Hauptseminar The Civil War 1861-65

The Civil War (1861-65) brought dramatic changes to all areas of life in America and a change in the perception of the role of the federal state. The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) was part of a general shift toward a more active role of the national government—a shift reflected in the founding of the National Academy of Sciences in 1864 or the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act the same year. In this seminar, we will focus on the Civil War as an important hinge in the history of the evolving American nation-state. When the federal state had been founded in the late eighteenth century, it showed all the signs of a compromise between advocates of a centralized government and others who sought to preserve a strong role for the various states. This compromise came under increasing stress during the 1850s through the country’s expansion westward, the addition of new states to the Union, the moral and economic issue of Southern slavery, and rapid Northern industrialization. The secession of Southern states from the Union in 1861 was a clear indication that the United States had not yet evolved as an integrated nation-state. But how did the ensuing war change the nature of the evolving state in the North, and what was the nature of the -Confederate States of America”? How did shifting war aims in the North correspond to shifting notions of the American national state? In order to pursue such questions, we will familiarize ourselves with the political and military developments during the war, which were closely intertwined, and we will look at how public commentators (-intellectuals”) analyzed, commented, and criticized the war and its social and political implications. Introductory Reading: Fredrickson, George M. The Inner Civil War. Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Potter, David M. -The Historian’s Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa.” American Historical Review 67:4 (July 1962), 924-50. Online via JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1845246. Smith, Adam I. P. No Party Now. Politics in the Civil War North. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Stampp, Kenneth M. The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Bemerkung Students will be admitted (-Zulassung zur Prüfung”) after the second seminar meeting. FB 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Uni Kassel WiSe 2012/13 Lehrveranstaltungspool FB 02 Jansen Axel