Topic Selection
Topics for the debate will come from one of our supplementary resources, Clashing Views on Controversial
Issues in American History, Volume 1.
PART 1. Colonial Society
ISSUE 1. Is America Exceptional?
YES: Seymour Martin Lipset, from American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword
NO: Ian Tyrrell, from "American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History," American Historical
Review
ISSUE 2. Was Columbus an Imperialist?
YES: Kirkpatrick Sale, from The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy
NO: Robert Royal, from 1492 and All That: Political Manipulations of History
ISSUE 3. Were the English Colonists Guilty of Genocide?
YES: David E. Stannard, from American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World
NO: Steven T. Katz, from "The Pequot War Reconsidered," The New England Quarterly
ISSUE 4. Was the Colonial Period a "Golden Age" for Women in America?
YES: Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, from "The Planter's Wife: The Experience of White Women in
Seventeenth-Century Maryland," William and Mary Quarterly
NO: Mary Beth Norton, from "The Myth of the Golden Age," in Carol Ruth Berkin and Mary Beth Norton,
eds., Women of America: A History
ISSUE 5. Were Socioeconomic Tensions Responsible for the Witchcraft Hysteria in Salem?
YES: Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, from Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft
NO: Laurie Winn Carlson, from A Fever in Salem
PART 2. Revolution and the New Nation
ISSUE 6. Was the Great Awakening a Key to the American Revolution?
YES: William G. McLoughlin, from "`Enthusiasm for Liberty': The Great Awakening as the Key to the
Revolution," in Jack P. Greene and William G. McLoughlin, Preachers and Politicians: Two Essays on the Origins
of the American Revolution
NO: Jon Butler, from "Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as
ISSUE 7. Were the Founding Fathers Democratic Reformers?
YES: John P. Roche, from "The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action," American Political Science
Review
NO: Alfred F. Young, from "The Framers of the Constitution and the `Genius' of the People," Radical History
Review
ISSUE 8. Was Thomas Jefferson Committed to Bringing an End to Chattel Slavery?
YES: Dumas Malone, from Jefferson and His Time, vol. 6: The Sage of Monticello
NO: William Cohen, from "Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery," The Journal of American History
ISSUE 9. Was Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Policy Motivated by Humanitarian Impulses?
YES: Robert V. Remini, from Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832, vol. 2
NO: Anthony F. C. Wallace, from The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians
PART 3. Antebellum America
ISSUE 10. Was Antebellum Reform Motivated Primarily by Humanitarian Goals?
YES: Alice Felt Tyler, from Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History to 1860
NO: David J. Rothman, from The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic
ISSUE 11. Was the Mexican War an Exercise in American Imperialism?
YES: Rodolfo Acuña, from Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 3rd ed.
NO: Norman A. Graebner, from "The Mexican War: A Study in Causation," Pacific Historical Review
ISSUE 12. Did the Westward Movement Transform the Traditional Roles of Women in the Mid-Nineteenth
Century?
YES: Sandra L. Myres, from Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915
NO: John Mack Faragher, from Women and Men on the Overland Trail
ISSUE 13. Did Slavery Destroy the Black Family?
YES: Stanley M. Elkins, from Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Economic Life, 3rd ed.
NO: Eugene D. Genovese, from Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
PART 4. Conflict and Resolution
ISSUE 14. Is Robert E. Lee Overrated as a General?
YES: Alan T. Nolan, from "Rally, Once Again!" Selected Civil War Writings of Alan T. Nolan
NO: Gary W. Gallagher, from "Another Look at the Generalship of R. E. Lee," in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., Lee
the Soldier
ISSUE 15. Did Abraham Lincoln Free the Slaves?
YES: James M. McPherson, from Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War
NO: Vincent Harding, from There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America
ISSUE 16. Did William M. Tweed Corrupt Post-Civil War New York?
YES: Alexander B. Callow, Jr., from The Tweed Ring
NO: Leo Hershkowitz, from Tweed's New York: Another Look
ISSUE 17. Was Reconstruction a "Splendid Failure?''
YES: Eric Foner, from "The New View of Reconstruction," American Heritage
NO: Thomas Holt, from Black Over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina During Reconstruction