The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the size of the Supreme Court and created the lower federal courts.
Correct Answer
True
True. Article III of the Constitution established the Supreme Court but left its size and any lower courts to Congress. The Judiciary Act of 1789 fixed the Court at six justices and created the federal district and circuit courts.
Category: Founding Debates
Question 2
The Bill of Rights consists of the first twelve amendments to the Constitution.
Correct Answer
False
False. The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments, ratified in 1791. They protect freedoms such as speech, religion and the press, and the rights of people accused of crimes.
Category: Founding Debates
Question 3
Hamilton defended the national bank by arguing that the Constitution gave Congress implied powers beyond those it listed.
Correct Answer
True
True. Hamilton argued that the Constitution's grant of power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying out listed powers allowed Congress to create a bank, a broad reading Jefferson rejected.
Category: Founding Debates
Question 4
Thomas Jefferson served as Washington's first secretary of the treasury.
Correct Answer
False
False. Jefferson was Washington's first secretary of state. Alexander Hamilton was secretary of the treasury, and the two men's clashing views helped create the first political parties.
Category: Founding Debates
Question 5
The first two political parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, grew out of disputes over the powers of the national government.
Correct Answer
True
True. The Constitution did not anticipate parties, but conflicts over Hamilton's financial program and foreign policy in the 1790s divided supporters of strong national power from advocates of limited government.
Category: Founding Debates
Question 6
Federalists welcomed the Terror in France as a necessary step toward ending monarchy.
Correct Answer
False
False. Federalists were alarmed by the violence of the Terror and feared similar radicalism in the United States. Democratic-Republicans were more willing to view it as the cost of overthrowing monarchy and aristocracy.
Category: Foreign Affairs
Question 7
The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 as an uprising of enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue.
Correct Answer
True
True. Enslaved people in Saint-Domingue rose against the plantation system in 1791, and under leaders such as Toussaint Louverture they ended slavery there and defeated European armies.
Category: Foreign Affairs
Question 8
Under Jay's Treaty, Britain refused to give up its forts in the Northwest Territory.
Correct Answer
False
False. Under Jay's Treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw from the forts it still held in the Northwest. The treaty's great omission was that it did nothing to stop impressment.
Category: Foreign Affairs
Question 9
The Whiskey Rebellion began as a protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against a federal tax on whiskey.
Correct Answer
True
True. Western farmers turned grain into whiskey because it was easier to ship, so the 1791 tax hit them hard. They saw it as a measure that favored eastern commercial interests.
Category: Frontier Conflicts
Question 10
George Washington ran for a third term as president in 1796 but lost to John Adams.
Correct Answer
False
False. Washington declined to seek a third term, setting a two-term tradition that held until Franklin Roosevelt won a third term in 1940. John Adams won the 1796 election.
Category: Adams Presidency
Question 11
In the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams defeated Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson.
Correct Answer
True
True. The 1796 election was the first presidential contest between the two parties. Adams won narrowly, and under the original rules Jefferson, the runner-up, became vice president.
Category: Adams Presidency
Question 12
The Alien Act of 1798 led to the deportation of thousands of immigrants.
Correct Answer
False
False. The Alien Act gave the president power to deport immigrants he judged dangerous, but it expired in 1800 without anyone being deported under it.
Category: Adams Presidency
Question 13
Aaron Burr, Jefferson's first vice president, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804.
Correct Answer
True
True. Burr blamed Hamilton for his defeat in the race for governor of New York and challenged him to a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey, where Hamilton was mortally wounded.
Category: Jefferson Presidency
Question 14
The United States bought the Louisiana Territory from Spain in 1803.
Correct Answer
False
False. The United States bought Louisiana from France, which had recently regained it from Spain. The purchase cost $15 million and roughly doubled the size of the nation.
Category: Jefferson Presidency
Question 15
Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the lands gained in the Louisiana Purchase.
Correct Answer
True
True. The expedition of 1804 to 1806 mapped the territory, gathered scientific information and sought a water route to the Pacific.
Category: Jefferson Presidency
Question 16
Jefferson's administration raised internal taxes, including the tax on whiskey.
Correct Answer
False
False. Jefferson favored limited government, so his administration repealed internal taxes, including the whiskey tax, and cut the size of the navy.
Category: Jefferson Presidency
Question 17
Impressment, the British practice of forcing American sailors into the Royal Navy, was a major cause of the War of 1812.
Correct Answer
True
True. Britain needed sailors for its war against Napoleon and seized men from American ships, and Americans saw this as a violation of national sovereignty.
Category: War of 1812
Question 18
New England Federalists were the strongest supporters of declaring war on Britain in 1812.
Correct Answer
False
False. New England Federalists opposed the war because it disrupted maritime trade. The strongest calls for war came from southern and western Democratic-Republicans.
Category: War of 1812
Question 19
During the War of 1812, British troops captured and burned Washington, DC.
Correct Answer
True
True. In 1814 British forces marched on the capital and burned public buildings, including the president's house, while President Madison and his wife fled.
Category: War of 1812
Question 20
Under the Treaty of Ghent, Britain gave the United States large parts of Canada.
Correct Answer
False
False. The Treaty of Ghent, signed in December 1814, left the boundaries between the United States and Canada as they had been before the war.
Category: War of 1812