I. Discussion QuestionResponsesResponses are postings that you create in response to a teacher generated discussion topic question. Each modulewill have one required question. The discussion questions are intended to synthesize the information from the modules lectures, readings, and media. You should be familiar with this material before attempting any discussion postings. Carefully think about the teachers posted questionand craft a thoughtful and well organized response. (I suggest that you create your response on a word processor and double check it forclarity, depth, complete sentences, and careless errors before posting it online.) I do not require you to include citations in your postings, but I do expect them to be thoughtful, well written, college level mini-essays that include specific evidence to back up your statements. (1-2 paragraphs)
Interpretation`Grading Criteria:
Excellent (A)Postings are accurate, original, relevant, teach us something new, are well written, stimulate additional thought,Above
Average (B)Postings lack at least one of the above, make a significant contribution, above average quality
Average (C)Postings lack2 or 3 of the required qualities, often these are based on personal experience and personal opinion
Minimal (D)Postings provide little or no information. May provide some social presence
Unacceptable (F)Postings add no value to discussion
The book for this discussion board is “Ellis, J.J. Founding Brothers.”
Discussion Question for Module 1:
Answer the following questions based on your readings & the primary source material included in Conflict over Ratifying the Constitution
>Conflict Over Ratifying the Constitution<
Reading 1:
These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves...and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like the great Leviathan.
Amos Singletary, 1788
Reading 2:
I am a plain man, and get my living by the plough....I have lived in a part of the country where I have known the worth of good government by the want of it. There was a black cloud [Shays' Rebellion] that rose in the east last winter, and spread over the west....It brought on a state of anarchy and that led to tyranny. I say, it brought anarchy. People that used to live peaceably, and were before good neighbors, got distracted, and took up arms against government....
Our distress was so great that we should have been glad to snatch at anything that looked like a government. Had any person that was able to protect us come and set up his standard, we should all have flocked to it, even if it had been a monarch, and that monarch might have proved a tyrant.
Jonathan Smith, Massachusetts farmer
Reading 3:
A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical....It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Reading 4:
It cannot be denied with truth, that this new constitution is, in its first principles, most highly and dangerously, oligarchic.
Richard Henry Lee, 1787
Reading 5:
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction....Complaints are every where heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty; that our governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflict of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority....
The Federalist, 1799
Source: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us8.cfm
QUESTIONS:
1. Why did opponents object to the Constitution?
2. How did supporters of the Constitution defend the new plan of government?
3. What does the debate over states rights have to do with slavery, the politics of the 1790s, and the Jefferson/Madison vs. Adams/Hamilton rivalry?
Be sure to integrate readings, vocab, lectures, and media into your answer.
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