Download AP History Document Based Question

AP History Document Based Question
Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that
integrates your interpretation of the Documents and your knowledge of the period
referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by essays that cite key pieces
of evidence from the documents, and draw on outside knowledge of the period.
To what extent was the settlement of the controversy over Missouri statehood
in 1820, which has been termed a compromise, less of a compromise than a
surrender of the South to the North.
Document A
Source: Quote by Andrew Jackson, before he became president, regarding the Missouri
Compromise.
"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."
Document B
Document C
Source: Letter from Thomas Jefferson to a c Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, April 22.
1820. Source: Merrill D. Person (ed.). The Portable Thomas Jefferson. Penguin Books,
1977.
". . . . 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 selfpreservation 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. "
Document D
Document E
Source: Warning from Senator John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia to Southerners about
the weakness in the Missouri Compromise.
"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."
Document F
Source: Excerpt from The Life History of the United States: 1789-1829.
"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 freestate 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."
Document G
Source: Daniel Webster's address to a citizens' meeting at the Massachusetts State House.
(December 1819)
"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?"
Document H
Source: Excerpt from Representative John W. Taylor's argument to the House for the
Tallmadge amendment to the Missouri Compromise. (1819)
"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.."
Document I
Document J
Source: Excerpt from a speech by Representative Charles Pinckney of South Carolina to
uphold slavery. (1820)
"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?"
Document K
Source: Living Documents in American History (ed. John A. Scott, Vol. II, p. 615-621)
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Article 6.
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise
than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted:
provided, always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is
lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.
Document L
Source: Documents in American History, Vol. I, ed. by Henry Steele Commager, Milton
Center, p. 225
Tallmadge Amendment of 1820
And provided also, That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be
prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall be duly
convicted; and that all children of slaves, born within the said state, after the admission
thereof into the Union, shall be free but may be held to service until the age of twentyfive years.
Document M
Source: American Documents in History, Vol. I, ed by Henry Steele Commager, Milton
Center, p. 225
Taylor Amendment of 1820
The reading of the bill proceeded as far as the fourth section; when Mr. Taylor, of New
York, proposed to amend the bill by incorporating in that section the following provision:
Section 4, line 25, insert the following after the word ''States; ''And shall ordain and
establish, that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said State,
otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor
or service is lawfully claimed in any other State, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed,
and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid: And
provided, also, That the said provision shall not be construed to alter the condition or
civil rights of any person now held to service or labor in the said Territory.''
Document N
Source: Documents in American History, Vol. I, ed by Henry Steele Commager, Milton
Center, p. 225
Thomas Amendment of 1820
And be it further enacted, That, in all that territory ceded by France to the United States,
under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes
north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is included within the limits of the
State contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the
punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is
hereby forever prohibited. Provided always, That any person escaping into the same,
from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the United
States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his
or her labor or service, as aforesaid.