11. Document Projects for Exploring American Histories, Document Project 11: Debating Abolition

**Quiz for Document 11.1: William Lloyd Garrison, On the Constitution and the Union (1832)**

Quiz for Document 11.1: William Lloyd Garrison, On the Constitution and the Union (1832)

Document 11.1: William Lloyd Garrison, On the Constitution and the Union (1832)

Select the best answer for each question. Click the “submit” button for each question to turn in your work.

Question 11.1

1. Which of the following summarizes William Lloyd Garrison’s argument about the United States Constitution?

The Constitution is an agreement between slave and free states, but it does not require free states to protect slavery.

Because the U.S. Constitution perpetuates and protects slavery, which is monstrous and inhuman, it is an invalid document.

Because they signed the Constitution, the New England states are just as guilty of the sin of slavery as the southern states are.

The Constitution was created to perpetuate and protect slavery; therefore, there is nothing Americans can do to end the institution.

Question 11.2

2. In the second paragraph of his article, William Lloyd Garrison writes, “[W]e . . . stand to the holders of slaves at the south, and this is virtually our language toward them—‘Go on, most worthy associates, from day to day, from month to month, from year to year, from generation to generation, plundering two millions of human beings of their liberty and the fruits of their toil—driving them into the fields like cattle—starving and lacerating their bodies—selling the husband from his wife. . . . Go on, in these practices.’” What group does he refer to as “we”?

The Whig Party

The U.S. government

American voters

Northern whites who do not fight for abolition

Question 11.3

3. According to William Lloyd Garrison, what determines the validity and legitimacy of a government’s agreement or policy, such as the Constitution?

Its adherence to morality and the laws of God

Its approval by a majority of the nation’s citizens

Its creators’ commitment to representing the will of their constituents

The willingness of the nation’s clergy to endorse it

Thinking through Sources forExploring American Histories, Volume 1Printed Page 79