1. Please copy down and respond to the following. Which school of thought do you most identify with?

2. Pick Your School….of Thought! The Civil War – Repressible or Irrespressible? From The American Pageant, pgs. 432-433

3. The Schools 1.Nationalist School (Rhodes) ▪ Slavery caused the Civil War. ▪ Northern-oriented historians credited the conflict with ending slavery and preserving union 2.Progressive School (Beard) ▪ The war was not fought over slavery per se. ▪ It was a deeply rooted economic struggle between an industrial North and an agricultural South.

4. 3.Post-World War I School (Randall and Craven) ▪ The Civil War was a “repressible conflict” – neither slavery nor economic differences between the North and the South were sufficient causes. ▪ The war was the result of the breakdown of political institutions, the passion of overzealous reformers, and the ineptitude of a blundering generation of political leaders. 4.Post-World War II School (Nevins, Potter, Foner, Genovese) ▪ A neo-nationalist view – irreconcilable differences in morality, politics, culture, social values, and economics eroded the ties between the sections ▪ northern factory system v. southern labor system and the virtue of the “free labor ideology”

5. 5.Ethnocultural School (Holt) ▪ Acknowledges the significance of the collapse of the established two- party system. ▪ Before the 1850s, national parties focused on the tariff, banking, and internal improvements, thereby muting sectional differences over slavery. ▪ Therefore, the traditional party system resulted in consensus between the two parties on almost all national issues other than slavery. ▪ As such, slavery rose to fore and encouraged sectional or regional powers.