The earliest debate over the elastic clause occurred during the creation of the National Bank

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  “Steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world”
  
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  This is a policy most similar to the foreign policy advice given by President George Washington in his Farewell Address
  
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  George Washington warned Americans of forming alliances
  
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  As the nation was a new nation, it needed time to develop the nation and becoming involved in foreign conflicts would take Americans away from the business of building America
  
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  George Washington gave his Farewell Address before leaving office
  
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  In his Farewell Address, Washington warned against alliances, political parties, and sectionalism
  
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  “Our true policy is to steer clear of permanent alliances…” ~ George Washington
  
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  By avoiding alliances with foreign nations, the United States would avoid risking its security by involvement in European affairs
  

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  Lewis and Clark were asked by President Thomas Jefferson to explore and map the Louisiana Territory recently gained by the Louisiana Purchase
  
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  Lewis and Clark traveled across the country to the Pacific Ocean and back again
  
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  Captain Meriwether Lewis was President Thomas Jefferson’s private secretary
  
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  He was in charge of the expedition to explore the newly purchased Louisiana Territory
  
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  He asked his friend William Clark to help
  
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  Lieutenant William Clark served in the United States Army
  
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  In preparing for the expedition Clark was responsible for hiring and training the men, while Lewis gathered the equipment and supplies they would need
  
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  Lewis and Clark with help from the Native American Indian, Sacagawea, mapped the new territory and thus made it easier for Americans to move westward
  
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  The Lewis and Clark expedition increased understanding of the area included in the Louisiana Purchase
  
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  New detailed maps encouraged westward expansion
  

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  Judicial review is the concept that the Supreme Court has the power to declare a law unconstitutional
  
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  The concept of judicial review was established in the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison
  
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  As a result of the decision in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall increased the power of the Supreme Court and strengthened the power of the federal government
  
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  Judicial Review is not in the Constitution
  
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  It is considered part of the Unwritten Constitution
  
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  Judicial review is the power of the court to examine the actions of the legislative and executive branches of government and to determine whether such actions are consistent with the Constitution
  
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  Actions judged inconsistent are declared unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void
  

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  The nations of Central and South America gained independence from Spain and Portugal in the early 1800s
  
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  As Latin America is neighbor to the U.S.A., Americans feared that other European nations might try to conquer their newly independent neighbors
  
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  If their newly independent neighbors were conquered by new nations, the United States might be in danger too
  
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  Thus, the U.S.A. issued the Monroe Doctrine which stated that the Americas were closed to future colonization
  
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  A major reason for the issuance of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) was to prevent further European colonization in the Caribbean region
  
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  According to the Monroe Doctrine, the Americas are closed to conquest
  

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  The transition from the Articles of Confederation to the United States Constitution wasn’t a seamless one and fixing the problems of the Articles of Confederation required a series of lengthy debates both during and after the convention
  
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  Fifty-five Delegates met at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to determine how best to adjust the existing document
  
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  There were two sides to the Great Debate: the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists
  
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  The Federalists wanted to ratify the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists did not
  
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  One of the major issues these two parties debated concerned the inclusion of the Bill of Rights
  
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  The Federalists felt that this addition wasn’t necessary, because they believed that the Constitution as it stood only limited the government not the people
  
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  The Antifederalists claimed the Constitution gave the central government too much power, and without a Bill of Rights the people would be at risk of oppression
  

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  Interest groups can influence government
  
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  Lobbying is to seek to influence (a politician or public official) on an issue
  
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  Environmental groups like the Sierra Club try to influence politicians to vote in favor of environmental conservation; the Sierra Club lobbies politicians
  
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  To lobby is to try to persuade government officials through direct contact
  
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  Lobbyists usually work for interest groups, corporations, or law firms that specialize in professional lobbying and persuading politicians to consider their concerns
  

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  Alexander Hamilton was a Federalist
  
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  He believed in a strong national government
  
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  Alexander Hamilton encouraged Americans to ratify the new Constitution
  
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  He helped write the Federalist Papers
  
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  Alexander Hamilton also believed that a National Bank was “necessary and proper” to ensure that the national government could pay its debts and ensure economic stability for the nation
  

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  An important Supreme Court case
  
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  Presided over by Chief Justice John Marshall
  
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  Established the principle of judicial review
  
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  Judicial Review is the concept that the Supreme Court has the power to declare a law unconstitutional
  
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  Chief Justice John Marshall increased the power of the Supreme Court as a result of this case
  
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  Chief Justice John Marshall also strengthened the power of the federal government
  

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  Judicial Review is not in the Constitution
  
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  Judicial Review is considered part of the Unwritten Constitution
  

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  Andrew Jackson was elected President as a representative of the “Common Man”
  
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  Jackson wanted more Americans to participate in government
  
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  He wanted to make American government more representative of the American people or at least, white male Americans of different socioeconomic classes
  
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  Thus, he created the Spoils System
  
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  In the Spoils System, supporters of Jackson were awarded with government jobs
  
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  These new government workers replaced workers who were often from one class in American society, usually wealthy Easterners
  
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  Yes, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the spoils system resulted in elected officials rewarding their supporters with government jobs and bringing more Americans into government and not just wealthy Easterners
  

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  Manifest Destiny was the idea that the United States should stretch from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast
  

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  The passage of the Homestead Act and the completion of the transcontinental railroad helped to fulfill the United States commitment to manifest destiny
  
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  Manifest Destiny was the idea that God have given Americans all of the land from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast
  
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  The Homestead Act gave settlers free land in the Great Plains
  
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  The Homestead Act encouraged Americans to move west and therefore encouraged westward expansion which helped Americans realize Manifest Destiny
  
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  The Transcontinental railroad or a railroad connecting the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast made movement across the continent easier and therefore also encouraged westward expansion too
  
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  Acquiring territory from Mexico in 1848 as a result of the Mexican-American War also furthered the goal of Manifest Destiny
  
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  The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil
  
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  It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had a “manifest destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean
  
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  A border skirmish along the Rio Grande started off the fighting and was followed by a series of U.S. victories
  
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  When the dust cleared, Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico
  

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  Passed on May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act accelerated the settlement of the western territory by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and 5 years of continuous residence on that land
  
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  The Homestead Act, enacted during the Civil War in 1862, provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land
  
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  Claimants were required to “improve” the plot by building a dwelling and cultivating the land
  
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  After 5 years on the land, the original filer was entitled to the property, free and clear, except for a small registration fee
  
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  After the Civil War, Union soldiers could deduct the time they had served from the residency requirements
  
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  The passage of the Homestead Act and the completion of the transcontinental railroad helped to fulfill the United States commitment to Manifest Destiny but at the expense of the Native American Indians
  

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  This act, passed on July 1, 1862, provided Federal subsidies in land and loans for the construction of a transcontinental railroad across the United States
  
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  Constructing a railroad is expensive and private investors were reluctant to build a railroad with government help
  
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  By providing free land for railroad construction, companies were willing to take the risk
  
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  The act was an effort to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and to secure the use of that line to the government
  
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  The legislation authorized two railroad companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, to construct the lines
  
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  Beginning in 1863, the Union Pacific, employing more than 8,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, built west from Omaha, Nebraska; the Central Pacific, whose workforce included over 10,000 Chinese laborers, built eastward from Sacramento, CA
  
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  Each company faced unprecedented construction problems – mountains, severe weather, and the hostility of Native Americans
  
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  On May 10, 1869, in a ceremony at Promontory, Utah, the last rails were laid and the last spike driven
  
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  Congress eventually authorized four transcontinental railroads and granted 174 million acres of public lands for rights-of-way
  
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  The transcontinental railroad made westward expansion easier as it is easier to move west on a train than in a wagon
  

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  Popular sovereignty is the idea that the people rule – that the people decide…yes, the people vote and therefore decide what government officials do or don’t do
  
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  As new states were brought into the Union, a debate emerged between pro-slavery and anti-slavery Americans
  
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  Would the new state be a slave state or a free state
  
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  Over time, a new solution began to emerge
  
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  It was the idea of popular sovereignty or letting the people of the territories decide whether slavery would be permitted
  
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  In a country that has championed democracy, letting the people decide seemed right, if not obvious
  
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  However simple popular sovereignty seemed; it was difficult to put into practice
  
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  By what means would the people decide?
  
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  Directly or indirectly?
  
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  If a popular vote were scheduled, what guarantees could be made against voter fraud?
  
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  If slavery were voted down, would the individuals who already owned slaves be allowed to keep them?
  
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  And in Kansas, fighting between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces broke out thus leading Kansas to be known as “Bleeding Kansas”
  

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  American author
  
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  In response to the Fugitive Slave Act [required Northerners to return runaway slaves to their masters in the South], Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
  
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  The novel explored the cruelties of slavery in the South
  
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  The immense impact of the novel (it sold 300,000 copies in its first year) was unexpected
  
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  Antislavery fiction had never sold well; Stowe was not an established writer, and few would have expected a woman to gain a popular hearing on the great political question of the day
  
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  Some female abolitionists had shocked decorum in the 1840s by speaking at public gatherings, but they were widely resented
  
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  But Stowe’s novel changed American opinions – at least, in the North – on slavery
  
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  When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war [the Civil War].”
  

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  John Brown was a radical abolitionist who believed in the violent overthrow of the slavery system
  
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  During the Bleeding Kansas conflicts, Brown and his sons led attacks on pro-slavery residents
  
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  Justifying his actions as the will of God, Brown soon became a hero in the eyes of Northern extremists and was quick to capitalize on his growing reputation
  
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  By early 1858, he had succeeded in enlisting a small “army” of insurrectionists whose mission was to foment rebellion among the slaves
  
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  In 1859, Brown and 21 of his followers attacked and occupied the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry
  
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  Their goal was to capture supplies and use them to arm a slave rebellion
  
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  Brown was captured during the raid and later hanged, but not before becoming an anti-slavery icon
  

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  At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida – land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations
  
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  By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States
  
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  Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River
  
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  This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears
  
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  Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called “Indian removal”
  
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  In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the “Indian colonization zone” that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase
  
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  The law required the government to negotiate removal treaties fairly, voluntarily and peacefully: It did not permit the president or anyone else to coerce Native nations into giving up their land
  
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  However, President Jackson and his government frequently ignored the letter of the law and forced Native Americans to vacate lands they had lived on for generations
  
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  In the winter of 1831, under threat of invasion by the U.S. Army, the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether
  
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  They made the journey to Indian territory on foot (some “bound in chains and marched double file,” one historian writes) and without any food, supplies or other help from the government
  
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  Thousands of people died along the way
  
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  It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a “trail of tears and death”
  
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  By 1838, only about 2,000 Cherokees had left their Georgia homeland for Indian territory
  
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  President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to expedite the removal process
  
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  Scott and his troops forced the Cherokee into stockades at bayonet point while whites looted their homes and belongings
  
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  Then, they marched the Indians more than 1,200 miles to Indian territory
  
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  Whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, cholera and starvation were epidemic along the way, and historians estimate that more than 5,000 Cherokee died as a result of the journey
  
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  By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian territory
  
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  The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian country” shrank and shrank
  
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  In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian territory was gone for good
  

“Bleeding Kansas”

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  Bleeding Kansas is the term used to described the period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory
  
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  In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory and instead, using the principle of popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state
  
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  Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision
  
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  Violence soon erupted as both factions fought for control
  

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  Supreme Court Case
  
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  In this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the courts
  
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  The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory
  
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  Dred Scott was a slave; his master moved to a free state and then back to a slave state
  
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  Dred Scott went to Court and claimed that since he lived in a free state, he was free
  
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  The Court ruled that the Constitution protects property and recognizes slavery; therefore, Dred Scott belonged to his master
  
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  The decision of Scott v. Sanford, considered by legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court, was overturned by the 13^th and 14^th amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens of the United States
  
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  Only an amendment could end slavery
  
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  In the meantime, slave owners benefitted from the Dred Scott decision but slaves suffered terrible mistreatment
  

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  The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad
  
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  It got its name because its activities had to be carried out in secret, using darkness or disguise, and because railway terms were used by those involved with system to describe how it worked
  
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  Various routes were lines, stopping places were called stations, those who aided along the way were conductors and their charges were known as packages or freight
  
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  The network of routes extended through 14 Northern states and “the promised land” of Canada – beyond the reach of fugitive-slave hunters
  
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  Those who most actively assisted slaves to escape by way of the “railroad” were members of the free black community (including former slaves like Harriet Tubman), Northern abolitionists, philanthropists and church leaders like Quaker Thomas Garrett
  
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  Harriet Beecher Stowe, famous for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, gained firsthand knowledge of the plight of fugitive slaves through contacts with the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati, Ohio
  
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  Abolitionists supported the activities of the Underground Railroad