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Salutary neglect
In American history, salutary neglect was the possibly non-deliberate British Crown policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, especially trade laws, meant to keep British colonies obedient to England, in the 18th century. -
Seven Years’ War
The Seven Years' War was a global conflict that was fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved all five European great powers of the time—the Kingdoms of Great Britain, Prussia and France, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Russian Empire—plus many of Europe's middle powers and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. -
“Citizen” Genet
Edmond-Charles Genêt, also known as Citizen Genêt, was the French envoy to the United States during the French Revolution. His actions on arriving in the United States led to a major political and international incident, which was termed the Citizen Genêt Affair. -
Proclamation 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on October 7, 1763, following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the Seven Years' War. It forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve. -
Pontiac’s Rebellion
Pontiac's War was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of American Indian tribes, primarily from the Great Lakes region, the Illinois Country, and Ohio Country who were dissatisfied with British policies in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War. -
Declaration of Rights and Grievances
In response to the Stamp and Tea Acts, the Declaration of Rights and Grievances was a document written by the Stamp Act Congress and passed on October 14, 1765. ... Colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen. Trial by jury is a right. The use of Admiralty Courts was abusive. -
Stamp Act Congress
The Stamp Act Congress, also known as the Continental Congress of 1765, was a meeting held in New York, New York, consisting of representatives from some of the British colonies in North America. -
Sons & Daughters of Liberty
They were American patriots — northern and southern, young and old, male and female. They were the Sons and Daughters of Liberty. Like other secret clubs at the time, the Sons of Liberty had many rituals. They had secret code words, medals, and symbols. -
Sugar, Quartering, Stamp, Declaratory, Townshend, Tea & Coercive Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
Committees of Correspondence
The committees of correspondence were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of the American Revolution. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government. -
Lexington & Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. -
Prohibitory Act
The Prohibitory Act was British legislation in late 1775 that cut off all trade between the American colonies and England, and removed the colonies from the King's protection. -
Minutemen
Minutemen were civilian colonists who independently organized to form militia companies self-trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. -
1st& 2nd Continental Congresses
The Second Continental Congress convened on May 10, 1775, at Pennsylvania's State House in Philadelphia shortly after the start of the Revolutionary War. ... Afterward, the Congress functioned as the provisional government of the United States of America through March 1, 1781. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775 and signed on July 8 in a final attempt to avoid war between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies in America. -
Prohibitory Act
The Prohibitory Act was British legislation in late 1775 that cut off all trade between the American colonies and England, and removed the colonies from the King's protection. -
Dec of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. -
Common Sense
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first constitution. It was approved, after much debate, by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. -
Battle of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German Battle, ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British army commanded by British peer and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. -
Treaty of Paris 1783
The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War. -
Land Ordinance 1785
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. -
Shay’s Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts in opposition to a debt crisis among the citizenry and the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. -
Annapolis Convention
The Annapolis Convention, formally titled as a Meeting of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government, was a national political convention held September 11–14, 1786 at Mann's Tavern in Annapolis, Maryland, in which twelve delegates from five states—New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia—gathered to discuss and develop a consensus about reversing the protectionist trade barriers that each state had erected. -
NW Ordinance 1787
The Northwest Ordinance enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. -
NJ Plan
The New Jersey Plan was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787. The plan was created in response to the Virginia Plan, which called for two houses of Congress, both elected with apportionment according to population. -
Connecticut Plan/Great Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. -
3/5s Compromise
The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise reached among state delegates during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. -
Anti-Federalists
Anti-Federalism was a late-18th century movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, gave state governments more authority. -
Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the United States Constitution. -
Federalist Era
The Federalist Era in American history ran from 1788–1800, a time when the Federalist Party and its predecessors were dominant in American politics. During this period, Federalists generally controlled Congress and enjoyed the support of President George Washington and President John Adams. -
Judiciary Act
The Judiciary Act of 1789 was a United States federal statute adopted on September 24, 1789, in the first session of the First United States Congress. It established the federal judiciary of the United States. -
Democratic-Republican Era
The Democratic-Republican Party, better known at the time as the Republican Party and various other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s that championed republicanism, political equality, and expansionism. -
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary war veteran Major James McFarlane. -
Bill of Rights
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. -
Federalists
The Federalist Party was the first political party in the United States. Under Alexander Hamilton, it dominated the national government from 1789 to 1801. It became a minority party while keeping its stronghold in New England and made a brief resurgence by opposing the War of 1812. -
Proclamation of Neutrality
The Proclamation of Neutrality was a formal announcement issued by U.S. President George Washington on April 22, 1793 that declared the nation neutral in the conflict between France and Great Britain. It threatened legal proceedings against any American providing assistance to any country at war. -
Jay Treaty 1794
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty; was a 1795 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted war, resolved issues remaining since the Treaty of Paris of 1783 (which ended the American Revolutionary War),[1] and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which began in 1792. -
Pinckney Treaty 1795
Pinckney's Treaty, also commonly known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 27, 1795 and established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain. -
Revolution of 1800
In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800", Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent President John Adams of the Federalist Party. The election was a realigning election that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican rule. -
Washington’s Farewell Address
George Washington's farewell address is a letter written by President George Washington as a valedictory to "friends and fellow-citizens" after 20 years of public service to the United States. He wrote it near the end of his second term of presidency before retiring to his home at Mount Vernon in Virginia. -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ Affair was a political and diplomatic episode in 1797-1798, early in the presidency of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to the Quasi-War. -
Alien & Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four laws passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. -
KY & VA Resolutions
The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799, in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. -
Whigs
The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Alongside the Democratic Party, it was one of the two major parties in the United States during the late 1830s, the 1840s, and the early 1850s, part of the Second Party System. -
National bank
In the United States, a national bank is a commercial bank. The comptroller of the currency of the U.S. Treasury will charter a national bank. This institution will function as a member bank of the Federal Reserve and is an investing member of its district Federal Reserve Bank. -
Unicameral legislature
In government, unicameralism is the practice of having one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Thus, a unicameral parliament or unicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of one chamber or house.
