CIS US History ch 7 vocab

Articles of Confederation

First frame of government for the United States; in effect from 1781 to 1788, it provided for a weak central authority and was soon replaced by the Constitution.

Ordinance of 1784

A law drafted by Thomas Jefferson that regulated land ownership and defined the terms by which western land would be marketed and settled; it established stages of self-government for the West. First Congress would govern a territory; then the territory would be admitted to the Union as a full state.

Ordinance of 1785

A law that regulated land sales in the Old Northwest. The land surveyed was divided into 640-acre plots and sold at $1 per acre.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Law that created the Northwest Territory (area north of the Ohio River and west of Pennsylvania), established conditions for self-government and statehood, included a Bill of Rights, and permanently prohibited slavery.

empire of liberty 

The idea, expressed by Jefferson, that the United States would expand liberty as it spread west across the continent. White Americans who moved west would eventually be able to apply for admission into the United States as full member states.

Shays’ Rebellion

Attempt by Massachusetts farmer Daniel Shays and 1,200 compatriots, seeking debt relief through issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, to prevent courts from seizing property from indebted farmers.

Constitutional Convention

Meeting in Philadelphia, May 25–September 17, 1787, of representatives from twelve colonies—excepting Rhode Island—to revise the existing Articles of Confederation; the convention soon resolved to produce an entirely new constitution.

Virginia Plan

Virginia’s delegation to the Constitutional Convention’s plan for a strong central government and a two-house legislature apportioned by population.

New Jersey Plan

New Jersey’s delegation to the Constitutional Convention’s plan for one legislative body with equal representation for each state.

federalism

A system of government in which power is divided between the central government and the states.

division of powers

The division of political power between the state and federal governments under the U.S. Constitution (also known as federalism).

checks and balances 

A systematic balance to prevent any one branch of the national government from dominating the other two branches.

Separation of powers

Feature of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes called “checks and balances,” in which power is divided between executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the national government so that no one can dominate the other two and endanger citizens’ liberties.

three-fifths clause

A provision signed into the Constitution in 1787 that three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted in determining each state’s representation in the House of Representatives and its electoral votes for president.

The Federalist

Collection of eighty-five essays that appeared in the New York press in 1787–1788 in support of the Constitution; written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay and published under the pseudonym “Publius.”

Anti-Federalists

Opponents of the Constitution who saw it as a limitation on individual and states’ rights; their demands led to the addition of a Bill of Rights to the document.

Bill of Rights

First ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1791 to guarantee individual rights against infringement by the federal government.

Treaty of Greenville

A 1795 treaty under which representatives of twelve Native nations ceded most of Ohio and Indiana to the federal government. In exchange, the tribes received a cash payment of $20,000 in goods and an annual payment of $9,500, along with the right to hunt in the ceded territories.

annuity system

System of yearly payments to Native American nations by which the federal government justified and institutionalized its interference in Indian tribal affairs.

assimilation

the process by which a person or group's cultural identity becomes less distinct as they merge into the dominant culture

gradual emancipation

A series of acts passed in state legislatures in the North in the years following the Revolution that freed slaves after they reached a certain age, following lengthy “apprenticeships.”

Notes on the State of Virginia 

Thomas Jefferson’s 1785 book that claimed, among other things, that Black people were incapable of becoming citizens and living in harmony alongside white people due to the legacy of slavery and what Jefferson believed were the “real distinctions that nature has made” between races.