Unit 2 Comparison – the Content

What Are Your Possible Topics to Compare? (This is repeated from the Instructions Link.)

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select the Topic on Shays’s Rebellion?

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select the Topic on Shays’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion?

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select This Comparison Topic – 3/5ths Compromise and Missouri?

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select This Comparison Topic – Missouri Compromise and the Development of North and South?

Background on the Limitations of Slavery in the North and Expectations about New Territories - Information to Help with the Missouri Compromise

Two broad reasons for Northerners not wanting slavery to spread to new territories were:

Areas Where the National Decision (Laws Passed by Congress) Was to Limit the Expansion of Slavery or the Expectation of the Use of the Land was for “Middling” Landholdings (not large plantations)

Background about Methods to Help Your Brain Focus

 

Reminder:  the Instructions are in the link above this link in the folder. You must follow all of those instructions.

 

Caution: For the Unit 2 Comparison, each possible Comparison Topic has a separate introduction and a separate chart showing what to read.

 

What Are Your Possible Topics to Compare? (This is repeated from the Instructions Link.)

Requirements for each of the things—all provided in this folder--that you may compare:

 

In each these 4 choices, make sure you meet the listed requirements above:

 

  1.  The issues of the opposing groups in Shays’s Rebellion compared with what the authors of the Constitution worked out as way to preserve the new nation as a republic.
    What do they show you about what the authors of the Constitution were trying to do?

    Tip: This is difficult because deals with the framers’ view of currency, debt, class, and representation in a republic –and these may be new areas to you or you may have assumptions.

 

  1. Shays’s Rebellion before the Constitution is developed compared with the Whiskey Rebellion after that Constitution is ratified.
    What do both show about how the national government handles rebellion in a republic?

Tip: This is difficult because deals with the framers’ view of class and representation in a republic –and these may be new areas to you or you may have assumptions.

 

  1. The deal-making about how to count slaves for representation and for taxes at the Constitutional Convention compared with Northerners’ viewing the 3/5s compromise as giving “extra representation unfairly” when Missouri asks for statehood.
    What does this show you about the representation?

Tip: This is difficult because deals with the framers’ view of slavery and representation in the Senate, the House, and in the election of the President –and these may be new areas to you or you may have assumptions.

 

  1. The nationalistic excitement of acquiring new land with the Louisiana Purchased compared with the sectionalist views by both Northerners and Southerners over the expansion of slavery into traditionally non-slavery and Northern lands.
    What does this show you about the pressures on the republic?

    Tip: This is difficult because deals with what happens with gaining territory results in nationalism and dealing with attempted expansion of slavery into traditionally non-slavery areas results in divisions. The geography of non-slavery may be something you don’t know  or you may have assumptions.

 

 

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select the Topic on Shays’s Rebellion?

Comparison Topic:  The issues of the opposing groups in Shays’s Rebellion compared with what the authors of the Constitution worked out as way to preserve the new nation as a republic. What do they show you about what the authors of the Constitution were trying to do?

 

If you want to read dictionary definitions, you can find basic words at the dictionary provided in History Resources.
You must read the definitions of democracy and republic and what James Madison says about both.

 

Reminders:

·         These Shaysites who are losing their farms are also veterans of the American Revolutionary War who fought because they believed the British government was not protecting life, liberty, and property—to use John Locke’s 3 items.

·         Specie (coins of gold and silver) had always been in scarce supply in the colonies and it is still scarce in the new states. (Our phrase for this today is a “credit crisis” or “crisis of liquidity.”)

 

Parts of This Comparison Topic

What You Read

What to Observe and How to Pay Attention to Terms

Shays’s Rebellion 

Chapter 6: “Political and Economic Turmoil, including all of the parts

 

Notice the issues:

·         of the farmers

·         of merchants

·         of the state governments (who are they taxing and in what form do they want payment)

·         of debtors who could not pay and what sequence of events happen when a debtor can’t pay

 

Notice the reforms the farmers want, including:

·         About state government

·         About states printing paper money and passing tender laws (settling debts by giving goods—such as grain--to the creditor, not gold or silver coins).

 

Notice the rebellion cannot be stopped by the state government or the national/central government—both are powerless. Who does stop the rebellion?

Sections to Read from the Constitution

Use it online in this folder. Read with care the clauses specified to the right.

Look for

·         Article 1, Section10 regarding what the states can’t do regarding tender laws and debts.

·         Article IV, Section 4 regarding dealing with “domestic violence” and what is guaranteed with “republicanism”

Sections to Read from the Textbook Explanation of these Things in the  Constitution

Chapter 6: “The Movement for Constitutional Reform”

Carefully read all of the pages to the end of the chapter looking for what the textbook authors say about the issues, the reforms, and about rebellion.

 

Tips:

·         Notice what Madison thinks.

·         Notice that “many Americans believed that the states—the small republics—had lost too much power [with this new Constitution]”
(In the 4th edition paperback, the page number is 163.)

 

 

 

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select the Topic on Shays’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion?

Comparison Topic: Shays’s Rebellion before the Constitution is developed compared with the Whiskey Rebellion after that Constitution is ratified. What do both show about how the national government handles rebellion in a republic?

 

If you want to read dictionary definitions, you can find basic words at the dictionary provided in History Resources.
You must read the definitions of democracy and republic and what James Madison says about both.

 

Parts of This Comparison Topic

What You Read

What to Observe and How to Pay Attention to Terms

Shays’s Rebellion 

Chapter 6: “Political and Economic Turmoil, including all of the parts

See the issues listed and reforms in the Comparison Topic above.

 

Focus on how the rebellion cannot be stopped by the state government or the national/central government—both are powerless. Who does stop the rebellion?

Sections to Read from the Constitution

Use it online in this folder. Read with care the clauses specified to the right.

Look for Article IV, Section 4 regarding dealing with “domestic violence” and what is guaranteed with “republicanism.”

 

Search for the word excise tax. It is also defined in the online Constitution.

Sections to Read from the Textbook Explanation of these Things in the  Constitution

Chapter 6: “The Movement for Constitutional Reform”

Carefully read all of the pages to the end of the chapter looking for what the textbook authors say about things that were “too democratic” and “too much influence to the common people.”

 

Tips: Notice what Madison thinks.

Whiskey Rebellion

Chapter 7: “Expansion and Conflict in the West”

1.     Look for the one-sentence introduction at the beginning saying it is an excise tax Note: The Stamp Act was a British excise tax.

2.     Then go to the subheading “The Whiskey Rebellion”

Chapter 8: “Jefferson’s Revolution”

Notice what happens to excise taxes later:  it “repealed all excise taxes, including that on whiskey.” (In the 4th edition paperback, the page number is 209.)

Caution: you only use facts in this section that apply to the Whiskey Rebellion.

 

 

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select This Comparison Topic – 3/5ths Compromise and Missouri?

Comparison Topic: The deal-making about how to count slaves for representation and for taxes at the Constitutional Convention compared with Northerners’ viewing the 3/5s compromise as giving “extra representation unfairly” when Missouri asks for statehood. What does this show you about the representation and the republic?

 

Reminder: Missouri is part of the territories acquired at the Louisiana Purchase.

 

Parts of This Comparison Topic

What You Look at or Read with Care

What to Observe and How to Pay Attention to Terms

Sections to Read from the Constitution

Use it online in this folder. Read with care the clauses specified to the right.

Use the Sorted version of the Constitution to find Slavery. Read with Care the 1st 4 clauses on slavery. (For this Comparison Topic, do not use the fifth clause—the one from 1865.)

Notice the dates when those clauses are no longer protected from amendment.

Notice there is nothing stated about the right of expansion of slavery.

Sections to Read from the Textbook Explanation of these Things in the  Constitution

Read with great care Chapter 6: “The Executive, Slavery, and Commerce”

 

Focus only on slavery sections. Notice the deal-making.

Notice Table 6.1 Enslaved Population in the United States, 1790.

Caution: The North—not the South--will grow in population and number of states by 1820.

 

Notice all the clauses described.

Useful quotations and Cautions:

·         Do notice that counting 3/5s of the slaves for population gave “white southerners an unfair advantage” because “slaves…could not vote.”

·         “Northern delegates did almost nothing to promote the abolition of slavery” and see what they traded for a commerce clause.

(For all quotations, the page number is 164 in the 4th edition paperback.)

Louisiana Purchase

Look at Chapter 8: “The Louisiana Purchase” or just look at the information to the right.

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) of the Louisiana Purchase.

Useful quotations:

·         Jefferson called this “the empire of liberty”

·         “A successful republic was dependent on broad property holding, for virtuous, independent, middling farmers made ideal citizens.” (Middling means of “average size or quality”—not a big planter with many slaves.

(For all quotations, the page number is 211 in the 4th edition paperback.)

Missouri Compromise

Read with great care

Chapter 9: “The Missouri Compromise, 1820”

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) is Missouri in the Louisiana Purchase and what it is even with in the Northwest Territories. It also provides the quantities of states in 1820 and 1860 and the total population so you can see who is the majority.

 

Notice all of the Northern issues about representation.

 

 

What Do You Have to Read and Use If You Select This Comparison Topic – Missouri Compromise and the Development of North and South?

Background on this Comparison Topic: The textbook makes these two statements:

·         “The debates over slavery in Missouri in 1819 and 1820 were not between fervent proslavery advocates in the South. Neither of those had not yet been defined positions.”

·         “In a real sense, the debates over slavery in Missouri created ‘the North’ and ‘the South,’ uniting the new states of the Northwest with the states of New England, new York, and Pennsylvania, and forging a tighter alliance among the new states of the Southwest and Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

 

Comparison Topic: The nationalistic excitement of acquiring new land with the Louisiana Purchased compared with the sectionalist views by both Northerners and Southerners over the expansion of slavery into traditionally non-slavery and Northern lands. What does this show you about the pressures on the republic?

 

Reminder: Missouri is part of the territories acquired at the Louisiana Purchase.

 

Parts of This Comparison Topic

What You Look at or Read with Care

What to Observe and How to Pay Attention to Terms

Northwest Ordinance – at the end of the Articles of Confederation period

Look at Chapter 6: “The Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787” or just look at the information to the right.

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) of the Northwest Territories.

 

Useful quotations:

·         “Men were eligible to vote if they owned at least fifty acres of land.”

·         “New states would have equal status with the original thirteen.” In the future that status of being a state also means: 2 Senators + at least 1 member of the House of Representatives + the same number in the electoral college that determines the president.

·         “It prohibited slavery from the region forever.”

(For all quotations, the page number is 157 in the 4th edition paperback.)

Sections to Read from the Constitution

Use it online in this folder. Read with care the clauses specified to the right.

Use the Sorted version of the Constitution to find

·         When, how, how many – House

·         When, how, how many – Senate

Sections to Read from the Textbook Explanation of these Things in the  Constitution

Read with great care Chapter 6:

“The Great Compromise”  and “The Executive, Slavery, and Commerce”

 

Focus only on representation

Notice all the clauses described in the above sections of the Sorted Constitution.

 

Louisiana Purchase

Look at Chapter 8: “The Louisiana Purchase” or just look at the information to the right.

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) of the Louisiana Purchase.

Useful quotations:

·         Jefferson called this “the empire of liberty”

·         “A successful republic was dependent on broad property holding, for virtuous, independent, middling farmers made ideal citizens.” (Middling means of “average size or quality”—not a big planter with many slaves.

(For all quotations, the page number is 211 in the 4th edition paperback.)

Missouri Compromise

Read with great care

Chapter 9: “The Missouri Compromise, 1820”

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) is Missouri in the Louisiana Purchase and what it is even with in the Northwest Territories. It also provides the quantities of states in 1820 and 1860 and the total population so you can see who is the majority.

 

Notice all of the Northern issues about representation.

 

Background on the Limitations of Slavery in the North and Expectations about New Territories - Information to Help with the Missouri Compromise

Two broad reasons for Northerners not wanting slavery to spread to new territories were:

·         Some Northerners were opposed to enslaving anyone.

·         Some Northerners did not care about slaves or African Americans in general, but did not want

o    To compete with slave labor (Example: if all you had to sell was your own manual labor, you would want to live where people were free.)

o    To compete in growing crops against the price of slave-produced crops. (Example: you would not want your own children to live as poorly as slaves did.)

The areas below are where the national decision (the laws passed by congress) was:

·         to limit the expansion of slavery

·         or the expectation of the use of the land was for “middling” landholdings (not large plantations)

 

Parts of This Comparison Topic

What You Look at or Read with Care

What to Observe and How to Pay Attention to Terms

Northwest Ordinance – at the end of the Articles of Confederation period

Look at Chapter 6: “The Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787” or just look at the information to the right.

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) of the Northwest Territories.

 

Useful quotations:

·         “Men were eligible to vote if they owned at least fifty acres of land.”

·         “New states would have equal status with the original thirteen.” Notice what being a state also means: 2 Senators + at least 1 member of the House of Representatives + the same number in the electoral college that determines the president.

·         “It prohibited slavery from the region forever.”

(For all quotations, the page number is 157 in the 4th edition paperback.)

Louisiana Purchase in 1803

Look at Chapter 8: “The Louisiana Purchase” or just look at the information to the right.

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) of the Louisiana Purchase.

Useful quotations:

·         Jefferson called this “the empire of liberty”

·         “A successful republic was dependent on broad property holding, for virtuous, independent, middling farmers made ideal citizens.” (Middling means of “average size or quality”—not a big planter with many slaves.

(For all quotations, the page number is 211 in the 4th edition paperback.)

Missouri Compromise in 1820

Chapter 9: “The Missouri Compromise, 1820”

Use the map in the folder to notice the latitude (how far North) is Missouri in the Louisiana Purchase and what it is even with in the Northwest Territories.

 

·         With the exception of Missouri, none of the Louisiana Purchase above 36° 30´ will have slavery.

·         That also means the South will not have additional slave-supporting Senators (2 per state) nor representatives in the House of Representatives nor more electors in the electoral college for all those potential states. Instead the North will.

 

 

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2015

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2015

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/