Answer Key For Practice Test 2

Section 1: Multiple-Choice Questions
1. C	30. B
2. D	31. D
3. D	32. E
4. A	33. C
5. C	34. D
6. C	35. B
7. C	36. D
8. B	37. D
9. C	38. B
10. C	39. C
11. A	41. C
12. E	42. A
13. D	43. C
14. C	44. C
15. A	45. C
16. C	46. B
17. B	47. B
18. B	48. B
19. C	49. E
21. B	50. B
22. A	51. D
23. C	52. D
24. A	53. B
25. A	54. B
26. E	55. A
27. E	56. D
28. A	57. B
29. C	58. D
59. D	71. B
61. C	72. A
62. D	73. C
63. C	74. C
64. A	75. D
65. B	76. E
66. C	77. B
67. D	78. D
68. B	79. A
69. C	80. B
70. C

Answers and Explanations for Practice Test 2

Section I: Multiple-Choice Questions

1. C. There were three main points in the Supreme Court’s Died Scott decision in 1857. A slave was not a citizen and therefore could not sue in federal courts; a slave remained private property even when in a free state: the Missouri Compromise had always been unconstitutional. Congress had already repealed the Compromise in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

2. D. The invention of barbed wire in 1874 by Joseph Glidden is generally credited with ending the open range.

3. D. Jefferson, particularly in his Notes on Virginia (1785), emphasized that the basic purpose of commerce was to send American agricultural surpluses abroad.

4. A. Lyndon Johnson believed it was possible for the United States to fight the Vietnam War and still carry out his domestic programs. “Guns” and “butter” refer to military and domestic spending, respectively.

5. C. Edwin Drake drilled the first successful well in western Pennsylvania in 1859.

6. C. The introduction of mass-production, assembly-line techniques was critical. Ford liked to say that a customer could get a car in any color so long as it was black. Prices for Model T cars dropped from $850 to $290 between 1908 and 1924.

7. C. The NRA was intended primarily to stabilize business through fair competitive practice codes and to address such issues as minimum wages and child labor.

8. B. This cartoon was published by Benjamin Franklin at the time of the Albany Congress in 1754, and was a call for colonial unity against threats to English settlement west of the Appalachians. It is often called the first American political cartoon and is reproduced in many textbooks.

9. C. This question has two clues — early nineteenth century and “Old Northwest Territory” — that should help you eliminate all the incorrect choices: Chief Joseph was leader of the Nez Percé and Geronimo leader of the Apaches in the late nineteenth- century West; Powhatan led the Native American confederacy in Virginia at the time of the founding of Jamestown colony: King Philip (Metacomet) organized an uprising against New England colonies in 1676.

10. C. The key issue in the Senate ratification was U.S. participation in the League of Nations. While the “Reservationists” were willing to compromise with Wilson if he agreed to changes in the treaty that protected what they saw as American interests concerning the League, the “Irreconcilables” were completely opposed to the League. Reservationists were led by Henry Cabot Lodge.

11. A. The British response to the Boston Tea Party, the Coercive Acts, were intended to punish Boston. They included closing the Port of Boston until the tea was paid for. The Coercive Acts led to the First Continental Congress and the Continental Association that encouraged communities to form committees to enforce the boycott of British goods.

12. E. Franklin is the most obvious answer. Hamilton is not really considered a colonial figure. You should know that Hutchinson and Whitefield are associated with religious events, while Bradford was the leader of the Plymouth colony.

13. D. In Schenck v. U.S. (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the First Amendment was subject to the “clear and present danger” test — someone cannot shout “fire!” in a crowded theater and claim free speech. Marbury v. Madison (1803) established judicial review; Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) dealt with federal control over interstate commerce; Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared separate but equal schools unequal; Miranda v. Arizona (1966) pertained to protecting rights of the accused in which an individual must be told his/her rights at arrest.

14. C. The Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared African-Americans citizens and denied states the power to limit their rights to hold property or testify in court, was passed over President Andrew Johnson’s veto — the first successful override of major legislation. With the override, it showed that Congress had power to determine Reconstruction policy.

15. A. All of the dates given are presidential election years. While you might not be able to place White in time, you should realize that the quotation perfectly reflects the idea behind Warren Harding’s 1920 campaign theme of “a return to normalcy.”

16. C. Jackson believed that the spoils system, in which a victorious political party rewarded party supporters with government jobs, was a good way to maintain political party loyalty. Jobholders of the defeated political party were thrown out.

17. B. Jeffersonians, unhappy with Federalist domination, protested against such laws as the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) by supporting the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798) which, though lacking the force of law, expressed their views.

18. B. A tariff would protect American manufacturing efforts, which in the 1790s could not have withstood competition from European manufacturers.

19. C. This landmark legislation prohibited discrimination in hotels, bus stations, and other places catering to public needs. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was aimed at making it easier for blacks to register to vote.

20. A. This longstanding grievance was one of the few problems to be settled by the Jay Treaty which was generally unpopular among supporters of Jefferson. Its main accomplishment was British agreement finally to evacuate their soldiers from outposts in the Old Northwest region.

21. B. All the organizations listed were active in the cause of African-American civil rights. The Universal Negro Improvement Association, founded by Marcus Garvey in 1914, maintained that racial bias was so pervasive in the United States that the only hope for blacks was to return to Africa.

22. A. Between 1630 and 1642, some 18,000 Puritans settled in Massachusetts Bay and other parts of New England.

23. C. The Constitution stated that Congress could not prohibit the “migration or importation of such persons” prior to 1808. Despite the vague language, this referred to the international slave trade. The Constitution did include a provision for the return of runaway slaves, and the 3/5 Compromise determined how slaves would be counted for determining population.

24. A. Immediately after the Civil War, former slaves believed that they would get free land. Although there was some support among Radical Republicans for carving up the largest plantations for this purpose, the plan never was carried out.

25. A. Bryan orated against the gold standard and restriction on silver as monetary backing for the U.S. Treasury. His speech won him wide support and the Democratic nomination for President in 1896.

26. E. The two bar graphs show that while the population of the United States steadily increased between 1800 and 1850, population density declined twice: 1800-1810 and 1840-1850. These periods coincide with two events when the territory of the country was expanded: the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican War, which resulted in acquisition of California and most of the Southwest through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ( 1848).

27. E. The United States followed a policy of isolationism in world politics and made no active effort to oppose the aggressions of Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s.

28. A. Though not himself involved, Grant (President from 1869 to 1877) was criticized for his poor judgment in appointing friends who acted dishonestly as government officials, such as in the Crédit Mobilier scandal in construction of the transcontinental railroad.

29. C. Although collectively known as the Compromise of 1850, it actually was composed of laws passed separately, including admission of California to the Union, creation of New Mexico Territory under popular sovereignty, and a new federal fugitive-slave law.

30. B. In effect, the Constitution did not follow the flag. The decision was consistent with the imperialist views of the United States in the first years of the twentieth century. These cases were decided in 1901.

31. D. The British response was the theory of virtual representation, which held that Parliament represented the interests of all Englishmen whether or not they elected the members of Parliament.

32. E. During the 1920s, government policy was decidedly probusiness. The conservative economic policies stressed lower taxes, higher tariffs, and reductions in federal spending. In an era of apparent prosperity there seemed little reason to support spending on public works.

33. C. Sullivan was a member of a group of Chicago architects that built skyscrapers in the 1880s—1910s period. He emphasized functional design. Roebling developed the steel cable suspension bridge, and Olmsted designed New York’s Central Park.

34. D. This is a straightforward “when” question. South Carolina was the first state to secede (December 20, 1860) and did so before Lincoln’s inauguration (March 4, 1861). Six deep South states, including Alabama, seceded before the surrender of Fort Sumter (April 13, 1861), and Virginia, along with North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, seceded after.

35. B. By the Seventeenth Amendment, the people of the states could vote directly for their Senators. Until 1913, Senators were chosen through the state legislatures.

36. D. The controversy concerned the use of federal coal lands in Alaska by private interests. Gifford Pinchot was head of the U.S. Forest Service, an ardent supporter of the conservation policies of Theodore Roosevelt; Richard Ballinger was Secretary of the Interior in the Taft administration.

37. D. The issues that brought both countries to war, primarily the question of impressment of sailors into the British navy, were not discussed in the treaty.

38. B. Americans were outraged at Germany’s bald attempt to make an ally of revolutionary Mexico, a transparent effort to keep the United States out of the European war by holding out the promise of aiding in the recovery of lands lost almost seventy years earlier.

39. C. This question is asking about the causes of Shays’ Rebellion — foreclosures of small farms due to debt and the refusal of the legislature to provide relief to small farmers.

40. D. The passage explains why railroads charged higher rates for short trips, usually within a state, than for longer trips between major cities. Several railroads operated between Chicago and New York, and intense competition meant lower rates; to make up these losses, railroads charged more on routes where they were the only carrier.

41. C. In two key decisions, Civil Rights Cases (1883) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court approved segregation. The Court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which barred segregation in public facilities, unconstitutional and, in the Plessy case, announced the principle of “separate but equal’’ in schools.

42. A. The “Phony War” refers to the lull in the fighting after the German defeat of Poland in September 1939 until the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940.

43. C. Coxey’s “army” wanted an increase in the nation’s money supply and a reform of federal monetary policy as ways of improving economic conditions of the nation during the Panic of 1893 period.

44. C. The correct chronological order is Articles of Confederation (1781), Shays’ Rebellion (1786), Constitutional Convention (1787), Whiskey Rebellion (1794).

45. C. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) describes the migration of the Joad family from the Dust Bowl conditions in Oklahoma to the promised better life in California.

46. B. The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for the survey of the Old Northwest Territory and established the rectangular pattern of settlement. The banning of the importation of slaves and the admission of new states were part of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

47. B. Andrew Johnson’s dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in 1868 violated the Tenure of Office Act, which required the President to obtain the approval of the Senate before removing an official appointed with the consent of the Senate.

48. B. This law placed a ten-year moratorium on Chinese immigration. Later laws excluded Chinese immigrants permanently. Chinese exclusion was not overruled until World War II when China was an ally of the United States and it proved embarrassing to have such a law on the books.

49. E. The Fourteen Points presented President Wilson’s program for world peace. He did not, however, call for the creation of a military force to ensure that peace.

50. B. The North was burdened with mediocre generals at the beginning of the war. Lincoln worked through several, including McClellan. Burnside, and Hooker, before he promoted Grant to the top ranks.

51. D. Marshall believed in a strong national government to which state laws were subordinate, such as shown in the case of McCullough v. Maryland, which denied Maryland the right to tax the Bank of the United States.

52. D. The Great Awakening signaled a broadening of religious views and a sense that religion need not separate ordinary people from the elite. The movement became very popular in the early eighteenth century and resulted in a dramatic increase in church membership.

53. B. The pie charts compare only the popular and electoral vote margins. They provide no information on voter turnout or a breakdown of the vote by group. You should know from your reading that former slaves were largely disenfranchised, particularly in the South, and that neither election was decided by the House of Representatives. The percent of eligible voters was among the highest ever in a presidential election — 81.8% (1876) and 79.3% (1888).

54. B. The term was coined in 1787 by John Quincy Adams and has been used by historians to describe the period from 1781 to 1787 when the country was governed by the Articles of Confederation.

55. A. The key issue, particularly in the South, was high tariffs that both increased the price of manufactured goods and made it difficult to sell cotton abroad. Opposition to the Tariff of 1828 (the “Tariff of Abominations”) and the Tariff of 1832 led to the nullification crisis.

56. D. While President Lincoln’s speeches might touch on key battles, they would not be helpful in understanding the strategies on the battles themselves.

57. B. The Monroe Doctrine was largely ignored when it was issued in 1823. The only “teeth” the Doctrine had was that it coincided with British policy in Latin America, which both Monroe and his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, knew would stop any European nation. The Doctrine explicitly stated that the United States would not interfere with existing European colonies.

58. D. Northern slavery died out before the moral crusade against it because the North’s economy did not require plantation slavery; hence there was no need for large numbers of slaves.

59. D. An injunction could so restrict the activities of a striking union as to make it impossible to win the strike. Judges friendly to employers would severely restrict picketing, for example, to the point where strikers couldn't gather near the front gates of the employer’s premises, hold meetings, or even present their grievances.

60. D. African-Americans were trained as airplane pilots — at Tuskegee Institute, for example — and flew fighters and bombers during the war. They also served in the Navy as well as in the Army, though in segregated units and conditions.

61. C. The Adena-Hopewell of the Ohio River Valley were known for the burial mounds they left and elaborate earthen works.

62. D. James Dean became a cult figure in the 1950s in such films as Rebel Without a Cause; he was an “antihero” associated with the Beat Generation, not the counterculture of the 1960s.

63. C. Nixon’s involvement in the Alger Hiss case as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948 made him a nationally known figure. Anticommunism was the key to his election to the Senate in 1950 and his being selected as Eisenhower’s vice- presidential candidate in 1952.

64. A. Large families made it difficult for younger sons to inherit farms or to save money to buy their own; they ended up in the cities looking for work and, lacking skills, had to accept low-paying jobs.

65. B. The Tennessee Valley Authority (1933) was a major attempt at regional planning that included federal multipurpose dams to generate electricity, to provide flood control, and to improve river navigation. Cheap power was expected to serve as a “yardstick” for rates charged by private utilities. Conservative critics charged that the TVA was an example of New Deal socialism.

66. C. The idea of popular sovereignty was to let the people living in a territory decide whether it should be a free or slave state. The most controversial example took place in Kansas where factions on both sides of the issue resorted to violence.

67. D. Heavy rains prevented the rebellion from being carried out, but its leaders were nevertheless severely punished. The most violent slave rebellion was the one led by Nat Turner in 1831 when several dozen whites were killed.

68. B. This case was brought by a white student denied admission to the medical school at the University of California, Davis, because of affirmative-action policies. The Court restricted the use of numerical quotas to achieve racial balance.

69. C. Remember that “most recently” is a tricky way of asking which event occurred last. The chronology is Berlin airlift (1948-1949), Hungarian uprising (1956), Sputnik (1957), Castro (1959), U-2 incident (1960).

70. C. Aware that France was actively aiding Spain in such objectives as attempting to capture the Rock of Gibraltar and that France favored restricting the new United States to the Appalachian Mountains as a western boundary. U.S. commissioners disobeyed their instructions from Congress and concluded a separate agreement with Great Britain that granted a territorial claim to the Mississippi River.

71. B. Farm girls were actively recruited by mill owners, who paid low wages. For their part, the girls saw such employment as temporary until they married and started families.

72. A. The only correct choice is A in that when states abolished property qualifications for voting, the number of men eligible to vote increased significantly between 1824 and 1832. Choices B, C, and D didn't occur as such until much later. Distinct political parties existed prior to the era of Jacksonian democracy.

73. C. The Articles of Confederation granted no authority to the central government to deal with questions of interstate commerce. Frustration over inability to negotiate over such questions as state boundaries that bordered on rivers led to calls for a meeting to resolve such issues, resulting in the Annapolis Convention, a prologue to the Constitutional Convention.

74. C. The “long drive“ brought longhorn cattle from south and west Texas to the railheads in Missouri. Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming for shipment to the major markets in the East. The fact that the map shows the trails connecting with the main transcontinental railroad is significant.

75. D. The Gadsden Purchase (1853) not only completed the continental expansion of the United States but by acquiring the southernmost part of Arizona and New Mexico provided the crucial territory needed for a transcontinental railroad linking the South with the Pacific.

76. E. Eli Whitney’s invention in 1793 of the cotton gin made it possible for seeds to be separated from the cotton boll by a simple machine process. Cotton production thus became cost-effective, and within a few years, cotton was the South’s major export crop.

77. B. Although there was some initial success in solving problems of spouse and child abuse by drunken husbands and parents, the “Great Experiment’’ provoked opposition from people living in urban areas, from people whose cultural background saw nothing wrong in drinking alcoholic beverages, and from people who objected to being told how to live their lives by others.

78. D. King had studied the writings of Mohandas Gandhi, the leader of the independence movement in India who had used nonviolence as an effective tactic against British rule.

79. A. At the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the British Parliament, desperately in need of funds with which to operate its now far-flung empire, began to pass one revenue law after another that affected its colonies. American colonists resented these laws, believing that their help in fighting Britain’s colonial wars was not appreciated and that the new taxes placed an unfair burden on them.

80. B. Pennsylvania was one of the colonies whose economic mainstay was the production of wheat and corn; as such, it supplied those colonies where agriculture was of lesser importance. Alabama was not a British colony.

Section II: Essay Questions

Part A

Student DBQ Essay

The War of 1812, also known as the Second War for Independence, gave the United States its final freedom from Great Britain. While it did bring about a strong sense of nationalism, it did not end the divisions in the country.

In his message to Congress in June 1812, Document I, President Madison strongly stated the reasons for a declaration of war against Great Britain — impressment of American sailors and the seize of American ships. But it is clear that the country was split over the issue. Document D, which shows the vote for the war in Congress, indicates that opposition was strong in the Middle Atlantic states and New England. These were the regions whose main source of income was through foreign trade that declined because of the crisis with Great Britain. Support was almost unanimous in the South and West.

The regional opposition continued during the war itself as the results of the election of 1812 demonstrate. New England and the Middle Atlantic states (with the important exception of Pennsylvania) went to the Federalist Clinton. The possibility of secession was very real at the Hartford Convention (1814) when representatives from New England wrote up a list of constitutional amendments that would have made it more difficult for the U.S. to go to war and in general to limit the power of the Federal government.

Immediately after the war, the split between Federalists and Republicans was still evident. In Document G, for example, the New York Evening Post, probably a Federalist newspaper, stated that the war was “bloody and expensive” and did not result in anything positive for the country. On the other hand, the Republican National Intelligencer (Document F), criticized the Federalists for their “plots and counterplots” and stated that their opposition still could not prevent an American victory.

Those who had supported the war all along, the War Hawk Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin, emphasized that the conflict meant that the U.S. was now respected in the world. The war brought the country together, and made Americans feel and act like a nation. (Documents C and J). The Republicans now believed in a stronger role for the Federal government and wanted to use this power to build on the national feelings created by the war’s outcome. In Document B, President Madison outlined a plan for internal improvements by the Federal government. He pointed out that roads and canals were important in “bringing and binding more closely together the various parts of our extended confederacy.”

The program of internal improvements was supported by Henry Clay. His “American System” not only included a national transportation network but high tariffs to protect American manufacturing. The Tariff of 1816, however, was opposed by New England and the South. Madison seemed to change the position he took in 1815 when he vetoed a bill two years later that would have provided money to the states for internal improvements. Here he followed the old Republican strict construction of the Constitution argument.

The victory over Great Britain in the War of 1812 did not result in a unified nation. The conflicts between Republicans and Federalists continued for a time after the war. The regional differences over economic policy continued as shown in the debate over the Tariff of 1816. Although the election of James Monroe brought in an “Era of Good

Feelings,” new problems that divided the country quickly arose. The most important of these was the slavery issue that resulted in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The sectional differences over slavery made it impossible for the “permanency of the Union” to be preserved as Albert Gallatin hoped.

Reader's Comments

The student takes an interesting approach to this question by arguing that the War of 1812 did not bring about a unified country. This thesis, however, isn’t fully developed in the rather weak introductory paragraph. The student could have pointed out more clearly that the documents supporting the counter position — Clay, Gallatin, and the National Intelligencer — reflect the views of the “winners.” Did these in fact reflect the mood of the country?

The student brings in relevant outside information, the Hartford Convention and the American System, for example. Key facts, such as the Treaty of Ghent, are left out. Since the documents include Madison’s war message and the statement from the New York Evening Post, the outcome of the war as expressed in the treaty is necessary to mention. Other outside information is mentioned only in passing. Given the thesis and the time frame of the question, both the Era of Good Feelings and slavery and the Missouri Compromise need to be discussed in the body of the essay, not just tacked on in the concluding paragraph.

Possible student score: 5

Part B

Question 2 Student Essay

The French and Indian War had a tremendous impact on the thirteen colonies as well as the Indians and on the British government. The colonists had fought no less than four wars for the British against the French and were feeling victorious. The Indians had chosen the wrong side and were the big losers after the French and Indian War. The British had finally defeated the French and now were in control of Canada.

The British also now controlled India and had a big empire, but running such a big empire required great responsibility, especially financial responsibility. Where would Great Britain get the money needed to run its empire? The answer was from the colonies. It is no coincidence that Parliament began to pass laws taxing the colonies so soon after the end of the French and Indian War. And quite naturally, the colonists soon resented these new tax laws. For much of the fighting in the wars the colonists had been on their own. British supplies were often inadequate, and British leadership was often incompetent, as had been the case with General Braddock.

Another thing the British tried to do was to keep the colonists and the Indians away from each other. After Pontiac’s rebellion in 1763, the British issued a proclamation that tried to keep the colonists on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains. But many colonists were already crossing the mountains. Men who had served in the Army knew about the land in Kentucky that was good for farming. Some colonies such as Virginia and North Carolina had “sea to sea” grants that claimed territory all the way across the North American continent, even though no one knew what was out there. These colonies resented being told they could not move westward.

The colonies had not done well in trying to organize themselves during the French and Indian War. Benjamin Franklin had called for the Albany Plan of Union, but the colonies could not agree on common interests. By 1764, with Parliament planning new taxes and enforcing old tax laws, the colonies realized they all shared the same challenge of how to meet what they saw as unfair taxation.

The British, however, needed revenue to pay for the expenses of running the empire, and so Parliament started levying such taxes as taxes on sugar and stamps. The stamp tax especially angered the colonists because it was so unfair to them. The colonies protested against the tax so much that Parliament had to withdraw it. This victory brought the colonies together and brought them the unity that would be needed when Parliament tried again to keep them in line.

The French and Indian War was a catalyst that brought on the American Revolution in that it created a whole new set of problems for the British. Parliament’s inability to solve those problems made a revolt of the colonists inevitable.

Reader's Comments

This essay has a general grasp of the issues but is vague on many of the specific details. Several openings lead nowhere instead of providing essential support for the general statements. The question calls for the impact of the French and Indian War on three groups. Little is discussed on the effect of the war on the Indians, and what is discussed is presented from the British and colonial side. It is not enough merely to mention such events as Pontiac’s Rebellion; it is essential to tie them into the thesis. Why did Chief Pontiac rebel against the British shortly after the war ended? What did the end of the war mean for the Indians? These issues remain unanswered.

The essay also gets into the beginnings of the movement toward the American Revolution but does so without dealing with the essential question of whether the reasons for the movement toward independence were a cause in and of themselves or a consequence of the end of the French and Indian War. Again, there is a good outline of facts, but simply to agree with the statement is not enough. The student needs to provide greater documentation as to why the end of one war helped bring on another one.

Possible student score: 4

Part B

Question 3 Student Essay

William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were all important contributors to the abolitionist movement in the years before the Civil War. Of the three, I believe that Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had the greatest influence in promoting the end to slavery.

The rise of William Lloyd Garrison in the 1830s brought about an important change in the antislavery movement. In the pages of his newspaper the Liberator and through the American Anti-Slavery Society that he helped found, Garrison pushed the idea of the immediate emancipation of the slaves without compensation to the slaveholders. These developments certainly helped strengthen the abolitionist crusade. But Garrison was also responsible for the split in the movement. He strongly supported other reforms such as women’s rights. In 1840, the Anti-Slavery Society broke into factions over the status of women.

Garrison believed that former slaves were the best spokesmen for the abolitionists. Certainly, one of the most famous was Frederick Douglass. He wrote his autobiography. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), which became the most famous personal account of slavery. Douglass also founded an abolitionist newspaper. Although an important source for historians, it is hard to determine what effect Douglass’ speeches and writings had on the antislavery movement in the 1840s and 1850s. His autobiography was one of many slave narratives and was probably only read by people who already supported the abolitionists.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852 in response to the Fugitive Slave Law that was part of the Compromise of 1850. Although it was not great literature, the novel was a strong indictment of slavery as an institution. Because it was a novel, the book reached a much wider audience than either the abolitionist newspapers or the pamphlets put out by the Anti- Slavery Society. As the question of the expansion of slavery became critical to the country during the 1850s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin convinced many in the North of the evils of slavery. It is often recognized as providing the North with a moral justification for the Civil War.

Reader's Comments

The student provides good information on the three individuals selected. Although the Grimke sisters were not chosen, they could have been briefly mentioned in the context of the split in the American Anti-Slavery Society. The essay does tackle the “relative importance’’ part of the question but perhaps in too indirect a manner. From both the introduction and the body of the essay, it is clear that the student believes that Stowe was the most important of the three. The relative importance of Garrison and Douglass is less clear. There is the implication that Garrison “ranks” second because of the change he brought to the antislavery movement. If this is the case, a bit more should have been made of this and a brief statement provided on the nature of the movement before Garrison. Further, the same point the student made about

Douglass — that is, those who read him were probably already opposed to slavery — could have been made about Garrison. This lack of clarity in the essay could have been resolved in a concluding paragraph, which is really essential here.

Possible student score: 5

Part C

Question 4 Student Essay

Reconstruction fell into two distinct phases, both of which had to deal with the basic question of how the defeated Southern states were to be readmitted to the Union. In the first phase, President Andrew Johnson had to deal with creating a policy of Reconstruction for the South. President Lincoln had announced that he would restore the Southern states “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” Lincoln said that the Southern states could be readmitted to the Union with only a minimum declaration of loyalty. His “10% Plan” would allow states to return to the Union if only ten percent of the registered voters in the election of 1860 pledged loyalty to the United States. But Lincoln was assassinated right after the end of the war, and Johnson, the new President, was no Abraham Lincoln.

The reason why the first phase is called the “presidential phase” is because from the time Lincoln was assassinated until Congress met in December 1865, Congress was not in session. This left policy-making for the South to the Executive Office. From April to December 1865, everyone waited for Johnson to formulate a plan for Southern Reconstruction. Johnson, however, did not seem to have much of a plan. He was a War Democrat who increasingly did not seem to be getting along with the Republicans who had supported him on the Union ticket in 1864. Johnson turned out to be someone who didn’t care much for the former slaves. He didn’t think the 13th Amendment was necessary, since the Emancipation Proclamation had freed so many slaves anyway. He also didn’t call for punishing the Southern leaders.

When Congress met in December 1865, Northerners were shocked to find that many of the Southern senators and congressmen were the same people who had fought against them just a few months earlier. For example, Alexander Stephens, the former vice- president of the Confederacy, was now a senator from Georgia. Then Johnson started vetoing one Reconstruction bill after another. Radical Republicans began to look for a way to get Johnson out of the Presidency. They finally hit on an idea which was probably unconstitutional. This was the Tenure of Office Act which prevented the President from dismissing any Cabinet member without the consent of the Senate. Everyone knew that Johnson wanted Secretary of War Stanton out of the Cabinet. When Johnson fired Stanton, the Radical Republicans were then able to impeach Johnson. The trial vote was very close, and only one vote saved Johnson from conviction.

With Johnson’s impeachment and trial, control of Reconstruction policy shifted to Congress. Under the control of Radical Republicans, Congress passed Reconstruction legislation dividing the South into military districts. The Southerners had to deal with caipetbaggers who went to the South to take federal jobs, with disenfranchisement, and with military rule. Not until 1877 were the last federal soldiers removed from Southern states.

Johnson called for a mild form of restoration in line with what Lincoln had planned. Congress passed laws which were much more punitive against the South. Had Johnson acted more responsible as President, and Congress more generously, then much of the bitterness of the Reconstruction period might have been avoided.

Reader's Comments

The biggest mistake this essay makes is in not paying enough attention to the question’s calling for a conclusion on the relative importance of the two phases. Except for the final paragraph, what we have here is a brief summary of Reconstruction, first with Johnson as President and then with Congress. The congressional phase is treated very briefly and superficially. Very little hard information is given about the effect of Reconstruction on the people of the South, black or white, or the crucial question of readmission to the Union. The essay is very strong on Andrew Johnson, much weaker on Congress. This creates an imbalance of information on which to draw an informed conclusion. The final sentence of the essay indicates the possibility of a thesis the student might have followed in evaluating the two phases — all the more reason a student must consider what kind of question is being asked and plan an appropriate answer instead of immediately plunging into the essay, writing on everything about a topic in hopes that some of it will fit what the reader is looking for.

Possible student score: 4

Part C

Question 5 Student Essay

World War II had an immediate effect on women in American society, but how long that effect lasted is debatable. Perhaps the most famous symbol coming out of the war was “Rosie the Riveter.” Unlike Nazi Germany which held to the idea that women’s place was in the home, the United States significantly increased its war productivity by approving the hiring and training of women to work in a variety of wartime industries. Apart from the usual jobs that women held such as cafeteria workers and clerks, women were able to acquire job skills. Shipyards and aircraft plants needed workers trained in a wide variety of technical jobs. Manpower was short as America’s young men went into the armed forces. Both unmarried and married women filled the void by taking these jobs.

By the end of the war women had made a clear contribution to the war effort. They had taken on jobs that before the war were unthinkable as far as men were concerned. With the end of the war, however, enormous social changes occurred. Returning veterans expected to get their old jobs back. The economy converted from wartime production to peacetime products. Women found themselves under increasing pressure to quit these jobs, return to the home, to get married and raise the family that had been postponed during the war years.

Many women protested against employer efforts to get them off the payroll. They had taken their jobs seriously and enjoyed the generous wages paid to them. Returning to the more traditional jobs of young women meant pay cuts and employment as sales clerks rather than technically skilled workers. But they lost out through seniority requirements, a traditional family structure in which the husband was the breadwinner of a one-income family, and the pressure to get married and start a family to make up for lost time (resulting in the famous “baby boom” of the late 1940s).

Minority women had obtained some brief advantages during the war years. Federal hiring policies did not want potential manpower denied through discrimination. African- American women found unprecedented opportunities in job training and employment. To a lesser degree, Mexican-American women also found a more open workplace. At the end of the war, however, these women lost their jobs and went back into more traditional roles.

Beyond the immediate postwar years, women even suffered a setback in their efforts at educational as well as economic equality. It is a stunning fact that more women held college degrees in the 1920s than in the 1950s. The emphasis in American society during the 1950s was for women to get married at a young age, usually shortly after high school, and stay in the home and devote themselves to domestic matters — raising children and keeping house. Unmarried women were considered somewhat out of the ordinary. Many women internalized this expectation through exposure to media images of housewives in TV commercials, the stereotype of women being incapable of learning to drive a car, and the restriction of women in the professions to careers as teachers, librarians, nurses, and secretaries.

So it was that World War II proved a disappointment in providing women with an opportunity to think and reach beyond stereotypical ideals. Not until the women’s movement began in the 1960s did women begin to liberate themselves from the limitations placed upon them in the postwar period.

Reader's Comments

This is a well-argued essay that takes a clear position and presents evidence to support its thesis. More might have been said about women at different economic levels beyond the paragraph on minority women, and the student could possibly have discussed employment in the private sector as well as industries involved in war production. Tying in education to job opportunities broadened the discussion. The essay also shows appropriate courage in carrying the idea of the effect of the war into the 1950s to show the contrast between the roles of women during the war and in the Eisenhower era.

The final sentence brings an additional connection in noting that the women’s movement had to pick up where the immediate wartime benefits had failed. The student wisely didn't turn the essay into a discourse on women’s liberation, which would have created an imbalance in the essay and stretched the postwar period beyond reasonable limits. The comparison of college-educated women in the 1920s and the 1950s puts the student’s nugget of information to good effect. Overall, the essay sticks to its basic thesis, doesn't go into tempting but extraneous areas, and does a good job of answering the question.

Possible student score: 9