The Creation of Our National Government

for Monday: Read pages 164-176. Consider the following questions as you read:
1. How did the revolution change society? Were the changes radical?
2. How did the revolution change the lives of African-Americans, women, and American Indians? Were these changes substantial or incremental?
3. In the new governments, what was kept of English traditions and what was new?
4. What two groups or forces struggled over the form and direction of the new state governments?
5. How was the government under the Articles of Confederation different from our government under the Constitution?
6. What were the Articles of Confederation’s weaknesses?

Know the Significance of the following: Land Ordinance of 1785; Northwest Ordinance of 1787; Shays’s Rebellion.


For Tuesday: Read pages 177-189. Consider the following questions as you read:
1. Why did the writers of the Constitution want a new form of government?
2. What role did Shay’s Rebellion play in this decision?
3. How was the new Constitution different from the Articles of Confederation?
4. What groups opposed the Constitution and what groups supported it?
5. Why did it gain ratification?

Know the significance of the following: Philadelphia Convention; James Madison; Virginia Plan; William Patterson; New Jersey Plan; Roger Sherman; Connecticut Compromise; bicameral legislature; separation of powers; federalism; Senate; House of Representatives; Supreme Court; 3/5 Compromise; democratic; republican; Federalists; Anti-Federalists; Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; The Federalist Papers.