History 103
AMERICAN HISTORY TO 1877
Fall 1998

 

Second Position Paper

Write a short paper (4-5 typed or word-processed, double-spaced pages) in response to ONE of the following statements. Whether you agree or disagree with the statement, your paper should make your position clear and cite specific historical evidence to support it. You should also endeavor to anticipate and refute potential objections to your position. You are expected to draw on the relevant assigned readings and lectures in framing your response. A major goal of this assignment is for you to synthesize and interpret material presented in the course through Wednesday, Nov. 11.

This assignment is governed by the Oberlin College Honor Code. Be sure to identify the sources of all direct quotations, paraphrased passages, and important assertions derived from the work of others. You may use footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical notations for this purpose. Although papers will be evaluated mainly on the basis of content, the quality of your presentation also counts. The professor values clarity, logic, originality, documentation, and concise prose.

 

PAPERS ARE DUE IN CLASS ON MONDAY, NOV. 16. Late papers will be penalized. Please do not ask for an extension except in cases of dire emergency.

 

Statements:

1) "In retrospect, it appears the tories were right and the patriots were wrong. Unduly influenced by the alarmist views of English opposition writers, the patriots mistook Great Britain's reasonable efforts at imperial reform for a despotic plot to destroy American liberty. The exaggerated language of the Declaration of Independence reveals that by 1776 the patriots had lost touch with reality. Fortunately for later generations, the War for Independence and the problems of peace brought them back to their senses. Madison's clear-headed logic in Federalist No. 10 shows that, by the time they drafted the Constitution, patriot leaders had given up their illusions about politics and accepted the need for a strong government to curb the factious passions of the American people."

2) "The American Revolution hardly deserves the label 'revolution.' Although the United States achieved their independence from Great Britain, the hierarchical structure of American society remained fundamentally unchanged. The rich continued to exploit the poor, whites continued to enslave blacks, and men continued to dominate women. Notwithstanding the lofty rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence, the early American republic was a land of unequal rights and unjust treatment. A comparison of social conditions in 1770 and 1820 reveals that the substitution of one sovereign for another barely affected the lives of ordinary Americans."

3) "Without question, American slavery was inhumane and indefensible. Yet if we are to understand the significance of slavery in its historical context , we must move beyond moral condemnation to examine in detail how the institution operated in practice. Slavery changed over time and varied from place to place, even within a single region such as the Chesapeake. Likewise, not all slaveholders were cruel, and not all slaves were defiant. A careful analysis of evidence from the century between 1750 and 1850 suggests that American slavery was as complex and diverse as it was wrong."