ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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

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searching for gold in the lowest of places.

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Well, first up - the excerpt.

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[ mumbling ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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All right, Thirteenth Amendment. The big one-three.

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And now the question.

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Which of the following trends most

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severely undermines the intentions of the Thirteenth Amendment?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling ]

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All right, well what exactly is this question asking?

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Well, in the excerpt, it says that

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the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery

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and involuntary servitude in the U.S.

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So we need to find the answer

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that managed to jeopardize that

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monumental leap forward in human rights.

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So could the trend undermining

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the Thirteenth Amendment have been B -

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the disappearance of large-scale

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plantations in the South?

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Hmm. Well, even though slavery was abolished

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the South remained a plantation-based

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economy with a large emphasis on agricultural goods

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to export abroad.

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So that knocks out B and D right there.

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What about C - the industrialization of the economy?

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Well, actually, the emergence of large factories

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created a bunch of jobs for former slaves,

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so that would have been a giant help

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for the Thirteenth Amendment.

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So it's not C, either.

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That means the trend undermining

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the Thirteenth Amendment was A -

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the continuation of the sharecropping system.

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Even though formal slavery was officially illegal,

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plantation owners found a giant loophole

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to exploit freed slaves -

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sharecropping.

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Under this system, former slaves rented land,

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seeds, and supplies

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from the plantation owners

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in exchange for part of their

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crop - like sharing it

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- which provided only a smidge more independence

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than slavery itself, because the former

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slaves were the ones working the land.

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That means the answer is A.

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Light on the share, heavy on the cropping.

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