Colonial America. Select one of the following original sources and write a brief, one-page essay in which you explain in your own words the contents of the document and how it helps explain the colonial world of early America.

• John Smith's on the Jamestown colony
• John Winthrop's Model Plan for Massachusetts Bay
• The Second Virginia Company Charter
• Mary Jemison's Captivity with Indians
• Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey to America
• Anne Bradstreet's Poetry

Read the Declaration and Paine's Common Sense. Select one and briefly summarize what you consider the most important causes for declaring independence from Great Britain.

• Declaration of Independence
• Thomas Paine's Common Sense

Using one of the following documents, write a brief essay on the issues facing the new nation or need to find a proper form of government to consolidate the success of the American Revolution.

• The Northwest Ordinance
• James Madison: Federalist #10
• Patrick Henry at the Virginia Ratification Convention: Against Ratification
• Excerpts from George Washington's Farewell Address

Using one of the cases below, write a one-page essay in which you describe Chief Justice Marshall's logic in interpreting the Constitution. How did he go about presenting his decisions?

• Marbury v. Madison
• Dartmouth College v. Woodward
• McCullough v. Maryland
• Gibbons v. Ogden

John Marshall is virtually unanimously regarded as the greatest American chief justice. Why do you think that is true?

• I850 Compromise Debates
• Dred Scott Decision
• Republican Platform of 1860

Could that most terrible war have been avoided?