PART 1. Colonial Society ISSUE 1. Is History True? YES: Oscar Handlin, from Truth in History (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979) NO: William H. McNeill, from "Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians," The American Historical Review (February 1986) Oscar Handlin insists that historical truth is absolute and knowable by historians who adopt the scientific method of research to discover factual evidence that provides both a chronology and context for their findings. William McNeill argues that historical truth is general and evolutionary and is discerned by different groups at different times and in different places in a subjective manner that has little to do with a scientifically absolute methodology. ISSUE 2. Was Disease the Key Factor in the Depopulation of Native Americans in the Americas? YES: Colin G. Calloway, from New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America (The John Hopkins University Press, 1997) NO: David S. Jones, from "Virgin Soils Revisited," William and Mary Quarterly (October 2003) Colin Calloway says that while Native Americans confronted numerous diseases in the Americas, traditional Indian healing practices failed to offer much protection from the diseases introduced by Europeans beginning in the late-fifteenth century and which decimated the indigenous peoples. David Jones recognizes the disastrous impact of European diseases on Native Americans, but he insists that Indian depopulation was also a consequence of the forces of poverty, malnutrition, environmental stress, dislocation, and social disparity. ISSUE 3. Was Colonial Culture Uniquely American? YES: Gary B. Nash, from Jack Greene and J.R. Pole, eds., Colonial British America: Essays in the New History of the Early Modern Era (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984) NO: David Hackett Fischer, from Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (Oxford University Press, 1989) Gary Nash argues that colonial American culture emerged from a convergence of three broad cultural traditions-European, Native American, and African-which produced a unique tri-racial society in the Americas. David Hackett Fischer contends that the cultural traditions of colonial America and the United States were derived from English folkways transported by migrants from four different regions in the British Isles. ISSUE 4. Were the First Colonists in the Chesapeake Region Ignorant, Lazy, and Unambitious? YES: Edmund S. Morgan, from American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (W.W. Norton, 1975) NO: Russell R. Menard, from "From Servant to Freeholder: Status Mobility and Property Accumulation in Seventeenth-Century Maryland," William and Mary Quarterly (January 1973) Professor Edmund S. Morgan argues that Virginia's first decade as a colony was a complete "fiasco" because the settlers were too lazy to engage in the subsistence farming necessary for their survival and failed to abandon their own and the Virginia's company's expectations of establishing extractive industries such as mining, timber, and fishing. According to Professor Russell R. Menard, the indentured servants of seventeenth-century Maryland were hardworking, energetic, and young individuals who went through two stages of history: From 1640 to 1660 servants provided large planters with an inexpensive labor force, but they also achieved greater wealth and mobility in the Chesapeake than if they remained in England; after 1660 opportunities for servants to achieve land, wealth, and status drastically declined. ISSUE 5. Did Colonial New England Women Enjoy Significant Economic Autonomy? YES: Gloria L. Main, from "Gender, Work, and Wages in Colonial New England," The William and Mary Quarterly (January 1994) NO: Lyle Koehler, from A Search for Power: The "Weaker Sex" in Seventeenth-Century New England (University of Illinois Press, 1980) Gloria Main notes that New England women were highly valued for their labor and relative scarcity in the early colonial period and that their economic autonomy increased in the years during and following the Seven Years War as more women entered the paid labor force and received higher wages for their work. Lyle Koehler contends that Puritan attitudes toward rights of inheritance, as well as the division of labor that separated work into male and female spheres, discouraged productive, independent activity on the part of New England women. PART 2. Revolution and the New Nation ISSUE 6. Did the American Revolution Produce a Christian Nation? YES: Nathan O. Hatch, from "The Democratization of Christianity and the Character of American Politics," in Mark A. Noll, ed., Religion and American Politics (Oxford University Press, 1990) NO: Jon Butler, from "Why Revolutionary America Wasn't a 'Christian Nation'," in James H. Hutson, ed., Religion and the New Republic: Faith in the Founding of America (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000) Nathan Hatch argues that by eroding traditional appeals to authority and expanding the number of people who believed they were competent to think for themselves about freedom, equality, and representation, the American Revolution led to an expansion of evangelical Christianity that reinforced the democratic impulses of the new society. Jon Butler insists that men and women seldom referred to America as a "Christian nation" between 1760 and 1790 and that even though Christianity was important, most Americans opposed a Christian national identity enforced by law or governmental action. ISSUE 7. Were the Founding Fathers Democratic Reformers? YES: John P. Roche, from "The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action," American Political Science Review (December 1961) NO: Howard Zinn, from A People's History of the United States (HarperCollins, 1999) Political scientist John P. Roche asserts that the Founding Fathers were not only revolutionaries but also superb democratic politicians who created a constitution that supported the needs of the nation and at the same time was acceptable to the people. According to radical historian Howard Zinn, the Founding Fathers were an elite group of northern money interests and southern slaveholders who used Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts as a pretext to create a strong central government, which protected the property rights of the rich to the exclusion of slaves, Indians, and non-property-holding whites. ISSUE 8. Was Thomas Jefferson a Political Compromiser? YES: Morton Borden, from America's Eleven Greatest Presidents, 2d ed. (Rand McNally, 1971) NO: Forrest McDonald, from The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson (The University Press of Kansas, 1976) Professor Morton Borden argues that President Thomas Jefferson was a moderate and pragmatic politician who placed the nation's best interests above those of the states. History professor Forrest McDonald believes that President Jefferson attempted to replace Hamiltonian Federalist Principles with a Republican ideology in order to restore America's agrarian heritage. ISSUE 9. Was James Madison an Effective Wartime President? YES: Irving Brant, from James Madison: Commander in Chief, 1812-1836 (Bobbs-Merrill, 1961) NO: Donald R. Hickey, from The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (University of Illinois Press, 1989) Irving Brant concludes that President James Madison grew into his position as commander in chief during the War of 1812 and set the stage for both land and naval victories at the close of the conflict through his adroit military appointments and skillful diplomacy. Donald Hickey contends that Madison failed to provide the bold and vigorous leadership that was essential to a successful prosecution of the War of 1812 by tolerating incompetence among his generals and cabinet officers and by failing to secure vital legislation from Congress. ISSUE 10. Was the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 Designed to Protect the Latin American Countries from European Intervention? YES: Dexter Perkins, from The Monroe Doctrine: 1823-1826 (Harvard University Press, 1927) NO: Ernest R. May, from The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (Harvard University Press, 1975) According to Professor Dexter Perkins, President James Monroe issued his famous declaration of December 2, 1823 to protest Russian expansionism in the Pacific Northwest and to prevent European intervention in South America from restoring to Spain her former colonies. According to Professor Ernest R. May, domestic political considerations brought about the Monroe Doctrine when the major presidential candidates attempted to gain a political advantage over their rivals during the presidential campaign of 1824. ISSUE 11. Did the Election of 1828 Represent a Democratic Revolt of the People? YES: Sean Wilentz, from The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (Norton, 2005) NO: Richard P. McCormick, from "New Perspectives on Jacksonian Politics," American Hi storical Review (January 1960) Bancroft Prize winner Sean Wilentz argues that in spite of its vulgarities and slanders, the 1828 election campaign "produced a valediction on the faction-ridden jumble of the Era of Bad Feelings and announced the rough arrival of two distinct national coalitions." Professor Richard P. McCormick believes that voting statistics demonstrate that a genuine political revolution did not take place until the presidential election of 1840, when fairly well-balanced political parties had been organized in virtually every state. PART 3. Antebellum America ISSUE 12. Did the Industrial Revolution Provide More Economic Opportunities for Women in the 1830s? YES: Thomas Dublin, from "Women, Work, and Protest in the Early Lowell Mills: 'The Oppressing Hand of Avarice Would Enslave Us,'" Labor History (Winter 1975) NO: Gerda Lerner, from "The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson," American Studies (Spring 1969) Professor Thomas Dublin argues that the women who worked in the Lowell mills in the 1830s were a close-knit community who developed bonds of mutual dependence in both their boarding houses and the factory. According to Professor Gerda Lerner, while Jacksonian democracy provided political and economic opportunities for men, both the "lady" and the "mill girl" were equally disenfranchised and isolated from vital centers of economic opportunity. ISSUE 13. Did Slavery Destroy the Black Family? YES: Wilma A. Dunaway, from The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation (Cambridge University Press, 2003) NO: Eugene D. Genovese, from Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made (Random House, 1974) Professor Wilma A. Dunaway believes that modern historians have exaggerated the amount of control slaves exercised over their lives and underplayed the cruelty of slave experience-family separations, nutritional deficiencies, sexual exploitation, and physical abuse that occurred on the majority of small plantations. Professor Genovese argues that slaves developed their own system of family and cultural values within the Southern paternalistic and pre-capitalistic slave society. ISSUE 14. Was the Mexican War an Exercise in American Imperialism? YES: Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, from "Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War," in Howard H. Quint, Milton Cantor, and Dean Albertson, eds., Main Problems in American History, 5th ed. (Dorsey Press, 1988) NO: Norman A. Graebner, from "The Mexican War: A Study in Causation," Pacific Historical Review (August 1980) Professor of history Ramon Eduardo Ruiz argues that for the purpose of conquering Mexico's northern territories, the United States waged an aggressive war against Mexico from which Mexico never recovered. Professor of diplomatic history Norman A. Graebner argues that President James Polk pursued an aggressive policy that he believed would force Mexico to sell New Mexico and California to the United States and to recognize the annexation of Texas without starting a war. ISSUE 15. Were the Abolitionists "Unrestrained Fanatics"? YES: C. Vann Woodward, from The Burden of Southern History, 3d ed. (Louisiana State University Press, 1993) NO: Donald G. Mathews, from "The Abolitionists on Slavery: The Critique Behind the Social Movement," Journal of Southern History (May 1967) C. Vann Woodward depicts John Brown as a fanatic who committed wholesale murder in Kansas in 1856 and whose ill-fated assault on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, while admired by his fellow abolitionists and many northern intellectuals, was an irrational act of treason against the United States. Donald G. Mathews describes abolitionists as uncompromising agitators, not unprincipled fanatics, who employed flamboyant rhetoric but who crafted a balanced and thoughtful critique of the institution of slavery as a social evil that violated the nation's basic values. PART 4. Conflict and Resolution ISSUE 16. Was the Confederacy Defeated Because of Its "Loss of Will"? YES: Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, William N. Still, Jr., from Why the South Lost the Civil War (University of Georgia Press, 1986) NO: James M. McPherson, from The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford University Press, 2003) Professor of history Richard E. Beringer and his colleagues argue that the Confederacy lacked the will to win the Civil War because of an inability to fashion a viable southern nationalism, increasing religious doubts about the Confederate cause, and guilt over slavery. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson maintains that either side might have emerged victorious in the Civil War but that the Union success was contingent upon winning three major campaigns between 1862 and 1864. ISSUE 17. Did Abraham Lincoln Free the Slaves? YES: Allen C. Guelzo, from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (Simon & Schuster, 2004) NO: Vincent Harding, from There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (Vintage Books, 1981) Allen Guelzo insists that Abraham Lincoln was committed to freeing the nation's slaves from the day of his inauguration and that, by laying the foundation for liberating some four million African Americans held in bondage, the Emancipation Proclamation represents the most epochal of Lincoln's writings. Vincent Harding credits slaves themselves for engaging in a dramatic movement of self-liberation while Abraham Lincoln initially refused to declare the destruction of slavery as a war aim and then issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which failed to free any slaves in areas over which he had any authority. ISSUE 18. Was Reconstruction a "Splendid Failure"? YES: Eric Foner, from "The New View of Reconstruction," American Heritage (October/November 1983) NO: LaWanda Cox, from Lincoln and Black Freedom: A Study in Presidential Leadership (University of South Carolina Press, 1981) Eric Foner asserts that although Reconstruction did not achieve radical goals, it was a "splendid failure" because it offered African Americans in the South a temporary vision of a free society. LaWanda Cox explores the hypothetical question of whether Reconstruction would have succeeded had Lincoln lived and concludes that, despite his many talents, not even Lincoln could have guaranteed the success of the full range of reform for African Americans.
