Unit 4

a reference to the Office of the
President or the length of time
a specific president is in office.
• The vice president takes over
the presidency if something
happens to the president. His
presidency lasted 8 years.

the first time someone does
something that sets the example
for how people will do it from
then on
• As the first president, George
Washington set a precedent of
using the title “Mr. President”.

Precedent and president
sound a lot alike, but they
mean different things.

in this context, a group
of people who will give
advice to the president
• The president will talk
to his cabinet about the
problem.

The Official White House Photostream, CC BY 2.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via
Wikimedia Commons

Commander of the Continental Army,
president of the Constitutional
Convention, and first President of the
United States. He was the first to
create a “cabinet” of advisors.
• George Washington was our first
president.

A Boston patriot, member of the
Continental Congress, one of the
Committee of Five, Vice President
to George Washington, and our
second president
• John Adams was a member of
the Federalist party.

a group of people that share
similar beliefs about the rules
our country should have and
work together to get people
elected who share those beliefs
• Some people don’t choose to
belong to a political party.

a political party that believed the
central or federal government
should have more power or be
centralized (focused)
• John Adams was a member of
the Federalist Party.

a political party that believed the
central or federal government
should have less power or be
decentralized (spread out more)
• Thomas Jefferson was a
member of the Democratic-
Republican Party.

when the US was close to war with France,
John Adams and the Federalists were worried
criticism or complaints about how the
decisions they were making would cause
people to agree with the French so they
made it a crime to say or write bad things
about the government.
• The Sedition Act was intended to be used
against the Democratic-Republican Party.

the presidential election
between Thomas Jefferson and
John Adams. The Sedition Act,
among other problems, gave
Jefferson the presidency.
• Thomas Jefferson won the
election of 1800.

the main author of the Declaration
of Independence, Vice President to
John Adams, and the third
President of the United States
• Thomas Jefferson was our 3rd
president.

the purchase of the Louisiana
Territory was not a power directly
given to the president by The US
Constitution, but President Thomas
Jefferson purchased it anyway, giving
the presidency that power
• The purchasing of land was an
expansion of presidential powers.

the two explorers Thomas Jefferson
asked to explore the newly purchased
lands west of the Mississippi River and
survey the Columbia and Missouri
Rivers looking for water routes to the
Pacific Ocean.
• Lewis and Clark and their guide,
Sacagawea, explored much of western
North America.

the large area of land that
France had control of after
Jefferson was elected
president
• The Louisiana Territory
was a vary large area of land.

the buying of the land west of the
Mississippi River from France. Napolean of
France needed money to pay for his war
with England, so when Thomas Jefferson
asked about buying New Orleans, Napolean
agreed to sell all of the land they held west
of the Mississippi River.
• The Louisiana Purchase added a great
deal of land to the United States.

one of the main authors of the
US Constitution and president
during the War of 1812.
• James Madison was the 4th
President of the United States.

when James Madison asked congress to
declare war on Great Britain because Britain
was trying to prevent the US from trading with
France, was “impressing” (taking) our sailors
into their navy, wouldn’t turn over forts along
the Great Lakes, and it was believed they were
helping American Indians attack settlers.
• The War of 1812 was a war between the
United States and Great Britain.

a country’s set of rules or ideas
about how to deal with other
countries.
• It was the foreign policy of the
US to protect the independent
countries in the Western
Hemisphere.

was Secretary of State to James
Madison and became the 5th US
President. His foreign policy became
the basis for US foreign policy for
many years.
• James Monroe felt strongly about
what US foreign policy should be.

a document of US foreign policy that said
The United States would not tolerate
(put up with) European countries trying
to take control of places in the Western
Hemisphere (everything on the same
side of the globe as North and South
America).
• The Monroe Doctrine set a precedent
for US foreign policy.