US History—Regular

Write in complete sentences!!

The Constitution

  1. What is the main purpose of Article I of the Constitution?
  2. What is the main job of Congress?
  3. What is the role of Congress and the President in making laws?
  4. Who may become President?
  5. How is the president elected?
  6. How long is the term of a federal judge?
  7. How does the Constitution define treason?
  8. If a state law conflicts with a federal law, which law is followed?
  9. Whose powers are the Bill of Rights intended to limit?
  10. What are the 13-15th Amendments referred to as? Describe each one.
  11. What did the 19th, 20th and 21st Amendments accomplish?
  12. Describe the 24th and 26th Amendments.

2.1 Government and Party Politics

  1. What were precedents George Washington set?
  2. What were two main economic problems facing the country in 1789?
  3. How did Hamilton’s Federalist views affect his role as Secretary of Treasury?
  4. Why did Washington support Hamilton’s response to the Whiskey Rebellion?
  5. What were the first American political parties? How do they differ?
  6. How did the Whiskey Rebellion influence the creation of these parties?

2.2: The Struggle Over Foreign Policy

  1. How did the British encourage conflict in the Northwest Territory?
  2. Why did the British want to limit US settlement in the area?
  3. How did the two political parties differ in their views of the French Revolution?
  4. Why was it important for the US to sign a treaty with Spain?
  5. How did US policy toward France change under Adam’s administration?
  6. What were the Alien and Sedition Acts?

2.3 The Age of Jefferson

  1. What changes did Jefferson make in the federal government?
  2. What economic developments helped Jefferson achieve some of his goals?
  3. Who was Marbury, and why was he suing Madison?
  4. Why did the Supreme Court rule against Marbury?
  5. Why did Marshall have such a lasting effect on the judicial system?
  6. Was Judge Marshall a strict or loose constructionist?
  7. Why did Americans want to expand US territory?
  8. Why did Jefferson want to buy Louisiana?
  9. How did the US benefit from war in Europe?
  10. What was the cause of the conflict with Britain, and what was Jefferson’s solution to it?

2.4 The War of 1812

  1. Why did the US declare war on Great Britain?
  2. Why was the American invasion of Canada a failure?
  3. What US forces performed well in the War of 1812?
  4. Why were the British shocked by this good performance?
  5. What as the significance of the British attack on Baltimore?
  6. How did Americans view the Battle of New Orleans?
  7. What was the end result of the Hartford Convention?
  8. How did the War of 1812 affect the Natives?
  9. Although the US did not win the War of 1812, how did it signal a new stage in the nation’s development?

3.1 Industry and Transportation

  1. Why did railroad construction end canal building?
  2. How did turnpikes, canals, and railroads affect the way that people in different states interacted?
  3. What was Eli Whitney’s main contribution to manufacturing?
  4. How might interchangeable parts affect artisans who made products by hand?

3.2 Sectional Differences

  1. What factors contributed to industrialization in the Northeast?
  2. Why did workers organize labor unions during the 1820s?
  3. How did the increase in immigration affect industrialization and workers’ rights?
  4. Why did the cotton boom spread slavery in the South?
  5. What were the economic consequences of the cotton boom?

3.3 Era of Nationalism

  1. What economic policies did Clay advocate in his American System program?
  2. Why did the Monroe Doctrine mean little in 1823?
  3. What were the terms of the Missouri Compromise?
  4. In what ways was the compromise a success and failure?

Pg. 113 Hudson RiverSchool

  1. How can a landscape painting depict an artist’s pride in his or her homeland?
  2. Why would landscape paintings in the 1800s have been an important method of portraying the US to people in other places?

3.4 Democracy and the Age of Jackson

  1. How did Adams win the election?
  2. Why did critics denounce Adams’s programs?
  3. Why did many states rewrite their constitutions to expand voting rights?
  4. Why was Jackson such an appealing candidate?
  5. In what ways did Jackson’s Democratic Party change the party structure?
  6. Why did Jackson appeal to many southern voters?
  7. What does the Worcester v. Georgia case reveal about white Americans’ attitudes toward Natives?

3.5 Constitutional Disputes and Crises

  1. Why would an act of nullification have weakened the Union?
  2. What were the main political views of the Whigs?
  3. What did Jackson do to oppose the bank?
  4. What was the result of Jackson’s banking policies?
  5. What was Jackson’s policy on federal land purchases, and how did it affect the economy?
  6. In what way did Van Buren suffer from Jackson’s politics?

4.1 A Religious Awakening

  1. What caused the Second Great Awakening?
  2. How did the Second Great Awakening affect reforms during this period?
  3. Why might southern slave owners oppose churches for enslaved African Americans?
  4. Why did many Americans discriminate against and persecute Mormons?
  5. Why was Catholicism thought to be un-American?
  6. Why were some people attracted to life in utopian communities?
  7. Why were the Transcendentalists considered reformers?

4.2 A Reforming Society

  1. Why did reformers think public school was important?
  2. Why was it important to have the government fund public schools?
  3. What do the efforts of Dorthea Dix suggest?
  4. How did prison reformers want to change the prison system?

4.3 The Antislavery Movement

  1. Why did the growing population of free African Americans concern slaveholders?
  2. Why did the American Colonization Society establish Liberia?
  3. How did the African Americans react to the establishment of Liberia?
  4. What was the main tactic that abolitionists used to persuade others that slavery was wrong?
  5. How did people in the South justify slavery?
  6. Why did northern workers fear the abolition of slavery?
  7. Why did northern factory owners oppose abolition?

4.4 The Women’s Movement

  1. Why did female abolitionists compare themselves to slaves?
  2. What was ironic about the fact that Mott and Stanton were excluded from some meetings at an abolitionist convention?
  3. What did the Seneca Falls Convention accomplish, and why was it significant?
  4. What was the main goal of Susan B. Anthony?
  5. How did lawmakers in NY help advance the cause of women’s rights in 1848?

5.1 Migrating to the West

  1. What innovations brought by the Spanish enabled Native Americans to hunt and wage war more effectively?
  2. Why was the California colony successful for the Spanish when Texas was not?
  3. What was Manifest Destiny, and how did it encourage people to settle in the West?
  4. How could trade with the US and American migrants threaten Mexico’s security?
  5. Why did Brigham Young lead the Mormons west to found New Zion?

5.2 Texas and the Mexican-American War

  1. Why did Mexico invite Americans to settle in Texas?
  2. What did the settlers have to promise in exchange for land?
  3. Why did the Mexican government refuse to honor Santa Anna’s agreement with the Texans?
  4. Why was annexation so controversial?
  5. Why did Polk compromise with the British?
  6. How does the reaction to Polk’s compromise foreshadow division in the nation?
  7. Why did Polk send US troops to Texas?
  8. Why did antiwar Whigs not oppose the war publicly?
  9. What was the outcome of the Mexican-American War?
  10. What factors contributed to the US victory?

5.3 Effects of Territorial Expansion

  1. Why was Polk disappointed with the outcome of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
  2. What made the Wilmot Proviso so divisive?
  3. What was early gold mining like?
  4. What were conditions like for miners?
  5. How did mining change over time?
  6. How did white miners exclude Chinese and Mexican people from the gold fields?

Pg 175: Should the US Annex Texas?

  1. Why did Polk think annexation would promote peace?
  2. Why did Clay think annexation would lead to war?

6.1 Slavery, States’ Rights, and Western Expansion

  1. What was the Wilmot Proviso?
  2. Why was the Wilmot Proviso denounced by the South and supported by the North?
  3. Why did the issue of slavery intensify after the Mexican War?
  4. What was the main goal of the Free Soil Party?
  5. How did the Free Soil Party influence the election of 1848?
  6. What did Calhoun threaten?
  7. Why would Henry Clay want to settle the differences in Congress peacefully?

6.2 A Rising Tide of Protest and Violence

  1. How did Uncle Tom’s Cabin raise tensions between the North and South?
  2. How did Douglas reintroduce slavery in the US?
  3. Why did opponents of slavery view the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a threat?
  4. How did the creation of two governments in the KansasTerritory lead to violence?

6.3 Political Realignment Deepens the Crisis

  1. What trend in American politics grew in the 1840’s?
  2. Why did northerners and southerners stop supporting the Whig Party?
  3. What as the driving force behind the creation of the Republican Party?
  4. Why did the Supreme Court deny Scott his freedom?
  5. Why did Douglas support popular sovereignty?
  6. In what way was Lincoln’s loss of the 1858 election considered a victory?
  7. Why did John Brown attack an arsenal?
  8. What did Frederick Douglass fear would result from Brown’s raid?

6.4 Lincoln, Session, and War

  1. What caused the Democratic Party to split?
  2. What was the goal of the Constitutional Union Party?
  3. Why did the Republican Party remain intact?
  4. How did the division of the Democratic Party influence the outcome of the election?
  5. How did the southern states justify secession?
  6. What did Lincoln promise the South in his inaugural address?
  7. Why was Lincoln’s decision to send supplies to FortSumter difficult to make?

7.1

  1. What made the South vulnerable to a naval blockade?
  2. What made the North better prepared to wage war than the South?
  3. Which states were border states?
  4. What was Lincoln’s strategy for keeping the border states in the Union?
  5. Why did the Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, convince the Union that it would not win a quick victory in the war?
  6. What setbacks did the Union suffer in pursuing its Anaconda Plan?
  7. Why was the battle between the Monitor and the Virginia important?

7.4

  1. What made Vicksburg difficult to seize?
  2. How did Grant’s siege of Vicksburg achieve the goal of the Union’s Anaconda Plan?
  3. How did General Lee respond to these victories?
  4. Why did Lincoln ask Grant to take charge of the entire Union army?
  5. How did Grant prove Lincoln right?
  6. What were the North’s costs of Grant’s campaign for the Union?
  7. How did the Union victories in the South affect the election of 1864?

7.2

  1. How does the proclamation change the war?
  2. What groups were unhappy with Lincoln’s policy of downplaying slavery?
  3. Why did Lincoln wait until after a Union victory to go forward with the proclamation?
  4. How did some African Americans in the South manage to join the fighting?

7.3

  1. Why would there be a shortage of goods in the South?
  2. What did the rich and African Americans in the North have in common during the war?
  3. Why did the Confederate government have difficulty paying for the war?
  4. What problem in prison camps in the South might not have been as severe in the North? Why?
  5. How did women prepare for their jobs?

7.5The War’s End and Impact

  1. Why might Confederate leaders not find it feasible to end slavery?
  2. Why did Lincoln and Grant take more generous approach toward the South?
  3. What immediate effect of the war was felt by both northerners and southerners?

8.1 Rival Plans for Reconstruction

  1. Why did the federal government have difficulty in formulating its Reconstruction policies?
  2. How did the South’s share of the nation’s wealth change between 1860 and 1870?
  3. What was Lincoln’s 10% Plan?
  4. How did the Wade-Davis Bill differ from the Ten Percent Plan?
  5. When was Abraham Lincoln assassinated, and who succeeded him as President?
  6. What evidence is there that the federal occupation of the South failed to protect African Americans?
  7. How would the 14th Amendment penalize states that refused to allow citizens to vote?

8.2 Reconstruction in the South

  1. Why did black men quickly sign up to vote in southern states?
  2. How did southern literacy rates benefit carpetbaggers?
  3. How did Reconstruction affect women?
  4. How did the school system in the South represent the successes and failures of Reconstruction?
  5. Which of the three systems for sharing land describe offered the most independent arrangement for the farmer and landowner?
  6. When and where did white southerners organize the Ku Klux Klan?
  7. How did the federal government respond to the acts that the Klan committed?

8.3 The End of Reconstruction

  1. Why would South Carolinians elect an aristocratic plantation owner and former Confederate general as their governor?
  2. How might economic turmoil affect the social and political development of a nation?
  3. When did the federal government begin withdrawing troops from the South, and when did it dissolved the Freedmen’s Bureau?
  4. What was the Compromise of 1877?
  5. In what ways did Reconstruction affect African Americans in the South?
  6. What effect did the civil rights movement have on African American political participation?

9.1 Technology and Industrial Growth

  1. Why would consumers buy a product that entrepreneurs offered?
  2. How did the CW encourage the growth of industry?
  3. Why did industry continue to expand after the CW?
  4. Why would a patent encourage the work of inventors?
  5. How did the invention of the telephone affect the US economy?
  6. How did the invention of the Bessemer process affect transportation?
  7. How do rail lines reflect the physical geography of the US?
  8. How did industrialization change the population of US cities and rural areas?

9.2 The Rise of Big Business

  1. Why did some people argue that big business leaders were “robber barons”?
  2. Why might the philanthropy of rich businessmen affect people’s opinion of themselves?
  3. What assumption does Social Darwinism make about the poor, who were exploited by big business?
  4. How did federal regulations seek to control railroads?
  5. Why did these regulations have little effect on big business?

9.3 The Organized Labor Movement

  1. In what ways did factory owners exploit their workers?
  2. Why were factory workers often unhappy with their jobs?
  3. How did workers communicate with their employers about their complaints?
  4. How did the goals of the AFL differ from those of the Knights of Labor?
  5. Why did workers stage strikes and protests?
  6. Why might it have been difficult for labor unions of this period to win popular support?

10.1 The New Immigrants

  1. Why did the new wave of immigrants encounter more resistance than earlier immigrants?
  2. What difficulties did immigrants face at immigration stations such as Ellis Island and AngelIsland?
  3. How did Americanization programs help create America’s “melting pot” culture?
  4. Which group of people were excluded from the “melting pot” model?
  5. What is the relationship between nativism and the Chinese Exclusion Act?

10.2 Cities Expand and Change

  1. Where were most major American cities located in the late 1800s and early 1900s? What determined the locations of these cities?
  2. Why were more immigrants drawn to these urban areas than to rural areas?
  3. Why were farmers migrating to cities at this time?
  4. In what ways did urban life improve during late 1800s and early 1900s?
  5. How did new modes of transportation segregate people in and around cities by their level of income?
  6. Why was tenement living so difficult?

10.3 Social and Cultural Trends

  1. What became the measure of success for middle-class families?
  2. How did advances in consumer products and transportation affect middle-class family life?
  3. How were Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst responsible for spreading American mass culture?
  4. Why did amusement parks appeal to urban dwellers with limited money to spend?
  5. Why did moving pictures, vaudeville and exhibitions appeal to the public?

11.1 The New South

  1. What new industries arose in the South in the late 1800s?
  2. What was lacking in the South’s first round of railway development?
  3. Why did dependence on cotton cause serious problems for the South’s economy?
  4. For what did the Farmers’ Alliance lobby?
  5. How did the Supreme Court erode the rights of African Americans

11.2 Westward Expansion and the American Indians