ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by property rights,

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the turns you make while searching for a new house.

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[ rimshot ] All right.

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Reading the excerpt.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right, and the question:

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According to the excerpt, how did the United States government restrict

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the citizenship of African Americans?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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Okay.

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Writers of the Anti-Slavery Examiner

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knew they'd have to pull some jedi mind tricks

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to change people's minds about the rights of

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free African Americans in the 1800s.

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The authors emphasized America's passion for

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fair representation, pointing out that African Americans were being

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denied rights in the same way

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colonists had been denied before the Revolution.

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The force is with you, young abolitionist.

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All right, according to the excerpt, did the U.S. government

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restrict the citizenship of African Americans

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B - by restricting their property rights?

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Well, while property rights were sometimes restricted

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for African Americans, this excerpt focuses

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more on the issue of taxation -

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at the same rates as whites,

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without representation.

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So get rid of B and C.

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Could the U.S. government have restricted African American citizenship

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D - by segregating them in society?

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Well, segregation didn't become contentious until

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after the Civil War, so we're about

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20 years too early on this one.

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Which means that the U.S. government restricted the citizenship

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of African Americans A - by taking away their right to vote.

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The authors of the excerpt really hammered home that

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taxation without representation argument

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because African Americans, just like early colonists,

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were denied the right to participate in government.

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So A is the correct answer.

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These kind of arguments succeeded because they appealed

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to reason over emotion,

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helping many Americans get on board with the more, uh,

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freeing train of thought.

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