Unit 2

Question	Answer
Backcountry	In the eighteenth century, the edge of settlement extending from western Pennsylvania to Georgia. This region formed the second frontier as settlers moved west from the Atlantic coast in the interior.
Middle ground	A geographical area where two distinct cultures meet and merge with neither holding a clear upper hand.
Enlightenment	Philosophical and intellectual movement that began in Europe during the eighteenth century. It stressed the use of reason to solve social and scientific problems.
Consumer revolution	Period between 1740 and 1770 when English exports to the American colonies increased by 360 percent to satisfy Americans’ demand for consumer goods.
Great Awakening	A sudden, spontaneous, and fervent series of Protestant evangelical revivals beginning in the 1730s and through the 1740s and 1750s that occurred throughout the colonies. The Great Awakening encouraged men and women to take an active role in their salvation and helped connect scattered colonists together with a unifying belief that, with God’s assistance, social and political progress was possible in colonial America.
Itinerant preachers	These charismatic preachers spread revivalism throughout America during the Great Awakening.
Albany Plan	Plan of intercolonial cooperation proposed by prominent colonists including Benjamin Franklin at a conference in Albany, New York, in 1754. The plan called for a Grand Council of elected delegates from the colonies that would have powers to tax and provide for common defense. Although rejected by the colonial and British governments, it was a prototype for colonial union.
Seven Years’ War	Worldwide conflict (1756-1763) that pitted Britain against France. With help from the American colonists, the British won the war and eliminated France as a power on the North American continent. Also known as the French and Indian War.
Peace of Paris of 1763	Treaty ending the French and Indian War by which France ceded Canada to Britain.
Whigs	In mid-eighteenth century Britain, the Whigs were a political faction that dominated Parliament. Generally, they opposed royal influence in government and wanted to increase the power of Parliament. In America, a Whig party coalesced in the 1830s in opposition to President Andrew Jackson. The American Whigs supported federal power and internal improvements but not territorial expansion. The Whig party collapsed in the 1850s.
Parliamentary sovereignty	Principle that emphasized Parliament’s power to govern colonial affairs.
Stamp Act of 1765	Placed a tax on newspapers and printed matter produced in the colonies, causing mass opposition by colonists.
Stamp Act Congress	Meeting of colonial delegates in New York City in October 1765 to protest the Stamp Act, a law passed by Parliament to raise revenue in America.
Boston Massacre	A violent clash between British troops and a Boston mob on March 5, 1770. Five citizens were killed when the troops fired into the crowd. The incident inflamed anti-British sentiment in Massachusetts.
Committee of correspondence	Communication network formed in Massachusetts and other colonies to communicate grievances and provide colonists with evidence of British oppression.
Boston Tea Party	Raid on British ships in which Patriots disguised as Mohawks threw hundreds of chests of tea owned by the East India Company into Boston Harbor to protest British taxes.
Coercive Acts	Also known as the Intolerable Acts, the four pieces of legislation passed by Parliament in response to the Boston Tea Party to punish Massachusetts.
First Continental Congress	A meeting of delegates from 12 colonies in Philadelphia in 1774, the Congress denied Parliament’s authority to legislate for the colonies, condemned British actions toward the colonies, created the Continental Association, and endorsed a call to take up arms.
Second Continental Congress	A gathering of colonial representatives in Philadelphia in 1775 that organized the Continental Army and began requisitioning men and supplies for the war effort.
Common Sense	Revolutionary tract written by Thomas Paine in 1776. It called for independence and a republican government in America.
Loyalists	Colonists sided with Britain during the American Revolution.
Yorktown	Virginia market town on a peninsula bounded by the York and James rivers, where Lord Cornwallis’s army was trapped by the American and the French in 1781.
Treaty of Paris of 1783	Agreement establishing American independence after the Revolutionary War. It also transferred territory east of the Mississippi River, except for Spanish Florida, to the new republic.
Republicanism	Concept that ultimate political authority is vested in the citizens of the nation.
African Methodist Episcopal Church	Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816 as the first independent black-run Protestant church in the United States. The AME Church was active in the abolition movement and founded educational institutions for free blacks.
Natural rights	Fundamental rights over which the government should exercise no control.
Articles of Confederation	Ratified in 1781, this document was the United States’ first constitution, providing a framework for national government. The articles limited central authority by denying the national government any taxation or coercive power.
Northwest Ordinance	Legislation in 1787 that established governments in America’s northwest territories, defined a procedure for their admission to the Union as states, and prohibited slavery north of the Ohio River.
Shays’s Rebellion	Armed insurrection of farmers in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays. Intended to prevent state courts from foreclosing on debtors unable to pay their taxes, the rebellion was put down by the state militia. Nationalists used the event to call a constitutional convention to strengthen the national government.
Virginia Plan	Offered by James Madison and the Virginia delegation at the Constitutional Convention, this proposal called for a strong executive office and two houses of Congress, each with representation proportional to a state’s population.
Three-fifths rule	Constitutional provision that for every five slaves a state would receive credit for three free voters in determining seats for the House of Representatives.
Federalist	Supporter of the Constitution who advocated its ratification.
Antifederalists	Critics of the Constitution who were concerned that it included no specific provisions to protect natural and civil rights.
Bill of Rights	The first ten amendments to the Constitution, adopted in 1791 to preserve the rights and liberties of individuals.
Bank of the United States	National bank proposed by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and established in 1791. It Served as a central depository for the U.S. government and had the authority to issue currency.
Implied powers	Powers the Constitution did no explicitly grant the federal government, but that it could be interpreted to grant.
French Revolution	A social and political revolution in France (1789-1799).
Jay’s Treaty	Treaty with Britain negotiated by Chief Justice John Jay in 1794. Though the British agreed to surrender forts on U.S. territory, the treaty provoked a storm of protest in America.
Whiskey Rebellion	Protest in 1794 by western Pennsylvania farmers against a federal tax on whiskey. The uprising was suppressed when President George Washington called an army of 15000 troops to the area.
Farewell Address	In this 1796 document, President George Washington announced his intention not to seek a third term. He also stressed Federalist interests and warned Americans against political factions and foreign entanglements.
Quasi-War	Undeclared war between the United States and France in the late 1790s.
XYZ Affair	A diplomatic incident in which American peace commissioners sent to France by President John Adams in 1797 were insulted with bribe demand from their French counterparts, dubbed X, Y, and Z in American newspapers. The incident heightened war fever against France.
Alien and Sedition Acts	Collective name given to four laws Congress passed in 1798 to suppress criticism of the federal government and curb liberties of foreigners living in the United States.
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions	Statements penned by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to mobilize opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts, which they argued were unconstitutional. Jefferson’s statement (the Kentucky Resolution) suggested that states could declare null and void congressional acts they deemed unconstitutional.

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