Two founding documents, one idea
Grade 9 Reading Worksheet
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
One Sentence, Borrowed (two documents)
Background: [1] In July 1848, about three hundred people met at a women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. [2] One hundred of them, sixty-eight women and thirty-two men, signed its Declaration of Sentiments, which Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote most of. [3] The writers modeled it on the Declaration of Independence, so some of its sentences follow the older document closely.
Document A, from the Declaration of Independence (1776): [4] The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. [5] To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. [6] He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Document B, from the Declaration of Sentiments (1848): [7] The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. [8] To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. [9] He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
Word notes: [10] Usurpations are powers taken without the right to them. [11] Having in direct object means having as its goal. [12] A candid world means fair-minded people everywhere. [13] In Document A, He is the king; in Document B, He stands for man, meaning the men who held power.
Both documents describe “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations.” Ari asks: how does each document use that idea?
- A charges the king with tyranny over the States; B charges men with tyranny over women.
- A charges the king with tyranny; B charges women with taking power away from men.
- Both charge the king of Great Britain with tyranny over the American colonies.
- A charges men with tyranny over women; B charges the king with tyranny over the States.
Bo fills the “details stressed or left out” row. Which detail does Document B add that Document A leaves out?
- Letting facts be submitted to a candid world, in sentence 8.
- Women being kept out of the colleges, in sentence 9.
- Obeying laws one had no voice in making, in sentence 9.
- A ruler refusing to approve good laws, in sentence 6.
Esme sees that sentence 7 copies sentence 4 almost word for word. Why did the 1848 writers make that choice?
- To claim for women the right of protest the colonists claimed.
- To make the new document sound as formal and as old as the first one.
- To show that the 1776 Declaration had already given women the right to vote.
- To say that the women of 1848 faced the same king the colonists faced.
Each document has a complaint about laws, in sentences 6 and 9. Jun asks: how do the two complaints differ?
- A says people had to obey laws they had no say in; B says good laws were blocked.
- Both say that the one in power refused to approve the good laws the people needed.
- A says the king blocked good laws; B says women refused to obey unfair laws.
- A says the king blocked good laws; B says women had to obey laws they had no say in.
The Right to Vote, Asked For and Written Down (two documents)
Background: [1] When the Seneca Falls convention met in 1848, no state in the country allowed women to vote in its elections. [2] The convention's Declaration of Sentiments listed the right to vote first among the rights that women had been denied. [3] Seventy-two years later, in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, which means that enough states approved it to make it law.
Document A, from the Declaration of Sentiments (1848): [4] He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. [5] He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns. [6] Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
Document B, the Nineteenth Amendment, Section 1 (1920): [7] The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Word notes: [8] The elective franchise is the right to vote. [9] Inalienable means it cannot rightly be taken away. [10] In Document A, He stands for man, meaning the men who held power. [11] The halls of legislation are the places where laws are made. [12] Abridged means cut short or limited. [13] On account of sex means because a person is a woman or a man. [14] Section 2 of the amendment, not shown here, gives Congress the power to enforce it.
Both documents are about women and the vote. Milo asks: how does each document handle that idea?
- A makes it unlawful to deny the vote because of sex; B complains that women could not vote.
- A complains that women were kept from voting; B forbids denying the vote because of sex.
- Both are laws that gave women the right to vote in the elections held in their states.
- A complains that women were kept from voting; B guarantees each woman a vote in any election.
Noah fills the “details stressed or left out” row. Which detail does Document A stress that Document B leaves out?
- What losing the vote led to: no representation, as sentence 6 says.
- The seventy-two years between the two documents, which sentence 3 gives.
- The national government and the states, which sentence 7 names together.
- The right to vote itself, which sentence 4 calls the elective franchise.
Pia notices that sentence 7 says “by the United States or by any State” instead of naming one government. Why did the writers choose that wording?
- So that neither the nation nor any state could deny the vote because of sex.
- So that the states, and not the nation, would decide which citizens may vote.
- So that the citizens of one state could also vote in another state's elections.
- So that the amendment would sound complete and official to readers.
Document A calls voting an “inalienable right,” and Document B speaks of “the right of citizens … to vote.” Ren asks: how does each document treat that right?
- Both say the right to vote must first be won from the government before anyone holds it.
- A says women must earn the right over time; B says that a government may limit the right.
- A says the right already belongs to women and was withheld; B forbids governments to deny it.
- A says the right already belongs to women; B says that governments must make women vote.
Tala finds a complaint in Document A that is not about voting, so the matrix marks it left out of Document B. Which detail is it?
- Taking women's property and wages, in sentence 5.
- What the word abridged means, in sentence 12.
- Being kept out of public office, in sentence 6.
- Being denied the elective franchise, in sentence 4.
Zee notices that sentences 4 and 5 both begin “He has.” What does that repeated opening do for Document A?
- It shows that each complaint in the list was written by a different signer.
- It keeps one accused party in view and stacks the wrongs into a pattern.
- It names the one man who ran the convention at Seneca Falls.
- It makes the list of complaints easier to read aloud at a meeting.
