Documenting United States History

242 ChapTer 10 | expansionism: part 2 | period Five 1844 –1877

applyIng ap® historical Thinking Skills

sKill review Periodization and Comparison

The first and second halves of the nineteenth century provide an opportunity to compare

economic, political, and social trends. Consider the following prompt, which combines sev-

eral historical thinking skills:

Was the Civil War a turning point in the development of America’s economic,

political, and social identities? Or was the formation of this new American identity

already in place prior to the Civil War?

steP 1 Align documents from Chapters 9 and 10 that address similar trends.

Time period economic Social political

1800–1848 Doc. 9.7, “On the

Webster-Ashburton

Treaty”

Doc. 9.8, Democratic

Party Platform

Doc. 9.6, Texas

Declaration of

Independence

1844–1877 Doc. 10.3, “Commo-

dore Perry at the Loo

Choo Isles”

Doc. 10.4, American

(or Know-Nothing)

Party Platform

Doc. 10.2, Abraham

Lincoln, “Spot

Resolutions”

steP 2 Write a complete paragraph that begins with a main point that answers the prompt

and includes supporting points that synthesize the evidence.

TopIC I | Conquest West 243

Document 10.5 homestead act of 1862

Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, the Homestead Act

of 1862 encouraged Americans to migrate west of the Mississippi River. Historically,

legislative efforts to distribute government lands faced opposition from the South, but

this act was passed after secession.

An Act to secure Homesteads to actual Settlers on the Public Domain

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of Amer-

ica in Congress assembled, That any person who is the head of a family, or who

has arrived at the age of twenty-one years and is a citizen of the United States, or

who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the

naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the

United States government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and

after the first January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled to enter one

quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands, upon which said

person may have filed a pre-emption claim, or which may, at the time the application

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