In addition to the Conway novel mentioned earlier, students can be encouraged to read two novels that all have heard of but that some may not have read. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) is far from terse and is overly sentimental, but students who read it will be able to see that the cruelties of Simon Legree were not essential for slavery to be heartless and destructive. The treatment of human beings as chattels and the indifferent severing of family connections were quite enough. Class discussion of the novel and its power will enhance the book's value for students.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is, unlike Uncle Tom's Cabin, a great novel. In addition to its very valuable contribution to an understanding of the midwestern border region at midcentury, Huck's personal conflict in dealing with "Nigger Jim's" status as a slave provides students with an intense look at one of the great problems of the day.

PBS Video offers three fine half-hour videotapes in The American Adventure Series. Agitation and Compromise explores divisions over the extension of slavery after the Mexican War and the temporary resolution of the Compromise of 1850. The Fitful Fifties deals with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the rise of the Republican Party, and the Sumner-Brooks episode. And Crisis of Union continues the story with the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the election of 1860, and the secession of South Carolina. And Films for the Humanities and Sciences offers a forty-five-minute video dramatization, Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin, that well reveals what so inflamed sectional feelings.

There is an interesting half-hour videotape prepared by the National Park Service--To Do Battle in the Land, narrated by Ossie Davis. It looks at the John Brown question: Was he a man of nobility or a deranged terrorist?

Supreme Court Decisions that Changed the Nation offers The Dred Scott Decision. The videotape may be usefully employed in connection with lecture and discussion of this complex issue. It is available from Guidance Associates of Mt. Kisco, New York, and other agencies listed in the Educational Film & Video Locator.
Document Set 14-1

Prelude to War: The Destruction of Sectional Comity

1. Charles Sumner Pledges Disobedience, 1852
2. Levi Coffin Remembers the Underground Railroad, ca. 1850s
3. Sherman Booth Flouts the Fugitive Slave Law, 1854
4. The Wisconsin Legislature Defies the Supreme Court, 1859
5. Lincoln the Pragmatist Responds to Civil Disorder, 1858
6. South Carolina Defines the Causes of Secession, 1860The organizing theme for this chapter is the breakdown of social and political order in response to the attempted political solution of the slavery problem in 1850. The documents provide several opportunities to establish continuity with previous developments, as well as linkage with the future. Finally, they have been selected with an eye to their utility in interpreting the central national experience of the Civil War and its causes. Like the text, the documents emphasize the dramatic political and constitutional developments of the 1850s.Many instructors will want to discuss the role of moral issues in the decline of intersectional harmony. The varied responses to the fugitive-slave law raise the question of the appropriate balance between pragmatism and principle in the American political system. Instructors will find it possible to relate the moral challenges of the 1850s to the political debates that have marked recent American history. The dilemma of the moral person confronting slavery may be used to put students in the place of men and women of another generation.Instructors will also find that the documents open an avenue to exploration of historical continuity. Productive discussion should flow from examination of the fugitive-slave law, nullification, and secession against the background of the previous seventy years, beginning with the fugitive-slave law of 1793 and the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798. By relating the climactic events of 1861 to their historical antecedents, the entire constitutional issue of slavery can be explored.Discussion of slavery's expansion should lead directly to a thorough examination of the Civil War's causes, a topic few instructors will want to ignore. The South Carolina declaration, read in combination with the "Place in Time" essay on "Charleston in the Secession Crisis," will be a provocative starting point in exploring the long-term origins of the conflict. Students should return to the documents for greater insight on the social and political dynamics behind the South Carolina justification for secession. The documents again provide instructors with a tool for engaging students in analysis of a problem in historical causation.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 14-1


William G. Barney. The Secessionist Impulse (1974).

Stanley C. Campbell. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act (1970).

Eric Foner. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men (1970).

William W. Freehling. The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 (1990).

William E. Gienapp. The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (1987).

Bruce Levine. Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of the Civil War (1992).

Thomas D. Morris. Free Men All: The Personal Liberty Laws of the North, 1780-1861 (1974).

David Potter. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (1976).

Joseph Schafer. "Stormy Days in Court--the Booth Case." Wisconsin Magazine of History (1936): 89-110.

Richard H. Sewell. A House Divided: Sectionalism and the Civil War, 1848-1865 (1988).

Kenneth Stampp. And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis (1950).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 14-1


Background of the Civil War (film--20 min.). BFA Educational Media, 2211 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica, Calif. 90904.

1861--The Cause, Episode 1 in the Civil War Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Firebell in the Night (videotape--52 min.). America Series, Episode 6. Time-Life Films, 110 Eisenhower Drive, P.O. Box 644, Paramus, N.J. 07652.

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad (videotape--22 min.). McGraw-Hill, 330 W. 42d Street, New York, N.Y. 10018.

Roots of Resistance: A Story of the Underground Railroad from The American Experience Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.
Document Set 14-2

Women and The Attack on Slavery: The "Little Lady Who Began A Big War"

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe Portrays Slavery's Brutality, 1852
2. A Southern Woman's Response to Slavery and the Abolitionist Attack, 1861
3. A Southern Critique of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852
4. Stowe as Antislavery Propagandist, 1852
5. Black Potential and The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1853
6. Promoting Uncle Tom's Cabin, ca. 1854Since Chapter 14 is so heavily devoted to the critical political debates and constitutional issues of the 1850s, there are limited opportunities to introduce the important role that women played in the escalation of sectional tensions. Nonetheless, it is possible to demonstrate that female abolitionistswomen were a vital force in the struggle against slavery, particularly in the creation and dissemination of propaganda designed to sensitize the northern public to the issue. The text deals with this contribution to the debate over slavery by emphasizing the far-reaching impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Building on the text's treatment of Stowe's novel, the documents focus on her writings as evidence of the rising northern concern that followed the Compromise of 1850.Samples of Stowe's work and the southern reaction permit the instructor to explore the nature and uses of historical evidence. Uncle Tom's Cabin provides an opportunity to examine the subject of fiction as historical document, including discussion of the precautions and screening procedures to be employed in interpreting the novel as a reflection of historical events. Special emphasis should be placed on the purposes of the novelist in the creation of a literary work.To frame classroom discussion, it is essential that the instructor provide introductory material to set The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Altar of Liberty, and George Frederick Holmes's response to Uncle Tom's Cabin in context. Students will need to understand that Stowe was active as a tract writer and that she felt compelled to defend her major work in print. Instructors should ask students to consider the social and political meaning of the debate over the book, stressing the evaluation of Holmes's arguments.Still another approach to the documents would be to examine the relationship between abolitionism and feminism, as revealed in Stowe's work. Instructors should encourage students to explore continuities with Chapter 10, reminding them of the cross-fertilization of ideas that characterized American social reform. Moreover, this topic will allow instructors and students to speculate on the next step for feminists as they confronted black emancipation and its implications for full human equality in the 1860s. Linkage between the nineteenth-century feminist/abolitionist relationship and the feminist/civil-rights activism of the 1960s may be established through further discussion.Instructors interested in developing these ideas should consult the OAH-FIPSE instructional package Restoring Women to History, the source for some of the ideas expressed in this document set. It contains numerous suggestions for dealing with the question of women in the politics and propaganda of the 1850s.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 14-2


Elizabeth Ammons. "Heroines in Uncle Tom's Cabin." American Literature 49 (May 1977): 161-179.

Jean Boydston, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis. The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women's Rights and Women's Sphere (1988).

Gillian Brown. "Getting in the Kitchen with Dinah: Domestic Politics in Uncle Tom's Cabin." American Quarterly (Winter 1984).

Charles A. Foster. The Rungless Ladder: Harriet Beecher Stowe and New England Puritanism (1956).

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese et al. Restoring Women to History: Materials for United States I (1984).

Thomas F. Gossett. Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture (1985).

Joan Hedrick. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (1994).

Blanche Hersh. The Slavery of Sex: Feminist Abolitionists in Nineteenth Century America (1978).

Alma Lutz. Crusade for Freedom: Women of the Antislavery Movement (1968).

Ann Firor Scott. "Women's Perspective on the Patriarchy of the 1850s." Journal of American History 61 (June 1974): 52-64.
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 14-2


The Grimké Sisters (audiotape--30 min.). Audiotape Program 11, Annenberg/CPB Project American History Series. Annenberg/CPB Project, 1111 16th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin (videotape--45 min.). Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box 2053, Princeton, N.J. 08543-2053.

Uncle Tom's Cabin (videotape--55 min.). Zenger Media, Room T-311, P.O. Box 802, 10200 Jefferson Blvd., Culver City, Calif. 90232.

Women's Sphere/Women's Rights (audiotape--30 min.). Audiotape Program 10, Annenberg/CPB Project Legacies Series. Annenberg/CPB Project, 1111 16th Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20036.
Document Set 14-3

Terrorism and Freedom: Abolition by All Means Necessary

1. John Brown States His Case, 1859
2. William Lloyd Garrison Justifies John Brown's Actions, 1859
3. Owen Lovejoy Refuses to Renounce Brown, 1859
4. A Black Perspective on John Brown, 1859
5. William Gilmore Simms Offers a Southern Reaction to the Breakdown of Order, 1860
6. Henry David Thoreau Endorses Brown's Moral Character, 1859
7. The Republican Lincoln Dismisses Brown's Raid, 1860The antislavery activities of John Brown offer an excellent way to focus student attention on the rapid deterioration of intersectional harmony between 1857 and 1861. By concentrating on the Harpers Ferry incident and its consequences, instructors can capitalize on the substantial attention devoted to this incident in the textbook. The key theme to be explored is the escalation of extremism on both sides as the nation veered toward war.The documents are selected and arranged to encourage student inquiry into the motives that drove Brown to embrace violence as a means to force social change. Instructors should find ample opportunity to establish past-present linkage by comparing Brown's reasoning with the arguments of those post-1960s social critics and activists who have asserted that violence and law-breaking are somehow justified by the righteousness of the end pursued. Points of comparison in such a discussion might be drawn from the experiences of militants within the modern civil-rights movement or the antiwar movement of the 1960s and 1970s.Instructors might also employ a debate format to explore the arguments for and against Brown's position. Similarly, a role-playing exercise could encourage careful analysis of the evidence and its use in constructing an argument supporting or opposing Brown's assumptions and actions. In either case the document set will serve as a source base, from which students may launch their own research projects as they prepare their cases.These documents also focus attention on divisions within northern opinion concerning the slavery issue. Instructors might raise the question of Brown's ties with abolitionists and other antislavery forces in the North. This analysis will enable students to explore the divisions that separated northerners on the most burning social issue of the times.As they dissect the evidence on Brown's motivation and intent, students are likely to confront the insanity issue as well. Instructors might ask students to relate this question to what some historians have seen as the increasing irrationality of political discourse in the 1850s. Sharp debate is likely to occur as students struggle with the problem of rational decision making in an emotion-charged environment. As they reflect upon the documents, they will again confront the dilemma of the moral person in an immoral society, as they did in Document Set 10-3. In such a crisis situation, identification of the "sane" or "right" decision will require much reflection.In the final analysis, this unit focuses student attention on John Brown and his fate as a symbol of the failure of the political process and the salience of the slavery issue. The result may be better student understanding of the roots of the Civil War.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 14-3


R. O. Boyer. The Legend of John Brown (1973).

Jonathan Fanton and Richard Warch, eds. John Brown (1973).

Paul W. Finkelman, ed. His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (1995).

George B. Forgie. Patricide in the House Divided: A Psychological Interpretation of Lincoln and His Age (1979).

James M. McPherson. Battle Cry of Freedom (1988).

Bruce Mazlish. Psychoanalysis and History (rev. ed., 1971).

Truman Nelson. The Old Man: John Brown at Harpers Ferry (1973).

Stephen Oates. To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown (rev., 1984).

David Potter. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (1976).

C. Vann Woodward, "John Brown's Private War," in Woodward, ed., Burden of Southern History (1968).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 14-3


A Firebell in the Night (videotape--55 min.). Episode 6, America Series. Time-Life Films, 110 Eisenhower Drive, P.O. Box 644, Paramus, N.J. 07652.

1861--The Cause (videotape--60 min.). Episode 1, The Civil War Series. PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.