Tuesdays & Thursdays, 9:30 am -10:50 am
Dr. Christopher Phillips
This course is an introduction to the life of Abraham Lincoln in the era of the Civil War.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the events and interpretations of the era preceding the American Civil War, including the major political, economic, social, and ideological forces that shaped nineteenth-century United States development and Lincoln’s actions before and during the nation’s greatest cataclysm.
The course will allow students to evaluate the multiple influences of the period as well as to form educated historical opinions about slavery and Lincoln’s role in the coming of the Civil War.
We will examine the political, social, ideological, military, economic, and constitutional issues that emerged during the war; the crucial question of emancipation and conceptions of freedom by both black and white Americans; federal efforts to reintegrate the Confederate states into the Union; and the southern white resistance to those efforts.
