Documenting United States History

272 Chapter 11 | the UNION UNDONe? | period Five 1844 –1877

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As a portal through which to entertain new ideas: Douglass’s legacy helps redefine

slavery in terms of education, not race, which is one reason that his work is still

relevant today (even though slavery has been abolished).

Consider the following prompt to illustrate the effective use of qualifying

evidence in historical argument:

In your opinion, which primarily drove the debate over slavery during

the 1850s—moral or economic arguments?

Step 1 Understand the prompt, and identify the key words

For a review of this step, see Building AP® Writing Skills in Chapter 1 (p. 22).

Step 2 Generate a working thesis

For a review of Step 2, see Building AP® Writing Skills in Chapters 1 through 5

(pp. 22, 51, 79, 111, 142). Consider and practice the use of subordination in your

thesis statement.

Step 3 Identify and organize evidence

By addressing the slavery debate in two key contexts—moral and economic—

your argument automatically presents clear divisions about what pieces of evi-

dence will apply. A review of the documents in this chapter suggests that many

adhere to either of these two contexts:

Document Context

Doc. 11.1, John C. Calhoun, 1850 Legal, geographic, political

Doc. 11.2, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852 Moral

Doc. 11.3, Mary Henderson Eastman, 1852 Moral

Doc. 11.4, Map of Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854 Political, economic

Doc. 11.5, Republican Campaign Song, 1856 Geographic, economic, social

Doc. 11.6, Roger B. Taney, 1857 Legal

Doc. 11.7, Abraham Lincoln, 1858 Legal, political

Doc. 11.8, Jefferson Davis, 1861 Political, social

Doc. 11.9, Abraham Lincoln, 1861 Economic, political

Doc. 11.10, James E. Taylor Moral, economic

Doc. 11.11, Emily Dickinson, 1862 Social, moral

Consider culling all the evidence that addresses the moral aspects of the slav-

ery debate. Your examples may include the following pieces of evidence:

putting It all together 273

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