Can someone please grade this DBQ? I have the AP test in a little under two weeks. I’m really shooting for a 5, and feedback would be highly appreciated. Preferably, can you please grade this on a 1-9 scale?</p>
Reform & Democratic Ideals DBQ</p>
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Common Good, Justice, and Equality. Diversity, Truth, Popular Sovereignty, and Patriotism. All of these words and phrases are considered core democratic valuesby the United States. The question of the matter is whether or not these democratic ideals were sought to be expanded by reformers during the time period of 1825-1850. The validity of the statement, Reform movements in the United States sought to expand democratic ideals can be assessed analyzing these three reformations or movements: the Abolitionist movement, the womens rights movement, and the reformation of the Naturalization Law. The Naturalization Law did not expand these democratic ideals, the womens rights movement did expand these democratic ideals, and the Abolitionist movement very much so expanded these democratic ideals (or core democratic values). Slavery was a peculiar institution.</p>
Abolitionists were people in the mid-1800s who dedicated themselves to the abolition of slavery in the United States. Almost completely northern-based, abolitionists dealt with strong opposition in the early years of their moral campaign, most of that opposition coming from southern-folk. Among these great reformers were Frederick Douglass, a freed slave who became literate, and William Lloyd Garrison, a very radical abolitionist who converted many people to abolitionism. Slavery propaganda floating about in the mid-1800s displayed slaves pleading, Am I not a Woman and a Sister? (Document C) and, Am I not a Man and a Brother? which exemplified the push for equality among races (whites and blacks in particular), liberty, justice, and lifeall core democratic valuesthat the Abolitionists were trying to achieve. Given the intentions of the Abolitionist movement, the reformation adds much validity to the notion that reformers sought to expand democratic ideals from 1825 to 1850. Women became increasingly involved in their own rights movement around the same time as Abolitionists became involved in ending slavery.</p>
Another reformation, the reformation of womens rights, with ringleader Elizabeth Cady Stanton, falls into the time period of 1825-1850. Stanton is famous for speaking out about womens rights at the Seneca Falls Declaration on August 2, 1848 (Document I). Stantons argued that, if it is in the constitution that equality be a democratic ideal the nation is subjected to abide by, why had women not yet received nation-wide suffragethe right to vote (Document I). Men had the right to chastise and imprison their wives (Document I), but women were not allowed in the voting booths on Election Day. The womens rights movement, or reformation, definitely adds credibility to the statement that reforms from 1825-1850 sought to expand democratic ideals. Stanton was seeking to expand the core democratic value of equality of the sexes. Although women did not receive the right to vote immediately after Stanton and others attempts, female suffrage in the United States was eventually introduced to the Nation. Unlike Stanton, a man named Samuel F.B. Morse was trying to lessen the equality of emigrants in the United States around the same time.</p>
There was one reformation during the mid-1800sthe attempted reformation of the
Naturalization Law (Document D)that absolutely did not seek to expand democratic ideals. Led by Samuel F.B. Morse of the Know-Nothing Party, the reformation would make it so that any foreigner who came into the United States after the law was changed would not be allowed the right of suffrage (Document D). With the intent of this reformation, a couple of core democratic values seemed to be being contracted or condensed, as opposed to being expanded: Liberty (especially the political freedom aspect), and Equality. The democratic ideal of Liberty includes political freedom, which in itself includes the right to participate in political processes. If foreigners were not ever able to vote, it would be unjustifiable that liberty was a democratic ideal of the Constitution. If foreigners were denied the right to suffrage, it would be impossible for them to be considered equal. The belittling of these foreigners by the Know-Nothing party as a result of the intentions of this reform movement does not make the statement viable that reform movements during this time period looked to expand democratic ideals. The Know-Nothing party was almost as bad as the institution on the basis of equality. </p>
African Americans, women, and foreign emigrants all faced mistreatment, unfairness, and abuse in the United States from 1825-1850. Abolitionist movements, along with womans rights reformations, sought to expand democratic ideals in many aspects. Equality, Life, Liberty, and Justiceall core democratic valueswere sought to become better engraved in the United States. The reformation of the Naturalization Law lessened all of these values, by trying to not let foreigners take part, vote, in American politics. Taking all of this into consideration, the statement, Reform movements in the United States sought to expand democratic ideals is quite valid.</p>