Free NY Regents U.S. History Exam Flashcards

An agreement signed by Pilgrims before landing at Plymouth that established self-government by consent of the governed. It became an early colonial precedent for the idea that political authority comes from the people, a concept the Regents repeats when tracing constitutional roots.

Britain's pre-1763 policy of loosely enforcing trade and tax laws in the colonies, which let colonial assemblies develop self-rule. When Britain tightened control after the French and Indian War, colonists resisted because they had grown used to running their own affairs.

The colonial argument that Parliament could not tax the colonies because colonists elected no members to Parliament. The Stamp Act and Tea Act turned this grievance into organized resistance, uniting separate colonies around a shared constitutional claim.

New England built shipping and trade, the Middle colonies developed diverse grain farming, and the South relied on plantation labor and enslaved workers. These regional differences shaped later sectional tensions over tariffs, slavery, and federal power.

The first U.S. constitution (1781) created a weak central government with no power to tax, no executive branch, and no national court system. Its failures, including Shays' Rebellion, pushed delegates to Philadelphia in 1787 to draft a stronger Constitution.

Resolved the convention deadlock over representation by creating a bicameral Congress: the Senate with equal representation per state and the House with representation based on population. Small states kept equal sovereignty in one chamber while large states gained population-weighted power in the other.

The division of sovereignty between national and state governments, with delegated powers to the nation, reserved powers to the states, and concurrent powers shared. Tension over which level governs what, from the national bank to civil rights, recurs across U.S. history.

Each branch can limit the others: presidential veto over legislation, congressional override of vetoes, Senate confirmation of appointments, and judicial review of laws. The Framers built this in to prevent any one branch from concentrating power.

The first ten amendments, added in 1791 to satisfy Anti-Federalists who refused to ratify the Constitution without protections for individual liberties. They limit federal power over speech, religion, press, assembly, and the rights of the accused.

The Supreme Court's power to strike down laws that conflict with the Constitution. Chief Justice Marshall established it without the Constitution explicitly granting it, expanding the Court's role as a check on Congress and the president.

Article VI declares the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties the supreme law of the land, overriding conflicting state laws. It underpins McCulloch v. Maryland and the long-running debate over national versus state power.

Jefferson's acquisition from France roughly doubled U.S. territory and secured control of the Mississippi River. It stretched his strict-construction principles, fueled westward expansion, and intensified debates over slavery in new lands.

Admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while banning slavery north of the 36 degrees 30 minute line in the Louisiana Territory. It postponed the sectional crisis rather than resolving the underlying question of slavery's expansion.

South Carolina claimed the right to nullify a federal tariff, while President Jackson and Senator Webster argued national law was supreme. The crisis previewed the states'-rights argument that would return with secession.

The Supreme Court ruled that enslaved persons were not citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories. Rather than settling the slavery question, the ruling inflamed sectional tensions and pushed the nation toward war.

Lincoln's wartime order freed enslaved persons only in states still in rebellion, not in loyal border states. It did not end slavery everywhere, but it reframed the war from preserving the Union to ending slavery and undercut Confederate diplomacy in Europe.

Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide, except as punishment for a crime. Unlike the Emancipation Proclamation, which applied only to rebelling states, this amendment permanently ended chattel slavery in the entire United States.

Granted birthright citizenship, required equal protection of the laws, and applied due process to the states. It became the main constitutional tool for civil rights litigation and later incorporated most Bill of Rights protections against state governments.

Prohibited denying the vote on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It did not bar poll taxes, literacy tests, or grandfather clauses, which Southern states then used to disfranchise Black voters for decades.

Southern laws passed right after the Civil War to restrict freedmen's labor, movement, and rights. They showed that abolition alone would not secure equality, motivating Radical Republicans to impose military Reconstruction and pass the Reconstruction Amendments.

The Supreme Court upheld segregated facilities under the separate-but-equal doctrine. It legitimized Jim Crow segregation across the South for nearly sixty years, until Brown v. Board reversed it in 1954.

The Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines met at Promontory Point, linking the coasts by rail. It accelerated westward settlement, created a national market for goods, and made railroad regulation a central Progressive-era reform target.

The first federal law against business monopolies that restrained trade. It was vague and was first used more often against labor unions than against trusts, but it established the principle that the federal government could regulate big business.

Progressive-era investigative journalists who exposed corruption, monopoly abuse, and unsafe conditions. Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, and Upton Sinclair turned public opinion into reform pressure that produced meat inspection, pure food laws, and tenement regulation.

A factory fire in New York killed 146 workers, many because exit doors were locked. Public outrage turned into state safety laws and showed how industrialization's costs drove labor reform, a recurring Regents theme on the limits of laissez-faire.

Granted women the right to vote nationwide. It capped decades of activism from Seneca Falls through the Progressive era, and it shifted the electorate enough to change how politicians addressed women's issues.

Authorized a federal income tax, replacing tariffs as the main source of national revenue. It gave the federal government a far larger and steadier funding base, which made the modern regulatory and social-welfare state possible.

A brief war in which the United States defeated Spain and acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. It marked the country's emergence as an overseas imperial power and sparked debates over whether annexation fit American principles.

Theodore Roosevelt's claim that the United States could intervene as an international police power in the Western Hemisphere. It justified repeated interventions in Latin America and signaled a more assertive U.S. role beyond its borders.

Secretary of State John Hay's call for equal trading rights in China for all foreign powers, reflecting U.S. pursuit of foreign markets without taking formal colonies. It showed how economic goals shaped American foreign policy even outside territorial expansion.

Wilson's World War I peace plan calling for free trade, freedom of the seas, self-determination, and a League of Nations. The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, showing how domestic politics can limit presidential foreign-policy ambition.

A 1920s flowering of African American literature, music, and art in Harlem, with figures like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. It asserted a distinct Black cultural identity at the same time that Jim Crow and nativism shaped national politics.

Laws that capped immigration by national origin, sharply reducing entries from Southern and Eastern Europe and nearly barring Asians. They reflected nativism and the fear that new immigrants would change American culture and compete for jobs.

FDR's response to the Great Depression, organized around relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy, and reform of the financial system. It permanently expanded the federal role in welfare, labor, and regulation of the economy.

Created old-age pensions funded by payroll taxes and unemployment insurance run with the states. It became the foundation of the modern social safety net and a lasting example of how the New Deal reshaped the relationship between citizens and the federal government.

Laws meant to keep the United States out of another European war by banning arms sales and loans to belligerents. As war spread, Cash and Carry and then Lend-Lease chipped away at neutrality until the United States openly backed the Allies.

Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them U.S. citizens, were forced into inland camps during World War II. Korematsu v. United States upheld the exclusion order, and the episode is now taught as a cautionary case of civil liberties sacrificed to national security.

President Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of civilians immediately. The decision is debated as a way to force surrender without invading Japan versus an early signal to the Soviet Union at the start of the Cold War.

An international tribunal prosecuted Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It established the principle that individuals can be held responsible under international law for acts ordered by a government, a precedent for later human-rights law.

The U.S. Cold War strategy of blocking the spread of Soviet and communist influence rather than attacking the Soviet Union directly. The Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, Korean and Vietnam wars were all applications of containment in different regions.

A multi-billion-dollar U.S. aid program to rebuild Western European economies after World War II. By tying recovery to democratic markets, it aimed to remove the economic misery that made communism appealing and to anchor U.S. allies against Soviet influence.

The discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba produced a thirteen-day standoff that brought the United States and Soviet Union closest to nuclear war. The peaceful resolution opened a brief detente and the first arms-control negotiations.

Passed over Nixon's veto after Vietnam, it requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of sending forces into hostilities and to withdraw them within 60 days without a declaration of war or authorization. It aims to reclaim Congress's war-making role.

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal and violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. It overturned Plessy in education and gave the federal government a basis to support desegregation efforts.

Banned discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and ended segregation in public accommodations. It was the strongest federal civil rights law since Reconstruction and gave the federal government enforcement tools.

Banned literacy tests and authorized federal examiners and oversight of voting in states with histories of disfranchisement. It dismantled the main Jim Crow barriers to Black voting and produced a sharp rise in African American voter registration across the South.

Required police to inform suspects of their right to remain silent and to an attorney before questioning. It expanded due-process protections for the accused under the Fourteenth Amendment and shaped how arrests are conducted nationwide.

Passed after the September 11 attacks to expand surveillance, intelligence sharing, and detention tools against terrorism. It is a recurring example of the tension between national security and individual civil liberties during national emergencies.

The post-Cold War expansion of trade, multinational corporations, and digital communication that deepened economic interdependence. It spread American culture and goods but also raised debates about job loss, sovereignty, and the U.S. relationship with rising powers such as China.

Part III B asks you to describe the historical circumstances of a constitutional or civic issue, explain efforts by individuals, groups, or governments to address it, and discuss the success or impact of those efforts. Source reliability and direct evidence from the documents matter more than a broad true statement.