In Case You Were Wondering . . . AP US History Test May 8, 2015 . . . Get Ready!


























Friday, February 4, 2011

It's a Teddy Bear with a Big Stick . . . How Cute! . . . and it's Test Time, Too!



Your Ch. 27-28 Multiple Choice test will be on Wednesday 2/9/11 and your DBQ (and binder check) will be Thursday 2/10/11.
The MC test will be ~36 questions plus 3 challenging regular bonus questions.
You already have a pretty good idea what the DBQ topic will be.
Things to ponder:

1) According to the quote below, why should the USA acquire foreign territories?

It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour sure to come in the world’s future. . . . The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken. . . . Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history -- the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. . . . Then this race of unequalled energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it -- the representative let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization . . . will spread itself over the earth. If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the result of this competition of races will be the “survival of the fittest”?


Source: Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, New York: American Home Missionary Society, 1885.


2) Who is the gentleman in the cartoon?  What is he carrying?  Where is he carrying it?  Why is he carrying it?


3) In the Supreme Court decision below, what is the Court saying about territory and people acquired by the USA?  How is this similar to, and different from, prior territorial acquisitions by the USA?
We are also of opinion that the power to acquire territory by treaty implies, not only the power to govern such territory, but to prescribe upon what terms the United States will receive its inhabitants, and what their status shall be in what Chief Justice Marshall termed the “American empire.” . . . Indeed, it is doubtful if Congress would ever assent to the annexation of territory upon the condition that its inhabitants, however foreign they may be to our habits, traditions and modes of life, shall become at once citizens of the United States. In all its treaties hitherto the treaty-making power has made special provisions for this subject. . . . In all these cases there is an implied denial of the right of the inhabitants to American citizenship until Congress by further action shall signify its assent thereto. . . .


It is obvious that in the annexation of outlying and distant possessions grave questions will arise from differences of race, habits, laws, and customs of the people, and from differences of soil, climate and production, which may require action on the part of Congress that would be quite unnecessary in the annexation of contiguous territory, inhabited only by people of the same race, or by scattered bodies of native Indians.

Source: Supreme Court Decision. Downes v. Bidwell, (one of the Insular Cases) 1901.


4) Who are these characters?  What are they doing?  What does this cartoon have to do with the USA and imperialism?


5) In the cartoon below, who is riding on whom?  What is the point cartoonist is making about imperialism?

6) Who is the gentleman with the shovel?  What is he doing?  What does this cartoon have to do with imperialism?  How is this related to USA expansionism prior to the late 1800s?



Good Luck!



No comments: