APUSH 3.4

“Whereas, the honorable House of Commons in England have of late drawn into question how far the General Assembly of this colony hath power to enact laws for laying of taxes and imposing duties, payable by the people of this, his majesty’s most ancient colony: . . . the House of Burgesses of this present General Assembly have come to the following resolves:-- . . . Resolved, That . . . without interruption enjoyed the inestimable right of being governed by such laws, respecting their internal polity and taxation, as are from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign, or his substitute; and that the same hath never been forfeited or yielded up, but hath been constantly recognized by the kings and people of Great Britain.”

-Source: Patrick Henry, Virginia Resolves, 1765

The excerpt was most likely a challenge to which of the following concepts?

• virtual representation

• salutary neglect

• consent of the governed

• unalienable rights

“There is a violent spirit of opposition. . . against the execution of the Stamp Act, the mob in Boston have carried it very high against Mr. Oliver the Secry (a Town born child) for his acceptance of an office in consequence of that act. They have even proceeded to some violence, and burnt him in Effigy &c. They threaten to pull down & burn the Stamp Office now building, and that they will hold every man as Infamous that shall presume to carry the Stamp Act into Execution; so that it is thought Mr. Oliver will resign.”

-Archibald Hinshelwood in a letter to Joshua Mauger describing colonial reactions to Andrew Oliver, a royal stamp tax collector, 1765

Which of the following describes the immediate response of the British government to the events described in the excerpt?

• strictly enforcing the Stamp Act

• removing British soldiers from the colonies

• passing the Intolerable Acts

• passing legislation that asserts British right to tax colonists

“Who, amongst us, will not renounce. . . those vain ornaments. . . when she shall consider that the valiant defenders of America will be able to draw some advantage from the money which she may have laid out in these; that they will be better defended from the rigours of the seasons. . . . The time is arrived to display the same sentiments which animated us at the beginning of the Revolution, when we renounced the use of teas. . . rather than receive them from our persecutors. . . .”

Esther DeBerdt Reed, “Sentiments of an American Woman,” 1780

Which of the following arguments could best be supported by the excerpt above?

• American men and women mobilized to provide financial and material support to the Patriots

• The American war effort was saved by aid from France

• A majority of Americans supported the Patriots in the Revolutionary War financially

• Support for the Patriot movement declined over the course of the Revolutionary War

Which of the following is considered a major contribution of women during the American Revolution?

• spinning homemade cloth to support boycotts

• dumping tea into the Boston Harbor

• writing pamphlets urging support of the Patriots

• serving as mail runners to maintain correspondence between colonial leaders

"Could it be made a decree in nature, or an edict registered in heaven, and man could know it, that virtue and wisdom should invariably appertain to hereditary succession, the objection to it would be removed; but when we see that nature acts as if she disowned and sported with the hereditary system; that the mental characters of successors in all countries, are below the average of human understanding; that one is a tyrant, another an idiot, a third insane, and some all three together, it is impossible to attach confidence to it, when reason in man has power to act.”

-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

Which of the following statements best summarizes Paine’s argument?

• A person’s wealth depends on whether they were born with certain desirable traits.

• A person born in a high-ranking and powerful family is more likely to support policies that keep their family in power.

• A person’s talent and intelligence is not dependent on which family they come from.

• A person born in a high-ranking and powerful family is more likely to be a better ruler.

“My country men, I know from their form of government and steady attachment heretofore to royalty, will come reluctantly into the idea of independency, but time and persecution brings many wonderful things to pass, and by private letters which I have lately received from Virginia, I find Common Sense is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men.”

-Source: George Washington, in a letter to Joseph Reed, 1776

Washington’s remarks in the excerpt most directly reflected which of the following developments during the late eighteenth century?

• the rise in support within the colonies for a republican form of government

• the influence of the consumer revolution on the spread of ideas from Britain

• the impact of the Great Awakening on religious practices in the colonies

• the debates within the colonies over expansion past the Appalachian Mountains

“If the principles on which the present civil war is carried on by the American colonies, against the British arms, were universally adopted and practiced upon by mankind, they would turn a vale of tears, into a paradise of God: whereas opposite principles, and a conduct founded upon them, has filled the world with blood and slaughter, with rapine and violence, with cruelty and injustices, with wretchedness, poverty, horror, desolation, and despair: We cannot therefore doubt, that the cause of liberty, united with that of truth & righteousness, is the cause of God.”

-Source: Abraham Keteltas, God Arising and Pleading His People’s Cause, 1777

A historian would most likely use this passage to illustrate which of the following?

• how religious tolerance spread throughout colonial governments

• how colonists responded to the establishment of new taxes by British Parliament

• how the ideals of the Enlightenment influenced the American Revolution

• how religion strengthened colonists’ view that they were blessed with liberty

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

-Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 1776

A historian would most likely use this passage to illustrate which of the following?

• the growing support for American surrender in the Revolutionary War

• the growing support for westward expansion

• the influence of the Enlightenment on American colonists

• the influence of the First Great Awakening

“If the principles on which the present civil war is carried on by the American colonies, against the British arms, were universally adopted and practiced upon by mankind, they would turn a vale of tears, into a paradise of God: whereas opposite principles, and a conduct founded upon them, has filled the world with blood and slaughter, with rapine and violence, with cruelty and injustices, with wretchedness, poverty, horror, desolation, and despair: We cannot therefore doubt, that the cause of liberty, united with that of truth & righteousness, is the cause of God.”

-Source: Abraham Keteltas, God Arising and Pleading His People’s Cause, 1777

The ideas about liberty expressed by the author are most consistent with which of the following?

• the principle of republican government

• the ideas of the Enlightenment

• the beliefs of the First Great Awakening

• the belief in hereditary rights and privileges

“To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

The excerpt above contributed most directly to which of the following developments?

• Aadvocating for a strong central government and the replacement of the Articles of Confederation

• support for property qualifications for voting, restricting suffrage to elite men

• the colonists’ belief that there should be no government

• the colonists’ belief in the superiority of republican forms of government