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Interesting, Debatable, Civil War Topics?
I'm doing my thesis this year in American Studies in the Civil War, but I need a very strong thesis. I need it to be very debatable, so that I have the chance to make a great argument. Any ideas?? Thanks!
That seems like a great topic, but it still seems TOO hypothetical, if you know what I mean. This is, unfortunately, a research paper and so when I present the argument, I must have sufficient proof of whichever side, and the debate over whether or not the North would ask for slavery would have to be loosely based off on debates in the past, and it is in general too hypothetical.
I guess I should have worded it differently. I can't use hypothetical thesis's. I need thesis where it's hard facts, but you can still go the extra mile and have a strong debate about it.
8 Answers
- ammianusLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
'Was the Emancipation Proclamation issued for political or moral reasons?'
'Were Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman War Criminals?' - the March to the Sea was approved by both Lincoln and Grant, and deliberately targeted the civilian population of Georgia.
- Alex YLv 41 decade ago
By stopping McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign, Robert E. Lee actually ended slavery, as opposed to his original goal of protecting it.
Think about it. If McClellan had won, and captured Richmond, the war would be over. Lincoln and the northern people still would try to get the country together again as quickly as possible. This means that they would, however grudgingly, accept slavery, but with a few restrictions or regulations. Remember, Lincoln still hadn't issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
By stopping McClellan, Lee allowed the people in the north more time to get angry at the south for the cruel practice of slavery, and steel the will of northerners to free the slaves. Also, it allowed to Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which sounded the death bell for slavery.
It could be easily argued back and forth whether or not the North would ask for slavery to be ended if McClellan had captured Richmond, though.
Hope this helps!
Source(s): AP US history - PamelaLv 45 years ago
Most people think Robert E. Lee was a genius. In my many years of study I find him to be nothing but an insecure little whiner. He could not make decisions because he was afraid to offend someone. He let Stuart run wild and possibly cost him a couple of battles. His total dependence on Stonewall Jackson was shameless. He ignored the best general in either army, Longstreet. He was sick most of the time and did not have the good sense to let anyone know. He felt only he could do the job. Well, it cost him the war. Try that. It is more interesting then reciting dates. You can get a lot of information from Michael Shaara's books.
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- 6 years ago
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RE:
Interesting, Debatable, Civil War Topics?
I'm doing my thesis this year in American Studies in the Civil War, but I need a very strong thesis. I need it to be very debatable, so that I have the chance to make a great argument. Any ideas?? Thanks!
Source(s): interesting debatable civil war topics: https://shortly.im/1kIfJ - 1 decade ago
During the Civil War President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Was this justified given the extraordinary situation?
- grace bLv 41 decade ago
Why did they not allow succession as it was a guaranteed right of a state? Why didn't the north pay money to the Southerners to free the slaves so they had enough money to buy equipment to continue with their livelihood?
- Anonymous5 years ago
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~If you want interesting and unknown, you might have to do some work to ferret out the "truth", but it can be found. The war is shrouded in myths, legends and lies that have become "fact" by repetition. There are things you could write about that your teacher doesn't know. Sadly, teachers have been taken in by the same lies and propaganda that they preach. How about writing about why it was NOT a civil war? When Great Britain granted independence to the colonies by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, thirteen new nations were created in North America. Those nations never consolidated into a single nation. The formed a confederation of nations, first under the Articles of Confederation, then under the Constitution of the USA. The Founders and Framers created a FEDERAL, not NATIONAL. government to oversee and legislate over only limited and expressly enumerated areas of common interest. The right to secede from the coalition was an understood given. When New York, Virginia and Rhode Island acceded to the constitution and joined the confederation, they expressly reserved the right to secede. The delegations of the other states (think in terms of "nation-state", as they did) said the reservations were unnecessary, the right was a given. The right to secede from a government that no longer serves, defends or protects the rights and interests of the governed is, after all, the core principle over which the colonies had engaged in the civil war of 1774-83 (that one was a civil war, not a revolution). You can discuss how Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued in favor of the right of states to nullify federal law, and by extension, to secede, in their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, or how the New England States had threatened to secede in 1803, again in 1812, yet again in 1814 and even yet again in 1815, proving they knew the right existed. You can explore the threats of states on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line to secede over the illegal and unconstitutional Missouri Compromises of 1820/21, or how states in the north and south alike threatened secession over the (constitutionally correct) decision of the Taney Court in the Dred Scott case of 1852. Be sure to mention the speech Congressman Abe Lincoln gave on the floor of the House on January 12, 1848, during which he argued in favor of the right of secession, or the many similar speeches that Daniel Webster made until he did his about face and decided that it was in New England's best interest to say the south could not secede. In 1860/61, the CSA states simply reclaimed the independence, sovereignty and autonomy they had never relinquished. The democratically elected representatives of the people passed the Ordinances of Secession and the people ratified the ordinances at the polls or in convention. Those nation-states then allied and formed there own union, the Confederate States of America, under a constitution based on that of the USA, creating a coalition of democratic republics. The will of the people had been spoken and heard. The remaining members of the USA confederation responded by invading in a war of aggression, with the goal of conquering and annexing the nations of the CSA and the governments of the people, by the people, for the people of the CSA perished from the earth. In 1865, for the first time, the USA became a single nation composed of subservient political subdivisions called "states", although that status was never effectuated or recognized by constitutional or statutory law. The all-powerful national government so feared by the Founders and Framers, and which they tried so diligently to avoid and prevent, came about by default during and after the war. You don't want to discuss the cause. Why not? Why not debunk the foolish and inane myth that the CSA states seceded of the slavery issue. The US constitution, at Article I, Sections 2 and 9, Article IV, Section 2 and Amendments IV, V, IX and X guaranteed the right to own slaves. Abolition could come about only by state law or constitution amendment. No abolition amendment was ever even proposed before 1864 because the was not enough support in the north for ratification, forget the south. (The federal government and northern money and industrial interests were as dependent on slavery as was the south, since the southern plantations were the cash cows that financed the federal government and lined the pockets of the northern tycoons). The 1864 attempt was defeated in Congress (with the south absent) and couldn't be submitted to the ratification process - where it would have been soundly defeated in any case. In fact, in 1861, the Republican dominated northern majority in Congress passed the Corwin Amendment, which, if ratified, would have become amendment XIII and would have prohibited any future attempt to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment. Rather than to stick around and ratify Corwin, the CSA states secede. Does it make any sense they'd have done so to protect a right already firmly guaranteed by the constitution, especially in the face of an offer to extend that guarantee into perpetuity? Another topic would be to write about how the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional and illegal, based on the foregoing constitutional provision. It was also redundant, Congress having already purported to do the same thing by the Confiscation Acts months earlier. Explain how the Acts and EP were intended as weapons of war, designed to cause mass desertions from the CSA ranks, from the CSA officer corps and from the CSA government (all a slave owner had to do under EP to keep his human chattel was to renounce the CSA and swear allegiance and fealty to the USA). EP was also designed to allow union field leaders to ignore the constitutional requirement that "liberated" slaves be returned to their rightful owners, a dilemma that had perplexed them since the start of the invasion. There was a reason the Acts and EP did not purport to free the slaves in Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, Missouri, Tennessee and large tracts of Virginia and Louisiana; the war effort didn't require it and the Constitution didn't allow it. Include a discussion on how ratification of Amendment XIII was coerced not as a humanitarian, moral, civil rights measure, but as a means to insure that the CSA was utterly destroyed and not capable of soon rising again. Another thought would be to discuss the constitutionality (or lack thereof) of the admissions of West Virginia and Nevada into the union in 1863 and 1864. That is a little drier, perhaps, but no less interesting.