Civil War

Civil War

Brandon
MWF 2:00 P.M.
The Civil War
The era before the Civil War and the Civil War itself is considered the critical period of American history. The Revolutionary generation first presented and thought they answered the question, "Are we to be a nation?"; the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian generations posed evolving answers to the consequence "What kind of nation are we to be?" But the generation of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Stephen A. Douglas, Mary Chesnutt, and their fellow citizens were forced to reconsider what kind of nation the United States would be. They had to ask and answer whether the United States could continue as one nation, what values resided at the core of the nation's identity, and what it meant to be an American. Some historians believe they answered the above questions while many believe the jury is still out debating the final verdict.
Thomas Jefferson: a Virginian nationalist, a slave-holding philosopher, an aristocratic democrat, a provincial cosmopolitan, and a pacific imperialist (tucker and Hendrickson 3). He wanted a self-sufficient agricultural nation, one that consisted of small farmers. Jefferson and his followers were called the Democratic-Republic, they were associated with the masses, encouraged the development of agriculture, in favor of an alliance with France, and wanted a weak government in order to strengthen the states (spark). He was a pro-unionist, and did was he could to keep all of the states in the union. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions to fight against the Alien and Sedition Acts is a good example of Jefferson keeping the Union strong. The resolutions argued that “member states had the authority to nullify unconstitutional acts of Congress; the resolutions effectively claimed the power of judicial review for the states, not the Supreme Court” (Spark). Jefferson was a supporter of the common-man; however, this did not include minorities....