L3: Reconstruction as…: Zinn Reconstruction: America’s Second Founding

1. L3: Reconstruction as…: ZinnReconstruction: America’s Second Founding • Agenda • Objective: • To understand and evaluate Howard Zinn’s argument regarding Reconstruction. • Schedule: • Group Work and Group Discussions Homework: Consult unit schedule. No modifications to assignments at this time.

2. Plan for Today • Goal: Understand, analyze, and evaluate Howard Zinn’s argument about Reconstruction. • Task: • Part One: Understanding and Evaluating Components of Zinn’s argument • You will work in groups to understand, analyze, and evaluate a quote from Zinn. Complete the following discussion questions. Take Notes! • What is Zinn arguing? • What evidence exists to support or refute Zinn’s point? What evidence exists to counter Zinn’s point? You must identify detailed evidence. • Do you agree or disagree with Zinn? • Part Two: Evaluating Zinn’s Argument • We will jigsaw into new groups. With your new group, you will complete the following discussion questions. Take Notes! • Share the insights generated from your first group. • Use all of the insights from all of the groups, to build an understanding of Zinn’s overarching argument. Articulate an argument that connects all of these ideas. • In light of the argument you generate, evaluate whether Zinn would consider Reconstruction to be a second founding--a second American Revolution?

3. Part One: Understanding and Evaluating Components of Zinn’s Argument • Group One: • “With slavery abolished by order of the government--true, a government pushed hard to do so, by blacks, free and slave, and by white abolitionists--its end could be orchestrated so as to set limits to emancipation. Liberation from the top would go only so far as the interests of the dominant groups permitted.” p. 171-172 • Group Two: • “Thus, while the ending of slavery led to a reconstruction of national politics and economics, it was not a radical reconstruction, but a safe one--in fact, a profitable one.” p. 172 • Group Three: • “It was the national government which, while weakly enforcing the law ending the salve trade, sternly enforced the laws providing for the return of fugitives to slavery. It was the national government that, in Andrew Jackson’s administration, collaborated with the South to keep abolitionist literature out of the mails in southern states. It was the Supreme Court of the United States that declared in 1857 that the slave Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was not a person, but property. Such a national government would never accept an end to slavery by rebellion. It would end slavery only under conditions controlled by whites, and only when required by the political and economic needs of the business elite of the North.” p. 186-187 • Group Four: • “It [the Civil War] was not a clash of peoples…but of elites. The northern elite wanted economic expansion--free land, free labor, a free market, a high protective tariff for manufactures, a bank of the United States. The slave interests opposed all that; they saw Lincoln and the Republicans as making continuation of their pleasant and prosperous way of life impossible in the future…” p. 189 & [consider along with the following quote on the end of Reconstruction]: “Northern political and economic interests needed powerful allies and stability in the face of national crisis. The country had been in economic depression since 1873, and by 1877 farmers and workers were beginning to rebel. It was time for reconciliation between southern and northern elites.” p. 205