Episode: Disfranchisement in Mississippi.
Analyse the voting, apportionment, officeholding and enforcement provisions of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Analyze the text of the
Fifteenth Amendment on the Findlaw.com website. You may optionally
read the relevant annotations for these provisions.
Read the brief description by James A. Rawley,
"The General Amnesty Act of 1872: A Note,"
Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47 (December 1960): 480-484.
What are the errors he sees in existing textbook accounts?
Read the essay by former Congressmean Robert Smalls on
Election Methods in the South (1890). Read the text of the
Mississippi Constitution of 1890:
Article XII: The Franchise. How did the language of this section (especially
Sect. 244) allow Mississippi to remain technically in compliance with the
Fifteenth Amendment while allowing defacto denial of voting rights? Having
experienced disfranchisement themselves, How did white Mississippians justify
employing the same restrictions on others? Why did it take until 1890 for this
disfranchisement to be implemented?
Members of the RED and GREEN discussion groups will need to post comments to the Course Discussion Board before class.
Episodes: Urban and Rural Grassroots Movements.
Read the entry from the Cyclopedia of Political Science (1881) on
"The Greenback - Labor, or National Party" on the econlib.org website.
Read the
"Preamble and declaration of principles of the Knights of Labor of America,"
on the Chicago Historical Society's Haymarket website.
Read the Enycylopedia Britannica biography of
William Mahone,
Read the text of the Populist Party's
"Omaha Platform" (1892), on the History Matters website at
George Mason University.
Read an excerpt from Josiah Strong, on
"Perils: Socialism", from Our Country (1885).
Members of the BLUE and PURPLE discussion groups will need to post comments to the Course Discussion Board before class.
Moments: December 1832 and May 1856.
Go to the
American
Periodical Series database provided by Furman's library. Using the Advanced
Search function, look for the keyword "weekly", changing the search scope from
"citation and abstract" to "publication title." Limit your search to the period
from 1 December to 31 December 1832. Browse through the article titles from
at least five results pages. What seem to be the two or three dominant issues
from this month? What were the one or two issues that you were surprised
to find or that seemed most unusual?
Go to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1842-1902) Online website. Enter the site. Using the date search function, browse through the issues for 9 May 1856 and 30 May 1856. As before, identify the two or three salient issues and the one thing that surprised you.
Browse through the History Engine for episodes from these two time spans.
Note: We will meet in a computer lab (location TBA) for this session.
Moments: April 1865 and July 1876.
Browse through the
History Engine
for episodes from these two time spans.
Note: We will meet in a computer lab (location TBA)
for this session.
Moments: Making of a President, 1884.
Members of ALL discussion groups will need to post comments to the
Course Discussion Board before class.
You may optionally view some
Political Cartoons from 1876 on the
Library of Congress's American Political Prints 1766-1876 website.
Friday (11/16)
Finish reading Mark Summers, Rum and Romanism in preparation
for class discussion.
Please be sure that you have updated your research journal for this week.
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Note: The instructor reserves the right to change any provisions, due dates, grading percentages, or any other items without prior notice. All assignments on this schedule are covered under the university's policy on plagiarism and academic integrity. See the syllabus statement for further details. This page was last updated on 10/16/2007.