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American History Dbq

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Throughout the study of American history, scholars and students alike are quick to paint certain people, institutions and events as uniformly bad or good. These claims are most commonly made with the substantial benefit of hindsight, and while some of these descriptions are accurate and well-founded in fact, many exhibit a clear bias and ignore the nuances of the events they are describing. To avoid characterization in such a binary system, numerous sources and viewpoints must be consulted in the study of American history. One such example is the Dawes Act of 1887. This controversial piece of legislation is often strongly criticized by historians and scholars; however, there were myriad factors and motivations at play in its passage. Historian …show more content…

In the late 1910’s Congress passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 and 1918 (ESA). Historian Howard Zinn sees the ESA as a malicious attempt by the U.S. government to “imprison Americans who spoke or wrote out against the war.” Zinn’s argument dismisses the idea that the ESA was a necessary step to ensure the integrity of a nation at war, as he believes that America’s entrance into WWI was motivated by a selfish desire for monetary gain and economic expansion. Zinn asserts that the U.S. government allowed American investors to “tie American finance closely to the interest of a British victory.” While Zinn’s ideas are well-argued and supported, they tell only one side of a complicated story. James West Davidson, however, tells another. He argues that at the time of the ESA’s passing, the United States had been pushed by German action into the first global conflict in its history. He describes the German U-boat attacks that were devastating the Atlantic, and the reports of “cracking morale” that were trickling in from the front lines, and asserts that the ESA was passed by a desperate government in order to combat protestors who attempted to sway public opinion against the war. Davidson never explicitly describes the ESA as good or bad, but he provides some valuable context that Zinn ignores. The ESA was not, as Zinn alleges, a heartless assault on the American coordinated “with all the power of the federal government and the money of big business behind it,” nor was it a shining example of individual freedoms. It was a complicated document with complicated implications, and consideration of only Zinn’s or Davidson’s writings eliminates the intricacies that were inherent in the ESA, and the circumstances that lead to its

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