1. List the following events in the order in which they occurred between 1820 and 1860. Then discuss them by defining what they were and describing their relative importance in the context of the political polarization over the slavery issue. In each instance, be sure to explain the reaction that they provoked in the South as well as in the North: 1. Kansas-Nebraska Act; 2. John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; 3. Sumner-Brooks Incident; 4. The Missouri Compromise; 5. Texas Annexation; 6. The Wilmot Proviso; 7. The Compromise of 1850 (including the Fugitive Slave Act); 8. Formation of the “Southern Rights” Democratic party (Breckinridge-Lane ticket); 9. Outcome of the 1860 election; 10. The Dred Scott decision; 11. Lecompton constitution for Kansas statehood; and 12. the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

2. Discuss the major political events of the late antebellum period in the context of the polarization of public opinion on the slavery issue. Explain why most historians believe that the political developments from the annexation of Texas {1845} to the election of Lincoln {1860} made civil war inevitable.

3. At what point, in your opinion, did the Civil War become inevitable? (When prior to secession did it become impossible to compromise the differences between the North and South? Explain.) Were those who took the South out of the Union deluded fanatics engaged in a suicidal enterprise? (Did secession, in your opinion, have little to do with a rational assessment of alternatives?) Explain.

4. Describe the social, economic, and ideological context of conflict between the North and South during the first half of the nineteenth century. Trace the political processes from 1844 to 1861 by which that conflict exploded into secession and war.

5. Refute the following misconception of the antebellum South: "The Old South was essentially a gracious, cultured, and nonmaterialistic pre-capitalist society in which there was perfect harmony among all social classes."

Based on your reading of or listening to the collateral assignments, be prepared to answer the following questions:

1. Based on your reading of Randolph B. Campbell's A Southern Community in Crisis, answer the following questions: [a] What was life like in prewar Harrison County, Texas, in terms of the county's economic structure, life styles of the various social classes (including slaves), and the basic beliefs and values that governed the actions of the white community? [b] Why does Campbell refer to the county's late antebellum political life as "conflict within consensus?” [c] Why does he call the decision of the overwhelming majority of voters in the county to secede from the American Union a "conservative" revolution? [d] Does this notion of a "conservative" revolution square with the characterization of secession as a "pre-emptive counter revolution?" Why or why not?

2. Based on your reading of Eric Foner’s Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, answer the following questions: [a] What were the three or four main elements of the ideology of the Republican party before the Civil War? [b] How did northern Whigs, former Democrats, and political abolitionists contribute to Republican party beliefs and values? [c] How does Foner characterize the relationship between Republican party ideology and nativism (or Know-Nothingism)? [d] Does he believe that racism was an important element of Republican attitudes toward blacks? Explain.

3. Based on your listening to the recreation of the famous 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, answer the following questions: [a] What were the major tactics or strategies that Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas employed against one other? [b] What basic “messages” did Lincoln and Douglas want to convey, respectively, to the voters? [c] What were the fundamental political differences between the two men? [d] What were two or three of the most powerful arguments that Douglas made against Lincoln? [e] What were two or three of the most persuasive arguments that Lincoln made against Douglas?

4. By his own admission, Sam Houston said that he had in 1854 signed his “political death warrant” in Texas because of his vote against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and in 1857 he suffered his first political defeat ever when he lost the gubernatorial election to Hardin R. Runnels. Based on your reading of Dale Baum’s The Shattering of Texas Unionism, answer the following questions: [a] How did Houston subsequently manage to achieve his dramatic comeback in Texas politics by winning the election for governor in 1859? [b] Who, in political, social, economic, and religious terms, sided with Governor Houston and voted against Texas secession in February of 1861? [c] To what extent did voter intimidation and fraud against Texas anti-secessionists shape the outcome of the secession referendum?

Based on the material presented in class lectures, be prepared to answer the following questions:

1. Identify and explain the importance or significance in United States history of the following: 1. Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation 2. Joseph E. Johnston 3. Fall of Vicksburg (July 1863) 4. “The Trent Affair” 5. Chancellorsville (May 1863) 6. The Wilderness and Spotsylvania (May 1864) 7. “Black Codes” 8. Robert Gould Shaw 9. The 1864 presidential election 10. “The 20-Negro Law” 11. The Peninsula Campaign (1862) 12. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.

2. Discuss the major "turning points" and the most significant events in the evolution of the strategy of both the Union and the Confederacy on the land, at sea, and in diplomacy from 1861 to 1865.

3. Why is it often claimed that the South lost and the North won the Civil War as much behind the lines on the home front as on the battlefield?

4. Compare and contrast the battle of Shiloh with any two other major Civil War battles. Highlight especially the importance of the respective campaigns, the nature of the battles themselves or an evaluation of the generalship, and the respective consequences of each battle.

Based on your reading of or viewing of the collateral assignments, be prepared to answer the following questions:

1. Based on your reading of Shaara's prizewinning Civil War novel entitled The Killer Angels, describe what happened at the Battle of Gettysburg from the perspectives of James Longstreet and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

2. Based on your reading of James Lee McDonough's Shiloh, clarify and discuss the following statement:
"Although no other Civil War battle perhaps contained in a space of two days more action and surprises than Shiloh, the questions raised by this significant battle continue to seem almost endless."

3. Dr. Baum has given the editor of the Fort Worth Star Telegram your name as someone who would be qualified to write a review for his newspaper of the movie "Glory" [RCA/Columbia Pictures]. Write your review for submission to the editor for consideration for possible publication.

4. Summerize the points of view of the following scholars who contributed articles to Why the Confederacy Lost: 1. James McPherson (“American Victory, American Defeat”); 2. Archer Jones (“Military Means, Political Ends: Strategy”); 3. Gary W. Gallagher (“‘Upon their Success Hang Momentous Interests’: Generals”); 4. Reid Mitchell, (“The Perseverance of the Soldiers”), and 5. Joseph T. Glatthaar, (“Black Glory: The African-American Role in Union Victory”).

5. Based on your reading of Dale Baum’s The Shattering of Texas Unionism, how did antebellum voting alignments shape the outcomes of important elections in Texas during the Civil War? Explain why the failure of Francis R. Lubbock and Pendleton Murrah, respectively, to win most of the votes cast by Texas slaveholders did not prevent them from winning the 1861 and 1863 Texas gubernatorial elections. What was the significance of Oran M. Robert’s overwhelming victory in the 1864 contest for chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court? Why was Elisha M. Pease’s candidacy for the Texas governorship in 1866 “doomed from the start?”

6. The Civil War was a tragedy for thousands of Americans, Northerners as well as Southerners. Based on your reading of Randolph Campbell’s A Southern Community in Crisis, discuss how the war affected the lives of the people in Harrison County, Texas, in general, and of Theophilus and Harriet Perry, in particular. According to Campbell, how did the Civil War and Reconstruction transform the political, economic, and social life of Harrison County?
 

Based on the material presented in class lectures and in the McPherson textbook, be prepared to answer the following questions:

1. Compare and contrast the period of Presidential Reconstruction {1865-1867} with the period of Congressional Reconstruction {1867-1877}. What went "wrong" with the entire process of reconstructing the South?

2. To what extent can the entire experience of Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877) be perceived as "revolutionary?" Explain. Is it helpful for historians to view secession, the Confederacy, and redemption as "counter-revolutionary?" Why or why not?

3. Comment on the following statement [made by John David Abernethy, Class of 1987, The University of Texas at Austin]: "If Abraham Lincoln had lived on to complete his second term in office, Reconstruction would not have been such a disastrous failure.  The generous and conciliatory stance he would have taken towards the defeated South would have quelled the spirit of diehard resistance that was fostered by the fanatic Radical Republicans.  Southern blacks would not have won full and immediate political equality, of course, but the more limited and gradual measures Lincoln would have sought on their behalf might have benefited them more in the long run.  There would have been no Fifteenth Amendment, in all likelihood, but neither would there have been a Ku Klux Klan, and it was the Ku Klux Klan that emerged victorious by 1877."

3.  Assess the validity of the interpretation of the legacy of the Confederate States of America expressed this letter to The Battalion:  Editor:  Let the Rebel flag fly!  The censoring of the Confederate battle flag to coddle a few misinformed Aggies was a mistake.  The belief that the Confederacy stood only for slavery is a sad fallacy.  We Texans should be proud of our Confederate heritage and the ideals for which our ancestors fought and died:  states' rights, freedom from northern encroachment (hypocrisy, ideology, big government, etc.), and the desire to form what could have been a more perfect Union.

Based on your reading of the collateral assignments, be prepared to answer the following questions:

1. According to Dale Baum, the author of The Shattering of Texas Unionism, what was the impact on Texas electoral politics brought about by President Andrew Johnson’s policies and by the broad programs of revolutionary change under Congressional Reconstruction? What role did fraud play in shaping the outcome of the 1869 Texas gubernatorial election in which Edmund J. Davis narrowly defeated Andrew J. Hamilton?

2. How does Randolph B. Campbell in his A Southern Community in Crisis support his conclusion that "continuity matched change in Harrison County from 1850 to 1880?" Make a case for an alternative interpretation of the evidence presented by Campbell by arguing that change far outstripped continuity in this Texas community between these years.

3. Write a review of Kenneth Stampp's The Era of Reconstruction by discussing the author's views on the following:  the discredited Dunning School’s version of Reconstruction and why this version was for so long a period so durable; the characterization of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson’s policies as “practical Whiggery” and “backward-looking Jacksonianism,” respectively; who were the Radicals, what were their motives, and what they wanted to accomplish; the accomplishments of the Southern governments that Congressional Reconstruction brought to power; and the "redeemers" and how they destroyed the Republican party coalitions in the former Confederate states.

5. Dr. Baum has given your name to the editors of Texas Monthly as someone who could write an article for their magazine outlining the reasons why the “Vision 2020" goal of achieving genuine “diversity” at Texas A&M University could best be achieved by erecting a statue on the College Station campus to an ex-slave by the name of Matthew Gaines. Write your review for submission to the editors for consideration for possible publication.