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The Boston Mechanics' and Laborers' Mutual Benefit Association on the formation of its cooperative society, 1845
The Workingman's Committee of Philadelphia on the state of public instruction in Pennsylvania, 1830
The rough and ready trans-Appalachian democracy that Jackson's victory brought to Washington had its counterpart in America's eastern cities. In them workers agitated for equality and for the full enjoyment of the fruits of their labor. These two brief statements provide a flavor of that agitation and a sense of the American urban environment of the period. Raising issues of equality, liberty, power, and class, they offer context for all the texts of this section. Could be used with students. 3 pages.
Discussion questions
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The Boston statement invokes the image of Europe explicitly; the Philadelphia statement does so through its mention of despotism. What is the significance of this rhetorical strategy? |
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How would Emerson, Calhoun, Hawthorne, and Whitman have responded to the Philadelphia committee's assertion that "the healthy existence of a free government . . . [is] . . . rooted in the will of the American people"? |
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How do the constituents of a democratic education, listed in the Philadelphia statement, compare with those Emerson promotes? |
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Compare the idea of equality in the statements with that found in Jackson's veto message.
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Reading highlights
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Note how the image of slavery, "the forced sale of the muscles and skill of the toiling many," stands behind the Boston argument. |
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Note how the Boston statement's insistence that wealth be kept in local hands echoes Jackson's veto message. |
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Note how monopoly of one sort or another is the target of Jackson's veto message and both statements.
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