Topics you must consider for Lincoln and the Second American Revolution

Book Review Guideline

Reviews will be double-spaced and no longer than two pages (12 point type with one inch margins all around).  Your goal is to state the thesis of the book clearly and provide a brief outline of its argument.  What is the author’s explanation (underlying cause or causes) and how is this explanation supported (what evidence is offered and how does it contribute to the explanation)?  You should be concerned about getting your points in logical order of importance and neither leaving out important points nor including superficial information.

Topics you must consider for Lincoln and the Second American Revolution:

1. In what ways was the Civil War revolutionary? How should we define “revolution”?  Was the overthrow of slavery a political or an economic revolution?  Was it a capitalist revolution?

2. How did Lincoln move from a conservative to a radical position during the war? In what ways was this revolutionary shift related to a military shift from “limited” to “total” war?

3. Did the Civil War alter the relation between “liberty” and “property” in America? How did racial equality constitute a shift from a negative to a positive concept of freedom?

4. Was Lincoln an effective war president? What is the relation between his “national” and his “military” strategy?  Why did Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation?

5. Why was Lincoln willing to go to war to preserve the Union? Was Lincoln operating from the perspective of national imperialism or was there something more at stake than mere territory?

6. Why were the 14th and 15th amendments a constitutional revolution? Why were Supreme Court decisions in the 1870s (the New Orleans butchers, the Colfax Massacre indictments) counterrevolutionary?