Declaration & Articles of Confederation PDF

Guided Notes The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation Objective In this lesson, you will examine the Declaration of Independence and the government created by the Articles of Confederation. Declaring Independence...

Guided Notes The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation Objective In this lesson, you will examine the Declaration of Independence and the government created by the Articles of Confederation. Declaring Independence New World. Between 1500 and 1775, Great Britain gathered the rich and numerous resources of the _______ friction As the decades passed, _____________ began to develop between the British government and its North power American colonies. The biggest problems came from deciding how much ___________ British Parliament representative should have over the colonies. Because they had no ___________________ in the British government, many taxes colonists thought they shouldn't have to pay _________ to Britain. Second The delegates to the ____________ Continental Congress gradually became convinced that reconciliation with impossible Great Britain was __________________. The Events of the American Revolution - February 10, 1763: The French and Indian War and the Treaty of Paris - March 1765: The Stamp Act ▪ Although Great Britain won the French and Indian War, the conflict resulted in large debt _________ that the country was unsure how to pay. British Parliament and the monarchy pay the war debt. decided that the colonies should help ______ - 1767 – 1770: The Townshend Acts - March 5, 1770: The Boston Massacre - May 1773: The Tea Act - December 16, 1773: The Boston Tea Party - 1774: The Intolerable Acts - September 5, 1774 – October 26, 1774: The First Continental Congress - April 18, 1775 – April 19, 1775: The Battles of Lexington and Concord - May 10, 1775 – July 4, 1776: The Second Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence ©Edmentum. Permission granted to copy for classroom use.  Guided Notes Outline and Principles of the Declaration Philosophical Framework In the famous second paragraph of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson (the Declaration’s main author) offers a philosophical justification for the colonists' decision to declare independence. Closely echoing John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Jefferson begins by asserting that "all men are equal created _________" liberty and are entitled to certain fundamental rights: "life, ____________, and the pursuit of exists happiness." Jefferson argues that government __________ to safeguard these rights. tyranny The Declaration then proceeds to describe the _____________ of King George by listing all the specific ways natural the king had violated the ______________ and traditional rights of the colonists. Justifying Independence consent The delegates sought the right to political representation, the right to ______________ to trial taxation, the right to a fair _________, and so on. influenced Jefferson, like many of the Founding Fathers, was deeply ________________ by the political Locke philosophy of the Enlightenment, including the ideas of John ____________. sovereignty The Declaration of Independence is based on three basic principles: natural rights, popular _______________, and order. order Jefferson believed in ____________ overthrow and stability. He argued that citizens should _________________ their deprived government only in the worst circumstances—that is, when rulers _______________ citizens of their rights. Forming a New Nation 1777 In November ________, governing the Second Continental Congress adopted the first ________________ document of central the United States, the Articles of Confederation. The document's authors feared a strong ______________ monarchy government and wanted to ensure that tyranny and _______________ could not exist in the new United removed States. They also feared that a national government would be too far _______________ from the people and local thought that democracy would work better at the __________ level. structure In many ways, the Articles of Confederation made the ________________ of the United States similar to that Union of the present-day European ____________, where each state has considerable power and the central authority handles only certain issues. unicameral The Articles created a _______________, or single-chamber, legislature, where each state had a single vote. A two-thirds majority was required to pass a law, while unanimous approval was needed to amend the Articles. The weakness of the central government ensured that it would not produce tyranny, but it also made it very friendship difficult for the confederation to become more than a "league of ____________________." ©Edmentum. Permission granted to copy for classroom use.  Guided Notes Articles of Confederation foreign Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government had the power to conduct _______________ war affairs, declare ________, coin and negotiate peace. It could also __________ and borrow money, run the post army office, and oversee the _________ and the navy. Weaknesses of the Articles Ultimately, the national government under the Articles of Confederation suffered too many weaknesses for it survive to ______________. executive No separate _________________ department existed to carry out laws. Congress could taxes not levy __________ and relied on the states to provide the money to conduct its affairs. enforce With no judicial branch, the government relied on the states to _______________ national laws. Because the trade national government could not regulate __________ tariffs and each state had a different set of _____________, national many trade disputes cropped up between states. Additionally, there was no authority for a _______________ inflation currency; each state was responsible for printing its own money, often causing ______________. Shays’s Rebellion and the Constitutional Convention currency The lack of a national _____________ high combined with ________ unemployment led to a rebellion of farmers ____________ known as Shays's Rebellion. Congressmen debated whether the nation needed a more-powerful central _____________ government to prevent problems like Shays's Rebellion and economic to address national ________________ struggles. reform When the delegates convened at the convention to ___________ the Articles, replaced it soon became clear that the Articles should be ________________ entirely. ratification In 1788, following its __________________ Constitution by the states, the US ___________________ officially became the new governing document for the country. Summary How did the lack of executive and judicial branches weaken the national government under the Articles of Confederation? The natioanl government under the article of confederation had no way of enforcing the legistlative decisons that needed to be made. This probably caused disputes between states and more chaos. ©Edmentum. Permission granted to copy for classroom use.