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Dbq Democratic Ideals

Decent Essays

Democratic ideals have proven elusive throughout history, and are oftentimes only gained through bloodshed, as shown by the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. While some opposed social reform for fear of tearing down entire social structures (G) antebellum reformers were still able to push for, if not fully gain, many democratic ideals between John Quincy Adams’ election and 1850, especially with suffrage (I), abolition (C), and with education (A and E). Female suffrage became a hot issue in the late 1840s, as the US government slowly gained its shape and the election process became more familiar to Americans. female suffrage nevertheless gained a number of supporters, key among them Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The democratic ideal of universal suffrage was upheld by those supporters of female suffrage. While that may have been true, there were also those Americans such as Samuel Morse, who believed that only by removing the right of suffrage for immigrants would the US keep its sanctity as a democratic nation. However, by refusing suffrage for immigrants, Morse actually raises a detriment to democratic ideals, as a nation is not truly democratic unless all of …show more content…

Document C clearly shows abolitionist leanings by portraying a female slave as a woman and a sister—in other words, a human being. The idea of abolition is a democratic ideal itself, as slaves were not given representation in the US government and yet were as affected by the government as any other free citizen. Prominent abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, who ran the abolitionist paper The Liberator helped push slavery into the limelight (where previously it had been ignored by Congress for fear of messy conflicts and civil unrest). Eventually, antebellum abolitionist reformers coaxed the issue of slavery to a head, resulting in reforms beyond

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