Give Me Liberty, Chapters 5-8

Stamp Act

Parliament’s 1765 requirement that revenue stamps be affixed to all colonial printed matter, documents, and playing cards; the Stamp Act Congress met to formulate a response, and the act was repealed the following year.

virtual representation

The idea that the American colonies, although they had no actual representative in Parliament, were "virtually" represented by all members of Parliament.

Sugar Act

1764 decision by Parliament to tax refined sugar and many other colonial products.

"No taxation without representation"

The rallying cry of opponents to the 1765 Stamp Act. The slogan decried the colonists' lack of representation in Parliament.

Committee of Correspondence

Group organized by Samuel Adams in retaliation for the Gaspèe incident to address American grievances, assert American rights, and form a network of rebellion.

Sons of Liberty

Organization formed by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other radical men in response to the Stamp Act.

Regulators

Groups of backcountry Carolina settlers who protested colonial policies.

Townshend Acts

1767 parliamentary measures (named for the Chancellor of the Exchequer) that taxed tea and other commodities and established a Board of Customs Commissioners and colonial vice-admiralty courts.

Daughters of Liberty

Organization formed by women in 1767 to protest against the British by boycotting British goods, making replacement products such as homespun cloth, and publicizing their efforts to encourage others.

Boston Massacre

Clash between British soldiers and a Boston mob, March 5, 1770, in which five colonists were killed.

Crispus Attucks

One of the protesters against British troops who was killed during the Boston Massacre.

Boston Tea Party

The incident on December 16, 1773, in which the Sons of Liberty dumped hundreds of chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act of 1773. Under the Tea Act, the British exported to the colonies millions of pounds of cheap—but still taxed—tea, thereby undercutting the price of smuggled tea and forcing payment of the tea duty.

Intolerable Acts

Four parliamentary measures in reaction to the Boston Tea Party that forced payment for the tea, disallowed colonial trials of British soldiers, forced their quartering in private homes, and reduced the number of elected officials in Massachusetts.

Continental Congress

First meeting of representatives of the colonies, held in Philadelphia in 1774 to formulate actions against British policies; in the Second Continental Congress (1775–1789), the colonial representatives conducted the war and adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.

Battles of Lexington and Concord

The first shots fired in the Revolutionary War, on April 19, 1775, near Boston; approximately 100 minutemen and 250 British soldiers were killed.

Battle of Bunker Hill

First major battle of the Revolutionary War; it actually took place at nearby Breed's Hill, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1775.

Continental army

Army authorized by the Continental Congress in 1775 to fight the British; commanded by General George Washington.

Lord Dunmore's proclamation

A proclamation issued in 1775 by the earl of Dunmore, the British governor of Virginia, that offered freedom to any men enslaved by rebels who volunteered to fight for the king.

Common Sense

A pamphlet anonymously written by Thomas Paine in January 1776 that attacked the English principles of hereditary rule and monarchical government.

Declaration of Independence

Document adopted on July 4, 1776, that made the break with Britain official; drafted by a committee of the Second Continental Congress, including principal writer Thomas Jefferson.

Battle of Saratoga

Major defeat of British general John Burgoyne and more than 5,000 British troops at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777.

Joseph Brant

Mohawk military, political, and diplomatic leader who led the Haudenosaunee against the rebelling British colonists in the Revolutionary War; brother of Molly Brant.

Molly Brant

Mohawk leader who coordinated efforts with the British and with Loyalists during the Revolutionary War in Haudenosaunee country; sister of Joseph Brant.

Paya Mataha

Chickasaw military and diplomatic leader who worked during the era of the American Revolution to make peace among Native nations, including the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Choctaw, and tried to stay out of Europeans' infighting.

Battle of Yorktown

Last battle of the Revolutionary War; General Lord Charles Cornwallis along with over 7,000 British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 17, 1781.

Treaty of Paris

Signed on September 3, 1783, the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, recognized American independence from Britain, established the border between Canada and the United States, fixed the western border at the Mississippi River, and ceded Florida to Spain (without setting Florida's border).

republic

Representative political system in which citizens govern themselves by electing representatives, or legislators, to make key decisions on the citizens' behalf.

suffrage

The right to vote.

Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom

A Virginia law, drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777 and enacted in 1786, that guarantees freedom of, and from, religion.

inflation

An economic condition in which prices rise continuously.

free trade

The belief that economic development arises from the exchange of goods between different countries without governmental interference.

The Wealth of Nations

The 1776 work by economist Adam Smith that argued that the "invisible hand" of the free market directed economic life more effectively and fairly than governmental intervention.

Loyalists

Colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain during the War of Independence.

abolition

Social movement of the pre–Civil War era that advocated the immediate emancipation of the slaves and their incorporation into American society as equal citizens.

freedom petitions

Arguments for liberty presented to courts and legislatures starting in the early 1770s by enslaved African Americans.

Lemuel Haynes

A Black member of the Massachusetts militia and celebrated minister who urged that Americans extend their conception of freedom to enslaved Africans during the Revolutionary era.

free Blacks

African American persons not held in slavery; immediately before the Civil War, there were nearly a half million free Blacks in the United States, split almost evenly between North and South.

coverture

Principle in English and U.S. law that a married woman lost her legal identity, which became "covered" by that of her husband, who therefore controlled her person and the family's economic resources.

republican motherhood

The ideology that emerged as a result of American independence where women's political role was to train their sons to be future citizens.

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's 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.

annuity system

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

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."

open immigration

American immigration laws under which nearly all white people could immigrate to the United States and become naturalized citizens.

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.

Bank of the United States

Proposed by the first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, the bank that opened in 1791 and operated until 1811 to issue a uniform currency, make business loans, and collect tax monies. The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, but President Andrew Jackson vetoed the recharter bill in 1832.

impressment

The British navy's practice of using press-gangs to kidnap men in British and colonial ports who were then forced to serve in the British navy.

Jay's Treaty

Treaty with Britain negotiated in 1794 by Chief Justice John Jay; Britain agreed to vacate forts in the Northwest Territories, and festering disagreements (such as the border with Canada, prewar debts, and shipping claims) would be settled by commission.

Federalists and Republicans

The two increasingly coherent political parties that appeared in Congress by the mid-1790s. The Federalists, led by George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong central government. The Republicans supported a strict interpretation of the Constitution, which they believed would safeguard individual freedoms and states' rights from the threats posed by a strong central government.

Whiskey Rebellion

Violent protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against the federal excise tax on whiskey in 1794.

Democratic-Republican societies

Organizations created in the mid-1790s by opponents of the policies of the Washington administration and supporters of the French Revolution.

Judith Sargent Murray

A writer and early feminist thinker prominent in the years following the American Revolution.

XYZ affair

Affair in which French foreign minister Talleyrand's three anonymous agents (designated X, Y, and Z) demanded payments to stop French plundering of American ships in 1797; refusal to pay the bribe was followed by two years of undeclared sea war with France (1798–1800).

Alien and Sedition Acts

Four measures passed in 1798 during the undeclared war with France that limited the freedoms of speech and press and restricted the liberty of noncitizens.

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions

Legislation passed in 1798 and 1799 by the Virginia and the Kentucky legislatures; written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the resolutions advanced the state-compact theory of the Constitution. Virginia's resolution called on the federal courts to protect free speech. Jefferson's draft for Kentucky stated that a state could nullify federal law, but this was deleted.

Revolution of 1800

First time that an American political party surrendered power to the opposition party; Jefferson, a Republican, had defeated incumbent Adams, a Federalist, for president.

Haitian Revolution

A revolution by enslaved people that led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent country in 1804.

Gabriel's Rebellion

An 1800 uprising planned by Virginian slaves to gain their freedom. The plot led by a blacksmith named Gabriel was discovered and quashed.

Marbury v. Madison

First U.S. Supreme Court decision to declare a federal law—the Judiciary Act of 1801—unconstitutional.

Louisiana Purchase

President Thomas Jefferson's 1803 purchase from France of the important port of New Orleans and 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. In theory, it more than doubled the territory of the United States at a cost of only $15 million; in reality it was still the land of multiple Native nations.

Lewis and Clark expedition

Led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a mission to the Pacific coast commissioned for the purposes of scientific and geographical exploration.

Barbary Wars

The first wars fought by the United States, and the nation's first encounter with the Islamic world. The wars were fought from 1801 to 1805 against plundering pirates off the Mediterranean coast of Africa after President Thomas Jefferson's refusal to pay them tribute to protect American ships.

Embargo Act

Attempt in 1807 to exert economic pressure by prohibiting all exports from the United States instead of waging war in reaction to continued British impressment of American sailors; smugglers easily circumvented the embargo, and it was repealed two years later.

Tecumseh

Shawnee diplomatic and military leader who followed the teachings of his brother Tenskwatawa and tried to unite all Indians into a confederation to resist white encroachment on their lands; his beliefs and leadership made him seem dangerous to the American government. He allied with the British during the War of 1812 and was killed at the Battle of the Thames.

Tenskwatawa

Shawnee religious prophet who called for complete Native American separation from whites and their goods and influence and resistance to the United States; brother of Tecumseh.

War of 1812

War fought with Britain, 1812–1814, over issues that included impressment of American sailors, interference with shipping, and collusion with Northwest Territory Indians; settled by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814.

Fort McHenry

Fort in Baltimore Harbor unsuccessfully bombarded by the British in September 1814; Francis Scott Key, a witness to the battle, was moved to write the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Battle of New Orleans

Last battle of the War of 1812, fought on January 8, 1815, weeks after the peace treaty was signed but prior to the news reaching America; General Andrew Jackson led the victorious American troops.

Hartford Convention

Meeting of New England Federalists on December 15, 1814, to protest the War of 1812; proposed seven constitutional amendments (limiting embargoes and changing requirements for officeholding, declaration of war, and admission of new states), but the war ended before Congress could respond.