Cuyamaca College Revolution and Rights Discussion Essay

https://gcccd.instructure.com/courses/35909/discus…

Directions:

Pick one source below and answer the questions. Write a few sentences for each question answered.

Questions to answer:

1. What are the authors arguing?
2. Were the ideals of the revolution (“all men were created equal”) experienced by all groups of people? Include an example from the primary sources to support your answer.

Source A:

Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776
“I long to hear that you have declared independence. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could…If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” Letter of

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 14, 1776
“As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bonds of government everywhere; that children and apprentices were disobedient; that schools and colleges were grown turbulent; that Indians slighted their guardians, and Negros [slaves] grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe [women], more numerous and powerful than all the rest, were grown discontented. …Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems.”

Source B:

To The Honorable Council & House of Representatives for the State of Massachusetts Bay in General Court assembled, Jan. 13, 1777.
“The petition of a great number of blacks detained in a state of slavery in the bowels of a free and Christian country, humbly show that your petitioners understand that they have in common with all other men a natural and unalienable right to that freedom which the Great Parent of the Universe [God] has bestowed equally on all mankind and which they have never forfeited…Your honor [does not] need to be informed that a life of slavery, like that of your petitioners, deprived of every social privilege, of everything requisite to render life tolerable, is far worse than nonexistence [death].”

Anonymous, The Right of Free Suffrage, 1776

“…the last [Congressional] convention resolved, that a convention be elected for the express purpose of forming a new government, by the authority of the people only, and enacting and ordering all things for the preservation, safety, and general weal of this colony. Unfortunately in the same sitting, they passed a resolve restricting the right of voting [to only men with property], thereby excluding nearly half of the members of this state [from] enjoyment of their inherent right of free suffrage. …The ultimate end of all freedom is the enjoyment of a free suffrage. A constitution formed without this important right of free voting being preserved to the people, would be despotic…”