Chapter Six: The Republican Experiment, 1783-1788

Practice Quiz:

1. As understood in the late 1700s, a republic was a system in which ultimate political authority is vested in
a. a constitutional monarchy.
b. the people.
c. the rich and powerful.
d. evangelical Protestants.

2. In the 1780s, why did Americans disagree sharply over the relative importance of liberty and order?
a. Americans believed that in order to gain liberty, everyone should be free to do what he/she wanted.
b. Some Americans believed people should be free; others believed they should be well-mannered.
c. Religious leaders preached order while politicians advocated for liberty and religious freedom.
d. After British tyranny Americans valued liberty but also valued an ordered society.

3. Why was there an uproar surrounding the formation of the Society of the Cincinnati?
a. The public feared that it would begin a hereditary peerage in America.
b. Many women were angry because membership was exclusively male.
c. Religious leaders felt the society was pagan in its rituals.
d. Southerners questioned the society’s strong anti-slavery stance.

4. How was slavery an obvious contradiction to the principles of the American republic?
a. Because slavery showed how poorly treated black women were.
b. Americans claimed to be fighting for freedom, but still enslaved others.
c. Slavery funded much of the Revolution, so it was part of the new republic.
d. Slavery was a British institution and had no place in an independent America.

5. What did women gain as a result of the American Revolution?
a. Women gained voting rights and access to higher education access.
b. Women gained little; their lives remained much the same.
c. Women gained education, new divorce laws, and some economic opportunities.
d. Women could travel freely, study widely, and find gainful employment.

6. Why did most first state constitutions include a bill of rights?
a  To remind future rulers of the exact limits of their authority.
b. To establish that only white male landowners had rights.
c. To create a stronger central federal government.
d. To prevent a stronger central federal government.

7. Why did the Articles of Confederation give states more power than the central government?
a. The delegates believed that powerful state governments were dangerous.
b. The delegates were mostly state governors, so they wanted to preserve their own power.
c. The new central government had proven itself unworthy of power with corrupt officials and systematic abuses.
d. The delegates believed that powerful central governments were dangerous.

8. The controversy that delayed ratification of the Articles of Confederation involved
a. slavery.
b. the disposition of western lands.
c. American relations with European countries.
d. regulating trade with British manufacturers.

9. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787
a. defined the process by which a territory became a state.
b. provided for the surveying of the Northwest Territory.
c. ignored the basic rights of settlers in the region.
d. specifically allowed slavery to exist in the region.

10. The European philosopher whose ideas supported the theory of state sovereignty was
a. Montesquieu.
b. Voltaire.
c. Machiavelli.
d. Rousseau.

11. An important procedural decision approved at the opening of the Constitutional Convention involved
a. publicizing the convention’s meetings and debates.
b. its refusal to allow the small states to present their plans for constitutional revisions.
c. the decision to keep deliberations as secret as possible.
d. the election of James Madison as chairman.

12. The compromise which resolved the dispute between the large and the small states included the following agreement:
a. The states would be equally represented in the House of Representatives.
b. Only the Senate could initiate bills pertaining to taxation or spending.
c. Every state would move it’s capital city to the center of the state.
d. One member of the lower house would be selected for every 30,000 inhabitants of a state.

13. The three-fifths rule concerned the issue of
a. whether to count slaves as part of the population.
b. the transportation of slaves into federal territories.
c. citizenship for African Americans.
d. banning the importation of slaves.

14.  Why did the new Constitution of 1787 call for the election of a president by Electoral College?
a. So that the people could directly vote for their president.
b. Because most voters were illiterate.
c. So the president would not be indebted to Congress for his office.
d. To prevent non-white males from voting.

15. Why did Gouverneur Morris use the phrase “We the people of the United States” in the new Constitution?
a. He wanted to exclude women and African Americans from the rights described in the document.
b. The phrase recalled the Declaration of Independence and would help Americans approve the document.
c. The other delegates voted unanimously on the phrase, thinking it would help ensure ratification.
d. He wanted to avoid mention of the states because he was unsure how many and which states would ratify the document.

16. How did the Bill of Rights of 1789 protect only some individual freedoms?
a. They didn’t allow for freedoms of speech, religion, press, or trial.
b. They excluded foreigners and poor Americans.
c. They protected the freedoms of speech, religion, press, trial, bearing arms, and searches but did not grant rights to non-white males.
d. They granted the states more power than the federal government.