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AP U.S. History Exam 2.9 171 Views


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Description:

AP U.S. History Exam 2.9. What led to the corruption and increased taxes mentioned in the excerpt?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Seven Years' War,

00:07

a rite of passage for all second graders.

00:10

All right, first up, the excerpt.

00:12

[ mumbles ]

00:19

[ mumbling continues ] John Adams.

00:22

And now the question:

00:23

What led to the corruption and increased taxes mentioned in the excerpt?

00:27

Mentioned right there.

00:29

And here are your potential answers.

00:30

[ horse neighs ] [ mumbles ]

00:34

All right, well John Adams had some pretty strong feelings

00:36

about working with the British,

00:38

claiming it was difficult to reason with lawmakers when

00:40

"luxury, effeminacy,

00:43

and venality are arrived

00:46

at such a shocking pitch in England."

00:49

Tell us how you really feel there, Johnny.

00:51

All right, were these instances of British corruption

00:54

and increased taxes a result of A -

00:56

colonial reliance on slave labor from Africa?

01:00

Hmm. Well, the colonists were certainly no strangers to

01:02

corruption, given their involvement with the slave trade

01:04

and other smuggling operations.

01:06

But those were pretty separate from issues of British corruption

01:09

that had leaders like John Adams in an intellectual tizzy.

01:13

That puts out A and C. Cross them off.

01:16

Could the corruption and increased taxes mentioned in the excerpt

01:19

have resulted from D - British colonization in the Eastern Hemisphere?

01:24

Distant British colonies were the furthest and

01:26

farthest thing from the rebels minds, especially since those

01:29

territories had nothing to do with the increased taxes.

01:32

So if this malpractice wasn't rising from the East,

01:35

then the corruption and increased taxes settling in the West

01:38

must have come from B - British debt incurred during the Seven Years' War.

01:43

Many colonists fought alongside the British in the Seven Years' War -

01:46

better known over here as the French and Indian War -

01:49

only to have the conflict used as justification for increased taxes.

01:53

So B is the correct answer.

01:55

These punishing levies and fines really taxed

01:57

colonists' willingness to remain a part of the empire,

02:00

and it would only take a few more years for things to turn...

02:04

revolutionary.

02:05

[ drums ]

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