discussion 250 words and reply two posts 100 owrds each.docx

discussion 250 words and reply two posts 100 owrds each
Prompt: Compare and contrast two different reforms from this week’s readings.1. Abolition
movement, pt 1: freedom and
citizenshiphttp://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/6.6/?p=/college/h…Download this
video for playback on your computer or iPod (é“¾æŽ¥åˆ°å¤–
éƒ¨ç½‘ç«™ã€‚)http://media.wwnorton.com/college/history/foner4/m…Download audio
(MP3) (é“¾æŽ¥åˆ°å¤–
éƒ¨ç½‘ç«™ã€‚)http://media.wwnorton.com/college/history/foner4/q…Note: The video
segment will open in an external window or new tab. Close the window or tab to return to
this course.Right-click (Ctrl-click for Mac users) the above link and select “Save Link As…”.
Take this lecture to go!TranscriptInterviewer: In what ways did abolitionism lend vision to
the anti-slavery movement? How did the abolitionists expand the idea of American freedom
and American citizenship at the same time?Eric Foner: The abolitionists in the 1830s, ’40s,
and ’50s were a very small number of men and women. They certainly were nowhere
remotely near a majority of northern public opinion. Nonetheless, they had a powerful
enduring impact on ideas of freedom and citizenship because the abolitionists were the first
organized group to really put forward the idea of equal rights before the law for all persons
regardless of race. That didn’t exist; we take that for granted today, but that didn’t exist.
There was no place in the United States at that time where black people enjoyed equality
before the law, not even in Massachusetts, where they came close. But more to the point, the
abolitionists insisted that African-Americans had to be recognized as part of the American
people, part of the American nation, citizens to be given the same rights as everybody else.
The slaves should be freed and incorporated into American life. Now most people at that
time when the abolitionist movement began who were against slavery were
colonizationists, like Jefferson, and like Lincoln for much of his life. They believed slaves
should become free, but they should then be sent out of the country to Africa, to the
Caribbean, to Central America. They could not conceive of an interracial society of equals.
The abolitionists were the first ones to put forward that ideal as a goal, freeing the slaves
and also incorporating them as equals, and therefore redefining American liberty so that it
could exist without a racial boundary.2. Abolition movement, pt 2: Seneca Falls convention
(é“¾æŽ¥åˆ°å¤–
éƒ¨ç½‘ç«™ã€‚)http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/6.6/?p=/college/h…Download this

Take this lecture to go!TranscriptInterviewer: What was the significance of the Seneca Falls
convention of 1848?Eric Foner: Seneca Falls, the 1848 convention in upstate New York, is
remembered as the first time that the right to vote for women was publicly demanded by a
political gathering. People had talked about the right to vote for women individually before
then, but this was the first organized women’s suffrage gathering and really the beginning,
therefore, of a long struggle, which lasted until 1920, for the right to vote for women. So it
showed how the abolitionist movement was expanding the idea of freedom for everybody,
because most of the women who met there, and there were some men too, were
abolitionists. Frederick Douglass was there, Elizabeth Stanton was an abolitionist, Susan
Anthony was an abolitionist, but the prospect or the experience of working in the
abolitionist movement had made them much more conscious of the right that they also
didn’t enjoy, and so they extended the abolitionist vision of equality to themselves and that
is what really launched feminism as an organized movement in the United States.3.
Antebellum social reform (é“¾æŽ¥åˆ°å¤–
Take this lecture to go!TranscriptInterviewer: To what degree were the antebellum social
reform movements the expression of a primarily Protestant American culture?Eric Foner:
The Protestant Great Awakening, the second Great Awakening, and the religious revivals of
the first part of the nineteenth century had a tremendous impact on the Reform movement
of that era. Out of the revivals came an impulse to improve society, to cleanse society of sin,
the idea of what they called “perfectionism”â€”that both individual persons and society as a
whole could have a new birth and cleanse themselves of past sins and really operate on a
moral basis. Roman Catholics, of whom there weren’t that many at that time but their
numbers were increasing due to immigration from Ireland, didn’t hold to this view at all.
They believed that sin was endemic in American, in human life. Man was born in original
sin; the best you could do was to ameliorate sin. You could assist the poor, you could make
slavery less oppressive, but you couldn’t talk about a society that cleansed itself of sin
altogether. So there was this Protestant ethos in the Reform movements, which was not
surprising in an overwhelmingly Protestant country that was going through these religious
revivals at that very time.4. slavery, pt 6: American politics in the 1840s (é“¾æŽ¥åˆ°å¤–

Take this lecture to go!TranscriptInterviewer: What brought slavery to center stage in
American politics in the 1840s and with what effects?Eric Foner: Slavery entered the center
stage of politics because of territorial expansion. There had been debates about slavery off
and on in the past. The Missouri debates, the nullification crisis, had a lot to do with slavery,
but then the issue would fade away. But in the middle 1840s, because of the Mexican War,
because of the acquisition of a large new area of territory from Mexico, the question
immediately arose: Will slavery be allowed to spread into this new area? This is the area
today consisting of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. There was a big
debate, a bitter debate, about whether this area should be kept for free settlers or slavery
should be allowed to go into it, and that question of course involved not only the morality of
slavery but sectional political power. Which region will gain more representation in
Congress and votes because of the status of slavery in that area? That propelled slavery to
the center of politics, which it did not leave until the Civil War.5. Lincoln’s suspension of
habeas corpus (é“¾æŽ¥åˆ°å¤–
éƒ¨ç½‘ç«™ã€‚)http://media.wwnorton.com/college/history/foner4/c…Download audio
Take this lecture to go!TranscriptInterviewer: How did the Lincoln administration respond
to dissent during the Civil War, and could you comment specifically on Lincoln’s suspension
of the writ of habeas corpus?Eric Foner: Well, as in all other wars, the Lincoln
administration sometimes found civil liberties an inconvenience. Lincoln was much more
careful and cautious about suspending basic civil liberties than some other wartime
presidents have been in our history. But, nonetheless, there were certainly violations of civil
liberties during the Civil War.Habeas corpusâ€”that is, basically, the right, if you’re arrested,
to have a charge lodged against you and to have a trialâ€”was suspended a number of times
during the war by the Lincoln administration. Suspending habeas corpus means you can
just round people up, put them in jail, and throw away the key, and that’s it. Lincoln did that
first in Maryland right at the beginning of the war, but that was a military scene. There were
riots in Maryland, there were people blowing up bridges to prevent Union troops from
coming through Maryland, to protect Washington D.C., and Lincoln ordered the suspension
of the writ of habeas corpus along the railroad line so that people who the military thought
were saboteurs could just be rounded up. Later on, Lincoln will suspend the writ of habeas
corpus throughout the whole North.Lincoln was cautious, but nonetheless, certainly there

were people arrested who were not a danger to anybody, but who were critics of the
administration; probably the most famous case was Congressman Clement Valandingham of
Ohio, who, after giving a fiery speech criticizing the Lincoln administration and the war in
1863, was arrested by General Burnside in Ohio. Lincoln didn’t specifically order his arrest,
but he defended it and justified it. Certain newspapers were suppressed temporarily in the
Northâ€”the Chicago Times, for example, which criticized the administration strongly.
Burnside again suppressed it; Lincoln eventually ordered that the Times be allowed to
resume printing. There were arbitrary arrests in the North, but it’s worth pointing out, of
course, that, generally speaking, the press was free, there was tremendous criticism of the
Lincoln administration all through the war.Lincoln never considered suspending elections,
even in 1864, when at one point he thought he was really going to lose, he never thought of
canceling the election in order to keep the war going. There were violations, but what’s
different between Lincoln and some of our more recent presidents is that Lincoln discussed
this intelligently and candidly in messages to Congress. He didn’t just say, I have the right to
do whatever I feel like because I’m the president, or because we’re at war. He said, look,
here’s our dilemma: we have these liberties; on the other hand, the exercise of some of
these liberties is endangering the whole structure of government. Do we recognize every
single liberty and let the government fall, or do we violate one in order to save the
government? Now, there are different answers to that question, but Lincoln at least put it
out there as a legitimate point of debate, whereas subsequent or more recent governments
have basically just said, look, we’re just going to arrest people we don’t like and that’s tough
without any philosophical discussion of what this means in a democracy or in a system of
the rule of law.6. Religion and American reform (é“¾æŽ¥åˆ°å¤–
éƒ¨ç½‘ç«™ã€‚)http://media.wwnorton.com/college/history/foner4/r…Download audio
éƒ¨ç½‘ç«™ã€‚)http://media.wwnorton.com/college/history/foner4/r…Note: The video
Take this lecture to go!TranscriptInterviewer: Religion has always been a strong component
of the American reform tradition. Would you comment on its general importance and give
us a couple examples of how religious reformers have made a difference?Eric Foner:
Religious groups like all Americans, I suppose, have tried to improve society and engaged in
organized efforts to reform or deal with things they conceive of as evil. The Abolitionist
movement, for example, was deeply inspired on the part of many people by Evangelical
Christianity and the religious revivals of that time. They talked about not only perfecting
society but also perfecting the individual, purging the individual of sin, and of purging
society of sin. That language of sin and evil and good was applied to slavery and became a
very powerful tool in attacking the institution.On the other hand, southerners generally
argued that slavery was perfectly compatible with Christian belief and they developed a
biblical defense of slavery. Obviously, slavery existed in biblical times and is mentioned in
the Bible. Jesus Christ condemned many evils in his world but not slavery and so thereâ€™s

nothing inherent in Christianity that makes it anti-slavery but one can certainly use
Christian principles in order to attack slavery.The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and
60s came out of the black churches and was led in many cases by African-American
ministers, Martin Luther King being the most famous example, though one among many.In
the late 19th century many Protestant religious groups tried to reform society by pressing
for national legislation, for example, to enforce the Sabbathâ€”they contended that there
should not be any activity on Sundayâ€”or to try to suppress drinking or prostitution or
other evils that they felt were rampant in American life.At the same time you had the rise of
what was called the Social Gospel, inspired by Protestant clerics and others, which tried to
demand improvement in the conditions of working people, factory workers, and urban
immigrants all trying to claim that Christianity really should inspire the government to
uplift people who were suffering at the bottom of society.One can find many examples of
religiously inspired social movements in this country that could be in the left, the right, or
the center. All sorts of political tendencies have claimed inspiration from religious belief in
our country.

discussion 250 words and reply two posts 100 owrds each.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to discussion 250 words and reply two posts 100 owrds each.docx

Similar to discussion 250 words and reply two posts 100 owrds each.docx (14)

More from bkbk37

More from bkbk37 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

discussion 250 words and reply two posts 100 owrds each.docx