Please copy down and respond to the following.

Which school of thought do you most identify

with?

Pick Your School….of Thought!The Civil War –

Repressible or Irrespressible?From The American Pageant, pgs. 432-433

The Schools1. 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.

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. 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.