As a supplement to a lecture on John Brown or in place of it, have students attempt an assessment of their own. Consider putting the question this way: Does John Brown deserve the respect of today's Americans? Phrased in this fashion, the question immediately entangles students in issues of law and order and of unjust law. They are confronted with reckless indifference to the welfare of others and to the whole of American tradition. Students should write a short response to the question, perhaps a page, and be ready to speak in defense of the position that they have adopted.

At this point in the term, students will have been engaged for some days in considering the North and the South. How different were they? A couple of students might be assigned to read Moncure Daniel Conway, Pine and Palm (1887), a novel about two friends at Harvard, one from the North and one from the South, who spend a year in each other's "country" before the war. All other students can be assigned to read Edward Pessen, "How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South?" American Historical Review 85 (December 1980): 1119-1149, and be ready with questions when the précis of Pine and Palm is given in class. See also John McCardell, The Idea of a Southern Nation: Southern Nationalists and Southern Nationalism, 1830-1860 (1981). On this occasion as on others, students should be required to pose in writing a question or two that seem appropriate for further exploration.

Also at this point in the term, students are quite aware of the legal status of slavery prior to the Civil War. Nevertheless, weaker students sometimes have difficulty getting past an emotional mind-set that goes something like this: "The Constitution is good. Slavery is bad. Therefore, slavery was contrary to the Constitution." The instructor can help students accept the real picture by focusing on the Fugitive Slave Act and personal-liberty laws in conflict during the 1850s. Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People's History of the Ante-Bellum Years (1981), is highly readable. Dealing with the period 1828-1860, it offers a lively account of the furor over the fugitive-slave law. Divide the subject geographically among several students, who can then make a brief report to the remainder of the class. Another couple of students may consult selected portions of Thomas D. Morris, Free Men All: The Personal Liberty Laws of the North, 1780-1861 (1974).

There are, of course, the really big questions. Why was there a Civil War? Was it inevitable? What were the essential causes? The matter is complex, and major schools of thought could be well treated in a lecture, but students may gain more by having an initial try at the questions themselves. Perhaps a summarizing lecture on schools of thought would be an appropriate conclusion to this portion of the work. Edwin C. Rozwenc has edited two volumes of the Problems in American Civilization Series, Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War (revised edition; 1963) and The Causes of the American Civil War (second edition; 1972). Other volumes in the series include Norton Garfinkle, editor, Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (1959), and Michael Perman, editor, The Coming of the American Civil War (third edition; 1993).