Winning and Beginning
US History/Napp Name: ______
“Both Spain and France had been secretly sending arms and supplies to the United States well before the Battle of Saratoga [an American victory]. The Congress appreciated the supplies but wanted the French to send troops too. In September 1776, the Congress sent Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Lee, and Silas Deane to France to ask for troops. The French, however, were not willing to risk war until they believed the Americans could win, and the American victory at Saratoga assured them. Shortly afterward, they began negotiations with the United States to create an alliance against Britain.
In the spring of 1781, British General Cornwallis decided to invade Virginia. As long as the Americans controlled Virginia, he believed, new troops and supplies could keep coming south. With more French troops on the way to America, the British knew they had very little time left to win the war. They had to secure Virginia. On September 25, 1781, American and French forces surrounded Yorktown [where British troops were stationed in Virginia] and began to bombard it. On October 14, Washington’s aide, Alexander Hamilton, led an attack that captured key British defenses. Three days later, Cornwallis began negotiations to surrender, and on October 19, 1781, approximately 8,000 British troops marched out of Yorktown and laid down their weapons. During the surrender, a British military band played a popular nursery tune, ‘The World Turn’d Upside Down.’
When Lord North, the British prime minister, learned of the surrender at Yorktown, he knew the war was over. In March 1782, Parliament voted to begin peace negotiations. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay conducted most of the negotiations for the United States. The final settlement, known as the Treaty of Paris, was signed on September 3, 1783. The Revolutionary War was over. The creation of a new nation was about to begin.” ~ The American Vision
1. The Battle of Saratoga can be considered a major turning point in the American Revolution because it(1) Led the French to send aid to American Patriots
(2) Divided New England from the rest of the colonies
(3) Ended the American invasion of Canada
(4) Forced Washington to cross the Delaware
2. Which of the following marked the official end of the American Revolution?
(1) Congressional approval of the Treaty of Paris
(2) the 1782 peace talks in Paris
(3) the Battle of Yorktown
(4) the Battle of Cowpens / 3. The French announced support for the United States after the American victory at
(1) Boston. (3) Philadelphia.
(2) Saratoga. (4) Valley Forge.
4. Which of the following made the greatest contribution to the American victory at Yorktown?
(1) guerrilla attacks led by Francis Marion
(2) Aid of the French fleet
(3) Discovery that Benedict Arnold was a traitor
(4) General Greene’s leadership
5. King George III agreed to give the Americans their freedom after the victory at
(1) Saratoga. (3) Vincennes.
(2) Yorktown. (4) New York.
“Even before independence was declared, Patriot leaders at the Continental Congress realized that the colonies needed to be united under some type of central government. In November 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union – a plan for a loose union of the states under the authority of the Congress.
The Articles of Confederation established a very weak central government. The states had spent several years fighting for independence from Britain. They did not want to give up that independence to a new central government that might become tyrannical.
Under the Articles, once a year, each state would select a delegation to send to the capital city. This group, generally referred to as the Confederation Congress, was the entire government. There were no separate executive or judicial branches.
The Confederation Congress had the right to declare war, raise armies, and sign treaties. Although these powers were significant, the Congress was not given the power to impose taxes, and it was explicitly denied the power to regulate trade.” ~ The American Vision
Accomplishment· Lacking the power to tax or regulate trade, the only way for the Confederation Congress to raise money was to sell the land it controlled west of the Appalachian Mountains
· Established an orderly system for dividing and selling the land and governing the new settlements (The Land Ordinance of 1785)
· Two years later, the Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, which provided the basis for governing much of the western territory
· The Northwest Ordinance also established a method for a new territory to become a state
· The Northwest Ordinance also guaranteed certain rights to people living in the territory and excluded slavery from the Northwest Territory / Weaknesses
· Congress lacked the power to collect taxes directly and relied upon grants of money from the states to pay its expenses
· Laws required approval by a two-thirds majority of the states for passage
· It could not regulate commerce between the states, and the paper currency it issued was nearly worthless
· The Articles could not be changed without the states’ unanimous agreement
· It created a weak central government
· A violent protest by Massachusetts farmers (Shay’s Rebellion, 1786) against the collection of a state tax alarmed Americans
1. Critics of the Articles of Confederation argued that it
(1) imposed unfair taxes on the states
(2) used a draft to raise a national army
(3) provided a strong system of federal courts
(4) placed too much power in the hands of the states
2. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established a model for later settlement by providing for the
(1) legal expansion of slavery
(2) creation of national parks
(3) distribution of free land to war veterans
(4) process for territories to become states
3. Which idea guided the development of the Articles of Confederation?
(1) A strong central government would threaten the rights of the people.
(2) All the people should be granted the right to vote.
(3) Most power should rest with the judicial branch.
(4) Only the central government would have the power to levy taxes.
4. The primary purpose of the Articles of
Confederation was to
(1) provide revenues for the national government
(2) establish the basic framework of the national government
(3) give the national government the power to regulate interstate commerce
(4) guarantee a bill of rights to protect citizens from the national government
5. A major criticism of the Articles of Confederation was that too much power had been given to the
(1) British monarchy
(2) House of Burgesses
(3) state governments
(4) national government / 6. Why did the authors of the Articles of Confederation create a weak central government?
(1) They lacked an understanding of state problems.
(2) They anticipated the threat of foreign invasion.
(3) They relied on advice from royal governors.
(4) They feared the kind of rule experienced under the British monarchy.
7. The main criticism of the Articles of Confederation was that they failed to
(1) Allow for the admission of new states
(2) Limit the powers of the president
(3) Provide adequate powers for the central government
(4) Prevent the development of military rule
8. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set a
precedent for other western territories by
(1) allowing slavery
(2) including voting rights for women
(3) providing a method for the creation of new states
(4) setting aside land for churches
9. The main reason the Articles of Confederation were replaced as the basis of the United States government was that they
(1) lacked provision for a national congress
(2) declared that political protests were
unconstitutional
(3) placed too many restrictions on the activities of state governments
(4) failed to give the central government enough power to govern effectively
The writers of the Constitution corrected an economic weakness under the Articles of
Confederation when they
(1) granted Congress the power to levy taxes
(2) created an executive branch
(3) allowed the president to make treaties
(4) created a two-house legislature
Primary Source: Shay’s Rebellion
Historical Context:
“America had won the war, but it had hardly created a national government. The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781, provided for a weak central authority that did not even have the power to tax. So, when a depression struck in the mid-1780s with the dissolution of old trading patterns with England and the cooling down of a wartime economy, debt-ridden farmers could look only to their state legislatures for help.
Farmers in western Massachusetts asked the legislature to shut down courts that were allowing foreclosures, and to issue additional paper money. When they were rebuffed, they staged a revolt led by Daniel Shays, a former Continental Army officer, and in January 1787 marched on an arsenal at Springfield.
In a letter to Governor James Bowdoin, General William Shepard told how his unit defended the guns.” ~ Mine Eyes Have Seen
The Primary Source:
“The unhappy time is come to which we have been obliged to shed blood. Shays, who was at the head of about twelve hundred men, marched yesterday afternoon about four o’clock, towards the public buildings in battle array. He marched his men in an open column by platoons. I sent several times by one of my aides, and two other gentlemen, Captains Buffington and Woodbridge, to him to know what he was after, or what he wanted. His reply was, he wanted barracks, and barracks he would have and stores. The answer returned was he must purchase them dear, if he had them…
I have received no reinforcement yet, and expect to be attacked the day by their whole force combined.”
The Outcome:
“Shays’s men were turned back, and he fled to Vermont. But his revolt fueled the movement for a stronger central government to deal with economic crises.”
1. What major complaint motivated farmers to become involved in Shays's Rebellion?(1) They were tired of taxation without representation in the British Parliament.
(2) They felt that they were overtaxed by the state of Massachusetts because the state was paying off the Revolutionary War debt to wealthy creditors in Boston.
(3) They did not want the state of Massachusetts to belong to the union.
(4) They wanted higher prices for their crops. / 2. Many people were alarmed about Shays's Rebellion, not so much because of the fear of the insurrection itself but because:
(1) Of the inability of government under the Confederation to maintain public order.
(2) The rebellion was led by Daniel Shays with the blessing and support of General George Washington.
(3) Of the tens of thousands of farmers who participated in the rebellion.
(4) The French sent troops to support the farmers participating in the rebellion.