Week 6 — Quiz (auto-graded) · Confederation & Constitution

Course: U.S. History to 1877 (HIST 1301) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Hartwell
Objectives tested: Objective 5 — the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention's compromises, separation of powers, federalism, the Federalist/Anti-Federalist ratification debate, and the Bill of Rights.
Points: 10 (1 each) · Assignment group: Quizzes (10% of grade) · Due: end of Module 6 (Sun Oct 11).

This is the human-readable quiz with its vetted answer key and feedback. The import-ready Classic QTI is in F-quiz-week-06-qti.xml (generated by the shared validated script — parses with 10 items, every single-answer item exactly one correct). Historical-accuracy gate: every date, name, and term below was checked against the historical record (PASS). The Canvas placement block is at the bottom of this file.

Blueprint

Distractors target the era's classic confusions: Articles vs. Constitution, Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists, Great Compromise vs. Three-Fifths Compromise, Madison vs. Hamilton as author of No. 10, and the Bill of Rights year.

Questions, key, and feedback

Q1 (MC). Under the Articles of Confederation, what was Congress's most crippling financial weakness?
- A. Congress could tax citizens but could not borrow money
- B. Congress could only request money from states, with no power to compel payment ✅
- C. Congress had no power to coin money or set tariffs
- D. Congress could tax states but not individuals
Feedback: Under the Articles, Congress issued requisitions — requests for money from the states — which states routinely ignored. This left the national government unable to pay war debts, fund an army, or operate. The Constitution fixed this by giving Congress direct taxing power.

Q2 (MC). Why did Shays' Rebellion (1786–87) alarm leaders like George Washington and James Madison?
- A. It showed that taxation without representation was still happening under the new government
- B. It proved the states could not be trusted to govern themselves
- C. It revealed that the Articles of Confederation government could not raise an army or maintain order when facing an armed uprising ✅
- D. It demonstrated that the Constitution needed to be replaced immediately
Feedback: The national government couldn't raise an army to respond to the rebellion — Massachusetts had to use a privately funded militia. This failure of the Articles to maintain basic order helped spur the call for a Constitutional Convention in 1787. (Note: "replace the Constitution" in option D is wrong because the Constitution hadn't been written yet.)

Q3 (Matching). Match each Constitutional Convention compromise to the dispute it settled.
| Compromise | Dispute it settled |
|---|---|
| Great (Connecticut) Compromise | Large-state vs. small-state representation in Congress (bicameral solution) |
| Three-Fifths Compromise | How enslaved people would be counted for apportionment and direct taxation |
| Slave-trade clause (1808 clause) | When Congress could ban the international importation of enslaved people |
Feedback: These are three separate disputes with three separate settlements. The Great Compromise settled the representation fight between large and small states (Virginia Plan vs. New Jersey Plan). The Three-Fifths Compromise settled the counting of enslaved people. The 1808 clause settled the timing of any ban on the international slave trade.

Q4 (MC). The Great (Connecticut) Compromise resolved the dispute between large and small states by —
- A. Giving every state one vote in a single-house Congress, as under the Articles
- B. Creating a two-house Congress: a population-based House and a Senate with two senators per state ✅
- C. Counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation
- D. Letting each state choose how it would be represented
Feedback: The compromise gave both sides something: large states got a House of Representatives where seats are apportioned by population; small states got a Senate where every state has two votes regardless of size. Option C describes the Three-Fifths Compromise — a common confusion to avoid.

Q5 (True / False). "The 'Federalists' who supported ratifying the Constitution in 1787–88 (Madison, Hamilton, Jay) were the same political group as Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party of the 1790s."
- True
- False ✅
Feedback: False. The word "Federalist" means different things in different decades. In 1787–88, "Federalists" simply means people who supported ratifying the Constitution — Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party (also called Republicans) formed in the 1790s as an opposition to Hamilton's fiscal program. Madison eventually joined Jefferson's side. The Federalist Party of the 1790s is yet another different thing. The word is a trap; the groups are distinct.

Q6 (MC). Federalist No. 10 — the essay arguing that a large republic best controls the dangers of faction — was written by —
- A. Alexander Hamilton
- B. John Jay
- C. James Madison ✅
- D. Patrick Henry
Feedback: James Madison wrote Federalist No. 10, published November 22, 1787, under the pseudonym "Publius." Hamilton wrote the most Federalist Papers (51), but No. 10 is definitively Madison's — he acknowledged authorship. Patrick Henry was an Anti-Federalist who opposed ratification. This author confusion is the most common chatbot error on this topic.

Q7 (MC). In Federalist No. 10, Madison argued that a LARGE republic is better at controlling faction than a small direct democracy because —
- A. Large republics have stronger armies that can suppress factional violence
- B. A greater variety of competing factions in a large republic makes it less likely any single faction can form a majority and dominate ✅
- C. Large republics have more senators, so factions are always outnumbered
- D. Faction simply does not exist in large republics, only in small ones
Feedback: Madison's counterintuitive argument: in a large republic, the sheer diversity of competing factions — geographic, economic, religious, and sectional — makes it nearly impossible for any single group to build a majority coalition and oppress others. The variety is the protection. Option D is wrong — Madison never claimed faction disappears; he argued it could be controlled by this structural feature.

Q8 (MC). Which of the following was a major Anti-Federalist objection to the Constitution as drafted in 1787?
- A. The Constitution gave too much power to state governments at the expense of the national government
- B. The Constitution created a Senate where large states had too many votes
- C. The Constitution did not include a Bill of Rights to protect individual liberties ✅
- D. The Constitution banned the international slave trade immediately upon ratification
Feedback: The absence of a Bill of Rights was the Anti-Federalists' most politically potent objection — it helped them almost defeat ratification in key states and ultimately produced the Bill of Rights (1791). Options A is the opposite of their concern (they feared too much national power). Options B and D are wrong on the facts.

Q9 (Multiple answer — select all that apply). Which of the following accurately describe key differences between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution?
- A. The Constitution created a President (executive branch); the Articles had no executive ✅
- B. The Constitution gave Congress the power to tax citizens directly; the Articles did not ✅
- C. The Articles required unanimous agreement from all 13 states to amend; the Constitution required three-fourths of states ✅
- D. Both the Articles and the Constitution established a bicameral Congress
- E. The Constitution established a federal judiciary; the Articles had no national courts ✅
Feedback: The Articles had no executive, no courts, no direct taxing power, and was nearly impossible to amend (unanimity required). The Constitution addressed all of these. Option D is wrong: the Articles had a unicameral Congress (one house); the Constitution created the bicameral system.

Q10 (MC). The Bill of Rights — the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution — was ratified in —
- A. 1776
- B. 1787
- C. 1789
- D. 1791 ✅
Feedback: The Constitution was ratified in 1788 and the first government took office in 1789. The Bill of Rights — drafted by Madison for the first Congress — was ratified by the required number of states in December 1791. It was NOT part of the original document. Key timeline: 1788 ratification · 1789 government begins · 1791 Bill of Rights.

Answer key (quick reference)

Quality gate (self-checked): each single-answer item has exactly one correct option; the multiple-answer item has four correct options (A, B, C, E) with option D as the distractor that tests the unicameral/bicameral confusion; the matching item has three pairs correctly keyed. Historical-accuracy gate — PASS: Articles ratified 1781 (verified); Shays' Rebellion 1786–87 (verified); Constitutional Convention Philadelphia 1787 (verified); Great Compromise/Three-Fifths Compromise/1808 clause all correctly described; Federalist No. 10 authored by Madison, published November 22, 1787 (verified); Constitution ratified 1788, government 1789, Bill of Rights 1791 (verified). No fabricated quotation appears in this quiz.

Item-bank entries (for variants + the midterm/final)

All ten items are tagged course=HIST1301 · week=6 · objective=5 · topic=confederation-and-constitution and deposited in Item Bank: Week 6 — Confederation & Constitution. The midterm (Week 8) and per-term variant updates draw fresh items from this bank. (Tags: q1 articles-no-tax, q2 shays-rebellion, q3 compromises-matching, q4 great-compromise, q5 federalist-word-trap, q6 fed10-madison-authorship, q7 large-republic-argument, q8 anti-federalist-bill-of-rights, q9 articles-vs-constitution, q10 bill-of-rights-1791.)

Canvas placement block

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title            = "Week 6 Quiz — Confederation & Constitution"
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provenance       = "~ Prof. Hartwell's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"