OBERLIN COLLEGE
Gary Kornblith
History 263
Rice 306; x58526
Fall 2003
E-mail: Gary.Kornblith@oberlin.edu
Office hours: Mon., 3:30-5 p.m. and by appt.

The American Civil War and Reconstruction


For the official, up-to-date version of this syllabus, go to http://www.oberlin.edu/history/GJK/H263F03/.

Less than a century after fighting for independence from Great Britain and establishing a federal republic, Americans turned their firearms on each other in the bloodiest war in the nation's history. At the end of hostilities, over six hundred thousand soldiers lay dead while approximately four million former slaves enjoyed legal freedom for the first time. Thereafter Americans struggled to reorganize their society and redefine their polity in response to the changes wrought by the Civil War's violence and to the conflicts that endured in peace.

This course focuses on three interrelated subjects: the causes of the Civil War; the dynamics of the war and emancipation; and the outcomes of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Beyond coverage of this subject matter, the course is designed to promote three major "student learning objectives":

  • A grasp of important issues, trends, and controversies in recent scholarship on the Civil War and Reconstruction.
  • An understanding of how historians develop interpretations based on research in primary sources and the application of analytic models.
  • A capacity to make independent judgments after careful consideration of available evidence, alternative scholarly interpretations, and an honest reexamination of one's preconceptions and biases.

Throughout the semester, students are expected to draw their own conclusions about the meaning and significance of events that continue to provoke popular passions and intellectual argument more than a century after they occurred.

Format: The class meets regularly on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m. and on Fridays from 2:30 to 4:15 p.m. In general, Mondays and Wednesdays will be devoted to lectures or group discussions of the assigned readings; Fridays will usually involve watching and discussing videos on the Civil War era.

Evaluation: Students will be graded on the basis of class participation, one position paper (3-4 pp.), two research papers (one 4-5 pp., the other 7-8 pp.), and a short final essay (3-4 pp.). The standard formula for determining final grades will be 15% for the position paper, 20% for the shorter research paper, 30% for the longer research paper, 15% for the final essay, and 20% for class participation, including Blackboard postings. All course work is covered by Oberlin's Honor Code. The instructor reserves the right to exercise some discretion in assigning final grades.

Purchases: The following books are available for purchase at the Oberlin Bookstore.

Blackboard: To advance the intellectual quality and collaborative dynamics of the class, students are required to contribute substantively at least once per week to online discussions on Blackboard. These contributions will count as part of the "class participation" element in the determination of final grades.

The Coming of the Civil War
Wed., Sept. 3

Introduction

Fri., Sept. 5


John C. Calhoun


Frederick Douglass

Discussion: The Character of Antebellum Slavery

  • John C. Calhoun, "Slavery a Positive Good" (1837) [online]
  • Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, entire

Mon., Sept. 8

Lecture: The "Two Civilizations" Debate

Wed., Sept. 10


Oak Alley Plantation

Discussion: The Old South as a Precapitalist Society

  • Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery, 13-39 [on ERes]
  • Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 3-7, 285-324 [on ERes]
  • Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, "The Slave Economies in Political Perspective," Journal of American History 66 (Jan. 1979): 7-23 [in JSTOR, accessible from a college computer]
Fri., Sept. 12 Lecture: Emergence of Immediate Abolitionism

Mon., Sept. 15

No class (family emergency)

Wed., Sept. 17

Discussion: The Old South as a Capitalist Society

  • Oakes, The Ruling Race, ix-xix, 37-95, 123-191, 225-242
  • Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 64-80 [on ERes]

Fri., Sept. 19

Lecture: Sectionalism and the Second Party System

Mon., Sept. 22

Lecture: The Collapse of the Second Party System

Position paper due

Wed., Sept. 24

Rise of the Republican Party

  • Eric Foner, "Politics, Ideology, and the Origins of the American Civil War," in Foner, Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War, pp. 34-53 [on ERes]
  • Gary J. Kornblith, "Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise," Journal of American History 90 (June 2003): 76-105 [in the History Cooperative, accessible from a campus computer]
  • First (Ottawa) and Fifth (Galesburg) Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) [online]

Fri., Sept. 26

Introduction to The Valley of the Shadow Website

Video: John Brown's Holy War

 

 

Mon., Sept. 29

Lecture: The House Dividing

Wed., Oct. 1


Discussion: Secession and the Outbreak of War

  • David W. Blight, "They Knew What Time It Was: African Americans and the Coming of the Civil War," in Boritt, ed., Why the Civil War Came, 51-77
  • William W. Freehling, "The Divided South, Democracy's Limitations, and the Causes of the Peculiarly North American Civil War," in Boritt, ed., Why the Civil War Came, 125-175
  • Declarations of Secession [online]
  • Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (1861) [online]

Fri., Oct. 3

Monument to Oberlin participants in John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

Walking Tour of Oberlin's Civil War Monuments

 

The Civil War and Emancipation

Mon., Oct. 6

No class (Yom Kippur)

Wed., Oct. 8


Hospital Ward

Discussion: Why Men Fought

  • McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, vii-xi, 3-45, 62-130, 148-78
  • Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, chaps. 1, 2, and 12 [online]
  • Lincoln on Civil War's meaning [online]

 

Fri., Oct. 10

Video: The Civil War, episode 2, 3

Mon., Oct. 13

 Video: The Civil War, episode 3 (cont.), 5

Wed., Oct. 15

Video: The Civil War, episode 5 (cont.)

Fri., Oct. 17

No class

First research paper due (place under door of Rice 306)

---Fall Break---

Mon., Oct. 27


Emancipation Day Celebration

Lecture: The Revolutionary Character of the Civil War

Wed., Oct. 29

Discussion: Emancipation and the Meaning of Freedom

Fri., Oct. 31

Video: Glory

Mon., Nov. 3

 

Lecture: Online and Offline Resources for Major Research Paper

Wed., Nov. 5

Discussion: The Experience of Confederate Defeat

Fri., Nov. 7

No class: Students should use this time to plan research projects.

Reconstruction and Reunion

Mon., Nov. 10

Lecture: Origins, Goals, and Methods of Radical Reconstruction

Wed., Nov. 12

Cotton sharecropping

Discussion: Forces of Progress

  • Foner, Short History of Reconstruction, 104-147
  • Regosin, Freedom's Promise, 1-147, 183-185

Fri., Nov. 14

Video: Long Shadows

Prospectus for research project due on Blackboard by 1:30 p.m.

Mon., Nov. 17 Lecture: The Collapse of Reconstruction

Tues., Nov. 18

Musical Performance: Judy Cook, OC '71, "Songs of the Civil War"
8 p.m., Cat in the Cream, open to the public

Wed., Nov. 19

Discussion: Forces of Reaction

  • Foner, Short History of Reconstruction, 148-216
  • Martha Hodes, "The Sexualization of Reconstruction Politics: White Women and Black Men in the South after the Civil War," Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (1993): 402-417 [on ERes]
  • Michael W. Fitzgerald, "The Ku Klux Klan: Property Crime and the Plantation System in Reconstruction Alabama," Agricultural History 71 (Spring 1997): 186-206 [on ERes]

Fri., Nov. 21 Video: Birth of a Nation

Mon., Nov. 24

Lecture: Assessing Reconstruction

Wed., Nov. 26

Individual consultations with instructor about research projects

Fri., Nov. 28

No class

Mon., Dec. 1

Video: Presenting Mr. Frederick Douglass

Wed., Dec. 3

Discussion: Civil War and Emancipation in Comparative Perspective

  • David M. Potter, "The Civil War in the History of the Modern World: A Comparative View," in Potter, The South and the Sectional Crisis, 287-299 [on ERes]
  • Steven Hahn, "Class and State in Postemancipation Societies: Southern Planters in Comparative Perspective," American Historical Review, 95 (Feb. 1990): 75-98 [in JSTOR, accessible from a college computer]
  • Stanley Engerman, "The Economic Response to Emancipation and Some Economic Aspects of the Meaning of Freedom," in Frank McGlynn and Seymour Drescher, eds., The Meaning of Freedom, 49-68 [on ERes]

 

Fri., Dec. 5

Student Presentations of Research Projects

Mon., Dec. 8

Student Presentations of Research Projects

Wed., Dec.10

 Student Presentations of Research Projects
Fri., Dec. 12

Student Presentations of Research Projects

Second research paper due

Fri., Dec. 19

Final assignment due at 11 a.m.