Exam Essay – History 101 – Fall 2011[1]
Overview:
· This document details the requirements for the in-class essay. This essay will be worth 20 points.
· You can bring a topical outline of your essay to class. It must be turned in with the exam essay.
· Sources: The important points in Democratizing Freedom (see below) and the primary sources in the two activities.
There are two topics
for the exam essay. You are to select one.
·
The first
topic requires that you evaluate the ways that the Matron of Connecticut
(Judith Sargent Murray) justified the expansion of education for women.
· The second topic requires that you evaluate the approaches taken by free and enslaved African Americans by applying the statements in the Declaration of Independence to validate that they were entitled to equality.
Historical Context: The following is an excerpt from Give Me Liberty! An
American History. The author of the book and the excerpt were
written by Eric Foner. In this excerpt you will gain a greater understanding of
the “Revolution, Within”[2] You are encouraged to incorporate some of
Foner’s points in your exam essay.
Democratizing
Freedom
The Dream of Equality:
“The American Revolution took place at three levels simultaneously. It was a struggle for national independence, a phase in a century-long global battle among European empires, and a conflict over what kind of nation an independent American should be.
With its wide distribution of property, lack of a legally established hereditary aristocracy, and established churches far less powerful than in Britain, colonial America was a society with deep democratic potential. But it took the struggle for independence to transform it into a nation that celebrated equality and opportunity. The Revolution unleashed public debates and political and social struggles that enlarged the scope of freedom and challenged inherited structures of power within America. In rejecting the crown and the principle of hereditary aristocracy, many Americans also rejected the society of privilege, patronage, and fixed status that these institutions embodied. To be sure, the men who led the Revolution from the start to finish were by and large members of the American elite. The lower classes did not rise to power as a result of independence. Nonetheless, the idea of liberty became a revolutionary rallying cry, a standard by which to judge and challenge home-grown institutions as well as imperial ones.
Jefferson’s seemingly straightforward assertion in the Declaration of Independence that
“all men are created equal” announced a radical principle whose full
implications no one could anticipate. In
both Britain and its colonies, a well-ordered society was widely thought to
depend on obedience to authority…the power of rulers over their subjects,
husbands over wives, parents over children, employers over servants and
apprentices, slaveholders over slaves.
Inequality had been fundamental to the colonial social order; the
Revolution challenged it in many ways.
Henceforth, American freedom would be forever linked with the idea of
equality—equality before the law, equality in political rights, equality of
economic opportunity, and, for some, equality of condition. “Whenever I use the words freedom or rights,”
wrote Thomas Paine, “I desire to be understood to mean a perfect equality of
them …. The floor of Freedom as level as water.”
Topic One: The Matron of Connecticut and Female Education
Exam Essay Question: How is Judith Sargent Murray’s essay on female education an example of the “Revolution Within”?
Requirements for the
exam essay:
Define the “Revolution Within.” (See The Dream for Equality by Eric Foner)
Reread Murray’s Essay using the questions below as a guide.
Information for the Exam Essay: The answers to the above questions will provide you with the information needed for the exam essay. Do NOT submit the answers to the questions as your exam essay. Instead use that information to write the exam essay.
Topic Two – The Meaning of American Democracy:
Challenges from Free and Enslaved African Americans.
Overview: Free and enslaved African Americans were excluded from the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, according to James Horton, an historian of African American history, “whether African Americans fought for the American cause or whether they fought for the British cause they were fighting for the central cause of freedom. For African Americans, the revolution really was a freedom struggle.”
In this exam essay you are required to evaluate the ways that free and enslaved African Americans demanded their equality and to demonstrate how their actions reflect the “Revolution Within”?
Requirements for the
exam essay:
Information for the Exam Essay: The answers to the questions below provide you with the information needed for the exam essay. Do NOT submit the answers to the questions as your exam essay. Instead use that information to write the exam essay.
Questions:
[1]
Created:
9/2/2011; updated: 9/4/2011
[2] Revolution Within refers to the ways
that the ideology of the American Revolution impacted Americans who were not
given the full equality that is expressed in the Declaration of
Independence. The passage is in Give Me
Liberty! An American History, pp. 202-203