Lesson
Federalist/Anti-Federalist Debate on Congress’s Powers of Taxation DBQ
Founding Principles
Objectives:
- Students will systematically analyze primary sources by answering targeted sourcing and comprehension questions for each document.
- Students will articulate the main arguments over the power of taxation used in the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debate by writing a thesis statement that responds to the following prompt: Evaluate the arguments for and against entrusting a national legislature with the power of taxation.
Materials
Lesson Components
Excerpts of the United States Constitution, Federalist 12, Federalist 13, Brutus 1, and "The Address and reasons of dissent of the minority of the convention, of the state of Pennsylvania, to their constituents” and discussion questions to help students evaluate the arguments for and against entrusting a national legislature with the power of taxation.
Lesson plan
More Information
This DBQ builds on skills used in analyzing documents in the Benjamin Franklin: The First American? DBQ in the previous unit by including targeted questions for each document. Six documents are used in this DBQ with the goal of working students up to interpreting seven documents that mimic the AP Exam format in future DBQ lessons. Teachers may choose to use the provided questions as scaffolds for students or remove them, as best suits their teaching situation. The documents may be used in isolation or in combinations as the teacher sees fit.
Standards
Advanced Placement
- Topic 3.8 · The Constitutional Convention and Debates over Ratification
- Theme · Politics and Power
- Learning Objective · Unit 3I
- Historical Development · 3.2.II.E
- Reasoning Skill · Sourcing and Situation
- Reasoning Skill · Claims and Evidence in Sources
- Reasoning Skill · Contextualization
- Reasoning Skill · Argumentation
- Reasoning Process · Comparison
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