Remember:
On what grounds does Smith criticize the “Tocquevillian story” of a liberal consensus in America? What does he say about Tocqueville specifically?
What does Smith think is the effect of Hartz’s comparison of America to Europe?
Describe the main elements of Smith’s “multiple traditions” thesis.
Does Smith think that most contemporary scholarship preserves the traditional Tocquevillian framework or not?
What accounts for the unanimous liberalism of American society according to Hartz?
What disturbs Hartz about this unanimous liberalism?
Foner proposes to “stand Hartz on his head” in explaining the impediments to the appeal of socialist ideologies in the United States. How does he do this?
On what grounds does Foner reject the exceptionalist view that Western Europe has had strong socialist parties whiles the United States has not?
Outline Rogin’s comparison of American liberal cultural values with American’s perception of Indian cultural values. What purpose does Rogin think was served by the way American’s contrasted their culture to that of Indians?
Explain Rogin’s psychoanalysis of the American liberal persona.
Does Rogin believe that America is characterized by a consensus on liberal values?
In arguing that the deaths of 24 of the 25 million inhabitants of Mexico in the sixteenth century was genocide and not a natural catastrophe, Todorov describes the levels of responsibility of the Spanish for them. What were they?
What are the three dimensions of Todorov’s typology of relations to the other?
Todorov believes that Las Casas, late in his life, became what Todorov calls a “perspectivist.” What does this mean? How did Las Casas’s reflections on the Aztec practice of human sacrifice lead him toward perspectivism?
What arguments does Abigail Adams make in her letters to her husband and to Marcy Warren for women’s rights? How does John Adams defend “our Masculine systems” and “the right of the men to govern the women, without their consent?”
In his letter Jefferson urging him to work for the abolition of slavery, Banneker appeals to their shared Christian faith. Describe the Christian ethical motifs Banneker draws upon.
What were some of the problems the country experienced under the Articles of Confederation?
Contrast Anti-Federalist and Federalist theories of representation. Discuss two issues debated at the Constitutional Convention that were outgrowths of these opposing theories of representation. What were the Federalist and Anti-Federalist position in each case?
The threat of the “tyranny of the majority” was a lynchpin of Federalist arguments for the Constitution. Explain the nature of this threat according to Madison and other Federalists. How was the Constitution designed to minimize it as far as possible? What, by contrast, did the Anti-Federalists consider the main danger stemming from the establishment of government?
Contrast Federalist and Anti-Federalist views of the basis of trust in government.
Contrast Federalist advocacy of the need for a standing army with Anti-Federalist objections to it.
Why was the myth of the “noble savage” important to the arguments of Rousseau, Locke, and others for the natural rights of the individual and for the theory of government as a social contract?
How did the myth of the “noble savage” usually serve to affirm European superiority? How was it used as a basis for criticisms of European society?
What does Venables mean by the “common cause.” What were the two versions of this, according to him?
What are the grounds Venables gives for asserting that, the Constitution “was a betrayal of values held in esteem by the Iroquois?
Venables regards the Constitution as the foundation of an imperial government. Explain his thinking on this point.
Who is Tocqueville’s American?
What is the primary concern that animates Tocqueville’s examination of American society?
What are some of the major social and political features and problems of equality of conditions as Tocqueville describes and analyzes them?
What are some of the political and social features of America by which the ill-tendencies of the equality of conditions are or can be combated?
What is the nature of the democratic despotism that Tocqueville fears?
What does Martineau mean when she says of the American woman “indulgence is given her as a substitute for justice”?
What is wrong with the education of women according to Martineau?
What is the significance of duty and conscience in Martineau?
How is it that “marriage is the only object left open to women” according to Martineau?
Why does Martineau think that American prosperity “is a circumstance unfavorable to women”?
Describe some of the ways in which the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions seeks to extend the liberal conception of the autonomous individual to women.
What are the principal Christian motifs in the Seneca Falls documents?
What was the only Seneca Falls resolution to generate controversy, and why?
When, for Thoreau, does it become wrong for the individual to submit to the will of the majority?
What keeps most of those who oppose slavery in opinion from acting on their opinions, according to Thoreau?
Why is voting and petitioning the government for change not enough?
What limit does Thoreau place on the individual’s ethical obligations? How does this relate to his own refusal to pay the poll-tax?
What are the main points in Fitzhugh's critique of Northern liberal democracy?
Describe the model of a slaveowner republic offered by Fitzhugh and Calhoun.
Explain Calhoun's concept of "concurrent majority." How does it rectify what he considers the chief flaw or deficiency of government based on "numerical majority"? Discuss one problem you see with his model of government.
Summarize the positions of the three abolitionist currents, or "phases," according to Frederick Douglass. With which current was Douglass allied? Why did he prefer it?
What does Du Bois mean by "double consciousness"? How does it lead to the "waste of double aims?" In what sense is it nevertheless a "gift"?
What are the three phases of the freedman's quest for freedom after the Civil War, according to Du Bois? What shortcoming does Du Bois think marked them all? What was the "vaster ideal" that he believed Black Americans were striving for?
Summarize Du Bois's account of how Booker T. Washington successfully appealed to both the South and the North, and explain why he opposed most of Washington's program.
Stanton says that "man and woman are the complement of one another." What distinctive virtues does she think women have to contribute to American political life?
What evidence is there in Stanton to support the claim that when she speaks of women, she has in mind middle-class white women? Do you think it fair to say that these are the women she speaks for?
What parallels does Marable draw between post Civil War Reconstruction and what he calls the "Second Reconstruction"?
What brought about the failure of the first Reconstruction according to Marable?