U.S. History,Chapter 16
For this Discussion, answer one of the instructor-provided questions:
1. What social and political factors caused the Second Party System to fall apart so dramatically during the early 1850s? Explain the dynamics that led to the Whig Party’s implosion and the fatal splitting of the Democratic Party. How did this political realignment benefited the new Republican Party during the Election of 1860?
2. In 1862 and 1863, Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia twice invaded the North. Both of these invasions resulted in bloodbaths at Antietam and Gettysburg. Choosing one of these campaigns, explain Lee’s military and political goals. What decisions did Lee and his opponent(s) make that sealed the historical outcome?
3. How did William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea affect the overall American Civil War? What strategies did he employ to break the Southern will to fight? How did Sherman’s battlefield exploits translate into Abraham Lincoln’s political victory in 1864? Was Sherman the “first modern general” as alleged by some respected military historians?
4. Do you believe that the failure of Reconstruction was primarily due to Andrew Johnson’s unpopular presidency? What factors prevented freedmen and their families from moving westward as the Homestead Act paved the way for new settlements? Why did sharecropping emerge as a compromise between freedmen and their former masters?
5. President Ulysses Grant began his first term in 1869 with the hopeful blessings of many Americans, but it soon became apparent that he was not a skilled politician. What scandals and other problems affected his ability to preside over a reunited and growing America? Did his two terms include any positive achievements?
