Key Terms
Henretta—American History
Chapter 7
Politics and Society in the New Republic 1787–1820
national debt The financial obligations of the U.S. government for money borrowed from its
citizens and foreign investors. Alexander Hamilton wanted wealthy Americans to invest in
the national debt so that they would support the new national government. In recent
decades, that same thinking has led the United States to encourage individuals and
institutions in crucial foreign nations—Saudi Arabia and Japan, for example—to invest
millions of dollars in the American national debt. (206)
protective tariff A tax on imports levied to protect domestic products from foreign
competition. A hot political issue throughout much of American history, protective tariffs
became particularly controversial in the 1830s and again between 1880 and 1914, when
Republicans (for protectionism) and Democrats (for free trade) centered their political
campaigns on the issue. (207)
revenue tariff A tax on imports levied to raise money for the government. See protective
tariff. (207)
states’ rights An interpretation of the Constitution that exalts the sovereignty of the
states and circumscribes the authority of the national government. Expressed first by
Antifederalists in the debate over the Constitution, and then in the Virginia and Kentucky
resolutions of 1798, the ideology of states’ rights became especially important in the South.
It informed white southerners’ resistance to the high tariffs of the 1820s and 1830s, to
legislation to limit the spread of slavery, and to attempts by the national government in the
mid-twentieth century to end Jim Crow practices. (211)