Period 8: 1945–1980

President Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation on Energy and Coalition of National Values (the "Crisis of Confidence" speech), July 15, 1979:

"I want to speak to you tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation... It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years. ... [O]ur people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in their ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy."

The public dissatisfaction described in the excerpt most directly contributed to which of the following political shifts by 1980?

Source: Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967

"Black Power is a cry of disappointment. It is born of the wounds of despair. It is a call for the pooling of black financial resources to achieve economic security... but the slogan is an unwise choice... [Nonviolence] does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding."

The debate referenced in the excerpt best reflects which of the following developments within the civil rights movement of the late 1960s?

"The corporate state has created a plastic society where individuals are treated as mere cogs in a machine. We are told to work, consume, and conform, while our government wages an immoral war in Vietnam. In response, we must build a new culture from the ground up—one based on peace, communal sharing, and personal liberation. We will not be draft fodder for their empire, nor will we spend our lives chasing the hollow promises of suburban security."

— Editorial in an underground student newspaper, 1968

Which of the following historical developments during the 1960s did the sentiments expressed in the editorial most directly reflect?

"It is common knowledge that serious allegations and charges concerning what has been called the 'Watergate Affair' have been made against Richard Nixon, former President of the United States... As a result, many of our citizens... have expressed their deep concern that the long-continued agitation of these matters will prevent the healing of our nation... My conscience tells me clearly and swiftly that I cannot prolong the bad dreams that have been with us so long and that only I can write an end to them."

— President Gerald Ford, Proclamation 4311, September 8, 1974

The action described in the excerpt contributed most directly to which of the following political developments during the 1970s?

"For decades, our region stood solidly with the party of our fathers, believing it defended the working man and local self-government. But the events of the last decade have shattered that alliance. The national leadership of our old party has embraced an aggressive federal expansionism—forcing social engineering upon our schools, dictate after dictate from federal courts, and an ever-growing welfare bureaucracy that saps individual initiative. We have not abandoned our principles; rather, the national party has abandoned us. The future of our nation lies with a new coalition that respects state sovereignty, fiscal responsibility, and the traditional values of our communities."
—Statement by a Southern political figure explaining their decision to switch party affiliation, 1972

Which of the following historical developments during the late 1960s and 1970s is best reflected in the political sentiments expressed in the excerpt?

National Organization for Women (NOW), 'Bill of Rights,' 1968:

I. Equal Rights Amendment
II. Enforce Law Banning Sex Discrimination
III. Maternity Leave Rights in Employment and in Education
IV. Tax Deductions for Home and Child Care Expenses for Working Parents
V. Child Day Care Centers
VI. Equal and Non-segregated Education
VII. Equal Job Training Opportunities and Allowances for Women in Poverty
VIII. The Right of Women to Control Their Reproductive Lives

Which of the following strategies of the mainstream feminist movement in the late 1960s is most directly reflected in the goals outlined in the excerpt?

"Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans. What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."

— Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission), 1968

The findings in the excerpt most directly reflect which of the following shifts in the focus and direction of the civil rights movement by the late 1960s?

"We conclude that the State must provide [Sweatt] with legal education equivalent to that offered by the State to students of other races. Such education is not available to him in a separate law school as offered by the State. In terms of number of the faculty, variety of courses and opportunity for specialization, size of the student body, scope of the library, availability of law review and similar activities, the University of Texas Law School is superior. . . . What is more important, the University of Texas Law School possesses to a far greater degree those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school."
— Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, *Sweatt v. Painter*, 1950

The legal dispute and ruling described in the excerpt most directly reflect which of the following historical developments of the 1940s and 1950s?

“The suburban lifestyle, the corporate job, the endless cycle of consuming goods we do not need—these are the traps of the modern establishment. We must drop out of this system and tune into a new consciousness based on cooperation, peace, and personal freedom rather than material success.”

— Excerpt from an underground counterculture newspaper, 1967

Which of the following developments during the 1960s is most directly reflected in the ideas expressed in the excerpt?

Source: President Lyndon B. Johnson, Address to a Joint Session of Congress, March 15, 1965

"Every device of local government has been used to prevent these citizens from voting. The Negro citizen may go to register only to find that the registration office is open only three days a week, or that the registrar is not there... And if he persists, he may be asked to read the Constitution, or to explain it, or to write it. And if he passes that, he may be asked to answer a series of questions which would stump a constitutional lawyer."

Based on the excerpt, which of the following obstacles to voting was the legislative effort described in the address directly designed to eliminate?

Source: Senator Robert A. Taft, speech in the United States Senate opposing ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty, July 11, 1949:

"I cannot vote for a treaty which, in my opinion, will do far more to bring about a third world war than it will to maintain peace. . . . [The treaty] is a part of a much larger program, which can only be understood if we look at it as a whole. That program is the arming of Western Europe. . . . If we agree to arm these nations, we agree to a policy which must result in a clash of arms. . . . It is a complete departure from the traditional foreign policy of the United States."

Which of the following developments in the late 1940s most directly contributed to the political consensus that overrode the objections raised by Taft in the excerpt?

Source: Chief Justice Fred Vinson, majority opinion in *Dennis v. United States*, 1951

"To those who would paralyze our Government in the face of impending threat by encasing it in a semantic straitjacket we must reply that all concepts are relative. . . . Overthrow of the Government by force and violence is certainly a substantial enough interest for the Government to limit speech. Indeed, this is the ultimate value of any society, for if a society cannot protect its constitutionally authorized government, it cannot resolve which of the various competing values it shall favor. . . . We hold that the statute [the Smith Act] may be applied when there is a clear and present danger of the substantive evil which the Legislature had a right to prevent."

Which of the following historical circumstances most directly contributed to the judicial reasoning expressed in the excerpt?

"This bill, which I have signed today, substantially carries out most of the recommendations made by me... It gives servicemen and women the opportunity of resuming their education or technical training after discharge, or of taking a refresher or retraining course, not only without tuition charge up to $500 per year, but with the right to receive a monthly living allowance while pursuing their studies... It also makes provision for the guarantee by the Federal Government of loans for the purchase or construction of homes, farms, and business properties."

— President Franklin D. Roosevelt, statement on signing the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, June 22, 1944

Which of the following best explains a major long-term social consequence of the federal policy described in the excerpt during the postwar era?

"These latest actions of the North Vietnamese regime... require us to look at our presence in Southeast Asia in a new light. ... I recommend a Resolution expressing the support of the Congress for all necessary action to protect our Armed Forces and to assist nations covered by the SEATO Treaty."

— President Lyndon B. Johnson, Message to Congress, August 5, 1964

Which of the following was a direct consequence of the congressional resolution requested in the excerpt?

“This madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” 1967

Which of the following historical developments during the mid-to-late 1960s best supports the argument made by King in the excerpt that domestic social reforms were undermined by United States foreign policy?

"Dear Editor: ... Being an American citizen, I want to write to you to express my views on the present crisis... Should I sacrifice my life so that the demagogues and the rascality of those who deny me the right to live as a citizen can continue to govern? ... I suggest that we colored Americans adopt the 'Double V' sign, representing double victory: victory over our enemies at home and victory over our enemies on the battlefields abroad."

— James G. Thompson, letter to the Pittsburgh Courier, January 1942

Which of the following best describes the primary goal of the "Double V" campaign proposed in the excerpt?

Source: President Harry S. Truman, Address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), June 29, 1947.

"We cannot any longer afford the luxury of a leisurely attack upon prejudice and discrimination. There is much that state and local governments can do in providing for the health, education, and safety of their citizens, to the end that all may have equal opportunities... But we cannot, any longer, await the growth of a will in every community which will wipe out these abuses. We must go, and we must go with all of our strength, to make the Federal Government a friendly, vigilant defender of the rights and equalities of all Americans."

The perspective expressed in the excerpt most directly reflects which of the following historical developments during the late 1940s?

Source: President Harry S. Truman, message to the House of Representatives vetoing the Internal Security Act (McCarran Act), September 22, 1950.

"We need not fear the expression of ideas—even ideas that are hated by the vast majority of our citizens. But we do have to fear the consequences of a law which would put the Government into the business of thought control... This bill would rapidly initiate a government program of spying on our citizens and suppressing their free expression. ... It would give government officials vast powers to harass individuals and organizations for their political beliefs... We must not progress to the point where we match the totalitarian state, which we oppose, by destroying our own liberties."

The political climate that prompted the passage of the legislation described in the excerpt over President Truman’s veto was most directly intensified by which of the following?

“We copy the methods of [Mahatma] Gandhi. We also copy the methods of the civil rights movement in the South. But we do not copy them out of a sense of tactical necessity. We copy them because we believe in them, because they represent the only way that we can achieve our goals of social justice without losing our own souls in the process.”
— César Chávez, “Letter from Delano,” 1969

Based on the passage, which of the following actions best illustrates the strategy described by César Chávez?

"Neither the doctrine of separation of powers nor the need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances."

—United States v. Nixon, 1974

Which of the following was a direct historical result of the Supreme Court decision excerpted above?