AP U.S. History: Period 2 (1607–1754) (Drill 26)

Question 1. Winthrop's phrase 'a city upon a hill' most directly served which of the following rhetorical purposes in the context of the 1630 voyage to Massachusetts Bay?

• A) to celebrate the geographic advantages of the Massachusetts Bay location, which Winthrop believed offered natural defenses and fertile land
• B) to warn the Puritan colonists that their settlement would be visible to hostile Native American peoples who would monitor their behavior
• C) to argue that the New England colonies would eventually surpass England in wealth and power, justifying the sacrifice required for settlement within this Puritan framework
• D) to impose a sense of collective moral obligation on the colonists by framing their settlement as a divinely observed example for all of Christendom ✓

Explanation: Choice D is correct. The 'city upon a hill' metaphor, drawn from Matthew 5:14, frames the Puritan settlement as a divinely appointed model for the entire Christian world. By declaring 'the eyes of all people are upon us,' Winthrop is imposing an exacting standard of collective behavior: failure would not merely harm the colonists but would disgrace the entire Protestant project before a watching world. This creates an intense obligation to moral and communal discipline. Choice B is incorrect. Winthrop's 'city upon a hill' is a metaphor for divine and universal observation, not a warning about Native American surveillance. The passage is theological and rhetorical, not a military assessment. Choice C is incorrect. Winthrop does not argue for New England's future superiority over England. His argument is about collective moral responsibility and covenantal obligation, not about economic or political competition with the mother country. Choice A is incorrect. The 'city upon a hill' is explicitly a biblical metaphor about visibility and moral example, not a geographic observation about the physical landscape of Massachusetts Bay.

Question 2. Winthrop's opening assertion that God has ordained that 'some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity' most directly reflects which of the following Puritan theological concepts?

• A) the doctrine of predestination, which held that God had predetermined from eternity which individuals would be saved and which would be damned
• B) the covenant theology that framed the relationship between God and the Puritan community as a binding contractual agreement with specific obligations
• C) the providential view of social hierarchy as divinely ordained, which justified existing inequalities as part of God's design rather than as human injustice ✓
• D) the concept of the calling, which held that each person had a God-assigned vocation and that fulfilling that calling diligently was a form of worship within the longer Puritan social framework

Explanation: Choice C is correct. Winthrop's argument that God in 'His most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind' as to create rich and poor, powerful and humble, is a direct statement of the providential view of social hierarchy: existing social inequality is not accidental or unjust but reflects God's deliberate ordering of human society. This theological justification of hierarchy was central to Puritan social thought and served to legitimize the authority of leaders like Winthrop himself. Choice A is incorrect. The doctrine of predestination concerned salvation, who would be saved, not social hierarchy. While Puritans did hold to predestination, Winthrop's opening statement is about social structure, not salvific election. Choice B is incorrect. Covenant theology frames the God-community relationship as contractual, which is relevant to the latter part of the passage (the threat of withdrawal of divine help), but not to the specific opening claim about divinely ordained social inequality. Choice D is incorrect. The doctrine of the calling concerned individual vocation and the sanctification of labor, not the justification of social hierarchy between rich and poor. The calling addressed how one worked, not why social inequality existed.

Question 3. The historical context most directly relevant to understanding Winthrop's warning that failure would make the colonists 'a story and a by-word through the world' was

• A) the failure of earlier English colonial ventures at Roanoke and early Jamestown, which had produced widespread skepticism in England about the viability of American colonization
• B) the ongoing Protestant Reformation in Europe, in which Puritan New England was understood by its founders as a model of godly reformed society that could inspire the reformation of England itself ✓
• C) the competition between England and Spain for colonial supremacy in North America, which made it essential that English settlements demonstrate permanence and prosperity
• D) the internal theological disputes within Puritanism between those who favored a more radical separation from the Church of England and those who sought to reform it from within

Explanation: Choice B is correct. The Puritans who founded Massachusetts Bay were not separatists fleeing England; they were reformers who believed they were establishing a model godly commonwealth that would demonstrate to England and to all Protestant Christianity what a properly reformed church and society could look like. The 'eyes of all people' watching was primarily the Protestant world, and the hope was that success in New England would inspire reformation in England. The 1630s were precisely the years when Puritan influence in England was at its height, making New England's example particularly important. Choice A is incorrect. While Roanoke and Jamestown's difficulties were known, Winthrop's warning is framed in explicitly theological terms, divine punishment and disgrace before God, not in terms of practical credibility for future colonial investors. Choice C is incorrect. While Anglo-Spanish colonial competition was real, Winthrop's sermon is entirely focused on the theological and moral stakes of the Puritan mission, not on geopolitical competition with Spain. Choice D is incorrect. Internal Puritan theological disputes about separation vs. reform are background context, but Winthrop's warning about being 'a story and a by-word' is addressed to the world's observation of the settlement's moral conduct, not to internal theological debates.

Question 4. Winthrop's vision of Massachusetts Bay as a community bound by 'mutual consent through a special overruling providence' most directly anticipates which of the following later developments in American political thought?

• A) the constitutional theory of federalism, which distributed power between national and state governments through mutual consent of the governed
• B) the social contract tradition in American political thought, which grounded legitimate government in the voluntary consent of the community ✓
• C) the doctrine of nullification, which argued that states retained the right to void federal laws they deemed unconstitutional
• D) the Jeffersonian principle of strict construction, which held that the federal government could exercise only those powers explicitly granted by the Constitution

Explanation: Choice B is correct. Winthrop's framing of the colonial community as formed through 'mutual consent' under divine providence anticipates the social contract tradition that would later ground American political thought, from the Mayflower Compact through Locke's influence on Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. The idea that political community is formed through voluntary agreement rather than mere coercion is a foundational concept that connects Puritan covenant theology to later secular social contract theory. Choice A is incorrect. Federalism specifically concerns the division of power between levels of government, which is a structural constitutional question distinct from the foundational question of what legitimizes political community in the first place. Choice C is incorrect. Nullification is a theory about states' rights within an existing constitutional order, not a foundational theory of how political communities are legitimately formed through consent. Choice D is incorrect. Strict construction is a theory of constitutional interpretation, about how to read an existing document, not a foundational theory of political consent and community formation.

Question 5. Which of the following developments in early Massachusetts Bay most directly challenged the communal covenantal vision Winthrop articulates in this sermon?

• A) the Antinomian Controversy of 1636–1638, in which Anne Hutchinson challenged Puritan ministerial authority by claiming direct divine inspiration ✓
• B) the founding of Plymouth Colony by Separatist Pilgrims in 1620, who had already established a competing model of godly colonial community in New England
• C) the outbreak of King Philip's War in 1675, which devastated both English and Indigenous communities and shook Puritan confidence in their divine covenant
• D) the English Civil War of the 1640s, which drew many Puritan leaders back to England and reduced immigration to Massachusetts Bay

Explanation: Choice A is correct. The Antinomian Controversy directly challenged the covenantal communal order Winthrop describes. Anne Hutchinson's claim to receive direct divine revelation threatened the authority of the ministers and the carefully constructed social and theological hierarchy Winthrop had established. If individuals could receive divine guidance independently of ministerial authority, the communal covenant and its governance structure would unravel, precisely the social disintegration Winthrop's sermon was designed to prevent. Choice B is incorrect. Plymouth Colony was a Separatist community with different theological premises, but its existence did not directly challenge Massachusetts Bay's internal covenantal order. The two colonies coexisted without fundamental conflict over their respective models. Choice C is incorrect. King Philip's War (1675) did shake Puritan confidence and was interpreted by ministers as divine punishment for covenant failure, but it came forty-five years after Winthrop's sermon and represents a crisis of the covenant rather than a direct internal challenge to the social order he describes. Choice D is incorrect. The English Civil War did reduce immigration to Massachusetts, but Winthrop's covenantal vision was challenged most directly by internal religious dissent rather than by external political developments in England.