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A New Government
The Road to the U.S. Constitution
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Republic | A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them. |
| Articles of Confederation | This document, the nations first constitution, was adopted by the second Continental Congress in 1781 during the American Revolution. The document was limited because states held most of the power. |
| Land Ordinance of 1785 | A law that divided much of the United States into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers. |
| Northwest Ordinance | The 1787 Northwest Ordinance defined the process by which new states could be admitted into the Union from the Northwest Territory. The ordinance forbade slavery in the territory. |
| Virginia Plan | Virginia delegate James Madison's plan of government, in which states got a number of representatives in Congress based on their population. |
| New Jersey Plan | New Jersey delegate William Paterson's plan of government, in which states got an equal number of representatives in Congress. |
| Great Compromise | Compromise made by Constitutional Convention in which states would have equal representation in one house of the legislature and representation based on population in the other house. |
| Three-Fifths Compromise | Compromise between northern and southern states at the Constitutional Convention that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives. |
| Checks and Balances | A system that allows each branch of government to limit the powers of the other branches in order to prevent abuse of power. |
| Federalist | Name given to those in the United States that favored a strong central federal government. They were for the signing of the Constitution. |
| Antifederalist | Name given to those who were against the ratification of the Constitution. This group of people wanted a weak,central government which gave states more rights. |
| Bill of Rights | The first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution, containing a list of individual rights and liberties, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. |
| The Federalist | Essays promoting ratification of the Constitution, published anonymously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison in 1787 and 1788. |
| Delegated Powers | Powers specifically given to the federal government by the US Constitution, for example, the authority to print money. |
| Reserved Powers | Powers that the Constitution does not give to the national government that are kept by the states. |
| Alexander Hamilton | He emerged as a major political figure during the debate over the Constitution, as the outspoken leader of the Federalists and one of the authors of the Federalist Papers. |
| Publius | Pen name of those writing the Federalists Papers. |
| James Madison | He was considered the father of the Constitution. He was one of the leaders of the Constitutional Convention and helped construct the Bill of Rights. |
| Constitutional Convention | The meeting of state delegates in 1787 in Philadelphia called to revise the Articles of Confederation. It instead designed a new plan of government, the US Constitution. |
| John Jay | Convinced that the Articles of Confederation did not provide a strong enough central government, he wrote five Federalist Papers in support of the new Constitution. President George Washington named him to be the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. |
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