'We ... covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation.' - Mayflower Compact, signed aboard ship off Cape Cod, November 1620. What did the signers agree to do?

'Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' - Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. Which principle of government does this line state?

'Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.' - James Madison, Federalist No. 51, February 1788. What arrangement is he defending?

''Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.' - George Washington, Farewell Address, published September 19, 1796. What course is he urging on the young republic?

The Constitution gives Congress power 'To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes' (Article I, Section 8). What does this clause authorize Congress to do?

'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.' - Tenth Amendment, 1791. What does it establish?

Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress could request money from the states but not tax, had no president and no federal courts, and needed nine of thirteen states to pass most laws. Which weakness did Shays' Rebellion of 1786-87 expose?

An ordinance of 1787 organized the land north of the Ohio River and banned slavery there. What else did it settle?

'It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.' - Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803. What power is the Court claiming here?

'The American continents ... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.' - President James Monroe, annual message to Congress, December 2, 1823. What is he declaring?

1776: 'all men are created equal' (Declaration of Independence). 1848: 'all men and women are created equal' (Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Convention). What does the pair show?

1798-99: the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions argued that states could judge federal laws unconstitutional. 1832: South Carolina declared the federal tariff null and void within the state. What continuity does the pair show?

In 1820 Congress admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and barred slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36 degrees 30 minutes. What problem was this arrangement meant to solve?

An 1854 act organized two western territories and let the settlers there vote on whether to allow slavery, setting aside a line drawn in 1820 that had barred it. What followed in Kansas?

'A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.' - Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858. What position is he taking?

An 1862 law offered any head of household 160 acres of surveyed public land in the West for a small filing fee, on condition of living on it and improving it for five years. What was it designed to do?

'My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.' - Abraham Lincoln, letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862. What does the line show about his stated war aim then?

'All persons held as slaves within any State ... in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.' - Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863. Whom did it declare free?

'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.' - Thirteenth Amendment, 1865. What did it accomplish?

'No State shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' - Fourteenth Amendment, 1868. Whom does this restrain?

'Four centuries from the discovery of America ... the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.' - Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893. What circumstance produced this claim?

An 1887 law divided reservations into individual allotments of about 160 acres per family head, sold the 'surplus' to outsiders, and offered citizenship to allottees who adopted farming. What was its aim?

An 1887 law required railroad rates to be 'reasonable and just', outlawed rebates to favored shippers, and created the first federal regulatory commission. Which complaint produced it?

'Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States ... is declared to be illegal.' - Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890. What does this section outlaw?

'We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1.' - People's Party platform, Omaha, July 4, 1892. Why did indebted farmers want this?

1832: President Jackson vetoed the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States, calling it a monopoly. 1913: Congress created the Federal Reserve, twelve regional banks under a public board. What does the pair show?

'Chronic wrongdoing ... may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation ... to the exercise of an international police power.' - President Theodore Roosevelt, annual message, December 6, 1904. What policy is this?

In 1906 Upton Sinclair's novel about Chicago packinghouses set off a public outcry, and within months Congress passed laws requiring federal inspection of meat and honest labeling of foods and drugs. What does this sequence show?

1798: the Sedition Act punished 'false, scandalous and malicious' writing against the government. 1918: a second Sedition Act punished 'disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language' about it in wartime. What does the pair show?

'The world must be made safe for democracy. ... We have no selfish ends to serve.' - President Woodrow Wilson, asking Congress to declare war on Germany, April 2, 1917. How does he justify entering the war?

'The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.' - Nineteenth Amendment, ratified August 1920. What does it do?

1919: the Senate refused the Treaty of Versailles and stayed out of the League of Nations. 1949: the Senate approved the North Atlantic Treaty 82 to 13, pledging to defend Western Europe in peacetime. What changed?

'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.' - Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address, March 4, 1933. Which immediate crisis was he addressing?

A 1933 agency built dams along a river system crossing seven states, controlled floods, and sold cheap electricity in a region where most farms had no power at all. Which problem was it built to meet?

Unemployment stood near 3 percent in 1929 and reached roughly 25 percent by 1933, thousands of banks failed, and industrial output fell by about half. What does this pattern describe?

'Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.' - National Labor Relations Act, 1935. What right does it protect?

'Freedom of speech ... freedom of every person to worship God in his own way ... freedom from want ... freedom from fear - everywhere in the world.' - Franklin D. Roosevelt, annual message, January 6, 1941. What was he preparing Americans for?

1935-37: neutrality acts barred arms sales and loans to nations at war. March 1941: the Lend-Lease Act let the president supply war material to any country whose defense he judged vital to the United States. What changed?

In February 1942 an executive order let military commanders create exclusion zones, and about 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them United States citizens, were moved from the West Coast to inland camps. On what basis?

'Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by ... the Empire of Japan.' - Franklin D. Roosevelt, message to Congress, December 8, 1941. What did he ask for?

The Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas from national origins recorded in the 1890 census and barred most Asian immigration. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished those national origins quotas. What changed?

'Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.' - Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Harvard University, June 5, 1947. Which program did this speech launch?

1896: Plessy v. Ferguson upheld a Louisiana law requiring 'equal but separate accommodations' on railroads. 1954: Brown v. Board of Education held that 'separate educational facilities are inherently unequal'. What changed?

'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ... I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.' - Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 1963. What was he answering?

A 1965 law suspended literacy tests and sent federal examiners to register voters in counties where fewer than half of voting-age residents were on the rolls. What followed in those counties?

'... to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.' - Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by Congress in August 1964. What did it allow the president to do?

'The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election ... shall not be denied or abridged ... by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.' - Twenty-fourth Amendment, 1964. Which practice does it end?

'The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged ... on account of age.' - Twenty-sixth Amendment, ratified 1971. Which argument carried it?

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president four times, in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. The Twenty-second Amendment, ratified in 1951, limits a president to two elected terms. What does the pair show?

1869: the first transcontinental railroad was finished with federal land grants and loans. 1956: the Federal-Aid Highway Act funded 41,000 miles of interstate highways, with Washington paying 90 percent. What continuity does the pair show?