Acts and
Amendments
Pre-constitution
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Navigation act- 1651-mercantilism!!! Colonial
products only go to England- $ to England not
Colonies
Sugar Act- 1764- first law b parliament to raise $ for
Crown- tighter custom laws in colonies
Stamp Act- 1765- raise $ for British troops, NO
TAXATATION WITHOUT REPESENTAION

Showed: colonists were entitled to rights and privileges
Used violence not legal means
 British believed colonies had no right
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Coercive Acts/Intolerable 1774- British response to
Tea Party, closed port of Boston to reduce self
government in Mass. Colony
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Requirement of quartering troops
Revolution to Civil War
 Kansas
Nebraska Act- 1854- repealed
Missouri Compromise
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
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Applied popular sovereignty to territories
Permitted expansion beyond southern
states (went against Wilmot Proviso)
Sparked formation of Republican party
Radical Republicans
 13th
Amendment- abolish slaver
 14th –Equal protection under law and
citizenship
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
Brown vs. Board
Plessey vs. Ferguson
 15th
Amendment voting rights for African
American men
Western expansion
 Homestead
Act- 1862- encourage settlement in
west- 160 acres free for cultivating in 5yrs
 Chinese exclusion act- 1882- first law to exclude
a group from America based on ethnicity

anti-immigration sentiment in west
 Dawes
Act 1887- divided Native American tribal
lands into individual homesteads
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
To assimilate into American culture
Forced civilization views, it destroyed tribes and
wiped out their ownership of land and culture
Progressivism
 Sherman
Anti-Trust act- 1890- forbade unreasonable
combinations or contracts in restraint of trade- little
impact on large corps.
 Pure food and Drug Act 1906
Prompted by The Jungle – muckrakers, list contents on
product- meat inspection act
 Federal
Reserve Act- 1913- create Federal Reserve
Board, established national system, made currency
and credit more elastic
 National Origins Act-1924- restrict south and eastern
Europeans (Catholic and Jewish)- also known as the
Quota system, significantly decrease the #s coming
in to the US.
Amendments
 16th-
Income taxes (Wilson lowers tariffs)
 17th Direct election of Senators


Robert Lafollette- give people voice in
politics, work against corrupt city bosses
Initiative, Referendum and recall
 18th
Amendment – prohibition (21st
repealed)
 19th Women’s right to vote
 20th Terms in office
Great Depression/New Deal
 National
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
Industrial Recovery ACT-1933 (Hoover)
Foster government-business cooperation
Businesses to regulate themselves through codes
of fair competition- did not succeed
 Social
Secruty-1935- federal pension funded by
taxes- aging of Americans threatens system
 Wagner Act-1935 – a.k.a.- National Labor
Relations Act, a.k.a. magna carta of labor, it
ensured workers the right to organize and
barging collectively
 Rapid rise in labor union membership
WWII
 Neutrality
acts- commitment to
isolationism after WWI, drew support form
Washington's Farewell Address
 Cash and Carry
 Lend Lease 1941- provide supplies to
allies, help GB resist Nazi Germany
Civil Rights
 Civil
Rights act of 1964- outlawed
segregation
 Voting rights act- outlawed poll taxes,
literacy tests and the grandfather clause
 24th amendment abolition of poll taxes
Post WWII
 Taft-Hartley
1947- curb power of unions,
believed unions were abusing powers and
would endanger national defense
industries- cold war era
 Federal Highway Act 1956- crated
interstate highway system- key in
promoting suburban growth.
 US immigration and nationality act of
1965- abolished the 1920s quota system