UIL Social Studies 2025

A Magnificent Catastrophe

Abolitionism

the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States

Abigail Adams

the wife and closest advisor of John Adams, the second president of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States.

Charles Adams

the second son of the second United States president, John Adams, and his wife, Abigail Adams. He was also the younger brother of the sixth president, John Quincy Adams. He was known for a U.S. diplomat who played an important role in keeping Britain neutral during the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) and in promoting the arbitration of the important "Alabama" claims.

John Adams

He was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence

John Q. Adams

an American statesman, politician, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825.

Cleopatra's Ship

It was a "cylinder ship" built to take Cleopatra's Needle from Alexandria to London in 1877. The obelisk weighed more than 200 tons. It was encased in a cylindrical iron pontoon which was then rolled by means of levers and chains down a track into the sea.

Monarchism

Generally a belief in the necessity or desirability of monarchy. An extreme version of this would be to believe in a monarch who actually ruled and did not merely reign, who had an absolute, perhaps divinely ordained, right to do so, and who acquired this right by heredity.

John Q. Adams

served as secretary of state for President James Monroe. He authored the Monroe Doctrine, which declared the United States' intention to resist European intervention in Latin America. He worked to acquire Florida for the United States and improve Anglo-American relations by settling the border dispute in Oregon Country. He was one of the most accomplished and successful secretaries of state in American history.

Samuel Adams

a politician of the American Revolution, leader of the Massachusetts "radicals," who was a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774-81) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was later lieutenant governor (1789-93) and governor (1794-97) of Massachusetts.

Thomas B. Adams

the third and youngest son of second United States president John Adams and Abigail (Smith) Adams. He worked as a lawyer, a secretary to his brother John Quincy Adams while the latter served as United States ambassador to the Netherlands and Prussia, the business manager of and a contributor to the political and literary journal Port Folio, and a Massachusetts chief justice.

The Age of Reason

an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of deism.

James A. Bayard

an American lawyer and politician from Delaware. He was a member of the Democratic Party and served as U.S. Senator from Delaware.

Alien Act

a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from 5 to 14 years, authorized the president to deport "aliens," and permitted their arrest, imprisonment, and deportation during wartime.

XYZ Affair

a political and diplomatic episode in 1797 and 1798, early in the presidency of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to the Quasi-War.

Fisher Ames

an American essayist and Federalist politician of the 1790s who was an archopponent of Jeffersonian democracy.

John Beckley

an American political campaign manager and the first Librarian of the United States Congress, from 1802 to 1807. He is credited with being the first political campaign manager in the United States and for setting the standards for the First Party System.

Anticlericalism

opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historically it has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. It is related to secularism, which seeks to separate the church from public and political life.

Anti-Federalists

a late-18th-century political movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, gave state governments more authority.

Articles of Confederation

served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. It established a weak central government that mostly, but not entirely, prevented the individual states from conducting their own foreign diplomacy.

Atheism

a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods.

Elizabeth Dehart Bleecker

Her diary, tracks her life from 1799-1806. According to the diary, the day after Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel, his widow visited with her.

Napoleon Bonaparte French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars.

Charles Cotesworthy Pinckney

an American statesman, military officer and Founding Father who served as United States Minister to France from 1796 to 1797.

Benjamin Franklin Bache

An American journalist, printer and publisher. He founded the Philadelphia Aurora, a newspaper that supported Jeffersonian philosophy.

George Baer

An artist born in 1895 and deceased in 1971. The artist's works have gone up for sale at public auction 32 times, mostly in the Painting category

Stamp Tax

March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed this to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years' War. The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards.

Aaron Burr

an American politician, businessman, lawyer, and Founding Father who served as the third vice president of the United States from 1801 to 1805 during Thomas Jefferson's first presidential term. He founded the Manhattan Company on September 1, 1799

Baptists

form a major branch of evangelical Protestantism distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers

Pierce Butler

one of seven immigrants (who were not native to the American Colonies) to sign the United States Constitution. Butler was born in Garryhundon, Ireland and served in the British Army before he resigned and moved to South Carolina in 1773.

George Cabot

He became a shipowner and successful merchant, retiring from business in 1794. Cabot was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention (1779-80), of the state Senate (1783), and of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Federal Constitution (1788). He served in the U.S. Senate (1791-96), where he was a leading supporter of the financial policies of treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, and in 1793 he was named a director of the Bank of the United States.

Bank of the United States

central bank chartered in 1791 by the U.S. Congress at the urging of Alexander Hamilton and over the objections of Thomas Jefferson. The extended debate over its constitutionality contributed significantly to the evolution of pro- and antibank factions into the first American political parties—the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, respectively. Antagonism over the bank issue grew so heated that its charter could not be renewed in 1811.

James Thomson Callender

well known in his lifetime as a political writer and newspaper editor, is remembered today chiefly for his series of newspaper articles alleging that Thomas Jefferson had children with Sally Hemings

Calvinism

the Protestant theological system of John Calvin and his successors, which develops Luther's doctrine of justification by faith alone and emphasizes the grace of God and the doctrine of predestination.

Battle of Camden

It was the worst American defeat in the field and left the British in temporary control of the southern colonies. While enhancing the reputation of Cornwallis, the battle ruined the career of Gates, who was replaced. The victory opened the way to a subsequent British invasion of North Carolina.

Carolina Gazette

It was South Carolina's first successful newspaper. The paper began in 1732 under Thomas Whitmarsh in Charlestown, but within two years Whitmarsh died of yellow fever.

Charles Carroll

an American politician, planter, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was the only Catholic signatory of the Declaration and the longest surviving, dying 56 years after its signing.

Samuel Chase

Remembered largely as the only Supreme Court justice to ever have faced impeachment proceedings, He served as an associate justice from 1796 to 1811. most notable decision was in Calder v. Bull (1798), a case defining four important points of constitutional law. Chase discussed natural law, which guaranteed rights and liberties not expressly found outside the Due Process Clause. This later developed into what is referred to as "substantive due process."

Ron Chernow

Alexander Hamilton biographer

Citizen Soldier Ideal

prepare in peacetime to be soldiers while maintaining their careers and roles in the community; then in wartime they take up arms to defend the nation.

Civil Liberties

freedom from arbitrary governmental interference (as with the right of free speech) specifically by denial of governmental power and in the U.S. especially as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Dewitt Clinton

He was an American political leader who promulgated the idea of the Erie Canal, which connects the Hudson River to the Great Lakes.He was the nephew of Governor George Clinton of New York. A Republican (Jeffersonian) attorney, he served as state senator (1798-1802, 1806-11), U.S. senator (1802-03), mayor of New York City (1803-15 except for two annual terms), and lieutenant governor (1811-13).

George Clinton

He was the fourth vice president of the United States (1805-12) in the administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He served in the last French and Indian War (1756-63) and was a member of the New York Assembly (1768-75) and the Continental Congress. In the summer of 1776, before he could sign the Declaration of Independence, he was ordered by General George Washington to New York City. In March 1777 he was appointed brigadier general. Immensely popular with the people of New York, Clinton was elected governor in 1777, serving 21 years

William Cobbert

English popular journalist who played an important political role as a champion of traditional rural England against the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.

College of William and Mary

On February 8, 1693, King William III and Queen Mary II of England signed the charter for a "perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good Arts and Sciences" to be established in the Virginia Colony

Columbia College

Founded in 1854 by the United Methodist Church as a women's liberal arts college,

Columbian Centinel

a Boston, Massachusetts, newspaper established by Benjamin Russell. It continued its predecessor, the Massachusetts Centinel and the Republican Journal, which Russell and partner William Warden had first issued on March 24, 1784.

Battle of Concord

The first major military campaign of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in an American victory and outpouring of militia support for the anti-British cause.

Congregation Church

is a Protestant, Reformed (Calvinist) tradition in which churches practice congregational government; where each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs.

Constitutional Monarchy

a system of government that is ruled by a king or queen whose power is limited by its country's constitution. Political power is shared between the monarch (the king or queen), and a constitutional government, such as parliament.

Continental Congress

1774 - 1781 was the governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution.

Convention of 1800

The Quasi-War officially ended with this, also known as the Treaty of Mortefontaine, negotiated between France and the United States in September 1800. The agreement ended the Treaties of Alliance and Commerce and re-asserted the United States' right to free trade.

Church of England

It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its adherents are called Anglicans.

James Finimore Cooper

the first major American novelist. He wrote the series of novels of frontier adventure known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring the wilderness scout called Natty Bumppo, or Hawkeye. The series consists of The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841).

Thomas Cooper

an Anglo-American economist, college president and political philosopher. He was described by Thomas Jefferson as "one of the ablest men in America" and by John Adams as "a learned ingenious scientific and talented madcap."

William Cooper (Cowper)

was one of the most widely read English poets of his day, whose most characteristic work, as in The Task or the melodious short lyric "The Poplar Trees," brought a new directness to 18th-century nature poetry.

Tench Coxe

"An American Citizen" was the pseudonym of Tench Coxe, of Pennsylvania, a member of the Annapolis Convention and the Continental Congress, and author of a number of pamphlets on the finances and commerce of the United States.

James Craik

Physician General of the United States Army, as well as George Washington's personal physician and close friend.

William Craik

American lawyer and planter who served as a United States representative from Maryland and as a state judge.

Oliver Cromwell

Lieutenant-General thar was a Parliamentary commander during the British Civil Wars and later became Lord Protector. A natural cavalry leader, he played a vital role in Parliament's victories at the Battles of Marston Moor and Naseby, before leading successful campaigns in Ireland and Scotland.

Matthew Davis

After Burr died in 1836, his diary passed into the hands of this man, a former law clerk of his who had become a friend and, later, the executor of his estate. He was also an editor and a journalist who wrote for newspapers under the tantalizing nom de plume "A Spy in Washington." He published a two-volume memoir of Burr in the year of his friend's death. Two years later, in 1838, he edited the journal and had it published in a two-volume edition titled The Private Journal of Aaron Burr During His Residence of Four Years in Europe. It seems safe to say that Burr never imagined that his diary would be available to the public.

John Dawson

English explorer, naturalist and writer. He played an important role in exploring the interior of colonial North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, publicizing his expeditions in a book. He founded two settlements in North Carolina: Bath and New Bern, both located on rivers in the coastal plain

John Dent

officer in the United States Navy during the Quasi-War and the First Barbary War, grandson of General John Dent

Samuel Dexter

Educated at Harvard and trained as a lawyer, resigned his seat as Massachusetts Senator in June 1800 to accept the position of Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President John Adams. Upon Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott's resignation in December 1800, Adams appointed him as an interim Secretary to serve until the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as President. He served less than a year in Adams' Cabinet and has no great acts associated with his name.

John Dickinson

an American statesman often referred to as the "penman of the Revolution." He represented Pennsylvania in the Stamp Act Congress (1765) and drafted its declaration of rights and grievances. He won fame in 1767-68 as the author of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, which appeared in many colonial newspapers. The letters helped turn opinion against the Townshend Acts (1767), under which new duties were collected to pay the salaries of royal officials in the colonies. He also denounced the establishing of the American Board of Customs Commissioners at Boston to enforce the acts.

Discourses on Davila

This series of papers on political history was written in the year 1790, and then published in the Gazette of the United States. The Author was John Adams.

Elizabeth Drinker

a Quaker woman of late 18th century North America who kept a diary from 1758 to 1807.[1] This 2,100 page diary was first published in 1889 and sheds light on daily life in Philadelphia, the Society of Friends, family and gender roles, political issues and the American Revolution, and innovations in medical practices.

William Duane

a notable journalist of the Jeffersonian era. Born in Lake

Champlain, New York, Duane was educated in Ireland in the business of printing and moved to Calcutta, India, in the 1780s where he worked as an editor. He returned to America in the 1790s, and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked with Benjamin Franklin Bache on the Aurora

Gabriel Duvall

An American politician and jurist. He was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1835, during the Marshall Court.

Timothy Dwight

an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College.

Esther Edwards

She kept a personal journal from October 1754, in which she recorded her perspective on current events and her daily activities. Esther Burr's journal is considered an important source in studies of American history and literature for its insight into a woman's daily life in the late colonial period of the United States, She was also the mother of 3rd U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr Jr. and the wife of Princeton University President Aaron Burr Sr. whom she married in 1752,

Jonathon Edwards

the greatest theologian and philosopher of British American Puritanism, stimulator of the religious revival known as the "Great Awakening," and one of the forerunners of the age of Protestant missionary expansion in the 19th century.

Electoral College

The Founding Fathers established the it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. However, the term "electoral college" does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to "electors," but not to the "electoral college."

Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment to change this system.

Joseph Ellis

an American historian whose work focuses on the lives and times of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Oliver Ellsworth

a Founding Father of the United States, attorney, jurist, politician, and diplomat. Ellsworth was a framer of the United States Constitution, United States senator from Connecticut, and the third chief justice of the United States.

Enlightenment

a philosophical movement of the 18th century marked by a rejection of traditional social, religious, and political ideas and an emphasis on rationalism

Junto Essex

a group of Federalist political leaders. They opposed the War of 1812, leading them to participate in the secessionist Hartford Convention.

Factionalism

a condition in which a group, organization, government, etc., is split into two or more smaller groups with differing and often opposing opinions or interests

Federalist

a person who advocates or supports a system of government in which several states unite under a central authority.

Lame duck legislation

occurs whenever one Congress meets after its successor is elected, but before the successor's term begins. The expression is now used not only for a special session called after a sine die adjournment, but also for any portion of a regular session that falls after an election. In current practice, any meeting of Congress after election day, but before the next Congress convenes the following January, is called this. Prior to 1933, when the 20th Amendment changed the dates of the congressional term, the last regular session of Congress was always a lame-duck session.

Arthur Fenner

An American politician who served as the fourth Governor of Rhode Island from 1790 until his death in 1805. He has the seventh longest gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history at 5,641 days. He was a prominent Country Party leader.

John Fenno

a Federalist Party editor among early American publishers and major figure in the history of American newspapers. His Gazette of the United States played a major role in shaping the beginnings of party politics in the United States in the 1790s.

Benjamin Franklin

an American printer and publisher, author, inventor and scientist, and diplomat. One of the foremost of the Founding Fathers, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was one of its signers, represented the United States in France during the American Revolution, and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He made important contributions to science, especially in the understanding of electricity, and is remembered for the wit, wisdom, and elegance of his writing.

French Academy of Science

Institution established in Paris in 1666 under the patronage of Louis XIV to advise the French government on scientific matters. This advisory role has been largely taken over by other bodies, but the academy is still an important representative of French science on the international stage.

French Revolution

It began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French citizens radically altered their political landscape, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as the monarchy and the feudal system.

Peter Freneau

He became secretary of state in 1787 and retained the position until 1795. He also operated a variety of business interests, including land speculation and shipping. By the early 1800s he owned shipping vessels, which he engaged for some years in the Madeira trade. Earlier in his shipping career, he had taken part in the sale of at least one slave cargo.

Phillip Freneau

an American poet, nationalist, polemicist, sea captain and early American newspaper editor sometimes called the "Poet of the American Revolution". Through his Philadelphia newspaper, the National Gazette, he was a strong critic of George Washington and a proponent of Jeffersonian policies.

John Fries

charged with treason after leading an insurrection to avoid a house tax. His group managed to avoid paying the taxes for a time but, perhaps more importantly from a criminal context, liberated a group of prisoners from the custody of a federal marshal. He had previously been tried and found guilty, but one of the jurors subsequently admitted to having been prejudiced against him before the juror's deliberation. Accordingly, he was granted a second trial.

Fries Rebellion

uprising, in opposition to a direct federal property tax, by farmers in eastern Pennsylvania led by John Fries (c. 1750-1818).

Albert Gallatin

a Genevan-American politician, diplomat, ethnologist and linguist. Often described as "America's Swiss Founding Father", he was a leading figure in the early years of the United States, helping shape the new republic's financial system and foreign policy.

Horatio Gates

an English-born American general in the American Revolution (1775-83) whose victory over the British at the Battle of Saratoga (1777) turned the tide of victory in behalf of the Revolutionaries.

David Gelston

was a prominent New York City businessman and politician, who served as a representative from New York in the Continental Congress of 1789, the last under the Articles of Confederation. The 47-year-old was also a member of the New York State Senate

Citizen Genet

French minister to the United States from 1793 to 1794. His activities in that capacity embroiled the United States and France in a diplomatic crisis, as the United States Government attempted to remain neutral in the conflict between Great Britain and Revolutionary France. The controversy was ultimately resolved by Genêt's recall from his position. As a result of the Citizen Genêt affair, the United States established a set of procedures governing neutrality.

George III

He was the king of Great Britain and Ireland (1760-1820) and elector (1760-1814) and then king (1814-20) of Hanover, during a period when Britain won an empire in the Seven Years' War but lost its American colonies and then, after the struggle against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, emerged as a leading power in Europe. During the last years of his life (from 1811) he was intermittently mad, and his son acted as regent.

Elbridge Gerry

an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death in 1814. The political practice of gerrymandering is named after him.

Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe

a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era.

Benjamin Goodhue

a senator from Massachusetts and was a Federalist. He served from 1796 to 1800. He was previously the representative for Massachusetts's 1st congressional district as a Federalist from 1793 to 1796; the representative for Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district as a Federalist from 1791 to 1793; and the representative for Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district as a Federalist from 1789 to 1791. From Jan 1797 to May 1800, Goodhue missed 13 of 303 roll call votes, which is 4.3%. This is better than the median of 15.7% among the lifetime records of senators serving in May 1800.