Winter Assignment

Winter Break Assignment

    • Read and take notes on Ch. 24-26
    • Read Zinn Ch. 9 and answer the questions below.

Zinn Questions

    1. On what basis did the U.S. government support slavery?
    2. What actions did the U.S. government take to support slavery? Do these actions support Zinn's assertion that "Such a government would never accept an end to slavery by rebellion"? Why would the white elite want to determine when and how slavery would end?
    3. Why would someone acne and laugh the evening of the morning he received two hundred lashes?
    4. Was resistance to slavery more, as much, or less, effective than rebellion? Explain.
    5. How did slaves manage to maintain a community? Why did they work so hard to do so?
    6. Why was there a price on David Walker's head?
    7. Why might Frederick Douglass have been "the most famous black man of his time"?
    8. What does Sarah Logue's proposal and Logue's response reveal about how slave owners justified slavery?
    9. What was "the triple hurdle" that Sojourner Truth had to overcome?
    10. Lincoln was able to speak to both sides of the slavery debate. Why did he feel compelled to speak to both sides given his personal solution to the problem of slavery in America?
    11. How did the northern elite's plans for economic expansion force the South into radical opposition?
    12. How was the Emancipation Proclamation a military tactic?
    13. What evidence supports the thesis that the North could not have won without the help of American blacks?
    14. After the South surrendered unconditionally, how did Congress dispose of the land confiscated during the war? Of what significance was this decision?
    15. in 1868, was the Georgia legislature successful in expelling its black members?
    16. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. What was the majority argument? What was Justice Harlan's dissenting arguments?
    17. How did blacks respond to the end of the U.S. government's military protection of black civil rights?
    18. Debate Resolution: The Civil War was fought to end slavery. Agree or disagree with the resolution. Come up with at least 3 quotes/citations from Zinn or your textbook to support your point of view. Be prepared to debate when you return.