Florida U.S. History EOC flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Mayflower Compact

1620 agreement among Plymouth settlers to form a civil body politic and obey just laws, an early example of self-government by consent in colonial North America.

House of Burgesses

1619 representative assembly in Virginia, the first elected legislative body in colonial North America; it set taxes and made laws for the colony.

Mercantilism

Economic doctrine holding that national power depends on accumulated wealth and a favorable trade balance; colonies supplied raw materials and bought manufactured goods from the mother country.

Stamp Act

1765 British law taxing printed documents in the colonies, including newspapers and legal papers; it provoked the Stamp Act Congress and colonial boycotts.

Declaration of Independence

1776 document drafted mainly by Jefferson declaring the colonies free of British rule and grounding independence in natural rights and consent of the governed.

Articles of Confederation

1781–1789 framework of government creating a weak national Congress without power to tax or regulate interstate commerce; replaced by the Constitution.

Great Compromise

1787 Constitutional Convention agreement creating a bicameral Congress with population-based representation in the House and equal state representation in the Senate.

Three-Fifths Compromise

Constitutional provision counting three-fifths of enslaved persons toward a state's population for House seats and direct taxes, boosting Southern representation.

Federalist Papers

Eighty-five essays by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay published 1787–1788 urging ratification of the Constitution and defending a strong but limited national government.

Bill of Rights

First ten amendments to the Constitution, ratified 1791, protecting speech, religion, press, assembly, due process, and other liberties from federal infringement.

Alien and Sedition Acts

1798 Federalist laws lengthening naturalization, allowing deportation of aliens, and punishing criticism of the government; opposed by Jefferson and Madison.

Marbury v. Madison

1803 Supreme Court decision by Chief Justice Marshall establishing judicial review-the power to strike down laws conflicting with the Constitution.

Louisiana Purchase

1803 purchase from France doubling U.S. territory for about $15 million, opening western expansion and prompting the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Monroe Doctrine

1823 statement warning European powers against new colonization in the Americas and pledging U.S. noninterference in existing European colonies.

Missouri Compromise

1820 agreement admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as free, and banning slavery north of 36°30′ in the Louisiana Purchase territory.

Indian Removal Act

1830 law authorizing relocation of southeastern Native nations west of the Mississippi; it led to the Trail of Tears and the Cherokee legal resistance.

Manifest Destiny

Belief that the United States was destined to expand across the North American continent, justifying territorial acquisition and westward settlement in the 1840s.

Compromise of 1850

Legislative package admitting California free, organizing Utah and New Mexico under popular sovereignty, and enacting a stricter Fugitive Slave Act.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 law creating those territories and letting settlers decide slavery status, repealing the Missouri Compromise line and provoking violent conflict.

Dred Scott decision

1857 Supreme Court ruling that Black Americans could not be citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in federal territories, inflaming sectional tensions.

Emancipation Proclamation

January 1, 1863 executive order freeing enslaved people in rebelling states, reframing the Civil War as a fight against slavery and permitting Black enlistment.

Fourteenth Amendment

1868 amendment granting citizenship by birth, guaranteeing equal protection and due process, and barring former Confederates from office without congressional approval.

Fifteenth Amendment

1870 amendment prohibiting denial of the vote based on race, color, or previous servitude, though poll taxes and literacy tests later circumvented it.

Compromise of 1877

Deal resolving the disputed 1876 election: Hayes became president in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

Jim Crow laws

State and local statutes segregating public facilities and disfranchising Black Southerners; upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) under separate but equal.

Sherman Antitrust Act

1890 federal law banning monopolies and restraints of trade; used sparingly at first but became the basis of antitrust enforcement.

Nineteenth Amendment

1920 amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote nationwide after decades of suffrage activism and ratification by the required states.

New Deal

1930s federal programs under Roosevelt-including Social Security, the Wagner Act, and banking reform-designed to relieve depression hardship and regulate the economy.

Pearl Harbor attack

December 7, 1941 Japanese strike on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii, which led Congress to declare war and brought the United States into World War II.

Marshall Plan

1948 program of U.S. economic aid to rebuild Western Europe, intended to block communist influence and support postwar containment.

Brown v. Board

1954 unanimous Supreme Court decision holding racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, overturning Plessy's separate but equal doctrine in education.

Voting Rights Act

1965 law authorizing federal oversight of elections in areas with histories of discrimination, banning literacy tests and enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment.