At age thirteen Douglass bought his first book, The Columbian Orator, consisting of various essays and speeches having to do with democracy and liberty. Douglass saw reading and knowledge as a path to freedom; it opened his mind and made him question the slave system. ... His intelligence and incredible speaking abilities led people to question his former reputation as a slave, "the Liberator wrote that many people in the audience refused to believe his stories: How a man, only six years out of bondage, and who had never gone to school could speak with suck eloquence- with such precision of la...

• Word Count: 1350
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Lincoln and Douglas shows how they deal with race indicates two different directions regarding civil and political rights for blacks in Illinois, where Douglas will use race not only to affirm existing white supremacy but to reinforce it. ... The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery in the aftermath of the act's passage led to the period of violence known as the Bleeding Kansas.6 Lincoln believed that Congress had the power to determine the slavery question, and that applying popular sovereignty to the slavery question would teach Americans that as long as people vote...

• Word Count: 2032
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

By the 1840s and 1850s, North and South had each evolved extreme positions that had as much to do with serving their own political interests as with the morality of slavery." 4 This once again, demonstrates how the economic differences between the Northern and Southern states, led to serious tensions between the two. ... Jefferson addresses the issue of state rights in his writings "As the federal government grabs more and more power, the question arises: what's the point of having states? ... Under the Constitution, the Articles were replaced with a political system that consisted o...

• Word Count: 3046
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate