Write two 5-page essays on two of the topics listed below, each essay is a separate essay. The essay must be typed and double-spaced.
The MLA format is preferred. Attach a bibliography to the back of your final exam.
Topics to choose from:
1. What were Andrew Jackson’s major beliefs regarding democracy, the
presidency, and the proper role of government in the nation’s economy?
2. What was Jackson’s legacy regarding the status of Indigenous peoples in
American society?
3. How did Jackson respond to the nullification crisis?
4. What brought about the economic depression of the late 1830s and the
emergence of the Whig Party?
5. What were the strengths and weaknesses of Jackson’s transformational
presidency?
6. How did slavery shape social and economic relations in the Old South? What
were the legal and material constraints on slaves’ lives and work? How did
family, gender, religion, and values combine to create a distinct slave culture
in the South? What were the major forms of resistance to slavery?
7. What were the major movements and goals of antebellum reform?
8. What were the different varieties of abolitionism? How did abolitionism
challenge barriers to racial equality and free speech?
9. What were the diverse sources of the antebellum women’s rights movement
and its significance?
10. What were the major factors contributing to US territorial expansion in the
1840s?
11. Why did the expansion of slavery become the most divisive political issue in
the 1840s & 1850s?
12. What combination of issues and events fueled the creation of the Republican
Party in the 1850s?
13. What enabled Abraham Lincoln to emerge as president from the divisive
party politics in the 1850s?
14. What were the final steps on the road to secession?
15. Why is the Civil War considered to be the first modern war?
16. How did a war to preserve the Union become a war to end slavery?
17. How did the Civil War transform the national economy and create a stronger
nation-state?
18. How did the war effort and leadership problems affect the society and
economy of the Confederacy?
19. What were the military and political turning points of the Civil War?
20. What were the most important wartime “rehearsals for Reconstruction”?
21. What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the
postwar South?
22. What were the sources, goals, and competing visions for Reconstruction?
23. What were the social and political effects of Radical Reconstruction in the
South?
24. What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the overthrow
of Reconstruction?
