-answer all aspects of the question in a minimum 1200 word essay.
-engage with and quote from at least five secondary sources and at least four primary sources, with authors and page numbers cited (see lists below).
-bold or underline your citations in your essay.
-provide a works-cited page.
-use and engage with the fifteen terms provided (see below)
-bold or underline the fifteen terms provided.
-make use of the text as evidence for what it is that you are asserting
-demonstrate understanding of what is being asked and the ability to write your answer in a way that makes sense both historically and in grammatical terms
[Prompt]
“In the years between 1815 and 1848, two rival political programs appeared, reflecting rival sets of hopes. Some Americans felt largely satisfied with their society the way it was, slavery and all, especially with the autonomy it provided to so many individual white men and their local communities. They wanted their familiar America extended across space. Other Americans, however, were beguiled by the prospect of improvement to pursue economic diversification and social reform, even at the risk of compromising some precious personal and local independence. They envisioned qualitative, not just quantitative, progress for America.”
Explain this passage from Daniel Walker Howe in a more or less narrative style essay that is no shorter than 1200 words. What are these “rival political programs,” what specifically did they want America to look like, and in what ways did they advocate for their respective visions? Furthermore, what is the difference between “qualitative” and “quantitative” progress and how do they differ? Finally, how does the Civil War, and its lead up, figure in these conflicting visions?
[Secondary sources]
(please bold or underline in your essay)
-Harry Watson, “The Great Body of the People” from Liberty and Power
-Daniel Walker Howe, “The world that Cotton Made,” “Andrew Jackson and his Age” and “Awakenings of Religion” from What Hath God Wrought
-Paula Marks, “I am Driven Away From my Home” from In a Barren Land
-Paul Johnson, “A Shopkeeper’s Millennium”
-Arthur Bestor, “The Communitarian Point of View” from Backwoods Utopias
-James McPherson, “The Differences Between the Antebellum North and South”
-James McPherson, “Mexico Will Poison Us” and “Mudsills, and Greasy Mechanics for A. Lincoln” from Battle Cry of Freedom
-David S. Reynolds, “Pilloried, Prosecuted, and Praised” from John Brown: Abolitionist
-David Blight, “For Something Beyond the Battlefield: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War”
[Primary sources]
(please bold or underline in your essay)
-Andrew Jackson, On Indian Removal
-Catherine Beecher, “Circular Addressed to the Benevolent Ladies of the U. States”
-Lyman Beecher from “Six Sermons on Intemperance”
-Angelina Grimké, “Human Rights are not Founded on Sex”
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Declaration of Sentiments
-Thomas Gray, “The Confessions of Nat Turner”
-Alabama Slave Codes
-John O’Sullivan, Annexation
-Charles Sumner, “The Crime Against Kansas”
-Mississippi Declaration of Secession
-Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
Minimum 1200 words
[Fifteen terms]
(please bold or underline in your essay)
Abolitionism
Whigs
Indian Removal
Second Great Awakening
The Temperance Movement
The Seneca Falls Convention (and/or the Declaration of Sentiments)
Angelina Grimké
Utopian communes
Folk culture
Northern exceptionalism
War with Mexico
Manifest Destiny
John Brown
The Dred Scott Case
Secession
