Debating the Origins of the American Revolution Essay

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Book: David Emory Shi, America: The Essential Learning Edition — Volume I, 2nd Edition, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. (2018)

Reading Assignment (from your textbook):

? “Thinking Like a Historian” — Debating Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, pages 264-267

Secondary Source 1 — Douglas L. Wilson, “Thomas Jefferson and the Character Issue” (1992)
Secondary Source 2 — Paul Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery” (1993)
Primary Source 1 — Thomas Jefferson, a draft section omitted from the Declaration of Independence (1776)
Primary Source 2 — Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787)
Primary Source 3 — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to M. Warville [a Frenchman] (February 11, 1788)
Primary Source 4 — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Holmes (April 22, 1820)

Instructions:

Note: The “Thinking Like a Historian” sections of your textbook provide us an opportunity to understand how (and why) historians have interpreted the past in different ways. By highlighting the works of two historians, sometimes from different time periods, these sections give us a glimpse into the field of historiography — the history of doing history. These brief excerpts are “secondary sources” — sources produced by scholars after the fact. In addition, your textbook author (David Emory Shi) has included primary documents to be read alongside of the secondary source excerpts. Primary documents are historical artifacts that comes from the time period under examination and can take a variety of forms (ie letters, diaries, political documents, movies, advertisements, etc.).

In this second “Thinking Like a Historian” section, Shi provides excerpts from two renowned historians who have tried to make sense of Thomas Jefferson’s views on slavery in light of his status as a slave owner. After reading the two excerpted secondary sources and the two primary sources carefully, write a two to three typed and double-spaced paper with standard font and margins that answers the question in bold below. When you have completed your assignment, you should upload it via the assignment link above.

Based on what you’ve read in your textbook so far, with particular attention to the four primary documents in the “Thinking Like a Historian” section, which historian — Wilson or Finkelman — do you think has the stronger interpretation regarding Jefferson’s views of and practice of slavery? Why?

In responding to the question above, you should include a brief summary of both Wilson and Finkelman’s respective arguments and you should take into consideration how the four primary documents either strengthen or weaken those arguments.

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• Objectives For this unit, our objectives are to understand: • • • • • • the challenges the newly formed nation faced in the aftermath of the Revolution in relationship to establishing the political apparatus of the new nation the creation of the United States Constitution the political developments during the years of the “New Republic,” including the emergence of the first party system how and why the War of 1812 occurred and the significance of its outcome Lesson Notes We have now learned about pre-colonial indigenous cultures, colonial endeavors and encounters, the conditions that placed the British colonies on the road to Revolution, and the formation of a new nation in the aftermath of that revolution. For the rest of the semester, we will be considering how the new nation continued to evolve after its establishment and the challenges it faced against the backdrop of demographic, economic, cultural, and political transformations. In particular, one of the things we’ll be considering is how the new United States would find itself at Civil War within eight decades of its founding. Aside from the logistics of battle during the American Revolution, the fledgling nation faced great challenges in establishing its political apparatus. By the mid 1780s, it was clear that the hastily-put-together Articles of Confederation were insufficient in terms of established a central government around which the thirteen states could revolve. As a result, a secret convention was held in 1787 which gave birth to the Constitution of the United States. In the framing of the Constitution and some of the compromises struck in order to garner support (such as the 3/5 Compromise and the inclusion of the Bill of Rights), it grew clear that the new nation was not necessarily united on a number of important points. Debates over the continuation of slavery, strife over debts and expansion, disagreement about taxation and financial matters, controversy over international affairs, and a series of internal revolts (like Shays’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion) made it clear that the survival of the new nation still hung in the balance. During the early 1800s, the United States continued to establish important political and legal precedents, such as the peaceful transference of power from one president to the next. Following the “Revolution of 1800,” which saw the election of Thomas Jefferson, the nation entered into a critical era of territorial expansion with the Louisiana Purchase. The nineteenth century began with the election of 1800, which resulted in the election of Thomas Jefferson -the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the leading figure within the emergent Republican Party (sometimes referred to as the Democrat-Republicans or the Jeffersonian Democrats). As you’ll read in your textbook, Jefferson was an interesting, sometimes contradictory figure whose championing of inherent equality and simultaneous support of and participation in the institution of slavery pointed to some of the key contradictions of the New Republic. His aversion to debt as well as his vision of creating a nation of small, independent landowners was a driving force behind his pursuit of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which roughly doubled the size of the United States. Over the course of Jefferson’s presidency, the United States became more deeply entrenched in a path that would eventually lead to the War of 1812 with Great Britain (which is sometimes characterized as a second revolution for America). Victory against Great Britain by the end of 1814 seemed to solidify American independence while simultaneously shifting political alliances with the virtual end of the Federalist Party.
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Attached.

History Essay –Outline
Thesis statement: Thomas Jefferson has attracted the interest of various historians who view
him through different lenses
1.

Discussion
A. Thomas Jefferson came up with the quote that all men "were created equal."
However, to the contrary, he continued to enslave more than six hundred
individuals throughout his life
B. Jefferson made attempts to create laws that would end slavery
C. However, on his notes to the state of Virginia, he wrote that he suspected that
alack people were inferiors to white people, and he continued to make direct
profits from the institution of slavery.
D. Wilson addresses the issue of Jefferson and slavery as if he is defending him
E. Wilson mentions how today we would perceive Jefferson as a hypocrite since he
was a slave master because of pervasive presentism of our time
F. Finkleman says that Jefferson's actions and his political belief were contradictory
to his fight against slavery and therefore he was a hypocrite.
G. Finkelman argues that Jefferson was not honest in his fight against slavery and he
used it to rise to power

Ru...