U.S. History Grade 7 Flashcards

Which document, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declared that enslaved people in Confederate states were to be considered free?

Answer: The Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Lincoln that declared enslaved people in rebel states legally free, reshaping the Civil War into a struggle explicitly against slavery.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 produced a new framework for American government. What was the primary weakness of the Articles of Confederation that made a new constitution necessary?

Answer: The central government could not levy taxes or enforce laws

Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government had no power to collect taxes directly or compel states to comply with national laws, leaving it financially and politically weak.

The period following the Civil War known as Reconstruction (1865–1877) primarily aimed to achieve which of the following goals?

Answer: Reintegrate Southern states into the Union and secure rights for formerly enslaved people

Reconstruction focused on readmitting Confederate states to the Union under new conditions and establishing civil and political rights for freed Black Americans through constitutional amendments and federal legislation.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in 1914 is considered the immediate trigger for which major conflict that the United States eventually joined in 1917?

Answer: World War I

Franz Ferdinand's assassination set off a chain of alliance obligations among European powers, beginning World War I. The U.S. remained neutral until 1917, when unrestricted German submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram prompted Congress to declare war.

The Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education declared what practice unconstitutional?

Answer: Racial segregation in public schools

In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, overturning the 'separate but equal' doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

Which U.S. government program, launched in 1862, encouraged westward migration by offering 160 acres of public land to settlers who agreed to farm it for five years?

Answer: The Homestead Act

The Homestead Act of 1862 granted 160 acres of federal land to any citizen or intended citizen who paid a small filing fee and lived on and improved the land for five years, dramatically accelerating westward settlement.