Read Chapter 9 from the Howard Zinn online book. Click the link below:
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnslaem10.html (Links to an external site.)
Complete the assignment below: Write questions and answer. Please be detailed with your answers, will be check for plagiarism .
1. How do you think slavery influenced the lives of white people in Southern
slave-holding regions?
2. How do you think slavery influenced the lives of white people in the
Northern states? What incentives did whites in the North have for joining
the abolitionist cause?
3. How and why have some historians tried to downplay or dismiss the effects
of slavery?
4. How do Howard Zinn’s descriptions of Abraham Lincoln compare and
contrast with your previous knowledge about Lincoln?
Do you think that Lincoln was being honest when he claimed that, as president,
he was legally powerless to abolish slavery? Explain.
5. Why do you think that Congress needed to enact the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments? Why wasn’t the Thirteenth
Amendment sufficient to grant the slaves their freedom and all the rights
of citizenship? Did the legal end to slavery and the legal granting of rights
to the freedmen and freedwomen bring about their freedom? Why, or why
not?
6. Who were the Radical Republicans? What was their political agenda? Were
they successful? Explain.
7. What were some of the accomplishments of African Americans and their
allies during the era of Reconstruction? Do you think these accomplishments
will continue after the end of Reconstruction? Explain.
8. What was the compromise in the so-called Compromise of 1877? Who was
involved in the compromise? Who was left out? Who benefited from the
compromise?
9. How would you describe the “New South” that emerged after the end of
Reconstruction? Do you really think it was new? Explain.
10. Do you agree or disagree with Howard Zinn’s assertion that the end of slavery
led to a reconstruction of national politics and economics? What were
the limits of this reconstruction? Explain.