Period 4: 1800–1848

"We are told that the system of labor in our manufactories is beneficial to the community... But we ask, is the independence of the nation to be purchased at the price of the independence of the individuals who compose it? The laboring classes are being reduced to a state of vassalage, where they are dependent on the will of a few wealthy capitalists... We see the wives and daughters of our citizens, once independent and proud, now compelled by necessity to submit to the discipline of the spinning room and the loom, under the eye of taskmasters."
— Seth Luther, labor reformer, *An Address to the Working-Men of New England*, 1832

The concerns expressed in the excerpt most directly reflect which of the following social developments during the Market Revolution?

Read the excerpt below from the Democratic Party Platform of 1840:

'Resolved, That the Federal Government is one of limited power, derived solely from the Constitution; and the grants of power made therein ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government; and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers...
Resolved, That the Constitution does not confer upon the General Government the power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements.'

Which of the following historical actions by the Jackson administration best reflects the constitutional principles expressed in this excerpt?

"Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe, and peculiarly her own. She should therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe."

—Thomas Jefferson, letter to President James Monroe, October 24, 1823

The ideas expressed in the excerpt most directly influenced the development of which of the following foreign policies?

"The North and the South are partners in a common enterprise. While the North dominates in shipping, finance, and the manufacturing of textiles, it is the slave labor of the South that feeds those looms and fills those ships. Cotton is the currency of our national growth. To disrupt the labor system of the South is not merely to interfere with our local domestic affairs, but to threaten the collapse of the entire American commercial system and the prosperity of the free states themselves."
— J. D. B. De Bow, *The Commercial Review of the South and West*, 1846

Which of the following historical developments in the period 1800 to 1848 best explains the perspective expressed in the excerpt?

"Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance-wheel of the social machinery. It does not, indeed, destroy all distinctions between the rich and the poor, but it prevents the widening of the breach between them... It gives each man the independence and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich; it prevents being poor."
— Horace Mann, Twelfth Annual Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1848

The ideas expressed in the excerpt were most directly influenced by which of the following historical developments?

"There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market..."

— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Robert Livingston, 1802

Based on the excerpt, which of the following actions did the Jefferson administration take to address the concern described?

The following table displays historical data regarding cotton production and the enslaved population in the United States between 1800 and 1840:

Which of the following historical developments during the period 1800–1848 is best supported by the data in the table?

“Is not the moment come when our two governments might understand each other as to the Spanish American States? We conceive that they cannot be recovered by Spain; that their recognition as independent States is a question of time and circumstances; but that we do not aim at the possession of any portion of them ourselves, and could not see any part of them transferred to any other Power with indifference. . . . If these opinions are common to us, why should we not mutually declare them in the face of the world?”

— George Canning, British Foreign Secretary, Letter to Richard Rush, U.S. Minister to Great Britain, August 20, 1823

Which of the following best explains why the Monroe administration declined the proposal in the excerpt and instead issued a unilateral declaration?

“By the use of the reaper, the agriculturalist is enabled to secure his crop at the precise moment of its maturity, and to harvest in a single day an acreage that formerly required the combined labor of a dozen men. This invention, together with the extension of railroad communications, has converted the fertile but previously remote prairies of the West into the granary of the Union.”
—Agricultural journal report, 1848

The developments described in the excerpt most directly contributed to which of the following economic shifts in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century?

“We are great, and rapidly—I was about to say fearfully—growing. This is our distinguishing characteristic and our peculiar danger. . . . Let us, then, bind the Republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals. Let us conquer space. It is thus the most distant parts of the republic will be brought within a systematic system of interactions . . . and thus will be prevented that separation of interests, which, if it once begins, must end in a total separation of the Union.”

—Representative John C. Calhoun, speech to Congress, 1817

Which of the following developments in the first half of the nineteenth century most directly contributed to the realization of the goals described in the excerpt?

“These United States of America, which we have seen arise and grow... have suddenly left a monument of their audacity... In presenting their declaration of December 2, 1823, they have dared to place themselves in opposition to the European Powers... they have cast blame and scorn on the institutions of Europe most worthy of respect... by fostering revolutions wherever they show themselves... they have cast a spell of discord over the civilized world.”

—Prince Klemens von Metternich, letter to the Russian government, 1824

Which of the following foreign policy goals of the United States in the early 1820s is Metternich criticizing in the excerpt?

“We invite your attention to the dangers which at present seem to threaten the female character with wide-spread and permanent injury. The appropriate duties and influence of women are clearly stated in the New Testament. . . . But when she assumes the place and tone of a man as a public reformer, our care and protection of her seem unnecessary, we put ourselves in self-defense against her, she departs from the character which God has given her, and if the vine, whose strength and beauty is to lean upon the trellis-work, and half conceal its clusters, thinks to assume the independence and the overshadowing character of the elm, it will not only cease to bear fruit, but will fall in shame and confusion into the dust.”

— Pastoral Letter of the General Association of Massachusetts, 1837

The debate over the ideas expressed in the excerpt most directly contributed to which of the following outcomes within the reform movements of the antebellum era?

"A revival is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means. There is no more mystery in it than there is in the application of means in common life... I say that a revival is as naturally a result of the use of appropriate means as a crop of wheat is the result of use of the appropriate means."
— Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 1835

Which of the following developments in the first half of the nineteenth century best explains the relationship between the religious revivals described in the excerpt and the contemporary Market Revolution?

"The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and with the acts of congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States."
— Chief Justice John Marshall, majority opinion, Worcester v. Georgia, 1832

Which of the following best explains how the political aftermath of the Supreme Court decision excerpted above reflected a broader conflict over federal power during the Jacksonian Era?

"The government of the United States, then, though limited in its powers, is supreme; and its laws, when made in pursuance of the constitution, form the supreme law of the land, 'any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.'...

To have prescribed the means by which government should, in all future time, execute its powers, would have been to change, entirely, the character of the instrument, and give it the properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide, by immutable rules, for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best provided for as they occur."
— Chief Justice John Marshall, *McCulloch v. Maryland*, 1819

Which of the following historical developments of the early nineteenth century was a direct consequence of the constitutional principles expressed in the decision excerpted above?

“But you may say, 'We cannot free our slaves; the laws of the South forbid their emancipation.' We know this, but we also know that you can read, and pray, and speak, and act on this subject. . . . If you cannot free your slaves, you can at least petition your legislatures to change these unjust laws.”
— Angelina Grimké, *Appeal to the Christian Women of the South*, 1836

Which of the following developments in the early nineteenth century most directly contributed to the sentiments expressed in the excerpt?

“The search after truth, and the preservation of it, are duties of equal obligation upon man and woman. . . . If then, no man can think for me, or save me, or pay my debt for me, or answer for me to my Maker, then is he not my lord, and then have I a right to think and act for myself in all matters of duty and conscience. . . . I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.”

— Sarah Grimké, *Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman*, 1837

Which of the following developments in the early nineteenth century most directly contributed to the emergence of the arguments expressed in the excerpt?

Source 1
"The purchase of Louisiana was a masterpiece of diplomacy that secured the nation's agricultural future and resolved the geopolitical threat of a French empire on the western border. While Jefferson had to temporarily set aside his strict constructionist principles, the acquisition was fully justified under the treaty-making powers of the Executive. It prevented immediate conflict with European powers and guaranteed access to the Mississippi River, which was vital for western farmers."
— Adapted from a modern historical analysis of Jeffersonian foreign policy

Source 2
"Rather than a triumph of constitutional flexibility, the acquisition of Louisiana was an act of imperial expansion that destabilized the federal union. By incorporating vast territories without clear constitutional authorization or the consent of the existing states, the Jefferson administration upset the delicate sectional balance between North and South. The purchase did not merely expand the nation; it laid the groundwork for intense sectional conflicts over the expansion of slavery into the new territories."
— Adapted from a modern historical analysis of the sectional crises

Based on the two excerpts, which of the following best explains a major difference between the two historical interpretations of the Louisiana Purchase?

“Standing as we do upon the watch-tower of human freedom, we cannot be deterred from an expression of our approbation of any movement, however unpopular, which is designed to promote the emancipation and elevation of any class of the human family. ... In respect to political rights, we hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. We go farther, and express our conviction that all political rights which it is expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for woman. All that distinguishes man as a moral and intellectual being, is common to woman...”
— Frederick Douglass, "The Rights of Women," *The North Star*, July 28, 1848

Which of the following historical developments during the early nineteenth century best explains the connection between the abolitionist movement and the women's rights movement as reflected in the excerpt?

Read the excerpt below.

"Our opponents have suddenly discovered that the people are sovereign, and they now bow down before the majesty of the democracy with a zeal that far outstrips our own. By abandoning their traditional appeals to property and intellect, they have mounted the log cabin, seized the hard cider barrel, and sung their way into the hearts of the voters. In doing so, they have shown that the modern system of party organization and popular excitement is the only path to political power in this republic."
—Adapted from a Democratic newspaper editorial, 1840

Which of the following developments in United States politics during the 1830s and 1840s is most directly reflected in the campaign tactics described in the excerpt?