Download Thematic Essay Practice Controversial Issues

US History/Napp
Thematic Essay Practice – Controversial Issues
Name: __________________
From the January 2006 New York States Regents/ U.S. History & Government
THEMATIC ESSAY QUESTION
Directions: Write a well-organized essay that includes an introduction, several paragraphs
addressing the task below, and a conclusion.
Theme: Individuals, Groups, and Institutions — Controversial Issues
Many controversial domestic issues have divided the American people. The United
States government has taken actions to address these issues.
Task:
Identify one controversial domestic issue that has divided the American people and
• Discuss the historical background of the controversy
• Explain the point of view of those who supported this issue
• Explain the point of view of those who opposed this issue
• Discuss one United States government action that was taken to address this issue
Some suggestions you might wish to consider include placing Native American Indians on
reservations, slavery, women’s suffrage, Prohibition, the use of child labor, and the policy
of unlimited immigration.
Gathering the Facts:
1- Placing Native American Indians on Reservations
 “The Native American suffered most from Andrew Jackson’s vision of America.
 President Jackson pursued a policy of removing Indian tribes from their
ancestral lands.
 This relocation would make room for settlers and often for speculators who
made large profits from the purchase and sale of land.
 Indian policy caused the President little political trouble because his primary
supporters were from the southern and western states and generally favored a
plan to remove all the Indian tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River.
 The Cherokees of Georgia, on the other hand, used legal action to resist.
 By the 1830s, the Cherokees developed their own written language, printed
newspapers and elected leaders to representative government.
 When the government of Georgia refused to recognize their autonomy and
threatened to seize their lands, the Cherokees took their case to the U.S.
Supreme Court and won a favorable decision.
 John Marshall’s opinion for the Court majority in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia
was essentially that Georgia had no jurisdiction over the Cherokees and no claim
to their lands.
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But Georgia officials simply ignored the decision, and President Jackson refused
to enforce it.
Finally, federal troops came to Georgia to remove the tribes forcibly.
As early as 1831, the army began to push the Choctaws off their lands to march
to Oklahoma.
In 1835, some Cherokee leaders agreed to accept western land and payment in
exchange for relocation.
Other Cherokees, under the leadership of Chief John Ross, resisted until the
bitter end.
About 20,000 Cherokees were marched westward at gunpoint on the infamous
Trail of Tears.
Nearly a quarter perished on the way, with the remainder left to seek survival in
a completely foreign land.
After being forced off their native lands, many American Indians found life to be
most difficult.
Beginning in the first half of the 19th century, federal policy dictated that certain
tribes be confined to fixed land plots to continue their traditional ways of life.
Nomadic tribes lost their entire means of subsistence by being constricted to a
defined area.
Farmers found themselves with land unsuitable for agriculture.
Faced with disease, alcoholism, and despair on the reservations, federal officials
changed directions with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887.
Each Native American family was offered 160 acres of tribal land to own
outright. Although the land could not be sold for 25 years, these new land
owners could farm it for profit like other farmers in the West.
The Dawes Act was widely resisted. Tribal leaders foretold the end of their
ancient folkways and a further loss of communal land.
Many 19th century Americans saw the Dawes Act as a way to ‘civilize’ the
Native Americans.
Visiting missionaries attempted to convert the Indians to Christianity, although
they found few new believers.
In addition to disregarding tribal languages and religions, schools often forced
the pupils to dress like Americans.
They were given shorter haircuts.
Even the core of individual identity – one's name – was changed to
‘Americanize’ the children.
These practices often led to further tribal divisions. Each tribe had those who
were friendly to American ‘assistance’ and those who were hostile.
Friends were turned into enemies.
The Dawes Act was an unmitigated disaster for tribal units.
In 1900, land held by Native American tribes was half that of 1880.
Land holdings continued to dwindle in the early 20th century. When the Dawes
Act was repealed in 1934, alcoholism, poverty, illiteracy, and suicide rates were
higher for Native Americans than any other ethnic group in the United States.”
~ushistory.org
2- Slavery
 “Slavery in America began when the first African slaves were brought to the
North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, to aid in the production
of such lucrative crops as tobacco.
 Slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th
centuries, and African-American slaves helped build the economic foundations
of the new nation.
 The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 solidified the central importance of
slavery to the South's economy.
 By the mid-19th century, America’s westward expansion, along with a growing
abolition movement in the North, would provoke a great debate over slavery
that would tear the nation apart in the bloody American Civil War (1861 –
1865).
 Though the Union freed the nation’s 4 million slaves, the legacy of slavery
continued to influence American history, from the tumultuous years of
Reconstruction (1865 – 1877) to the civil rights movement that emerged in the
1960s, a century after emancipation.” ~ history.com
3- Women’s Suffrage
 “The struggle to achieve equal rights for women is often thought to have begun,
in the English-speaking world, with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
 During the 19th century, as male suffrage was gradually extended in many
countries, women became increasingly active in the quest for their own suffrage.
 Not until 1893, however, in New Zealand, did women achieve suffrage on the
national level.
 Australia followed in 1902, but American, British, and Canadian women did not
win the same rights until the end of World War I.
 The demand for the enfranchisement of American women was first seriously
formulated at the Seneca Falls Convention (1848).
 After the Civil War, agitation by women for the ballot became increasingly
vociferous.
 In 1869, however, a rift developed among feminists over the proposed 15th
Amendment, which gave the vote to black men.
 Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others refused to endorse the
amendment because it did not give women the ballot.
 Other suffragists, however, including Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, argued
that once the black man was enfranchised, women would achieve their goal.
 As a result of the conflict, two organizations emerged.
 Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association to
work for suffrage on the federal level and to press for more extensive
institutional changes, such as the granting of property rights to married women.
 Stone created the American Woman Suffrage Association, which aimed to
secure the ballot through state legislation.
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In 1890 the two groups united under the name National American Woman
Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
In the same year Wyoming entered the Union, becoming the first state with
general women’s suffrage (which it had adopted as a territory in 1869).
As the pioneer suffragists began to withdraw from the movement because of
age, younger women assumed leadership roles.
One of the most politically astute was Carrie Chapman Catt, who was named
president of NAWSA in 1915.
Another prominent suffragist was Alice Paul.
Forced to resign from NAWSA because of her insistence on the use of militant
direct-action tactics, Paul organized the National Woman’s Party, which used
such strategies as mass marches and hunger strikes.
Perseverance on the part of both organizations eventually led to victory. On
August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment granted the ballot to American women.”
~ scholastic.com
4- Prohibition
 “When the Prohibition era in the United States began on January 19, 1920, a few
sage observers predicted it would not go well.
 Certainly, previous attempts to outlaw the use of alcohol in American history
had fared poorly.
 When a Massachusetts town banned the sale of alcohol in 1844, an enterprising
tavern owner took to charging patrons for the price of seeing a striped pig – the
drinks came free with the price of admission.
 When Maine passed a strict prohibition law in 1851, the result was not
temperance, but resentment among the city’s working class and Irish immigrant
population.
 A deadly riot in Portland in 1855 lead to the law’s repeal.
 Now, Prohibition was being implemented on a national scale, and being
enshrined in the Constitution no less.
 What followed was a litany of unintended consequences.
 This should have come as no surprise with a venture as experimental as
Prohibition.
 It is no mistake that President Herbert Hoover’s 1928 description of Prohibition
as ‘a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in
purpose’ entered the popular lexicon as ‘the noble experiment.’
 It was unfortunate for the entire nation that the experiment failed as miserably
as it did.
 One of the most profound effects of Prohibition was on government tax
revenues.
 Before Prohibition, many states relied heavily on excise taxes in liquor sales to
fund their budgets.
 In New York, almost 75% of the state’s revenue was derived from liquor taxes.
 With Prohibition in effect, that revenue was immediately lost.
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At the national level, Prohibition cost the federal government a total of $11
billion in lost tax revenue, while costing over $300 million to enforce.
The most lasting consequence was that many states and the federal government
would come to rely on income tax revenue to fund their budgets going forward.”
~ pbs.org
5- The Use of Child Labor
 “Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have
existed throughout American history.
 As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban
areas and factory work, children were often preferred, because factory owners
viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike.
 Growing opposition to child labor in the North caused many factories to move to
the South.
 By 1900, states varied considerably in whether they had child labor standards
and in their content and degree of enforcement.
 By then, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories,
textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers,
bootblacks, and peddlers.
 In the early decades of the twentieth century, the numbers of child laborers in
the U.S. peaked.
 Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor
standards in general began improving, increasing the political power of working
people and other social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor.
 Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined, and common
initiatives were conducted by organizations led by working women and middle
class consumers, such as state Consumers’ Leagues and Working Women’s
Societies.
 These organizations generated the National Consumers’ League in 1899 and the
National Child Labor Committee in 1904, which shared goals of challenging
child labor, including through anti-sweatshop campaigns and labeling programs.
 The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined
with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and
culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set
federal standards for child labor.” ~ continuetolearn.uiowa.edu
6- The Policy of Unlimited Immigration
 “The Statue of Liberty symbolizes the willingness of the United States to open its
doors to immigrants.
 As the Statue was taking shape the U.S. was experiencing a long period of
increased immigration.
 This trend and policies supporting it continued until immigration reached a
peak in the decade between 1900 and 1910 during which almost 1 million
immigrants per year entered the country.
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However, the composition of immigrants began shifting after the American Civil
War.
Before the war, most immigrants were from western Europe and the British
Isles.
During the 1870s immigrants from southern and eastern Europe became much
more common.
Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans were also coming to the U.S., particularly the
West Coast.
The ‘older immigrants’ from Protestant western Europe felt threatened by the
rising tide of immigrants from the more Catholic southern and eastern
European countries and the immigrants from Asia.
Organizations were formed urging laws to restrict immigration.
A succession of laws was passed adding restrictions to immigration policy.
A literacy test for immigrants was passed and became law over the veto of
President Woodrow Wilson.
Emergency legislation in 1921 imposed a quota system, limiting the number of
immigrants from Europe to 3 percent of the number of foreign-born members of
that same nationality in the U.S. during the 1910 census.
Then in 1924 the U.S. passed the National Origins Act.
This act further limited immigration by reducing the allowable number of
entries to 2 percent and by using the 1890 census as the base, further
discriminating against the newer immigrants from southern and eastern Europe,
favoring immigration from northwestern Europe, and barring immigration
from the Far East.
This law prevented many eastern Europeans from immigrating to the United
States during World War II.
It was only repealed in 1965.
Since the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II, immigration has
steadily risen again in the U.S.
In the 1980s and 1990s the number of immigrants is once again over 700,000 per
year and continues to rise.
Of course, the population in the U.S. is much larger now than in 1900 so the
percent of our population that is foreign born continues to get smaller.”
~missouri.edu
Look at the thematic essay question again. Which two controversial issues will you
choose?
In addition, in your own words, summarize the suggested controversial issues:

Placing Native American Indians on Reservations

Slavery

Women’s Suffrage

Prohibition

The Use of Child Labor

The Policy of Unlimited Immigration
What Native American Indian viewpoint does the cartoonist support?
1. Illegal immigrants should not be allowed to settle on Native American Indian
reservations.
2. European settlers took Native American Indian land.
3. Government efforts to restrict immigration should be supported.
4. Native American Indians support government efforts to stop illegal immigration.
Outlining the Thematic Essay:
Controversial Issue: _______
Controversial Issue: _______

Discuss the historical background of
the controversy

Discuss the historical background of
the controversy

Explain the point of view of those
who supported this issue

Explain the point of view of those
who supported this issue

Explain the point of view of those
who opposed this issue

Explain the point of view of those
who opposed this issue

Discuss one United States
government action that was taken to
address this issue

Discuss one United States
government action that was taken to
address this issue
Additional Notes:
Additional Notes:
Write the Essay:
Introduction:
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Body Paragraph:
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Body Paragraph:
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Conclusion:
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Explain the meaning of the political cartoon.
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Explain the meaning of the political cartoon. _______________________________________