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-L 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.

To what extent did the new government of the United States faced the same political, economic, and constitutional issues between 1783 and 180 0 that troubled the British governments relations with the colonies prior to the Revolution.

Document A

“The Alien Law has been bitterly inveighed against as a direct attack upon our liberties, when in fact it affects only foreigners who are conspiring against us, and has no relation whatever to an American citizen. It gives authority to the First Magistrate [President] of the Union to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government thereof, to depart out of our territory.

The Sedition Act has likewise been shamefully misrepresented as an attack upon the freedom of speech and of the press. But we find, on the contrary, that it prescribes a punishment only for those pests of society and disturbers of order and tranquility "who write, print, utter, or publish any false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring them into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them the hatred of the good people of the United States; or to stir up sedition, or to abet the hostile designs of any foreign nation.

What honest man can justly be alarmed at such a law, or can wish unlimited permission to be given for the publication of malicious falsehoods, and with intentions the most base? They who complain of legal provisions for punishing intentional defamation and lies as bridling the liberty of speech and of the press, may, with equal propriety, complain against laws made for punishing assault and murder, as restraints upon the freedom of men's actions.” C. W. Upham, Life of Timothy Pickering (1873), vol. 3, pp. 475-476.

Document B

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. . . . The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse 3, Massachusetts 8, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations 1, Connecticut 5, New-York 6, New Jersey 4, Pennsylvania 8, Delaware 1, Maryland 6, Virginia 10, North Carolina 5, South Carolina 5, and Georgia 3.” The Constitution, Article I, Section 2.

Document C

Mr. Chairman.

“The necessity of a Bill of Rights appear to me to be greater in this Government, than ever it was in any Government before. . . . How were the Congressional rights defined when the people of America united by a confederacy to defend their liberties and rights against the tyrannical attempts of Great-Britain? The States were not then contented with implied reservation. No, Mr. Chairman. It was expressly declared in our Confederation that every right was not given up to the Government of the United States. But there is no such thing here. You therefore by a natural and unavoidable implication, give up your rights to the General Government. . . . The powers of direct taxation, the sword, and the purse. You have disposed of them to Congress, without a Bill of Rights. . . . You have a Bill of Rights to defend you against the State Government, which is bereaved of all power; and yet you have none against Congress, though in full and exclusive possession of all power! You arm yourselves against the weak and defenseless, and expose yourselves naked to the armed and powerful. Is not this a conduct of unexampled absurdity?” Patrick Henry, 1788. David L. Bender (ed.). Opposing Viewpoints in American History (Vol. I). Greenhaven Press, 1996.

Document D

Document E

. . . . the Congress of the Confederation succeeded in passing supremely farsighted pieces of legislation. These related to an immense part of the public domain recently acquired from the states and commonly known as the Old Northwest. This area of land lay northwest of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and south of the Great Lakes.

The first was the Land Ordinance of 1785. It provided that the acreage of the Old Northwest should be sold and that the proceeds should be used to help pay off the national debt. The vast area was to be surveyed before sale and settlement, thus forestalling endless confusion and lawsuits. It was to be divided into townships six miles square, each of which in turn was to be split into thirty-six sections of one square mile each. The sixteenth section of each township was set aside to be sold for the benefit of the public schools-a priceless gift to education in the Northwest.

Even more noteworthy was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which related to the governing of the Old Northwest. . . . 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. The ordinance also forbade slavery in the Old Northwest-a pathbreaking gain for freedom. The American Pageant, Chapter 9, Landmarks in Land Laws.

Document F

Document G

“The excise law [Whiskey Tax] is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the Constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and setting us all afloat to choose which part of it we will adhere to.

The information of our militia, returned from the westward, is uniform, that though the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects of their laughter, not of their fear; that a thousand men could have cut off their whole force in a thousand places of the Allegheny; that their detestation of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government; and that separation, which perhaps was a very distant and problematical event, is now near, and certain, and determined in the mind of every man.

I expected to have seen justification of arming one part of the society against another; of declaring a civil war the moment before the meeting of that body [Congress] which has the sole right of declaring war; of being so patient of the kicks and scoffs of our [British] enemies,* and rising at a feather against our friends; of adding a million to the public debts and deriding us with recommendations to pay it if we can, etc., etc.” P. L. Ford, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1895), vol. 6, pp. 518-519 (December 28, 1794).

*A reference to British seizures of American ships prior to Jay's Treaty.

Document H

“Your sentiments, that our affairs are drawing rapidly to a crisis, accord with my own. What the event will be is also beyond the reach of my foresight. We have errors to correct; we have probably had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our Confederation. Experience has taught us that men will not adopt, and carry into execution, measures the best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of coercive power. I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without lodging, somewhere, a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the state governments extends over the several states.

To be fearful of investing Congress, constituted as that body is, with ample authorities for national purposes, appears to me the very climax of popular absurdity and madness. Could Congress exert them for the detriment of the people without injuring themselves in an equal or greater proportion? Are not their interests inseparably connected with those of their constituents? By the rotation of appointments [annual elections], must they not mingle frequently with the mass of citizens? . . .

What then is to be done? Things cannot go on in the same train forever. It is much to be feared, as you observe, that the better kind of people, being disgusted with these circumstances, will have their minds prepared for any revolution whatever. We are apt to run from one extreme to another. To anticipate and prevent disastrous contingencies would be the part of wisdom and patriotism. . . . Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.” J. C. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938), vol. 28, pp. 502-503 (August 1, 1786).

Document I

“The question now is, by what power are these and other [internal] improvements of a similar kind to be effected? Gentlemen contend that they belong to the general government. I am inclined to the opinion that they had better be left to the regulation of the states. They are in their nature internal; they are minute and involved in detail; they require a close and ready supervision. They are of the nature of police; they require, in fact, the agency of officers and laws which are to be found only in the institutions of the individual states.

The general government, from its nature, from the force of the term, should engage in business of a general description; should provide for the general welfare; should make peace and war. I will not recapitulate the broadly extended powers which it possesses, and to which it should confine itself. A clear line of demarcation ought to be drawn between the United States and state governments. Interference ought to be avoided. Let the one attend to internal improvement, the other to the great concern of this nation. . . . I cannot agree in the loose manner of construing that instrument which has been recommended and adopted by my friend from South Carolina [Calhoun]. . . . The states are better judges of their wants and interests; they know best whether they most require roads or canals, or schools, or dykes, or embankments. They can more conveniently, too, give that attention which objects of this nature demand. They can more successfully provide against profuse and wasteful expenditure.” (Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. 1, p. 585).] Annals of Congress, 14th Congress, 2d session, vol. 2, cols. 864-866 (February 4, 1817).

Document J

“We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional. . . . That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create; that there is a plain repugnance in conferring on one government a power to control the constitutional measures of another. . . . are propositions not to be denied. . . .

. . . . If the states may tax one instrument employed by the government in the execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent rights; they may tax the papers of the custom-house; they may tax judicial process; they may tax all the means employed by the government, to an excess which would defeat all the ends of government. This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their government dependent on the states. . . . The question is, in truth, a question of supremacy. And if the right of the states to tax the means employed by the general government be conceded, the declaration that the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, is empty and unmeaning declamation.” Henry Wheaton, Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States, 1816-1827, vol. 4 (Newark, N.Y.: The Lawyers' Co-operative Publishing Company, 1819), pp. 432-433, 436, 437.

Document K

The Tories Day of Judgment