HIST 310 - Quiz 4 Study Guide

What does O'Sullivan mean when he describes America's destiny to rule the entire continent as "manifest"?

"It is wholly untrue, and unjust to ourselves, the pretense that the annexation has been a measure of spoliation, unrightful and unrighteous of military conquest under forms of peace and law of territorial aggrandizement at the expense of justice. . . . The independence of Texas was complete and absolute. It was an independence, not only in fact, but of right..." - belonged to/rightfully theirs --> freeing it

Why does Asing argue that the governor's proposal violates the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence?

"It was one of the principal causes of quarrel between you (when colonies) and England; when the latter pressed laws against emigration, you looked for immigration; it came, and immigration made you what you are—your nation what it is." "That our people cannot be reproved for their idleness, and that your historians have given them due credit for the variety and richness of their works of art, and for their simplicity of manners, and particularly their industry. And we beg to remark, that so far as the history of our race in California goes, it stamps with the test of truth the fact that we are not the degraded race you would make us. We came amongst you as mechanics or traders, and following every honorable business of life"

What is Mrs. Johnson's opinion of slavery and slaveholders?

"Mrs. Johnson eloquently advised the president to insist that black prisoners be treated the same as white and resist pressures to rescind the Emancipation Proclamation."

What connection does O'Sullivan see between manifest destiny and the idea of American freedom?

"O'Sullivan employed it to suggest that the United States had a divinely appointed mission to occupy all of North America. This right to the continent was provided by the nation's mission to extend the area of freedom."

Why does Angelina Grimké call the abolitionist movement the nation's foremost "school [of] human rights"?

"The discussion of the wrongs of slavery has opened the way for the discussion of other rights" "the school in which human rights are more fully investigated, and better understood and taught..."

How important is it for the petitioners to obtain land on Edisto Island, as opposed to land elsewhere in the country?

"This is our home, we have made These lands what they are we were the only true and Loyal people that were found in posession of these Lands we have been always ready to strike for Liberty and humanity yea to fight if needs be To preserve this glorious union. Shall not we who Are freedman and have been always true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by Others?"

How does Asing invoke the history of China to bolster his criticism of the idea of excluding Chinese immigrants from the United States?

"We would beg to remind you that when your nation was a wilderness, and the nation from which you sprung barbarous, we exercised most of the arts and virtues of civilized life; that we are possessed of a language and a literature, and that men skilled in science and the arts are numerous among us; that the productions of our manufactories, our sail, and workshops, form no small share of the commerce of the world; and that for centuries, colleges, schools, charitable institutions, asylums, and hospitals, have been as common as in your own land. That our people cannot be reproved for their idleness, and that your historians have given them due credit for the variety and richness of their works of art, and for their simplicity of manners, and particularly their industry"

What does Lincoln identify as the essential difference between northern and southern definitions of freedom?

"With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor."

Whom do the Connecticut writers seem to blame for the Fugitive Slave Act?

"great men" a.k.a. lawmakers, those in power, those who disgrace honor and justice

How does Stanton believe that individual freedom within the family can be established?

"it should be subject to the laws of all other contracts, carefully made, the parties of age, and all agreements faithfully observed" "When marriage results from a true union of intellect and spirit and when Mothers and Fathers give to their holy offices even that preparation of soul and body that the artist gives to the conception of his poem, statue or landscape, then will marriage, maternity and paternity acquire a new sacredness and dignity and a nobler type of manhood and womanhood will glorify the race!!"

What role does Angeline Grimké think the difference between the sexes should play in determining a person's rights and obligations?

"whatever is morally right for man to do, it is morally right for woman to do"

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

(1815-1902) A suffragette who, with Lucretia Mott, organized the first convention on women's rights, held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Issued the Declaration of Sentiments which declared men and women to be equal and demanded the right to vote for women. Co-founded the National Women's Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony in 1869.

Seneca Falls Convention

(1848) the first national women's rights convention at which the Declaration of Sentiments was written

How do the Connecticut writers justify deciding to break the law?

- law no longer sacred/moral - "conscience, humanity, and self-respect" will be more endangered if obeyed

In what ways does the contract limit the freedom of the laborers?

- planter supervises labor - essentially owned/"bound"

Sharecropper

A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.

Henry David Thoreau

American transcendentalist who was against a government that supported slavery. He wrote down his beliefs in Walden. He started the movement of civil-disobedience when he refused to pay the toll-tax to support him Mexican War.

Why do you think the state of Mississippi required all black persons to sign yearly labor contracts but not white citizens?

And in response to planters' demands that the freedpeople be required to work on the plantations, the Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be arrested and hired out to white landowners

Black Codes

Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War

How did methods used to strip the black vote also impact white voters?

Poll taxes and literacy tests kept many blacks from voting. Many southern states also disenfranchised blacks through use of the white primary. This was a primary election in which only whites could participate. Gerrymandering, redrawing the lines of a voting district to give one party or group of voters an advantage, was another method used.

Sherman Land

Possessory title to 40 acres, gave former slaves small plots of land. Returned to the white people after Lincoln was assassinated and Johnson took office.

Sarah and Angelina Grimke

Quaker sisters from South Carolina who came north and became active in the abolitionist movement; Angelina married Theodore Weld, a leading abolitionist and Sarah wrote and lectured on a variety of reforms including women's rights and abolition.

What is the connection between the campaign for women's rights and the abolitionist movement? How did involvement in abolition encourage activists to also fight for women's rights?

The women's rights movement was the offspring of abolition. Many people actively supported both reforms. Several participants in the 1848 First Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls had already labored in the anti-slavery movement. The organizers and their families - the Motts, Wrights, Stantons, M'Clintocks and Hunts - were active abolitionists to a greater or lesser degree. Noted abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass attended and addressed the 1848 Convention. Both movements promoted the expansion of the American promise of liberty and equality - to African Americans and to women.

What did freedom mean to former slaves who were set free during the Civil War?

an open ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society and culture that had sustained slavery in the first place

What kinds of benefits and risks for the freedpeople are associated with a sharecropping arrangement?

benefits: renting parcels of land, work under own direction, and divide crop with owner, risks: lack of profit post-civil war, must pay for necessities, worked 10 hours a day year-round, pay for rainy days/sick days

What is the purpose of Lincoln's metaphor about the wolf and the sheep and their differing views of liberty?

he means that black and white people may do the same things, but it is only seen as "right" if a white person does it

How would you describe the tone Mrs. Johnson adopts in writing to the president?

hopeful, respectful, perseverant

What basic rights are granted to the former slaves and which are denied to them by the Black Code?

legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts. But they denied them the right to testify in court in cases that only involved whites, serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote

the vagrant law

made it a crime for a person to wander from place to place without visible means of support. Basically, these laws criminalized being homeless and jobless

Redeemer

term for white southern Democrats who returned to power after 1870

Manifest Destiny

the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.

How does Stanton define the "social revolution" the United States underwent after the Civil War?

women's equality