial)
  • Trial of John Peter Zenger: Bill of Rights protects freedom of the press (similar issues in 1970 with the Pentagon Papers)
  • Thomas Paine’s Common Sense: Written to rally support for independence
  • Declaration of Independence: outlines British wrongdoings and declares colonial independence
  • Part I: Role of gov’t according to Enlightenment ideas
  • Part II: List of colonial grievances against England (king)
  • Proclamation of 1763, increased taxes (Stamp Act, Sugar Act, Tea Act, Intolerable Acts, etc.) caused colonists to demand independence
  • Part III: Declares independence from GB
  • Articles of Confederation: 1st gov’t of the United States
  • Divides governing power between different levels of government (state and national)
  • Weak central gov’t to protect the rights of the ppl (opposite of British rule); criticized for being too weak
  • Success: established a way for new states to join the Union (Land Ordinance 1785, Northwest Ordinance 1787); slavery not allowed in Northwest Territory
  • Failure: central gov’t was too weak to actually govern (Shays’ Rebellion)

Constitution

  • Influenced by:
  • Magna Carta: Limits on gov’t power (trial by jury, due process, private property)
  • Petition of Right: no arrest/imprisonment without trial
  • English Bill of Rights: Representative gov’t
  • Great Compromise: establishes bicameral (2 house) legislature
  • Balances the interest of small states (NJ Plan) with large states (VA Plan)
  • Senate: equal representation
  • House of Representatives: rep. based on population
  • 3/5 Compromise:
  • 5 slaves counts as 3 free people for population
  • Slave trade cannot be outlawed until 1808
  • Constitutional Principles
  • Federalism: separation of power between national and state gov’ts
  • Popular Sovereignty: power to rule comes from the people (We the people)
  • Separation of powers: 3 branches of gov’t (legislative, executive, judicial)
  • Answer choice will refer to at least 2 branches of gov’t
  • Executive: executes laws
  • President is chief executive, commander in chief of the army, chief diplomat
  • Legislative: makes laws
  • Congress approves treaties and executive appointments, can overturn president’s veto with 2/3 majority vote
  • Bill becomes law when there is a majority vote in both houses; president must approve law
  • Judicial: interprets law
  • Sometimes acts in as legislative bc rulings affect how laws work
  • Checks and balances: each branch of gov’t checks the power of the other 2
  • Flexibility: Constitution allows for change over time (amendment process, elastic clause, judicial interpretation)
  • There are few amendments because the Constitution had been broadly interpreted and applied
  • First step in amendment process is passage by 2/3 majority in House and Senate
  • Elastic Clause: Congress shall make all laws necessary and proper
  • Federalist: supported original Constitution
  • Federalist Papers: convince Americans to ratify
  • Antifederalists: Constitution needs a Bill of Rights to protect individual liberties
  • British Experiences:
  • Writ of Habeas Corpus: you must know what you are being arrested for
  • Freedom of the press: stems from trial of John Peter Zenger in 1935
  • 4th amendment (protects against unreasonable search and seizure): response to British writs of assistance

Early Years of the US

  • Unwritten Constitution: political traditions that are not part of the actual Constitution
  • Presidential Cabinet (Washington)
  • Political Parties: result of debates over key issues like states rights and loose/strict construction
  • Nominating Conventions
  • Washington’s Precedents
  • Neutrality: Farewell Address (followed strictly by Adams and Jefferson, as well)
  • 2 terms: became law with the 22nd amendment (FDR was the only president to serve more than 2 terms)
  • Strict Construction: following the Constitution as it is written (Thomas Jefferson)
  • Loose Construction: open to more interpretation of the Constitution (Alexander Hamilton [national bank])
  • Alexander Hamilton’s Financial Plan:
  • Assumption of State Debt: Federal gov’t will take on all state debt
  • Federal Import Tax:
  • Raises revenue (money) to pay debt
  • Protects American manufacturing
  • National Bank: loose/strict debate over whether Congress has the power to create a national bank
  • John Marshall: 1st chief justice
  • Strengthened power of judicial branch and therefore the federal gov’t
  • Marbury v. Madison: established judicial review
  • Courts decide on the constitutionality of laws
  • Whiskey Rebellion:
  • Washington sends in federal troops to squash rebellion
  • Executive branch will enforce federal laws
  • Louisiana Purchase
  • Jefferson bought Louisiana from France
  • Abandoned his strict construction to do so
  • Give US control of Mississippi River and Port of New Orleans
  • Erie Canal 1825:
  • Connects NYC with Great Lakes
  • Makes it easier for western farmers to ship their goods to eastern markets
  • Connects Great Lakes to Atlantic Coast
  • Monroe Doctrine 1825: limits European influence in the western hemisphere by preventing future colonization in Latin America
  • Andrew Jackson: Age of Common Man
  • Democracy expands when property ownership is removed as voting eligibility; more people can vote
  • Closes national bank
  • Indian Removal Act: Indians moved from ancestral lands
  • Trail of Tears
  • Worcester v. Georgia

Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion

  • Louisiana Purchase (1803): US gains territory between Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains
  • Adams-Onis Treaty (1819): Florida annexed
  • Convention of 1818: “54,40 or fight”; established 49th parallel to divide US and Canada
  • Texas Annexation (1845)
  • Mexican Cession (1848): US won this territory after the Mexican-American war (Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, California)
  • Oregon Territory (1846)
  • Gadsden Purchase (1853): purchased for the purpose of building RR
  • Motivation to Move West:
  • California Gold Rush
  • Homestead Act 1862: Free land to people who would move west
  • Pacific Railway Act 1867: free land to RR companies to help finance building of RR

Causes of the Civil War

  • Extension of Slavery into the Territories
  • Missouri Compromise 1821
  • Missouri enters Union as slave state
  • Maine enters Union as free state
  • No slavery in Louisiana territory (36°30’ line)
  • Compromise of 1850
  • Texas enters Union as slave state
  • California enters Union as free state
  • Popular sovereignty (ppl vote) to decide status of slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act
  • Popular sovereignty to decide status of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska territory
  • Bleeding Kansas: flood of people move to Kansas to vote on the status of slavery leading to violence
  • Opposition to Morality of Slavery
  • The Liberator: abolitionist newspaper written by William Lloyd Garrison
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin: highlights horrors of slavery; written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • Republican Party
  • Founded to stop the spread of slavery
  • Dred Scott v. Sanford
  • Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional because it violates property rights (5th amendment protects property; slaves are property; federal gov’t cannot deprive a citizen of property)
  • Decision favors slavery
  • Causes of Southern Secession
  • Debates over states’ rights (Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions; South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification)
  • John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry
  • Election of Lincoln (no southern state voted for him)
  • South had already seceded from the Union when Lincoln is inaugurated in March 1861

Civil War

  • Lincoln’s Goal: Preserve the Union
  • Wanted lenient treatment of the south in order to heal the nation’s wounds quickly
  • Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (right to arrest warrant) during Civil War
  • More power to central gov’t

Reconstruction

  • Reconstruction Presidents: Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes
  • Reconstruction Amendments (provide legal rights to African Americans)
  • 13th: ends slavery
  • 14th: citizenship and equal protection under the law for freedmen
  • 15th: voting rights cannot be limited based on race
  • Violations of Reconstruction Amendments:
  • Jim Crow Laws: establish segregation
  • Plessy v. Ferguson: upholds segregation on the basis of “separate but equal”; judicial interpretation of 14th amendment
  • Ku Klux Klan: terrorize African Americans and white Republicans to discourage voting
  • Literacy Tests
  • Poll Taxes
  • Grandfather Clause
  • Compromise of 1877
  • Hayes (Republican) becomes president
  • Federal troops withdrawn from South

Westward Migration

  • Homestead Act 1862: Gov’t provides free land to settlers who will set up farms on land west of the Mississippi River
  • Pacific Railway Act 1862: Gov’t provided land to RR companies to build transcontinental RR (finished in 1867)
  • California Gold Rush 1848: Discovery of gold in CA causes mass movement of Americans and immigrants to the west
  • Effect: Native Americans are displaced from their land through a series of broken treaties
  • Dawes Act: effort by US gov’t to assimilate Native Americans to ‘white’ lifestyle (private ownership of land, farming, Christianity)

Industrialization, Immigration, Progressivism

  • Industrialization = immigration = urbanization
  • Consolidated industry: one company has control over an entire industry
  • Supported by Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest)
  • Laissez-faire: gov’t should not be involved in economy; justifies growth of unregulated business; benefits big business owners
  • Monopolies, Trusts, Pools, holding companies
  • Eliminate competition
  • Sherman Anti-Trust/Clayton Anti-Trust: try to control monopolies by making them illegal
  • Unions: Improve working conditions; better wages
  • American Federation of Labor
  • Union for skilled laborers
  • Major Leaders: Eugene V. Debs, Terrence Powderly, Samuel Gompers
  • Early strikes were unsuccessful bc they ended in violence; gov’t usually supported business
  • Farmers: mechanization of farms causes overproduction/demand remains the same (underconsumption)
  • Populist Party
  • Free Coinage of Silver: more money in circulation means that farmers can pay their debts more easily
  • Gov’t Regulation of Railroads: regulate shipping prices
  • Immigration went relatively unchecked bc industrialists needed the unskilled laborers for factories
  • Waves of Immigration
  • 1st Wave 1800s-1860s: Irish and German
  • 2ns Wave 1880s-1920s: Italian, Eastern European
  • Nativism: Immigration ruins America
  • “No Irish Need Apply”
  • “America is for Americans”
  • Calls for limits to immigration
  • Chinese Exclusion Act 1882: limits Chinese immigration
  • Gentlemen’s Agreement 1907: limits Japanese immigration
  • Sacco and Vanzetti Trial: Italian immigrants executed based on poor evidence
  • Red Scare: fear of communism leads to FBI and Palmer raids
  • Russian immigrants deported
  • Quota Acts: limits immigration from select areas
  • Muckrakers: investigative journalists who exposed ills/abuses of society caused by industrialization
  • Upton Sinclair The Jungle
  • Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives
  • Other Books: The Octopus, The Shame of the Cities
  • Other Muckrakers: Ida Tarbell, Frank Norris
  • Federal Reserve System: regulates the money supply
  • Graduated Income Tax: low taxes for low earners; high taxes for high earners; attempt to reduce the gap between rich and poor
  • Progressive Gov’t Reforms: (stem from gov’t corruption through political machines) direct election of senators, direct primaries, referendum, initiative, recall; people have a greater voice in the government
  • Theodore Roosevelt:
  • Trustbuster: destroy bad trusts, regulate good trusts
  • Conservationist: gov’t must conserve and protect nature for future generations
  • Consumer Protection: stems from The Jungle; Meat Inspection Act, Pure Food and Drug Act
  • Pro-Union: Roosevelt helps union during Anthracite Coal Strike

Imperialism

  • Purpose: find new markets for goods, naval bases
  • Areas of Imperialism: Hawaii, Philippines, Latin America
  • Japan: Commodore Matthew Perry visited Japan in 1854 to request that they open to US for trade; Japan modernized too quickly for the US to establish imperial control
  • Open Door Policy 1898/Boxer Rebellion 1900: US tries to create economic access to China
  • Roosevelt Corollary:
  • Action that results from the Monroe Doctrine (by controlling Latin America, US prevents Europe from trying to re-colonize in the Western Hemisphere)
  • US becomes the policeman of the Western Hemisphere
  • Spanish American War
  • Sparked by yellow journalism
  • US comes out as a major world power
  • Big Stick Policy: threat of US involvement in Latin American affairs helps US have greater influence over Latin America
  • Dollar Diplomacy: make FP decisions based on US economic interest
  • Pro-Imperialism:
  • New markets for surplus American goods
  • Spread democracy
  • Anti-Imperialism:
  • No gov’t without the consent of the governed
  • Defending territories is expensive
  • Violates neutrality

WWI

  • US entered WWI to maintain freedom of the seas
  • German unrestricted submarine warfare
  • Zimmerman telegram
  • Arming the defenders of democracy
  • Homefront
  • Schenck v. US: constitutional liberties are limited when national security is at risk; constitutional liberties are not absolute
  • War Bonds: helps finance war
  • Wilson’s 14 Points
  • Serve as a guideline for WWI peace talks
  • Just and lasting peace; peace with justice; morality
  • Treaty of Versailles 1919
  • Senate refused to ratify b/c they feared it would lead to future involvement in conflict (League of Nations)
  • Great Migration: AA moved North for better economic opportunities

1920s, Great Depression

  • Teapot Dome Scandal: Coolidge cabinet member implicated in giving private company access to gov’t oil reserves
  • Citizens distrust gov’t
  • Cultural conflicts: Traditional fundamentalists against new modern ideas
  • Scopes trial: conflict over the teaching of evolution; science/religion
  • Prohibition: many people ignored the law; personal values/laws
  • Social values cannot be regulated by laws
  • Flappers: moving away from traditional female expectations
  • Nativism:
  • Red Scare: Palmer raids violate constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure; Russian immigrant deported; fear of communism after Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (1917)
  • Sacco and Vanzetti
  • Quota Acts
  • Harlem Renaissance: promoted African American art and culture
  • Unusual during a time of extreme nativist sentiment
  • Langston Hughes, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong
  • Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois believed African Americans should use education to gain opportunities
  • Prohibition: bans the sale, manufacture, transportation of alcohol
  • 18th amendment
  • Many people ignored the law
  • Hard to enforce a law that no one supports
  • Leads to organized crime
  • Result of the temperance movement
  • Repealed in 1933
  • Prosperity: stock market doing well; more people buying stock on margin
  • Consumerism: sharp increase in consumer spending
  • Stocks on Margin: pay a small percent of stock value up front, borrow the rest, pay loan when you sell stock
  • Credit: buy now, pay later
  • Installment Buying: pay for an item in increments (infomercials)
  • Farmers did not experience the overall prosperity of the 1920s.
  • Overproduction/underconsumption of farm goods
  • Dust Bowl: drought in the 1930s on the Great Plains
  • Caused many small family farmers to migrate west
  • California gold rush had the same effect
  • Great Depression: Officially begins with the stock market crash of 1929
  • Uneven distribution of wealth
  • Too much buying on credit
  • Slow down of consumption
  • Herbert Hoover: president at the start of the Great Depression
  • Refused to help the poor (it will destroy their individual initiative)
  • Hoovervilles: term used to describe the shantytowns that poor people lived in as a result of the depression
  • Example of people’s dislike for his and Republicans’ policies
  • New Deal: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • Purpose: help Americans who were suffering during the Great Depression
  • Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): gov’t provided jobs
  • Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): overall gov’t improvement in a specific region
  • Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA): paid farmers not to grow certain crops
  • Public Works Administration (PWA): gov’t funded large scale public works
  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)/Securities Exchange Commission (SEC): restored confidence in financial institutions (banks, stock market)
  • Works Progress Administration (WPA): gov’t provided jobs
  • Social Security Act: gov’t money to support elderly
  • National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act): legalizes collective bargaining
  • Fair Labor Standards Act (Wages and Hours Act): minimum wage, maximum hours
  • Court-packing: FDR wanted to add more justices to the Supreme Court to win more judicial support for New Deal legislation (some programs had been ruled unconstitutional)
  • Critics: Huey Long, Francis Townsend, Charles Coughlin
  • New Deal tended toward socialism OR
  • New Deal didn’t do enough to help the poor
  • Evaluation:
  • Expanded role of federal gov’t
  • Federal gov’t takes more responsibility for the welfare of the people
  • Did not tackle high unemployment
  • Depression ended with US entry into WWII

WWII

  • Neutrality Acts 1935-1937: Keep US out of WWII; avoid mistakes that led them into WWI
  • US as “Arsenal of Democracy” 1939-1941: US supplied Allies with military equipment for several years before technical entry into the war
  • Lend-Lease Act
  • Destroyers for Naval Bases
  • Cash and Carry
  • US entry into WWII was a direct response to Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941 a day that will live in infamy)
  • Japanese citizens forced into interment camps
  • Example of racial discrimination
  • US feared they might be spies; threat to national security
  • Civil liberties ignored in the face of national interest
  • Korematsu v. US: upholds internment camps
  • Korematsu v. US and Schenck v. US: civil liberties are less important than national security
  • Gov’t issued official apology with reparations in 1988
  • Homefront
  • Consumer rationing: ensures enough supplies for troops
  • Women worked in factories to produce wartime materials
  • War Bonds sold to raise money
  • Greater economic opportunities for women and minorities will later spark civil rights movement
  • Manhattan Project: Build atomic bomb
  • Yalta Conference: Allied leaders make post-war plans for Europe and Asia
  • Nuremberg Trials: first time individuals were held accountable for actions during war
  • United Nations: find peaceful solutions to world problems
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Eleanor Roosevelt

Cold War