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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did classical republican ideals lay the foundation for?

2. In colonial America, why did officer holders receive honors and titles?

3. What did the original American colonists pride themselves as being?

4. How was intermarriage and inbreeding looked upon by colonial gentry?

5. At the middle of the 18th century, what did many revolutionary leaders feel the colonies still needed?

Short Essay Questions

1. What were the distinctions between colonial American aristocracy and British aristocracy?

2. How was individual governmental service defined under the monarchy?

3. What was the relationship of farmers and merchants in colonial America?

4. Give examples of the patronage Ben Franklin practiced when he became Deputy Postmaster General of North America.

5. In times of war, how were aristocratic soldiers treated differently than common soldiers?

6. Why did colonists so eagerly desire titles or distinctions?

7. Before the revolution, what did the aristocracy think of the common people?

8. What was the thinking of many colonial American Protestants towards child rearing?

9. How did wealthy commoners in the colonies try to gain status as gentlemen?

10. How did gentry families try to emulate English nobility?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Contrast American competition for public office with that kind of competition in England. What about the new American government led to the differences? How did political parties exacerbate the competition? How did politicians' ultimate view of office differ from the British view of office?

Essay Topic 2

How was the paternal, face-to-face nature of early colonial American society demonstrated by Henry Laurens' acts during the Stamp Act riot in 1765? What specifically did he do and what was the reaction of the rioters? How did the outcome reveal the intact hierarchical structure?

Essay Topic 3

The revolutionaries' desire had been to remove all private interests from government, but by the 1790s private interest so pervaded Congress and statehouses that Americans found it almost impossible to conceive of disinterested officials. Using Timothy Ford's example of dealings in South Carolina, explain how special interests replaced the original republican goals of keeping private interests out of the government.

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