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AP U.S. History 2.1 Period 5: 1848-1877 221 Views
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AP U.S. History 2.1 Period 5: 1848-1877. In general, racial stereotyping like the minstrel show advertised above affected the national debate about race by what?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:03
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by your divine right,
- 00:06
the holiest of turns.
- 00:08
All right, yeah, check out this picture.
- 00:10
Hot woman.
Full Transcript
- 00:11
All right, before the Civil War, the idea of Manifest Destiny
- 00:14
was most complicated by which of the following issues?
- 00:16
And here are your potential answers.
- 00:18
[ mumbles ]
- 00:20
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:22
All right, so what's this question asking?
- 00:24
Well, we know that Manifest Destiny was the belief that settlers
- 00:28
had a divine right to inhabit America
- 00:30
from sea to shining sea.
- 00:31
But there were bound to have been some bumps along the road
- 00:34
that whitewashed or idealized things.
- 00:37
So let's see which of the answers
- 00:39
best describes the issues at hand.
- 00:41
Before the Civil War, was Manifest Destiny complicated by
- 00:45
A - the balance of power
- 00:47
between the states and the federal government?
- 00:49
Hmm. Well, remember the Northwest Ordinance?
- 00:51
Well, it gave the federal government the power to
- 00:53
regulate territorial expansion.
- 00:56
So that balance of power had long been
- 00:58
shifted in Washington D.C.'s direction.
- 01:01
Was a problem for Manifest Destiny
- 01:03
B - the existing treaties between
- 01:05
the U.S. government and the American Indians?
- 01:07
Well, you know how all the settlers believed it was their
- 01:10
destiny to move west?
- 01:11
Well, they also thought it was their
- 01:13
destiny to ignore all existing treaties with American Indians.
- 01:17
Could the issue have been D -
- 01:18
the uncertainty of how new
- 01:20
immigrants would assimilate into society?
- 01:23
With the exception of areas on the coast
- 01:25
and along major rivers,
- 01:27
westward expansion didn't actually add
- 01:29
a large number of new immigrants.
- 01:31
That means the biggest issue with Manifest Destiny
- 01:33
before the Civil War was C -
- 01:35
the question of whether new territories would
- 01:37
prohibit or allow slavery.
- 01:40
With every new territory added to the United States,
- 01:43
there was fierce debate as to whether or not
- 01:45
they would allow slavery.
- 01:46
Actually "fierce" might even be an understatement,
- 01:49
since there were deadly skirmishes
- 01:51
in the Kansas and Nebraska territories over the issue.
- 01:53
So the correct answer is C.
- 01:55
It turns out that Manifest Destiny
- 01:57
is a little bit more complicated than running westward
- 01:59
and yelling, "America!"
- 02:01
at the top of your lungs. Yeah.
- 02:03
Different.
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