Vocabulary: Creating the Constitution Unit (2026)

A system that allows each branch of government to limit the powers of the other branches in order to prevent abuse of power

• Bill of Rights

• Checks and Balances

• Federalism

• Separation of Powers

Area that included the present-day states Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin & part of Minnesota

• Constitutional Convention

• Northwest Ordinance

• Northwest Territory

• Republic

Agreement to establish a 2-house legislature, in which all states have equal representation in one house and each state having representation based on population in the other house.

• Checks And Balances

• Virginia Plan

• Great Compromise

• Three-fifths Compromise

Law that established a plan for surveying and selling the land west of the Appalachian Mountains

• Land Ordinance of 1775

• Land Ordinance of 1685

• Land Ordinance of 1786

• Land Ordinance of 1785

System of government where power is shared between the central/federal level and the state level

• Republic

• Separation Of Powers

• Federalism

• Checks And Balances

Helped create a court system and gave the Supreme Court 6 members

• Foreign Policy

• Pinckney's Treaty

• Madison Resolution

• Federal Judiciary Act

Constitutional division of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, with the legislative branch making law, the executive applying and enforcing the law, and the judiciary interpreting the law

• Checks and Balances

• Separation of Powers

• Federalism

• Bill of Rights

Person opposed to the ratification of the US Constitution

• New Jersey Plan

• Washingtonian

• Republic

• Antifederalist

1787 meeting to consider changes to the Articles of Confederation; resulted in drafting the Constitution

• Constitutional Convention

• Articles Of Confederation

• Great Compromise

• Bill Of Rights

First 10 amendments to the US Constitution (1791) -- consisting of formal list of citizens' rights and freedoms

• Separation of Powers

• Federalist Papers

• Articles of Confederation

• Bill of Rights