Term
The Origins of Insanity in Women (1865)
By: Horatio Storer |
|
Definition
Main Point #1: Storer’s propositions include:
I. “That in women mental disease is often, perhaps generally, dependent upon functional or organic disturbance of the reproductive system.”
i. Mental disease (insanity) in women is a product of their reproductive systems.
II. “That in women the access or exacerbation of mental disease is usually coincident with the catamenial [menstrual] establishment.”
i. Mental disease is made worse by menstruation.
III. “That the rational and successful treatment of mental disease in women must be based upon the preceding theories, which I claim are established...”
i. To treat mental disease (insanity) in women, you must believe the above theories.
Main point #2: Storer attempts to back his results with his research, observations, and autopsies of insane women.
1. “By many analogies, physiological and pathological, in the cerebral manifestations of the human female and that of the lower mammals”
a. Storer’s connection of the human female to lower males is symbolic of his bias that women are inferior to men, and that they share more similarities with lower animals.
2. “By clinical observation; and”
3. “By the results of autopsies of the insane, both in private practice and, where made with equal impartiality, in insane asylums.”
Main Point #3: Storer wanted to cure insanity in women.
• Storer proposed three questions to consider during treatment.
1. “First. To what extent can the insanity of women be medically or surgically treated?”
2. “Second. Is such treatment at present generally effected or even attempted in Insane Hospitals? And”
3. “Third. How can it there be accomplished?”
• “The necessity of removing a cause to prevent or to cure its effect is as decided in mental pathology as in physical. We recognize it everywhere else; we must recognize it in the treatment of insane women…”
• The treatment of women was needed to cure the “habitually thievish, profane, or obscene, despondent or self-indulgent, shrewish or fatuous, or as the parturient cat or sow (reference to lower mammals, as seen in main point #1), they have destroyed their offspring, or in other cases have attempted to destroy themselves.”
Main Point #4: Storer’s view of women was inflexible and biased. Women were not seen as sexual beings.
• Not only did he see women as inferior to men, but also women were not sexual in nature. Women were to be passive victims of male seduction not their own sexual beings.
• For women to have their own views and feelings towards sex was wrong. A woman who was passionate or sexually aggressive was ill and must be treated. Nymphomania, a term used to describe “obsessive sexual desires” in women. Women who sought sexual pleasure from partners or from themselves were considered to be mentally disturbed. Commonly, women who experienced these “morbid desires and the disgusting propensity” were treated as a defense of the “female chastity”.
• Storer describes a patient whom he treated for her “morbid sexual desires” by “freely incising (cutting open) the cervix uteri and dilating its canal” to help with her dysmenorrheal pain. He also prescribed the application of potassium monoxide to the cervix (thus creating a burning sensation) as a “physiological principle” to reduce the patient’s want for self-pleasure.
Historical Significance:
Storer’s belief that the best way to treat insanity in women was to remove the source of hormones, the female reproductive system. Many doctors to follow Storer’s influence, performed innumerable ovariectomies, the removal of the ovaries, and hysterectomies, the removal of all or part of the uterus, as a treatment of various mental neuroses. “The relationship between the ovaries and mental health eludes most modern medical researchers.” Until recently in history, women were not viewed as sexual beings or the sexual counterparts to males. Women’s role in sexual intercourse was for the production of children, not for their own sexual pleasure and desire. For women to feel the same sexual urges and wants as a male was unreasonable. Not only was this cultural view encouraged by males but also females of the same moral understanding. |
|
|
Term
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
By: Frederick Douglas |
|
Definition
Main Point #1: Douglass admires the founding father and patriots who fought for freedom, yet he condemns the American government for not continuing the ideal of freedom to the slave population.
-“Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?”
- Douglass admires the founding fathers of American and the Patriots who fought so bravely for freedom. Therefore, he begins his speech with the recognition of the great accomplishments of the nation, but he goes on to persuade the audience that the nation cannot reach its full potential and uphold its claims to freedom and rights if slavery is continued in America. Douglass argues that the conduct of slavery defiles the very principles that America was built upon: democracy, individual and equal rights, and ultimately freedom.
Main Point #2: Douglass urges the continuation of America’s revolutionary actions for freedom, as he compares the abolition of slaves to the American Revolution.
-“The Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join in joyous anthems, inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. ”
- Yet he cannot rejoice, but he morns at the opportunity that African Americans cannot join in the celebration. Douglas commends the audience to continue their revolutionary fight for freedom, democracy, and equality for all Americans.
- He reminds his audience that American revolutionary actions against Britain were considered treacherous, but Britain was wrong in their governing of their people, and so is the American government. He reasons with the people who consider abolitionism a dangerous and subversive political stance that America will once again have a victorious outcome. He implies that just as Americans fought for their freedoms, slaves too should have freedom, and that one day the abolition of slavery will also be revered as a progressive American movement. Douglas is attempting to persuade the audience against slavery by stating that slavery is against the liberties that America stands for: democracy, freedom, equality of rights.
Main Point #3: Douglass contest the main argument that a slave is not a man.
-Douglass argues how can the government claim a slave is not a man when they enforce laws upon him? The subjection of slaves to law “acknowledges that the slave is a moral intellectual, and responsible being.” Douglass claims that “when you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the filed, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave.”
- In proving that a slave is also a man entitles that slave to the same rights given to a (white) man.
Main Point #4: Douglass wants to “affirm the equal manhood of the negro race” and argue the wrongfulness of slavery.
-“Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery?”
-Douglass describes the similarities between whites and blacks (both free and enslaved) through their labor, livelihood, families, and religious beliefs. Douglass shows the hypocrisy of the inequality between the white and slave population. He has given reason that a slave is a man, therefore why is a man not given entitled to the liberty that this country had fought so hard to gain.
- “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.”
Main Point #5: Douglass rebukes the common claim that slavery is appointed/approved by God.
-“What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine.”
-As for those who maintain that slavery is part of a divine plan, Douglass argues that something which is inhuman cannot be considered divine. He considers such a pro-slavery posture to be blasphemy because it forsakes God’s children. This accusation that the teachings of the Bible were misinterpreted and the people had mistaken God’s will was a very controversial argument of the time.
Main Point #6: America can expunge the stain of slavery by denouncing its practice.
-“..the conscience of the nation must be roused..the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed, the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.”
- He is attempting to gain the acceptance of abolition of slaves by proving its corruption of the individual and the nation as a whole. He claims that America can uphold their foundational ideals by denouncing slavery and righting their wrong.
Main Point #7: The Fourth of July is a day that reveals the cruel injustice to the slave.
-“What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a say that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license (to hold slaves); your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, ate to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these Unites States, at this very hour.”
Historical Significance:
Frederick Douglas, a former slave, is asked to address an audience of people for their Fourth of July celebration. He uses this opportunity to address slavery, and the freedom that is not equally granted to African Americans. Douglas’s speech is similar to Samuel Johnson’s, Taxation No Tyranny, in that it reiterates “how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?” |
|
|
Term
Self-Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Born: Boston, MA 1803 Died: from pneumonia in April of 1882 |
|
Definition
-Emerson was considered one of the main transcendentalists of this time period.
• Transcendentalism- the idea of nature and people being good; protesting against conforming to the current intellectuality/spirituality; the powers and government limit the individual to prosper; emphasizes intellectual independence and believing in one’s self for guidance and truth
-The movement influenced the field of psychology in the mid-19th century.
Main Points
TRUST YOURSELF!!
The best way to develop ideas or conclusions is by using our own thoughts.
• “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men, - that is genius.”
• “ A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages”
• RELYING ON OTHERS THOUGHTS AND IDEAS TO MAKE OUR OWN THOUGHTS AND IDEAS IS POINTLESS.
Good comes from within ourselves.
• “…that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come from him through soil his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.”
• Good things come from our own actions and decisions, not others.
• GOOD THINGS OR OUTCOMES COME FROM OUR OWN ACTIONS AND DECISIONS, NOT OTHERS’ ACTIONS AND DECISIONS.
Conformity is the opposite of individualistic thinking and self-reliance.
• “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
• CONFORMITY IS SACRAFICING THE THOUGHTS AND IDEAS OF OURSELF.
Historical Context
What impact did the document have on the author’s society? This essay was an eye opening document for many people to see their own potential to prosper and to break away from the conforming ways of society’s intellectual structure.
What impact did it have on later generations? Later generations, including our own, are still influenced by this essay. This is one of the only documents involving transcendentalism that is commonly presented to students. It helps Americans to see that we all have individualistic ideas on life, and we all have a right to pursue those individualistic based endeavors.
What groups in particular did the document impact? Young people who are at a high risk of conforming to a group ideology, which may not be the best ideology for the individual.
Was this impact important and, if so, why? The impact that this document has is very important to understanding each of our individualistic potentials and ideologies. |
|
|
Term
The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Frederick Jackson Turner |
|
Definition
Frederick Turner was an American historian who was born on November 14, 1861 and died on March 14, 1932. He received his doctorates degree from John Hopkins University in 1890. His viewpoint was that the continual expansion westward helped shape the democracy that developed in the United States. The intended audience was initially the listeners at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Main Points:
1. The American frontier has helped shaped American nationalism.
• The hardships and unique tribulations that the frontier posed to Americans, served to create a deeper sense of connection with their fellow American
2. The challenges that Americans have faced from the hardships of the frontier have produced the unique American culture.
• Having to adapt to the primitive living conditions and defend against the elements and Indians helped produce an American attitude.
3. American Legislation “was conditioned on the frontier”.
• “Subjects of tariff, land, and internal improvement” as well as slavery, were all heavily influenced by westward expansion.
4. The frontier has promoted democracy.
• The frontier has produced individualism from the primitive lifestyle. This in turn has promoted democracy because direct control is resented.
Historical Significance:
This document gave expansion into the frontier credit for molding America into its own unique set of people and government. This document served as an alternate view for Americans to have their own sense of history, rather than them considering themselves as Europeans in a new country. |
|
|
Term
Declaration of Sentiments
Lucretia Mott- Nantucket, MA American abolitionist/activist, Quaker, Teacher, minister, "Lioness of the Convention“Mother of six |
|
Definition
1) Main Point #1: God intended for women to be equal to men
a) Resolved, that woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.
2) Main Point #2: Women should have control over their own nature/bodies so that they may be happy.
a) “Resolved, that such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature and of no validity, for this is “superior in obligation to any other.”
3) Main Point #3: Women should be able to be a part of a social group they desire (religious, political, etc.)
a) “Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority.”
4) Main Point #4: Women should not be degraded and have all the rights they desire.
a) Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they -live, that they may no longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.
5) Main Point #5: Women should be able to have a voice
a) Resolved, that inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak, and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.
6) Main Point #6: Women should have the same amount of virtue as men. If a man can be uninhibited than so can a woman.
a) Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior, that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.
7) Main Point #7: Women should be allowed to speak or perform in public
a) Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert, or in the feats of the circus.
8) Main Point #8: Women should be allowed to be educated in all aspects of life. (School, religion, high education, etc.)
a) Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.
9) Main Point #9: Women should be allowed to Vote or hold positions in political parties/groups
a) Resolved, that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.
b) This resolution was originally thrown out by Lucretia Mott because She thought that asking for women’s voting rights would jeopardize the entire declaration.
10) Main Point #10: Women should be equal in all capabilities and responsibilities regardless of race
a) Resolved, that the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.
11) Main Point #11: Women should be allowed to speak on and to Divine Powers
a) Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause, by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth, growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as self-evident falsehood, and at war with the interests of mankind.
12) Main Point #12: Women should be allowed, immediately, to work in all professions.
a) Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce. |
|
|
Term
“Corner Stone” Speech
Alexander H. Stephens
Savannah, Georgia
March 21, 1861 |
|
Definition
• He felt that the new Constitution was superior than the United States Constitution
o “All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality.” Ha
o “In the new Constitution it is six years instead of four, and the President rendered ineligible for a re-election.”
o “African slavery as it exists among us- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.”
• Slavery is very significant towards the confederacy.
o “Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
• He believed that God made Whites better and that folks in the North were wrong.
o “They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights, with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just; but their premises being wrong, their while argument fails… They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator has made unequal.”
• No longer suffer from Tariffs.
• Confederate Government in conformity with God and Nature
Historical Significance
• It encouraged many Southerners that their cause was righteous and to fight the Union.
• Many were hoping that this speech would gather more help to their cause.
• They were defending state rights. |
|
|
Term
Woman and a New Race
Margaret Sanger September 14,1879 |
|
Definition
Main Point 1: Margaret believed the evil of society comes directly from the overabundance of unwanted children that are brought into the world by women who are ignorant of their reproductive functions.
• “The creators of overpopulation are the women, who, while wringing their hands over each fresh horror, submit anew to their task of producing the multitude who will bring about the next tragedy of civilization.”
• “Whether it was the tyranny of a monarchy, an oligarchy or a republic, the one indispensable factor of its existence was, as is now, hordes of human beings – beings so plentiful as to be cheap, and so cheap that ignorance was their natural lot.”
• “War, famine, poverty and oppression of the workers will continue while woman makes life cheap. They will cease only when she limits her reproductivity and human life is no longer a thing to be wasted.
Main Point 2: Women need to be educated about their bodies and reproductive systems so they can have a motherhood that is not forced and subjecting.
• “She can do this only when she has awakened to a knowledge of herself and of the consequences of her ignorance. The first step is birth control.”
• “Through birth control she will attain to voluntary motherhood. Having attained this, the basic freedom of her sex, she will cease to enslave herself and the mass of humanity. Then through the understanding of the intuitive forward urge within her, she will not stop at parching up the world; she will remake it…”
• “Millions of women are asserting their right to voluntary motherhood. They are determined to decide for themselves whether they shall become mothers, under what conditions and when. This is the fundamental revolt referred to. It is for women the key to the temple of liberty.”
Main Point #3: The women who wish to free themselves of bondage need to do so not by attempting to be men but by valuing themselves for who they are.
• “…man has not only refused any such responsibility, but has individually and collectively sought to prevent woman from obtaining knowledge by which she could assume this responsibility for herself. She is still in the position of a dependent today because her mate has refused to consider her as an individual apart from his need.”
• “Having left it to him, she is exploited, driven and enslaved to his desires.”
• “If after attaining her freedom, woman accept conditions in the spheres of government, industry, art, morals and religion as they find them, they will be but taking a leaf out of man’s book. The woman is not needed to do man’s work. She is not needed to think man’s thoughts. She need not fear that the masculine mind, almost universally dominant, will fail to take care of its own. Her mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities.”
Historical Significance:
The impact of the document had on the society of the 1920s was that it allowed wives to see that they could not rely on giving husbands and the patriarchy the responsibility of birth control because it was not effective. Many unwanted children were still being born and humanities misery continued because of it. Woman needed to take control of their bodies; through birth control later generations eventually did. This document impacted women in all stages of life and socio-economic standings; married women who felt they had enough children, poor and middle class women who could not afford to have large families or women who decided they wished not to have children. The impact of this document was important because it helped inspire woman’s urge for the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. |
|
|
Term
Fast Day Sermons (1861)
B.M. Palmer, M.J. Raphall, Henry Ward Beecher |
|
Definition
Historical Context
• As the nation faced the ordeal of secession, President Buchanan called upon the ministers of all religions to lead their congregations in a day of fasting and also to address the issue of slavery in their sermons.
• Benjamin Morgan Palmer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 25 September 1781; died in Charleston, South Carolina, 9 October 1847. He graduated from Princeton in 1800, studied theology in Charleston, and was licensed to preach by the Congregational association of ministers in South Carolina, continuing with this body until it was merged into the Charleston Union Presbytery in 1822. In New Orleans, Palmer was one of the leading Southern Presbyterians who staunchly defended the institution of slavery.
• M.J. Raphall, Rabbi of the Jewish Synagogue of New York, sought to restore the Union by acknowledging slavery.
• Henry Ward Beecher, minister of Plymouth Church of Brooklyn, was a strict abolitionist. He was the son of the famous evangelist, Lyman Beecher, and a brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote the famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Along with attacking slavery, he promoted women’s suffrage, the theory of evolution, and temperance.
Intended Audience
• The entire nation
Main Points of Slavery a Divine Trust: Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate it
• B.M. Palmer suggests that God has assigned the Southern people slavery. “…that it is to conserve and to perpetuate the institution of slavery as now existing…” “…It is bound upon us, then, by the principle of self-preservation, that “first law” which continually asserting its supremacy over others…”
• It is their duty to preserve this institution for the purpose of self-preservation. “The particular trust assigned to such a people becomes the pledge of Divine Protection…” “This duty is bound upon us again as the constituted guardians of the slave themselves.”
• That basically “freedom would be there doom.”
• Slaves formed a part of the household. “My servant, weather born in my house or bought with my money, stands to me in relation to a child.”
• Palmer tells them they should fear abolition. “…our wealth consists in our lands, and the serfs who till them…” The end of slavery could have huge impact on the economy.
• Abolitionists are atheists, and the South is defending the cause of God. “Last of all, in this great struggle, we defend the cause of God and religion.”
Main Points of Bible View of Slavery
• Raphall states that nowhere in the New Testament of the Holy Bible, condemns slaveholding. In fact, citing many verses, he says slave owners are protected according to the Bible. “…the property in slaves is placed under the same protection as any other species of lawful property…” Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Job, and Isaac were all slave owners.
• Christian Abolitionists are simply ‘making up’ a sin, and have absolutely no right to condemn the Southern people. “…I wish to convince myself whether he had any scripture warranty for so doing...”
Main Points of Peace, Be Still
• “The whole nation is guilty”….regarding slavery….”If you put poison into your system in any way, there is not a nerve that is not touched by it; there is not a muscle that does not feel it; there is not a bone, nor a tissue, nor one single part nor parcel of your whole body, that can escape it.”
• The US at this time has no moral restriction and no regard to humanity “It is the…heart that sins… North or South; and the nature of pride and of dishonesty are universal.”
Historical Significance
• These sermons display the tensions of the American people in 1861 regarding the issue of slavery. |
|
|
Term
The Progress of Mankind (1854)
George Bancroft |
|
Definition
1. It is God’s plan for Americans to grow.
“Since everything that is limited suffers perpetual alteration, the condition of our race is one of growth or decay. It is the glory of man that he is conscious of this law of his existence.”
2. Wisdom of the Majority.
“They many are wiser than the few; the multitude that the philosopher; the race than the individual; and each successive generation that its predecessor.
3. There are three things always found in society.
“Society always has within itself the elements of conservatism, of absolute right, and of reform…”
Conservatism – “strive for their unaltered perpetuity,” “Always appearing wherever established interests exist, and never capable of unmingled success, because finite things are ceaselessly in motion.”
Absolute Right – Based on theoretic principles, “Struggle unrelentingly to conform society to the absolute law of Truth and Justice.” Won’t succeed because “The materials of which society is composed partake of imperfection, and to extirpate all is imperfect would to the destruction of society.”
Reform – “seeks to reconcile the two, but which can never drive by itself, since it depends for its activity on the clashing between the fact and the higher law.”
4. Women have a very important role in nature but it is different than the role man plays.
“She, whom nature so reveres, that the lovely veil of her spirit is the best terrestrial emblem of beauty, must cease to command armies or reign supreme over nations.”
“Has made her not man’s slave, but his companion, his counsellor, and fellow martyr; and, for an occasional ascendency in political affairs, has substituted the uniform enjoyment of domestic equality.”
5. Every nation has a part to play in the progress of mankind and together overtime the world will continue to advance and grow.
“The commonwealth of mankind, as a great whole, was not to be constructed in one generation. But the different peoples are to be considered as its component parts, prepared, like so many springs and wheels, one day to be put together.
“Without attempting to unfold what the greater wisdom of coming generations can alone adequately conceive and practically apply, we may observe, that the human mind tends not only toward unity, but UNIVERSALITY.”
6. Historians study Gods work, and history is the study of man’s progress. |
|
|
Term
The Young American (1844)
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
|
Definition
1. Americans are divided – They live in American yet have the tendencies of the British.
“It is remarkable, that our people have their intellectual culture from one country, and their duties from another…”
2. America has more of a future than Britain does.
“America is beginning to assert it-self to the senses and to the imagination of her children, and Europe is receding in the same degree.”
3. The Railroad is one of the main reasons why America has such a bright future; it makes trade a lot more convenient.
“-[the railroad’s] importance in creating an American sentiment. An unlooked for consequence of the railroad, is the increased acquaintance it has given the American people with the boundless resources of their own soil.”
“Railroad iron is a magician’s rod, in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of the land and water.”
4. The nation is in the hands of the young American, who has the ability to make the land better for future generations.
“We plant trees, we build stone houses, we redeem the waste, we make prospective laws, and we found colleges and hospitals, for remote generations. We should be mortified to learn that the little benefit we chanced in our own persons to receive was the utmost they would yield.”
Historical Significance:
“The Young American” was a wakeup call to all Americans. It showed them what they could accomplish and how it would better future generations in America. |
|
|
Term
| John O Sullivan and Manifest Destiny 1845 |
|
Definition
Manifest Destiny is a term for the attitude prevalent during the 19th century period of American expansion that the United States not only could, but was destined to, stretch from coast to coast. This attitude helped fuel western settlement, Native American removal and war with Mexico. The phrase was first employed by John L. O’Sullivan in an article on the annexation of Texas published in the July-August 1845 edition of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, which he edited.
John O’Sullivan and Manifest Destiny-Main Points
Texas is ours.
Manifest Destiny is not a justification for wanton conquest.
Freeing Texas from Mexico was justified, legally and morally.
Annexing Texas is not about increasing slaveholding territories.
Texas as a slave state will create a draining effect on the other slaveholding states. As immigrants move to Texas from the North along with slaveholders looking for greater prospects, this will create more pressure on the abolition of the institution. Abolitionists should support this.
Further annexation is also right and just. Natural law is on our side. |
|
|
Term
Main Points
Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau
1849 |
|
Definition
1. Thoreau prefers a laissez-faire government, but he does not call for abolishing government. Rather he wants a better government.
“I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
“But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
2. Decisions on morality are made by the state, not the service men that are assumed to have moral judgment about their actions.
“In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
3. It is man’s duty to wash his hands of wrong.
“It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
4. Majority rule is not always the best decision and it takes away power from the minorities.
“A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
“Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
5. Honesty of one person can change the The State.
“if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
6. If man refuses to conform to something that is not just, he can eventually become the majority.
“A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
7. The state must show its inhabitants respect in order to truly be a democracy.
“The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual” (Civil Disobedience, 1849)
Historical Significance:
• Analyzes power and the respect or lack thereof for rights of the peoples in the state.
• Demonstrates the problems with the “collective”
• Represents transcendentalist movements toward individuals in humanity; duties to conscience and reform. |
|
|
Term
The Strenuous Life -1900
Theodore Roosevelt |
|
Definition
1) Country/Citizens should not take the easy path. One must work hard and sacrifice to make a great nation. “I wish to preach not to the doctrine of ignoble ease, but to the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife, to preach that highest form of success, which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but a man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, from bitter toil and who out of these wins the ultimate triumph”
2) The easy life/ no desire for power or great things are bad for individuals and countries. “Working shows one deserves good fortune”. In life, you must work for what you want and this includes freedoms. If a man cannot hold his own or is unwilling to fight for what he wants, he is too passive. Citizens must lead clean, vigorous lives and train their children to do the same. Teach them the rewards of hard work and risk-taking. To women, he said your duty is to have children and be homemakers. We are exceptional!
3) We must meet problems head on, and when given problems, we should note there is a chance we may not solve it, but that should not stop us from trying and doing our best. “Let us not shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavors, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.” It is better to fail to have highs and lows in your life than to “live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat”.
4) We cannot ignore what goes on in other countries around the world. We need to be part of the world community. We should not be so wrapped up in our own affairs that we ignore world events that may affect us. We must bring good government to the half-caste nations.
5) We must use natural resources, industry, hard work to make us a great nation, but we must recognize the great risk takers who built up industry, the thinkers who developed our founding documents, and the military who fought for our freedoms. “They showed by their lives that they recognized the law of work, the law of strife; they toiled to win a competence for themselves and those dependent on them, but they recognized that there were yet other … duties to their country and race.” We must continue their work (Panama Canal). We must be ready to anticipate future events and be ready for them (by increasing military strength). We must put down domestic and international foes. Weakness is the greatest crime.
6) We must demand honesty and integrity in our government and legislature. They are to be held accountable if they do not work in the best interest of the nation. However, we should not blame those who are not responsible for problems.
7) Our society must be clean, honest, and sensible in our homes, states and the nation. “A man’s first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the state; for if he fails in the second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a free man. In the same way, while a nation’s first duty is within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved from facing its duties in the world as a whole; and if it refuses to do so, it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the people that shape the destiny of mankind.” If we stand by, other nations will surpass us and will dominate the world.
Historical significance:
Rallied the American frontier spirit.
Justifies American imperialism to alleviate fears of foreigners gaining a foothold in western hemisphere
Presidents have since used his points to justify military buildup, invasions, getting involved in international conflicts and humanitarian debates. |
|
|
Term
Bradwell vs The State of Illinois (1873)
The U. S. Supreme Court |
|
Definition
Justice Miller’s Opinion- Main Points
1) 14th amendment – Article 4 does not protect Mrs. Bradwell’s right to practice law. That right is a matter reserved for the state of Illinois. The federal government has no control over the regulation of the states granting of law licenses. “ the… right to control and regulate the granting of license to practice law in the courts of a state is one of those powers which are not transferred for its protection to the Federal government and its exercise is in no manner governed or controlled by citizenship of the United States in the party seeking such license.”
2) The right to bar admission is not dependent of citizenship. “This right in no sense depends on citizenship of the United States. It has not, as far as we know, ever been made in any state or in any case, to depend on citizenship at all. Certainly, many prominent and distinguished lawyers have been admitted to practice, both in the state and federal courts, who were not citizens of the United States or of any State.”
Justice Bradley’s Concurring Opinion-Main Points
1) Civil law recognizes the differences between men and women. It is natural and proper for women to be excluded. Women “according to”separate sphere ideology” should perform duties of the home and motherhood. God sets up the roles of men and women. Men operate in the public sphere. “… the civil law, as well as nature itself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belong to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.”
2) A married woman is incapable of making contracts. This makes it impossible for her to perform her duties as a lawyer. “This very incapacity was one circumstance which the Supreme Court of Illinois deemed important in rendering a married woman incompetent fully to perform the duties and trusts that belong to the office of an attorney and counselor.”
Historical Significance:
Bradwell continued using her case in the advancement women’s rights. Others used her right-based legal arguments.
By 1950, every state admitted women to the bar. |
|
|
Term
| Gettysburg Address - Lincoln |
|
Definition
• Lincoln advocates the words of the Declaration of Independence; and, Lincoln made notice the Civil War as not just a fight to preserve the Union, but to bring equality to “all” of its citizens: “…conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
• Lincoln also advocated the notion that the test of equality and liberty is important: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
• Lincoln’s speech also praises the soldiers, and their deaths did not go in vain: “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here.”
• Lincoln believed that present and future generations must take up the cause of defending the Union: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…that these honored dead shall not have died in vain…”
• It is for this reason that Lincoln acknowledges the sacrifice, but explains why the struggle is important for future Americans to uphold and defend the Union: “…that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
The Historical Significance for the Gettysburg Address, has one main point that stands out the most: Abraham Lincoln focuses on the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution. |
|
|
