In general, after you finish reading and studying this chapter, you should understand the following:

• why colonists came to the New World
• the nature of the American colonies under British rule and how they changed from the 1600s to the mid-1700s
• the break with Great Britain and the circumstances surrounding the eruption of the Revolutionary War
• the Declaration of Independence and its philosophical underpinnings
• the first American government under the Articles of Confederation and the failings of that document
• the Constitutional Convention—who was there, what they did, why they did it
• the U.S. Constitution. What does it say?
• the controversy over ratification, the ratification debates—Federalists and Anti–Federalists
• the process for amending the Constitution, including the first ten amendments or Bill Of Rights
• constitutional change through judicial interpretation and cultural/technological change

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