GED and HiSET social studies — founding documents

Both high school equivalency tests return again and again to a small set of American documents. The GED has long organized much of its social studies content around what it calls the Great American Conversation: the argument, running from the founding to today, about how much power government should have, who counts as "the people," and how rights are protected. This material works through that conversation document by document, with the documents quoted in their own words, since works of the United States government and writings of the founding era are free to quote.

It starts with the problem the Constitution was written to solve. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress could not tax and had no executive, and Shays' Rebellion showed what that meant in a crisis. Then comes the Constitution itself: "We the People" and the principle of popular sovereignty, the three Articles that create the three branches, and Madison's two most quoted arguments — Federalist No. 51 on why "ambition must be made to counteract ambition," and Federalist No. 10 on factions and the large republic. The Anti-Federalists are given their due: their fear of a distant, powerful national government without written guarantees of rights is stated as they argued it, and it is the reason the Bill of Rights exists. The Tenth Amendment closes the founding section with federalism.

The second half follows the same ideas forward. Washington's Farewell Address advises distance from permanent alliances but not from trade. The Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls borrows the words of 1776 and adds "and women." The Emancipation Proclamation freed people only in the states in rebellion, which is why the Thirteenth Amendment was still needed. The Gettysburg Address ties the war to the survival of government "of the people, by the people, for the people," and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is applied to a concrete law.

The flashcards pair each document with its main idea, along with popular sovereignty, federalism and checks and balances. The written work asks for longer explanations: what each weakness of the Articles meant, how separation of powers and checks and balances differ, Madison's argument on factions in plain words, the case for and against the Constitution in 1788, and how later movements reused the language of the founding. The oral exam takes one document at a time and asks what it says and why it mattered.

Zestly is an independent study tool, not affiliated with GED Testing Service or the HiSET program.

• Explain why the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation led to the Constitution
• Connect "We the People," the three Articles on the branches, and the Tenth Amendment to popular sovereignty, separation of powers and federalism
• Restate Madison's arguments in Federalist Nos. 10 and 51 in plain words
• Describe fairly the Anti-Federalist case and how it produced the Bill of Rights
• Explain how Seneca Falls, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address drew on and extended founding ideas
• Apply the Equal Protection Clause to a concrete law

Practice material written by Zestly on the founding documents that recur in GED and HiSET social studies. Quotations are taken verbatim from public-domain documents: the Constitution and its amendments, The Federalist Nos. 10 and 51, Washington's Farewell Address (1796), the Declaration of Sentiments (1848), the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and the Gettysburg Address (1863).