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Question 1Political institutions and public policy

Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress had the power to do which of the following?

  1. Regulate commerce among the several states
  2. Enforce its laws directly against individual citizens
  3. Declare war and conclude treaties Correct answer.
  4. Levy taxes directly on individual citizens

Explanation

The Confederation Congress could declare war, conclude treaties, and coin money, but its powers were limited to matters requiring cooperation among states. It could not tax individuals, regulate interstate commerce, or coerce citizens and states. These limits are the classic defects that led to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Question 2Political institutions and public policy

The Great Compromise at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 settled a dispute over which issue?

  1. Whether the Atlantic slave trade would be permitted
  2. How the president would be elected and for how long
  3. Whether enslaved people would count toward representation
  4. How states would be represented in Congress Correct answer.

Explanation

The Connecticut delegation proposed a bicameral legislature with population-based representation in the House and equal state representation in the Senate, merging the Virginia and New Jersey plans. The compromise resolved the central conflict between large and small states. The other choices address separate compromises over slavery and presidential selection.

Question 3Political institutions and public policy

The Three-Fifths Compromise addressed which question?

  1. How enslaved people would be counted for representation Correct answer.
  2. Whether Congress could prohibit the slave trade
  3. Whether the president could veto acts of Congress
  4. How many western territories could become states

Explanation

Delegates agreed that three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted for purposes of apportioning House seats and direct taxes. The clause inflated southern representation in Congress without giving enslaved people any rights. It was tied to taxation so that southern delegates could not claim both full representation and immunity from direct federal taxes.

Question 4Political institutions and public policy

Marbury v. Madison (1803) is significant mainly because it

  1. Asserted the Supreme Court's power of judicial review Correct answer.
  2. Confirmed that Congress could regulate interstate commerce
  3. Upheld the constitutionality of the First National Bank
  4. Established that states may not tax federal property

Explanation

Chief Justice Marshall held that a section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 was contrary to the Constitution and therefore void, which asserted the Court's authority to review the constitutionality of legislative acts. The case arose from William Marbury's undelivered justice-of-the-peace commission. Judicial review became a durable foundation of American constitutional law.

Question 5Political institutions and public policy

The first ten amendments were added to the Constitution chiefly to

  1. Establish the procedures for electing the president
  2. Protect individual liberties from federal overreach Correct answer.
  3. Expand the powers of the national government over the states
  4. Provide a mechanism for admitting new states to the Union

Explanation

Anti-Federalists objected that the unamended Constitution lacked explicit guarantees of personal rights, and ratification was secured partly by promises to add them. Madison drafted the amendments, ratified in 1791, as limits on the federal government. State-admission procedures and presidential election rules appear in the original Constitution, not in the Bill of Rights.

Question 6Political institutions and public policy

Under Article II of the Constitution as originally written, the president was to be chosen by

  1. A majority vote in the House of Representatives in every election
  2. Electors selected by the states Correct answer.
  3. A direct vote of all adult male property owners
  4. Appointment by the state governors acting jointly

Explanation

The Framers created an Electoral College in which each state appoints electors, in a manner its legislature directs, equal to its total congressional delegation. The House decides only when no candidate wins an electoral majority. The design reflected distrust of direct popular election and gave smaller states extra weight.

Question 7Political institutions and public policy

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was significant because it

  1. Created a permanent national capital district on the Potomac
  2. Established a framework for territories to become states Correct answer.
  3. Permitted slavery to expand north of the Ohio River
  4. Granted immediate statehood to all lands west of the Appalachians

Explanation

The ordinance organized the territory north of the Ohio, guaranteed civil liberties, encouraged public education, and set a path to statehood on equal footing with the original states. It also barred slavery in that territory. The framework became the model for later territorial governance.

Question 8Political institutions and public policy

The spoils system, associated with Andrew Jackson's presidency, refers to

  1. Giving government jobs to political supporters Correct answer.
  2. Distributing federal surplus revenue to the states
  3. Auctioning federal lands to the highest bidder
  4. Awarding government contracts to the lowest bidder

Explanation

Jackson defended rotation in office, replacing incumbent officeholders with loyal party supporters on the theory that ordinary citizens could perform government duties. The practice became a central feature of party politics in the second party system. It was later curtailed by civil service reform in the 1880s.

Question 9Political institutions and public policy

In Federalist No. 10, James Madison argued that the danger of factions

  1. Is greatest in republics with a large and diverse population
  2. Requires a strong executive to suppress popular uprisings
  3. Is best controlled in a large, extended republic Correct answer.
  4. Can be eliminated by laws forbidding political parties

Explanation

Madison contended that the causes of faction cannot be removed without destroying liberty, so the goal is to control its effects. A large republic multiplies interests and makes it harder for any single faction to form a majority and oppress others. This argument inverted the traditional view that republics must be small.

Question 10Political institutions and public policy

In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Supreme Court ruled that

  1. States could not tax an instrument of the federal government Correct answer.
  2. Congress had exceeded its authority by chartering a national bank
  3. State-chartered banks were immune from all federal regulation
  4. The president could not remove federal officers without Senate consent

Explanation

Chief Justice Marshall held that Congress could charter the bank under the necessary and proper clause and that Maryland's tax on the Baltimore branch was unconstitutional. The doctrine that the power to tax is the power to destroy meant a state could not burden a federal instrumentality. The decision broadly affirmed implied federal powers and national supremacy.

Question 11Political institutions and public policy

Which action best illustrates the system of checks and balances?

  1. Congress passing a bill by a simple majority in both houses
  2. The president issuing an executive order to a federal agency
  3. The Senate refusing to confirm a presidential nominee Correct answer.
  4. The Supreme Court hearing an appeal from a lower court

Explanation

Checks and balances give each branch a means of restraining the others. Senate rejection of a nominee is the legislature blocking an executive appointment, exercising the advice-and-consent power of Article II. Ordinary lawmaking, executive administration, and appellate review are exercises of separate powers rather than checks across branches.

Question 12Political institutions and public policy

The Sedition Act of 1798 was controversial because it

  1. Made criticism of the federal government a criminal offense Correct answer.
  2. Extended the naturalization waiting period for immigrants to fourteen years
  3. Forced unnaturalized aliens to register with federal marshals
  4. Required all newspapers to be licensed by the federal government

Explanation

The Sedition Act punished false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government or its officers and was used mainly against Republican editors. Republicans charged that it violated the First Amendment and aimed at silencing opposition during the quasi-war with France. Their protest produced the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.

Question 13Political institutions and public policy

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 preserved the balance of power in the Senate by

  1. Admitting Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state Correct answer.
  2. Admitting Missouri as a free state and Arkansas as a slave state
  3. Dividing the Louisiana Purchase into five separate territories
  4. Postponing the admission of any new states for ten years

Explanation

Maine, formerly part of Massachusetts, entered free while Missouri entered slave, keeping free and slave states equal in number. The compromise also drew the 36°30' line across the Louisiana Purchase, barring slavery north of it. The arrangement lasted until the Kansas-Nebraska Act revived the issue.

Question 14Political institutions and public policy

Which provision of the Compromise of 1850 provoked the most anger in the North?

  1. A strict fugitive slave law Correct answer.
  2. The organization of Utah and New Mexico without restrictions on slavery
  3. The admission of California as a free state
  4. The abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia

Explanation

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 denied alleged runaways a jury trial, paid federal commissioners more for returning than for freeing a claimant, and compelled northern citizens to assist in rendition. Enforcement provoked resistance, personal liberty laws, and violent confrontations. It became the most divisive element of the package.

Question 15Political institutions and public policy

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was significant because it

  1. Repealed the Missouri Compromise's slavery restriction Correct answer.
  2. Banned slavery in all territories acquired from Mexico
  3. Admitted Kansas to the Union as a slave state
  4. Upheld the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act

Explanation

Stephen Douglas proposed organizing the territories under popular sovereignty, which required setting aside the 36°30' prohibition of slavery. The result was a surge of settlement by both proslavery and free-soil partisans and violent conflict in 'Bleeding Kansas.' The act also destroyed the Whig Party and spurred the rise of the Republicans.

Question 16Political institutions and public policy

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, did which of the following?

  1. Abolished slavery throughout the United States
  2. Provided forty acres and a mule to freedpeople in the South
  3. Granted citizenship and equal protection under the law Correct answer.
  4. Guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race or color

Explanation

The amendment established birthright citizenship, barred states from abridging privileges or immunities, and required due process and equal protection of the laws. It reversed the Dred Scott holding on Black citizenship and gave Congress enforcement power. Its equal protection clause became the basis for later civil rights litigation.

Question 17Political institutions and public policy

South Carolina's nullification ordinance of 1832 was a protest against

  1. Congress's refusal to recharter a national bank
  2. High protective tariffs enacted by Congress Correct answer.
  3. Federal funding for internal improvements within the states
  4. The Supreme Court's decision in Worcester v. Georgia

Explanation

South Carolina declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void within its borders, invoking the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions' states'-rights doctrine. Jackson responded with a proclamation denying any state power to annul federal law and secured the Force Bill. A compromise tariff in 1833 defused the confrontation.

Question 18Political institutions and public policy

Andrew Jackson's 1832 veto of the bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States was notable because he

  1. Argued the bank benefited the wealthy at ordinary citizens' expense Correct answer.
  2. Insisted that the Supreme Court had already settled the bank's constitutionality
  3. Deferred to Nicholas Biddle and the bank's congressional supporters
  4. Conceded that the bank was constitutional but politically unwise

Explanation

Jackson's veto message denied that McCulloch had settled the question for the political branches and attacked the bank as a monopoly conferring privilege on the rich. He asserted that each branch may interpret the Constitution independently. The veto strengthened the president's legislative role and became a campaign issue in 1832.

Question 19Political institutions and public policy

Henry Clay's American System rested on which combination of policies?

  1. Free trade, territorial expansion, and the abolition of the national bank
  2. A protective tariff, a national bank, and internal improvements Correct answer.
  3. Strict construction, states' rights, and the repeal of internal improvements
  4. Popular sovereignty, low tariffs, and the rapid sale of public lands

Explanation

Clay's program linked a protective tariff to fund the government, a national bank to stabilize currency, and federally supported roads and canals to bind the sections together. It reflected a nationalist reading of the commerce and general welfare powers. Jacksonians and southerners attacked it as favoring eastern manufacturing at their expense.

Question 20Political institutions and public policy

The Judiciary Act of 1789 established which of the following?

  1. The Supreme Court's power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional
  2. A system of circuit courts staffed only by elected judges
  3. The federal court system, including lower federal courts Correct answer.
  4. The abolition of state courts in cases involving federal law

Explanation

The First Congress created a Supreme Court of six justices, district courts in each state, and circuit courts combining district and Supreme Court judges. It also set the size of the Court and defined federal jurisdiction. The act gave practical structure to Article III, which had sketched the judiciary only in outline.

Question 21Political institutions and public policy

The Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) held that

  1. Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories Correct answer.
  2. Slavery could not legally exist north of the Missouri border
  3. Popular sovereignty was the only lawful method of settling slavery in a territory
  4. African Americans born in the United States were national citizens

Explanation

Chief Justice Taney ruled that the Missouri Compromise's territorial prohibition exceeded congressional power because Congress must protect property, including enslaved people, in the territories. He also declared that Black Americans, enslaved or free, were not citizens entitled to sue in federal court. The decision deepened sectional conflict and was overturned by the Civil War amendments.

Question 22Political institutions and public policy

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), Chief Justice Marshall ruled that

  1. The Cherokee Nation lacked standing to sue in federal court
  2. State law had no force within Cherokee territory Correct answer.
  3. The Indian Removal Act was unconstitutional because it violated treaties
  4. Georgia could extend its jurisdiction over tribal land with federal consent

Explanation

Marshall characterized tribes as domestic dependent nations with a federal relationship exclusive of state authority, so Georgia's licensing laws could not reach Cherokee lands. The decision affirmed federal supremacy in Indian affairs rather than tribal sovereignty as such. President Jackson declined to enforce it, and removal proceeded anyway.

Question 23Political institutions and public policy

The Tenure of Office Act of 1867 was passed primarily to

  1. Limit the president's authority to command the army during Reconstruction
  2. Establish the procedures for removing federal judges from office
  3. Keep the president from dismissing officials without Senate approval Correct answer.
  4. Require Senate confirmation for the president's cabinet appointments

Explanation

Congress enacted the law over President Johnson's veto to shield officeholders friendly to Radical Reconstruction, requiring Senate consent for removals of officials whose appointments had required confirmation. Johnson's dismissal of Secretary of War Stanton led to his impeachment in 1868. He was acquitted by a single vote, and the act was later repealed.

Question 24Political institutions and public policy

The Wilmot Proviso, introduced in 1846, would have

  1. Extended the Missouri Compromise line all the way to the Pacific
  2. Paid Mexico for additional territory south of the Rio Grande
  3. Banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico Correct answer.
  4. Allowed settlers in the Mexican cession to decide slavery's status

Explanation

David Wilmot proposed that slavery be prohibited in lands won from Mexico, framing the issue as a matter of free soil rather than abolition. The proviso passed the House but failed in the Senate and never became law. Its repeated reintroduction made slavery in the territories the central national political question for the next decade.

Question 25Political institutions and public policy

The Compromise of 1877 produced which outcome?

  1. Congressional passage of the Fifteenth Amendment
  2. The withdrawal of federal troops from the South Correct answer.
  3. The creation of the Freedmen's Bureau as a permanent agency
  4. The impeachment and removal of President Andrew Johnson

Explanation

The disputed Hayes-Tilden election was resolved by an informal bargain in which Rutherford Hayes took the presidency and federal troops were withdrawn from the remaining southern states. The result ended the last federal effort to protect freedpeople's rights, and by the end of 1877 Reconstruction was over. Southern state governments then moved quickly to restrict Black voting and civil rights.

Question 26Political institutions and public policy

The Great Compromise at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 resolved the dispute over representation by

  1. counting three-fifths of the enslaved population toward a state's representation in the House
  2. giving each state the same single vote in both chambers of the national legislature
  3. splitting Congress into a population-based House and a state-equal Senate Correct answer.
  4. allowing each state legislature to choose the method of apportioning its own seats

Explanation

The Connecticut Compromise merged the Virginia Plan's population-based lower chamber with the New Jersey Plan's equal state representation in the upper chamber, breaking the convention's central deadlock. Its two-chamber design also required revenue bills to originate in the House, a concession to large states.

Question 27Political institutions and public policy

The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution primarily to

  1. grant the federal government new authority to license newspapers and printers
  2. expand the enumerated powers granted to the federal judiciary under Article III
  3. establish the procedure by which new states would be admitted to the Union
  4. meet Anti-Federalist demands for explicit guarantees of personal liberties Correct answer.

Explanation

Several state ratifying conventions, beginning with Massachusetts, conditioned their approval on the addition of amendments protecting speech, religion, jury trial, and other liberties. Madison drafted the amendments in the first Congress, and the states ratified ten of them in 1791.

Question 28Political institutions and public policy

The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865, did which of the following?

  1. granted voting rights to formerly enslaved men
  2. provided forty acres and a mule to freedpeople
  3. abolished slavery throughout the United States Correct answer.
  4. guaranteed equal protection of the laws to all persons

Explanation

The amendment eliminated slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide except as punishment for a crime, closing the geographic limit that had confined the Emancipation Proclamation to rebel territory.

Question 29Political institutions and public policy

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 advanced the argument that

  1. Congress could deport aliens it deemed dangerous to the public safety
  2. the president could refuse to enforce statutes he considered unwise or unjust
  3. states could judge the constitutionality of federal laws for themselves Correct answer.
  4. the federal courts alone should decide whether a law is constitutional

Explanation

Written by Madison and Jefferson against the Alien and Sedition Acts, the resolutions rested on the compact theory: the states, as parties to the constitutional compact, retained authority to judge when the federal government exceeded its powers. The doctrine later supplied language for nullification and interposition.

Question 30Political institutions and public policy

In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the Supreme Court held that

  1. the commerce power applied to manufacturing and agriculture as well as to trade
  2. Congress could regulate commerce only where states had first declined to act
  3. federal commerce power included navigation and overrode a state monopoly Correct answer.
  4. states retained exclusive authority over commerce conducted within their borders and ports

Explanation

Marshall read the commerce clause broadly, treating navigation as part of interstate commerce and holding that a valid federal coasting license displaced the steamboat monopoly New York had granted. The ruling gave Congress a wide basis for regulating the national economy.

Question 31Political institutions and public policy

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the president to

  1. negotiate treaties that recognized permanent tribal sovereignty over ancestral lands
  2. use military force to disband any tribal government within a state
  3. exchange lands west of the Mississippi for the homelands of eastern tribes Correct answer.
  4. extend U.S. citizenship to all Native peoples living east of the Mississippi

Explanation

The act appropriated money to negotiate removal treaties and land exchanges, officially framed as voluntary but backed by state pressure and federal coercion. It produced the removals that included the Trail of Tears.

Question 32Political institutions and public policy

Between 1836 and 1844, the House of Representatives' "gag rule" provided that

  1. petitions for the abolition of slavery in the territories would be received and debated
  2. members could not discuss slavery on the House floor at any time
  3. abolitionist literature could not be carried through the federal mails
  4. antislavery petitions would be automatically tabled without being read or debated Correct answer.

Explanation

Southern members won adoption of a rule setting aside antislavery petitions without action, blocking consideration of the thousands of petitions that flooded Congress. John Quincy Adams fought the rule continuously until it was repealed in 1844.

Question 33Political institutions and public policy

Jackson's 1830 veto of the Maysville Road bill rested on the argument that

  1. the road was a purely local project rather than a national one Correct answer.
  2. the bill would benefit only the northeastern states at southern expense
  3. the Constitution gave Congress no authority over transportation of any kind
  4. internal improvements should be financed entirely by state governments forever

Explanation

Jackson distinguished projects of genuinely national character, which he was willing to fund, from improvements confined to a single state, which he thought beyond the general welfare power. Because the Maysville road lay wholly inside Kentucky, he treated it as local.

Question 34Political institutions and public policy

The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 declared that

  1. the United States would join with European powers in policing affairs throughout the Western Hemisphere
  2. new European colonization or intervention in the Americas would be considered unfriendly Correct answer.
  3. the United States would send troops to help Spanish colonies win their independence
  4. European trade with Latin America would be closed to all foreign merchants

Explanation

Monroe's annual message warned European powers against establishing new colonies or intervening in the Americas while pledging American noninterference in European affairs. Issued without military backing, it became a durable statement of hemispheric policy.

Question 35Political institutions and public policy

Washington's response to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 demonstrated that

  1. the federal government would leave tax enforcement to the states
  2. the federal government would enforce its laws with force Correct answer.
  3. Congress would repeal unpopular taxes whenever violence broke out
  4. frontier settlers could overturn federal excise taxes through armed protest

Explanation

Washington federalized militia from several states and marched west; the insurgents dispersed without a battle. The episode established the precedent that the national government could suppress armed resistance to its statutes.

Question 36Political institutions and public policy

The Reconstruction Act of March 1867 provided that

  1. the South would be organized into military districts until new constitutions were adopted Correct answer.
  2. the president would supervise the readmission of southern states on his own terms
  3. southern states could reenter the Union as soon as they repealed their ordinances of secession
  4. former Confederate leaders could hold office upon taking an oath of allegiance

Explanation

Passed over Johnson's veto, the act placed the former rebel states under military authority and required them to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and write constitutions enfranchising black men before readmission. It transferred control of Reconstruction from the president to Congress.

Question 37Political institutions and public policy

In Ex parte Merryman (1861), Chief Justice Taney ruled that

  1. civilians could be tried by military commission wherever the army was present
  2. the president's suspension of the writ was valid because of the wartime emergency
  3. only Congress, not the president, could suspend the writ of habeas corpus Correct answer.
  4. secession ordinances had automatically dissolved the federal courts in the South

Explanation

Sitting as a circuit judge, Taney held that the suspension clause places the power in Congress and that President Lincoln's order was therefore invalid. Lincoln disputed the ruling in his July 1861 message to Congress and continued to detain prisoners under his own authority.

Question 38Political institutions and public policy

The Lecompton Constitution of 1857 became a national controversy because

  1. it applied the principle of popular sovereignty to the entire Louisiana Purchase
  2. the vote on it was rigged to protect slavery whichever way it went Correct answer.
  3. it was drafted by Free-Soil settlers and excluded slaveholders from the territory
  4. it prohibited slavery and was rejected by the territorial legislature

Explanation

The proslavery convention at Lecompton refused to submit the whole document to the voters, offering only a choice over the slave trade, so slavery would survive either way. President Buchanan's support for the document split the Democratic Party and deepened Stephen Douglas's break with the administration.

Question 39Political institutions and public policy

Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) was important because the Marshall Court held that

  1. the federal government had exclusive power to create and regulate corporations
  2. corporations enjoyed the same free-speech protections as natural persons do
  3. state legislatures could revise corporate charters whenever the public interest required
  4. a state could not alter a charter it had granted, because a charter is a contract Correct answer.

Explanation

Marshall applied the contracts clause to a private corporate charter, holding that New Hampshire could not unilaterally revise the college's founding grant. The decision made charters more secure and encouraged investment in incorporated enterprises.

Question 40Political institutions and public policy

In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Supreme Court decided which of the following?

  1. that Congress could charter a national bank free from state taxation Correct answer.
  2. that the Court had no jurisdiction because a state government was a party to the suit
  3. that a state may tax a federal instrumentality as long as the rate is nondiscriminatory
  4. that the Necessary and Proper Clause restricts Congress to powers expressly listed in Article I

Explanation

McCulloch upheld the constitutionality of the Second Bank of the United States as a means of carrying out Congress's enumerated fiscal powers, relying on the Necessary and Proper Clause. It then held that Maryland's tax on the bank's Baltimore branch was unconstitutional because the power to tax a federal instrumentality is the power to destroy it. The ruling thus affirmed both implied federal powers and federal supremacy over state interference.

Question 41Social developments

Which statement best describes the typical Puritan family in seventeenth-century New England?

  1. Households were usually small and limited to parents and children
  2. Husbands and wives shared legal authority equally in practice
  3. Married women kept independent control of property they brought to a marriage
  4. The father held authority over the household as its head Correct answer.

Explanation

Puritan social order rested on hierarchy, and the household was the basic unit of both economic production and religious instruction. The male head was responsible for the conduct of his wife, children, and servants.

Question 42Social developments

The First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s is best described as

  1. a rationalist movement that emphasized human reason over religious emotion
  2. an effort by colonial governments to standardize religious worship
  3. a campaign to separate church and state throughout the colonies
  4. a wave of emotional revival preaching that divided many congregations Correct answer.

Explanation

Itinerant preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield stressed personal conversion and emotional religious experience. The revivals split congregations into rival 'New Light' and 'Old Light' factions and weakened the authority of established ministers.

Question 43Social developments

During the seventeenth century, the majority of white immigrants to the Chesapeake colonies arrived as

  1. soldiers discharged from the English army
  2. indentured servants bound to labor for a set number of years Correct answer.
  3. convicted criminals sentenced to permanent exile
  4. free artisans who paid their own passage

Explanation

Planters needed labor for tobacco and were willing to pay passage in exchange for a term of service, usually four to seven years. Because so many of these servants died before completing their terms, planters increasingly turned to enslaved African labor late in the century.

Question 44Social developments

The term 'Middle Passage' refers to

  1. the route by which captured Africans were marched to the coast
  2. the transatlantic voyage that carried enslaved Africans to the Americas Correct answer.
  3. the auction process by which enslaved people were sold in the Americas
  4. the leg of the triangular trade that carried New England rum to Africa

Explanation

The Middle Passage was the middle leg of the triangular trade, following European goods to Africa and preceding colonial staples back to Europe. Mortality was extremely high because of crowding, disease, and brutal treatment aboard ship.

Question 45Social developments

The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 is best known for

  1. founding the American Anti-Slavery Society and electing its first officers
  2. organizing the first national convention of the temperance movement
  3. petitioning Congress to create a national system of public schools
  4. issuing a Declaration of Sentiments modeled on the Declaration of Independence Correct answer.

Explanation

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott convened the meeting, which produced a manifesto listing women's grievances and demanding the franchise. The suffrage resolution was the most controversial item at the time but became the movement's defining goal.

Question 46Social developments

The ideal of 'republican motherhood' held that women's civic contribution lay in

  1. serving as elected delegates to state constitutional conventions
  2. organizing labor unions among factory women in the Northeast
  3. raising virtuous sons and daughters devoted to the republic Correct answer.
  4. holding local office in New England town meetings

Explanation

After independence, writers argued that the survival of republican government depended on citizens who were educated and morally reliable. Women were assigned the task of forming those citizens within the household, which justified expanded female education without granting political rights.

Question 47Social developments

Horace Mann and the common school movement of the 1830s and 1840s campaigned for

  1. tax-supported elementary schools open to all children Correct answer.
  2. apprenticeship programs run by craft unions
  3. separate schools for each religious denomination
  4. federally funded colleges open to formerly enslaved people

Explanation

Reformers argued that a republic needed literate, moral citizens and that schooling should be publicly financed and universally available. Mann, as head of Massachusetts's first state board of education, promoted trained teachers, standardized curricula, and longer school terms.

Question 48Social developments

Support for the Know-Nothing Party in the 1850s came mainly from

  1. native-born Protestants hostile to Catholic immigration Correct answer.
  2. abolitionists who wanted to restrict the spread of slavery
  3. immigrant workers concentrated in the port cities
  4. southern planters worried about federal interference

Explanation

The party grew out of secret nativist societies that feared the political influence of Irish and German Catholic newcomers. Its program combined hostility to immigrants and Catholics with opposition to the influence of foreign-born voters in city politics.

Question 49Social developments

The Stono Rebellion of 1739 differed from most earlier episodes of slave resistance in the mainland colonies because it

  1. was organized jointly by white indentured servants and enslaved workers
  2. ended with the governor freeing all rebels who agreed to surrender
  3. persuaded colonial legislatures to abolish the slave trade for a decade
  4. involved a large armed group that killed whites before being suppressed Correct answer.

Explanation

Enslaved people near the Stono River in South Carolina seized weapons, killed white colonists, and marched toward Spanish Florida, which promised freedom to escapees. The revolt was crushed, and the colonial assembly responded with tighter controls on enslaved people's assembly, literacy, and movement.

Question 50Social developments

Historians often connect Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 to which later change in the Chesapeake?

  1. the introduction of the headright system granting land for imported laborers
  2. the spread of tobacco as the colony's main cash crop
  3. a turn toward enslaved African labor rather than indentured servants Correct answer.
  4. the creation of an elected assembly, the House of Burgesses

Explanation

The rebellion drew support from freed servants and small planters angry about land shortages and Indian policy, alarming the planter elite. In the following decades planters increasingly purchased enslaved Africans, whose terms of service never expired and whose labor force was easier to control.