• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Chapter 3. Politics of the American Founding

Exercises

Test your knowledge of the American Revolution

1. Go to the PBS documentary Liberty! The American Revolution web site.
2. Click on the "Road to the Revolution Game" link at the top of the page.


3. Answer the questions. When you answer a question correctly, you have the opportunity to peruse a historical document or watch a video of a historian describing the importance of the event or issue at question. Real Player is needed to view the commentary.

Understand the documents that led to the Constitution

1. Go to the web site for the Constitution Center.
2. Click on the "Education" tab at the left of the page.
3. From there, select the "Student" portion of the site.
4. Scroll down and view the "Founding Documents" links.
5. Pick three of the documents listed, and answer the following questions:
• What aspects of the documents were incorporated into the Constitution?
• What parts of the documents were not incorporated in the Constitution? Why do you think these were left out?

6. Be sure to check out the "Interactive Constitution" link under the "Constitution" heading. See excerpts from the original Constitution side-by-side with explanations of these excerpts from The Words We Live by award-winning author and journalist Linda Monk.

Would you revolt?

1. Access the original copy of Thomas Paine's Common Sense by visiting Archiving Early America, a web site that provides primary source material from eighteenth-century America. In addition to ground-breaking documents, you'll find a digital archive of music (requires Windows Media Player), portraits, videos (requires FLASH), biographies of famous Americans, and much more.
2. After reading Paine's pamphlet, answer the following questions:
• What reasons does Paine use to justify revolution?
• Why do you think Paine's arguments resonated so much with the colonists?
• Clearly Paine is presenting a one-sided account. How do you think the King of England responded to Paine's writing?