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Important Vocabulary
Vocabulary Terms
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Mercantilism | an economic theory that a country’s strength is measured by the amount of gold it has, that a country should sell more than it buys and that the colonies exist for the benefit of the Mother Country |
| abolitionist | person who wanted to end slavery in the United States |
| tariff | is a tax on goods brought into a country |
| protective tariff | a tax placed on goods from another country to protect the home industry. |
| Sectionalism | strong sense of loyalty to a state or section instead of to the whole country. |
| Manifest Destiny | the belief that the United States should own all of the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans |
| Temperance Movement | a campaign against the sale or drinking of alcohol |
| Representative Government | system of government in which voters elect representatives to make laws for them |
| Republic | a nation in which voters choose representatives to govern them |
| House of Burgesses | first representative assembly in the new world |
| Three Branches of Government | Legislative Branch, the Judicial Branch, and the Executive branch. |
| Checks and Balances | a system set up by the Constitution in which each branch of the federal government has the power to check, or control, the actions of the other branches. |
| Free Enterprise | is the freedom of private businesses to operate competitively for profit with minimal government regulation |
| Federalism | the sharing of power between the states and the national government |
| Separation of Powers | is a system in which each branch of government has it’s own powers. |
| Popular Sovereignty | the practice of allowing each territory to decide for itself whether or not to allow slavery |
| Amend | to change |
| Unalienable rights | rights that cannot be given up, taken away or transferred. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, are some of those rights |
| Tyranny | cruel and unjust government |
| Democracy | form of government that is run for and by the people, giving people the supreme power |
| Ratify | to approve by vote |
| Judicial Review | the right of the Supreme Court to judge laws passed by Congress and determine whether they are constitutional or not |
| Civil Disobedience | the refusal to obey a government law or laws as a means of passive resistance because of one’s moral conviction or belief |
| Federalists | supporters of the Constitution who favored a strong national government. |
| Antifederalists | people opposed to the Constitution, preferring more power be given to the state governments than to the national government |
| Nullification | the idea of a state declaring a federal law illegal |
| Primary Sources | the original records of an event. They include eyewitness reports, records created at the time of an event, speeches, and letters by people involved in the event, photographs and artifacts |
| Secondary Sources | the later writings and interpretations of historians and writers. Often secondary sources, like textbooks and articles, provide summaries of information found in primary sources |
| Republicanism | an attitude toward society in the late 1700s based on the belief that the good virtue and morality of the people was essential to sustain the republican form of government |
| Industrial Revolution | the era in which a change from household industries to factory production using powered machinery took place |
| Cash Crop | crop sold for money |
| Factory System | bringing workers and machinery together in one place |
| Slave codes | denied enslaved Africans Americans any rights, treated them as property |
| Indentured servant | was a person worked with out pay in exchange for passage to the colonies |
| suffrage | the right to vote |
| Royal colony | a colony under direst control of the English crown |
| Patriot | a person who favored war against Britain |
| Charter | legal document giving certain right to a person or company |
| Boycott | refusal to buy certain goods or service |
| Blockade | shutting down a port |