Organize the Evidence for Thinking through Sources 14

Organize the Evidence for Thinking through Sources 14

The following exercises provide an opportunity to use the sources collectively to respond to a guiding question.

Guiding Question: How did people with varied interests—including African Americans, northern Republicans, and officials of the federal government—view Reconstruction in different and changing ways between 1865 and 1875?

Instructions

Below are three topics that might find a place in organizing an essay responding to the guiding question. This exercise asks you to identify which sources would provide relevant evidence for that topic. Select the best answers for each question. Choose ALL that apply. Click the “submit” button for each question to turn in your work.

Question 14.16

1. Which of the sources provide specific evidence about how African Americans understood the promise and potential dangers of the Reconstruction era? Choose ALL that apply.

Document 14.1: Colored People’s Convention of South Carolina, Memorial toCongress
Document 14.2: Lottie Rollin, Address on Universal Suffrage
Document 14.3: Robert Brown Elliott, In Defense of the Civil Rights Bill
Document 14.4: James Shepherd Pike, The Prostrate State
Document 14.5: Ulysses S. Grant, Letter to South Carolina Governor D. H. Chamberlain
Correct: Document 14.1: This memorial provides evidence about how African Americans understood Reconstruction. Document 14.2: Rollin expresses her hopes about expanded suffrage in the Reconstruction era. Document 14.3: Elliott describes the ways Reconstruction policies have failed to protect African Americans fully as he makes a case for enacting another civil rights bill.
Incorrect: Document 14.4: Pike gives a white man’s perspective on Reconstruction governments in the South. Document 14.5: Grant describes his perceptions of Reconstruction in the months before its end.

Question 14.17

2. Which of these documents provide specific evidence about how northern Republicans’ views about Reconstruction policies evolved between 1865 and 1875? Choose ALL that apply.

Document 14.1: Colored People’s Convention of South Carolina, Memorial to Congress
Document 14.2: Lottie Rollin, Address on Universal Suffrage
Document 14.3: Robert Brown Elliott, In Defense of the Civil Rights Bill
Document 14.4: James Shepherd Pike, The Prostrate State
Document 14.5: Ulysses S. Grant, Letter to South Carolina Governor D. H.Chamberlain
Correct: Document 14.3: Elliott’s arguments in favor of the bill and his responses to arguments in opposition to it provide insight into northern Republicans’ views on Reconstruction in 1874. Document 14.4: Pike had favored Reconstruction in the 1860s, but this document indicates that he had become an opponent of Reconstruction policies by 1874. Document 14.5: Grant’s letter shows that the president, who had supported Reconstruction in the 1860s, was retreating from it by 1876.
Incorrect: Document 14.1: The memorial provides evidence about the views of southern Republicans, not northern Republicans. Document 14.2: Lottie Rollin represents southern Republicans, not northern Republicans.

Question 14.18

3. Which of the following documents provide specific evidence about how Republicans in the federal government retreated from Reconstruction in the mid-1870s? Choose ALL that apply.

Document 14.1: Colored People’s Convention of South Carolina, Memorial to Congress
Document 14.2: Lottie Rollin, Address on Universal Suffrage
Document 14.3: Robert Brown Elliott, In Defense of the Civil Rights Bill
Document 14.4: James Shepherd Pike, The Prostrate State
Document 14.5: Ulysses S. Grant, Letter to South Carolina Governor D. H.Chamberlain
Correct: Document 14.4: Pike, a Maine Republican, had favored Reconstruction in the 1860s, but this document shows that he had come to oppose it by 1874. Document 14.5: President Grant, a Republican, had supported Reconstruction throughout his tenure in office, but this letter signals his retreat from Reconstruction by 1876.
Incorrect: Document 14.1: The memorial represents the perspective of southern Republicans. Document 14.2: Rollin represents a southern Republican perspective. Document 14.3: Elliott represents a southern Republican perspective.

Thinking through Sources forExploring American Histories, Volume 1, Volume 2Printed Page 113