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Seminar Syllabus, Region 7, NYCDOE Consortium
August 4-7, 11-14, 2008THE SECESSION CRISIS:
THE CIVIL WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
Note: We strongly recommend that participants arrive for the Summer Seminar having completed all assigned readings. Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are in your binder.
- Texts:
- Belz, Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
- Paul Finkelman, Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents
- Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877
- *Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857
- Maltz, Dred Scott and the Politics of Slavery
- McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom
- Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction 1862-1879
- Potter, The Impending Crisis 1848-1861
- Ransom and Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation
- *Ratner et al., The Evolution of the American Economy: Growth, Welfare, and Decision Making (2nd ed., 1993): Selections in binder
- Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Day One: The Constitution, Slavery, and the Nature of the Union
The framers of the Constitution attempted to realize the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Thus they established a federal union, with a government strong enough to preserve liberty but limited so as not to endanger liberty. This effort was complicated by the existence of African slavery in America, and other sectional differences.
This discussion will address the following questions: What was the nature of American slavery? What kind of government did the Constitution establish? What did the Constitution say about slavery? How did the development of the party system and antislavery movements affect the system?
Background Reading: Kolchin; Potter, chs. 1-5; McPherson, chs. 1-2; Belz, chs. 2-3.
*Documents U.S. Constitution; Frederick Douglass; George Fitzhugh; Corfield v. Coryell; Massachusetts personal liberty law; Fugitive Slave Act.
*Documents U.S. Constitution; Frederick Douglass; George Fitzhugh; Corfield v. Coryell; Massachusetts personal liberty law; Fugitive Slave Act.
Day Two: The Crisis of the Union
The issue of slavery in the territories sharpened sectional divisions, led to the breakdown of the party system and the creation of the Republican party, and finally produced the secession of eleven states in 1861.
This session will explore the southern attempt to expand slavery into the territories and abroad, the formation of the Republican Party, the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln’s election, secession and the Republicans’ response to it.
Questions to consider will be: What was the basis of the Republicans’ antislavery strategy? How did Lincoln interpret the founders’ view of slavery, racial equality, and the nature of the union? What was the Confederate view of secession as a constitutional option?
Background Reading: Potter; McPherson, chs. 3-9.
*Documents: South Carolina Declaration of Causes; Dred Scott v. Sanford; Lincoln-Douglas debates; Lincoln’s First Inaugural; Belz, “Lincoln, Secession and Revolution: The Civil War Challenge to the Founding”
*Documents: South Carolina Declaration of Causes; Dred Scott v. Sanford; Lincoln-Douglas debates; Lincoln’s First Inaugural; Belz, “Lincoln, Secession and Revolution: The Civil War Challenge to the Founding”
Day Three: The Civil War
Victory in the Civil War required Lincoln to maintain the unity and dominance of the Republican party. In addition, the war facilitated monumental changes in national policy, reintroducing the Federalist-Whig agenda of economic promotion. President Lincoln also needed to prevent European powers from exploiting the rebellion to discredit republican government and expand their power in the Western Hemisphere. The war caused Republican policy to embrace emancipation and abolition.
How did the Lincoln and the Republicans maintain public support for their policies? What opposition forces challenged them? How did the American state and economy develop during the war? How did the Lincoln administration keep the great powers at bay? What were the conflicting views among and within the great powers (especially Great Britain) about the American Civil War? What problems of international law did the unclear “nature of the war” present?
How did the Lincoln and the Republicans maintain public support for their policies? What opposition forces challenged them? How did the American state and economy develop during the war? How did the Lincoln administration keep the great powers at bay? What were the conflicting views among and within the great powers (especially Great Britain) about the American Civil War? What problems of international law did the unclear “nature of the war” present?
Background Reading: McPherson, chs. 10-28; Belz, chs. 1, 4-5.
*Documents: Emancipation Proclamation; Lincoln’s Second Inaugural.
Afternoon: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Please read.
*Documents: Emancipation Proclamation; Lincoln’s Second Inaugural.
Day Four: Reconstruction
After the end of the rebellion, the Republicans faced the twin tasks of restoring the Confederate states to the Union and protecting the rights of the freedmen.
How did they go about these tasks? How successful were they? What were the alternatives to policies that were adopted? What political and constitutional developments and problems resulted?
How did they go about these tasks? How successful were they? What were the alternatives to policies that were adopted? What political and constitutional developments and problems resulted?
Background Reading: Perman; Belz, chs. 7-9.
*Documents: Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction; Wade-Davis bill, veto, and manifesto; Black Codes; Civil Rights Acts; Ex parte Milligan; Slaughterhouse Cases; Civil Rights Cases.
*Documents: Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction; Wade-Davis bill, veto, and manifesto; Black Codes; Civil Rights Acts; Ex parte Milligan; Slaughterhouse Cases; Civil Rights Cases.
Day Five:
A.M The Dred Scott Decision
Background Reading:
Focus questions:
P.M. The Parlor in the 19th Century America
- Earl M. Maltz, Dred Scott and the Politics of Slavery (2007), chapters 5 through 7, pp. 60-117.
- Paul Finkelman, Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents (1997), Part Two, section 1, opinions of the justices in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), pp. 55-126.
- Maltz, chapter 8, pp. 118-39.
- *Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857, from Roy P. Basler, ed., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, pp. 398-410.
- Finkelman, Part Two, section 3, “Political Debate in the North,” with speeches by Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen Douglas, pp. 168-220.
Focus questions:
- What understanding of the Supreme Court’s role in our political system is evident in Chief Justice Taney’s opinion for the Court? Do the other justices share that view or hold a different one?
- How does the “original intent” of the Constitution’s framers enter into the dispute in Dred Scott, and which side has the better argument on that score?
- What was the impact of the Dred Scott ruling on the arguments available to the two major parties, and those parties’ political fortunes, in 1858 and 1860?
- If the Civil War settled the immediate issue of slavery that was so acutely raised in this case, what enduring legacy does Dred Scott have 150 years later?
Day Six: Trip to Newark Museum, Ballantine House, 19th Century
Day Seven: Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
Day Eight: Financial and Industrial Changes Resulting from the Civil War and Emancipation
Part A. Economics of Emancipation
Part B: Financial and Industrial Changes Resulting from the War
Emancipation undermined organizational and other bases of the southern agricultural economy. Alternative organizational bases emerged, and one—sharecropping—came to dominate. Rather than prospering, the southern economy slipped far behind the rest of the US economy, and it remained that way for decades.
Questions: What organizational options were available to the post-emancipation southern economy? Why did sharecropping win out? Why, despite more freedom for African Americans, was the post-emancipation southern economy so much poorer relative to the rest of the country than it had been prior to the Civil War?
Readings: Ransom and Sutch, chs. 1, 3, 5, 7-9.
Questions: What organizational options were available to the post-emancipation southern economy? Why did sharecropping win out? Why, despite more freedom for African Americans, was the post-emancipation southern economy so much poorer relative to the rest of the country than it had been prior to the Civil War?
Readings: Ransom and Sutch, chs. 1, 3, 5, 7-9.
Part B: Financial and Industrial Changes Resulting from the War
In the decades after the Civil War, the US economy—despite the lag of the South—became the largest and richest in the world. The frontier disappeared as the continent became settled, and the amount of land cultivated doubled in three decades. Mass production and distribution technologies gave rise to giant enterprises; it is sometimes said that the US, unlike other nations, had big business before it had big government. These developments posed challenges for labor in the new industrial society. Railway and communication networks covered the country. And the financial system, changed substantially in the Civil War, fostered a high rate of capital formation while at the same time exhibiting an increased propensity toward deflation, periodic financial crises, and other forms of financial instability.
Questions: Why was there such rapid economic expansion on all fronts after the Civil War? In what ways was this expansion a result of the war? Why was the US the first nation to develop “big business”? Did the so-called “robber barons” owe their wealth to monopoly or efficiency? What were the effects of big business on small business, labor, education, and government? What were the sources of financial instability?
Readings: *Ratner et al., chs. 11-15.
Questions: Why was there such rapid economic expansion on all fronts after the Civil War? In what ways was this expansion a result of the war? Why was the US the first nation to develop “big business”? Did the so-called “robber barons” owe their wealth to monopoly or efficiency? What were the effects of big business on small business, labor, education, and government? What were the sources of financial instability?
Readings: *Ratner et al., chs. 11-15.