Download AP US History Document Based Question

AP US History Document Based Question
Directions: The following question requires you to construct an essay that integrates your
interpretation of Documents A-S and your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. In
the essay you should strive to support your assertions both by citing key pieces of evidence from
the documents and by drawing on your knowledge of the period.
Instead of accomplishing its intended goal of settling the increasingly heated
arguments over the issue of slavery, the Missouri Compromise offered only a temporary
solution. Actually, it fueled the rising sectional disputes and growing animosity between
the opposing side. Inevitably, this would lead to the dissolution of the union. Assess the
validity of this statement.
Document A
"The Missouri question so called, has agitated the public mind, and that I sincerely regret
and never excepted, but that now I see, will be the entering wedge to separate the union. It is
even more wicked, it will excite those who is the subject of discussion to insurrection and
massacre. It is a question of political ascendancy, and power, and the Eastern interests are
determined to succeed regardless of the consequences, the constitution or our national
happiness. They will find the southern and western states equally resolved to support their
constitutional rights I hope I may not live to see the evils that must grow out of this wicked design
of demagogues, who talk about humanity, but whose sole object is self aggrandizement
regardless of the happiness of the nation." Source: Quote by Andrew Jackson, before he became
president, regarding the Missouri Compromise.
Document B
Document C
"The Missouri question... is the most portentous one which ever yet threatened our Union.
In the gloomiest moment of the revolutionary war I never had any apprehensions equal to what I
feel from this source.... This momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened me and
filled me with terror. I considered it at once the [death] knell of the Union...the matter is hushed
indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence." Source: Letter from
Thomas Jefferson to a correspondent.
Document D
Document E
"By what fatality does it happen that all the most eloquent orators of the body are on its
slavish side? There is a great mass of cool judgment and plain sense on the side of freedom and
humanity, but the ardent spirits and passions are on the side of oppression... I take it for granted
that the present question is a mere preamble- a title page to a great, tragic volume." Source:
Writings of John Quincy Adams on his visit to the Senate on February 11, 1820.
Document F
"When I got there, I found the members from the Slave States, and some from others, in
despair. All efforts had been tried and failed to reconcile the parties.... If you adopt the Missouri
line... you do legislate upon the subject of slavery, and you legislate for its restriction. I know it
has been said. that non-legislation implies... exclusion of slavery. That we cannot help...if nature
has pronounced the doom of slavery in these territories... who can you reproach but nature and
nature's God?" Source: Henry Clay's recollection of the events in the House on January 16, 1821.
Document G
"We must concern ourselves with what is and slavery exists. It is to us [Southerners] a
question of life and death ... a necessity imposed upon the South, not a Utopia of our seeking.
We are the eel that is being flayed." Source: Warning from Senator John Randolph of Roanoke,
Virginia to Southerners about the weakness in the Missouri Compromise.
Document H
"Many of the House members were new, 86 of 186 Representatives and in that fact lay the
rub. More than half of the newcomers were from the free states. In 1790, representation in both
houses of Congress had been divided fairly equally between North and South, but by 1820,
although the balance still held in the Senate, in the House free-state votes outnumbered those of
slave states by 24. And if Missouri came in as another free slate, even the Senate would be
weighted against the South. This was what terrified the slave interests. Southerners felt that by
presuming to set conditions for Missouri that no other state had ever been forced to meet,
Congress would be assuming powers not specifically granted it by the Constitution. If this was
carried one step further, Southerners feared, Congress might even claim the powers of abolition;
with Northern control, millions in slave property might be wiped out by a simple majority vote.
The South was at bay, fear was an ugly undercurrent of the debate and the word "disunion"
was spoken openly by the South for the first time. Southerners were concerned partly over the
specific issue of Missouri, partly over the boarder issues that lay beyond it. Slaves were the basis
of Southern wealth. if slavery was banned from the new state, Southern slave traders would lose
a valuable market and Southern economic interests would be disregarded when Missouri's vote
was cast in Congress. Furthermore, if the North achieved superior voting power throughout
Congress it could help itself to economic advantages at the expense of the plantation South.
A great divide was widening between the two sections: the North with its small and growing
industries, the South changing year by year into the huge plantation economy which legend
would erroneously identify with the entire region as "the Old South." The furious congressional
debate between these two factions was a fearsome omen, "a title page," John Quincy Adams
observed, "to a great tragic volume." Source: Excerpt from The Life History of the United States:
1789-1829.
Document I
Document J
Document K
"It is a most unhappy question, awakening sectional feelings, and exasperating them to the
highest degree. The words, civil war, and disunion, are uttered almost without emotion." Source:
Clay's report on the feelings of the Sixteenth Congress.
Document L
"The laws of the United States have denounced heavy penalties against the traffic in
slaves, because such traffic is deemed unjust and inhuman... We have a strong feeling of the
injustice of any toleration of slavery. Circumstances have entailed it on a portion of our
community which cannot immediately relieved from it without consequences more injurious than
the suffering of the evil But to permit it in a new country, where yet no habits are formed which
render it indispensable, what is it, but to encourage that rapacity, fraud, and violence against
which we have so long pointed the denunciations of our code?" Source: Daniel Webster's
address to a citizens' meeting at the Massachusetts State House. (December 1819)
Document M
"Gentlemen now have an opportunity of putting their principles into practice. If they have
tried slavery and found it a curse, if they desire to dissipate the gloom with which it causes their
land, I call upon them to exclude it from the Territory in question. Plant not its seeds in this
uncorrupt soil. Let not our children, looking back to the proceedings of this day, say of them, as
they have been constrained to speak of their fathers, "We wish their decision had been different.
We regret the existence of this unfortunate population among us. But we found them here; we
know not what to do with them. It is our misfortune; we must bear it with patience.." Source:
Excerpt from Representative John W. Taylor's argument to the House for the Tallmadge
amendment to the Missouri Compromise. (1819)
Document N
Document O
"Have the Northern states any idea of the value of our slaves? At least, sir, six hundred
millions of dollars. If we lose them, the value of the lands they cultivate will be diminished in all
cases one half, and in many they will become wholly useless. And an annual income of at least
forty millions of dollars will be lost to your citizens, the loss of which will not alone be felt by the
non-slaveholding states, but by the whole Union. For to whom, at present, do the Eastern states,
most particularly, and the Eastern and Northern, generally, look for the employment of their
shipping, in transporting our bulky and valuable products [cotton], and bringing us the
manufactures and merchandises of Europe?
Another thing, in case of these losses being brought on us, and our being forced into a
division of the Union, what becomes of your public debt? Who are to pay this, and how will it be
paid? In a pecuniary view of this subject, therefore, it must ever be the policy of the Eastern and
Northern states to continue connected with us. But, sir, there is an infinitely greater call upon
them, and this is the call of justice, of affection, and humanity. Reposing at a great distance, in
safety, in the full enjoyment of all their federal and state rights, can they, with indifference, or
ought they, to risk, in the remotest degree, the consequences which this measure may produce?
These may be the division of this Union and a civil war. Knowing that whatever is said here must
get into the public prints, I am unwilling, for obvious reasons, to go into the description of the
horrors which such a war must produce, and ardently pray that none of us may ever live to
witness such an event." Source: Excerpt from a speech by Representative Charles Pinckney of
South Carolina to uphold slavery. (1820)
Document P
“…. the Northwest Ordinance of 1787…. came to grips with the problem of how a nation
should deal with its colonial peoples--the same problem that had bedeviled the king and
Parliament in London. The solution provided by the Northwest Ordinance was a judicious
compromise: temporary tutelage, then permanent equality. First, there would be two evolutionary
territorial stages, during which the area would be subordinate to the federal government. Then,
when a territory could boast sixty thousand inhabitants, it might be admitted by Congress as a
state, with all the privileges of the thirteen charter members. (This is precisely what the
Continental Congress had promised the states when they surrendered their lands in 1781.) The
ordinance also forbade slavery in the Old Northwest--a path breaking gain for freedom.
The wisdom of Congress in handling this explosive problem deserves warm praise. If it had
attempted to chain the new territories in permanent subordination, a second American Revolution
almost certainly would have erupted in later years, fought this time by the West against the East.
Congress thus neatly solved the seemingly insoluble problem of empire. The scheme worked so
well that its basic principles were ultimately carried over from the Old Northwest to other frontier
areas.” Source, Thomas Bailey, The American Pageant.
Document Q
Calhoun & the Slavery Question,
"I had some conversation with Calhoun on the slave question pending in Congress. He said
he did not think it would produce a dissolution of the Union, but if it should, the South would be
from necessity compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain. I said
that would be returning to the colonial state. He said, yes, pretty much, but it would be forced
upon them.... I pressed the conversation no further, but if the dissolution of the Union should
result from the slave question, it is as obvious as anything that can be foreseen of futurity, that it
must shortly afterwards be followed by the universal emancipation of the slaves....
After this meeting, I walked home with Calhoun, who said that the principles which I had
avowed were just and noble, but that in the Southern country, whenever they were mentioned,
they were always understood as applying only to white men. Domestic labor was confined to the
blacks, and such was the prejudice, that if he... were to keep a white servant in his house, his
character and reputation would be irretrievably ruined.
The discussion of the Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the
abstract they admit that slavery is evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it; and
cast it all upon the shoulders of our old Grandam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it,
they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vain glory in their condition of masterdom....
If the Union is to be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to
break. For the present, this contest is laid asleep." John Quincy Adams, 24 February 1820,
Washington D.C. David Colbert. Eyewitness to America. Pantheon Books, 1997.
Document R
"Slavery is extended to Missouri, by a majority of three. The deed is done. The galling
chains of slavery are forged for myriads yet unborn. Humble yourselves in the dust, ye highminded citizens of Connecticut. Let your cheeks be red as crimson. On your representatives rests
the stigma of this foul disgrace. It is a stain of blood, which oceans of tears and centuries of
repentance can never obliterate. The names of Lanman, Stevens, and Foot will go down to
posterity with the name of Judas.* Their memory will be preserved in the execrations of the good,
in the groans and sighs of the oppressed, and they will be remembered by the proud oppressor
himself in the day of retribution. That day will surely come, for God is just. But for their vote future
millions now destined to the whips and scourges of the inhuman slave dealer might have
breathed the air of freedom and of happiness. New Haven Journal, March 14, 1820; in Glover
Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-27 (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1953),
p. 196.
Document S
". . . . this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with
terror. I considered it at once the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this
is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man
on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any
practicable way.... But as it is. we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor
safely let him go. Justice is in one scale. and self-preservation in the other....
I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the
generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness in their country, is to be thrown
away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be,
that I will not live to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weight the blessings they will
throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by secession,
they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason
against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of Union, I tender the offering
of my high esteem and respect. Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, April 22. 1820. Source: Merrill D.
Person (ed.). The Portable Thomas Jefferson. Penguin Books, 1977.