The following standards have been taken from the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel) standards.

Students will understand:

• Influences on the ideas established by the Constitution (e.g., the ideas behind the distribution of powers and the system of checks and balances; the influence of 18^th-century republican ideals, and the economic and political interests of different regions on the compromises reached in the Constitutional Convention).


• The factors that led to the development of the two-party system (e.g., the emergence of an organized opposition party led by Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton's financial plan).