There will be a test on the U.S. Constitution on Monday April 30th.
This test will consist of some matching questions (on the green terms in the notes) and a series of short essay questions which will be the same as the questions students did on a two-sided worksheet called New Nation 2 and 3. Plus one additional question.
Students were given feedback regarding their answers on New Nation Worksheets 2 and 3. Then they were required to redo answers until all were correct. Please have your child find this sheet, study it and know these answers. (Some students have their corrected New Nation Worksheets now. The rest will get it back tomorrow, Tues. April 24th.)
New Nation Worksheets 2 and 3 Questions:
1. Why did the founding fathers originally want the national government to have very LITTLE power?
2. Tell about TWO problems the country faced that caused the founding fathers to realize the national government needed more power.
3. Tell THREE things the Virginia Plan would change about how the national government worked?
4. Why did James Madison think it was a good idea to split the government into three parts called branches?
5. What was the New Jersey Plan and how was it different than the Virginia Plan?
6. What was the "Great Compromise"?
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The one additional question will be:
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Why did the founding fathers need to write the Constitution? A student's answer should:
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- Say that the country had problems that the national government could not solve.
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-Tell what problems?
-Explain why the government couldn't solve the country's problems?
U.S. Constitution Notes
Power– the
authority to make decisions and to make & enforce laws
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was the first document that was a
written plan
for how the national
government (Congress) would work
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gave the national government LIMITED (very little) power
What Powers
did the Articles of Confederation give the National Government?
1. To declare war
2. To create peace treaties
3. To print and borrow money
4. To organize (pass laws about) new territories
1. Create an army
2. Control trade
3. Collect taxes
4. Force states to obey national laws
Shays’s
Rebellion
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Daniel Shays' was a former Continental Army soldier and a farmer
from Massachusetts
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Could not pay his debt and taxes
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Wanted more time to pay
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State government threatened to take his farm and put him in jail
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Shays led a group of 1,100 angry farmers who tried to capture
government weapons as a “mini revolution” in Massachusetts
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The Mass. State Militia barely defeated Shays and his followers
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What lesson did the founding fathers learn from Shays's
Rebellion?
Answer:
Unites States
needed a National Army
to maintain order
(peace) and to not lose control of
the states.
Federal
system of government – a system of government in which the
central (national) government has most of the power, but the
states share some of the power
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a big meeting in 1787
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delegates discussed the problems of the country and how
to
- decided
instead to write a new document called the United States
Constitution
Virginia
Plan –was a new plan for how the new government would work
-
called for a federal system of government (gave some of
the power to the State governments, but it gave MOST OF THE
POWER to the national government
Who wrote
the Virginia Plan?
- James Madison
of Virginia
What would the Virginia plan do
to change the government?
-
divided the federal government into three parts called
“branches”
What are
the three branches of Government?
-
The branches of government are the Executive Branch (President),
the Legislative Branch (Congress) and the Judicial Branch
(Courts)
Why did
Madison want to split the government into branches?
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He split the POWER so no one person or group could abuse
all of the power.
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Each branch would “check” what the other branches are
doing and
What did
the Virginia plan say about how representation should
- Delegates from
small states DID NOT LIKE this part of the Virginia Plan because
small states would have less representation than larger states
New Jersey
Plan
- was another plan for
how the new government would work
- said that
every
state
would have an
equal number of
representatives in
Congress
The Great Compromise
– was Roger Sherman of CT’s idea which settled the dispute about how representation would work
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SPLIT CONGRESS into TWO parts
called the House of Representatives and the Senate
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Used BOTH ideas that were in the Virginia and NJ Plans
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In the House, the number of representatives a state gets
is based on a state’s population
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In the Senate, every state gets TWO senators (equal
representation)
Why was
Slavery discussed at Constitutional Convention?
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The issue was: Should
slaves count as part of the
population of a state?
(REMEMBER:
population of a state determined how many representatives a
state would get in the House of Representatives part of Congress
(Legislative Branch)
- The
SOLUTION was the "Three Fifths Rule"
What was
the "Three Fifths Rule?
–settled
the question of whether slaves would count as part of the
population
- It was a
compromise that said
every five slaves would count as
three people
in the population count
Federalists
–were people who believed in a federal system of
government (national government has MOST of the power)
-
were supporters of (liked) the new U.S. Constitution
Antifederalists – believed the STATES should have most of the
power
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were opposed to (against) the Constitution
ratify– to
accept by voting
HOW was the
Constitution ratified?
- Each state
legislature held their own meeting to vote for or
against the Constitution
- Nine states (3/4
of the 13 states) had to ratify the Constitution in order for
the Constitution to
be official
What was the
LAST state to ratify the Constitution?
- Rhode Island