• Belz, Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
• Belz, "Lincoln, Secession and Revolution: The Civil War Challenge to the Founding"
• Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery
• Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877
• 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
• Thompson, Antislavery Political Writings, 1833-1860: A Reader

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.

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: Belz, "Lincoln, Secession and Revolution: The Civil War Challenge to the Founding"; Potter; McPherson chs. 3-9.

Documents: South Carolina Declaration of Causes; Dred Scott v. Sanford; Lincoln-Douglas debates; Lincoln's First Inaugural.

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?

Background Reading: McPherson chs. 10-28; Belz chs. 1, 4-5.

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 the polices 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.

Day Five: The History Of American Antislavery Political Thought

• "Preface" and "Introduction" (pp.xiii-xxvii)
• Frederick Douglass, "Lecture on Slavery, No. 1" (pp. 24-30)
• William E. Channing, "Selections from Slavery" (pp. 31-38)
• American Anti-Slavery Society, "Declaration of Sentiments" (pp. 41-45)
• Amos Phelps, "Selections from Slavery and Its Remedy" (pp. 46-60)

• How does Douglass present the nature of slavery?
• On what grounds does Channing argue that it is immoral to claim that one can have property in another?
• What principles does the American Anti-slavery Society believe and affirm?
• What does the Anti-slavery Society plan to do about getting rid of slavery?
• How, by what means, according to Phelps, is complete and universal emancipation to be effected?

Day Six: The History Of American Antislavery Political Thought, cont'd.

• Lydia Maria Child, "Talk About Political Party" (pp. 98-103)
• Arnold Buffum, "Lecture Showing the Necessity for a Liberty Party" (pp. 107-113)
• William Bowditch, "Slavery and the Constitution" (pp. 133-143)
• Frederick Douglass, "The Constitution of the US: Is It Pro- or Anti-Slavery?" (pp. 144-156)
• William Lloyd Garrison, "No Compromise With Slavery" (pp. 230-45)
• Henry C. Wright, "No Rights, No Duties: or Slaveholders, as Such, Have No Rights; Slaves, as Such, Owe No Duties" (pp. 246-260)

• According to Lydia Maria Child, what role should politics play in the Abolitionist movement?
• Why, according to Arnold Buffum, is a third political party -- an Abolitionist party -- needed in American politics?
• Is the constitution a pro-slavery or an anti-slavery document?
• On what grounds does William Lloyd Garrison defend his philosophy against the charge that it is "fanatical, disorganizing, reckless" and imprudent? Why does Garrison think that the Union is the means by which slavery exists and thrives? What is Garrison's alternative to stopping the spread of slavery?

• Is compromise ever permissible in a conflict between two antagonistic moral systems, or is it inherently corrupting?
• Under what conditions is compromise permissible?
• How much compromise is acceptable?
• Does moral absolutism inspire or hinder reform?
• Does political victory require appealing to the lowest common denominator, and, if it does, how can one do it without corrupting one's goals?

• Should abolitionists engage in politics or should they remain faithful to moral conversion?
• Is an anti-slavery political movement legitimate or even helpful if a majority of citizens do not accept anti-slavery principles?
• Should they work within the context of the traditional two-party system or should they form a third party?
• If abolitionists opted for a third party, should it be a one-plank party devoted to exclusively to the abolition of slavery or should it adopt a multi-planked platform that might appeal to a larger audience?
• How should they respond to non-abolitionist, anti-slavery parties such as the Free-Soil party?
• Is the Constitution a pro-slavery or an anti-slavery document? If it is a pro-slavery document, what course of action is required of anti-slavery men? If it is an anti-slavery document, what course of action is required of anti-slavery men?
• What is the moral status of an abolitionist who compromises with the slave power once in a while?
• If slavery cannot be abolished, is it the moral responsibility of those who believe in freedom and natural rights to secede from the Union?
• Is violence justified in abolishing slavery?
• Could emancipation have been achieved without a civil war?

Day Seven: Economic Change in the Civil War Era

Part A. In the early decades of US history, slavery ended in the North, quickly in some states and gradually in others, but became more and more entrenched in the South. We examine the bases for these divergent trends. And we take a close look at the economic nature of the slave system.

Questions: What accounts for the divergent North-South trends? Was slavery profitable? Was it viable in the long run (a question that is different from profitability)? Was the slave labor system economically efficient? Why was slavery mainly a rural rather an urban system? To what extent were slaves exploited? Was slavery consistent with prosperity for the southern economy?

Background Reading: Fogel and Engerman, Prologue, chs.1, 3, 4, 6, and Epilogue.

Part B. 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?

Background Reading: Ransom and Sutch, chs. 1, 3, 5, 7-9.

Day 8: Economic Change in the Civil War (cont'd)

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?

Background Reading: Ratner et al., chs 7, 8 (for pre-Civil War background) and chs 11-15.