Civil War Essays (4872 words) - Forms Of Government,

Civil War In this meeting of the Southern Historical Association great emphasis has been placed upon a re-examination of numerous phases of our history relating to the Civil War. While several papers have dealt with certain forces which helped bring about the Civil War, none has attempted a general synthesis of causes. This synthesis has been the task assumed by the retiring president of the Association. Before attempting to say what were the causes of the American Civil War, first let me say what were not the causes of this war. Perhaps the most beautiful, the most poetic, the most eloquent statement of what the Civil War was not fought for is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. That address will live as long as Americans retain their love of free government and personal liberty; and yet in reassessing the causes of the Civil War, the address whose essence was that the war was being fought so that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth is irrelevant. Indeed, this masterpiece of eloquence has little if any value as a statement of the basic principles underlying the war. The Civil War was not a struggle on the part of the South to destroy free government and personal liberty nor on the part of the North to preserve them. Looked at from the present perspective of the world-wide attempt of the totalitarians to erase free governments and nations living under such governments from the face of the earth, the timeworn stereotype that the South was attempting the destruction of free government and the North was fighting to preserve it seems very unrealistic and downright silly. In the light of the present-day death struggle between freedom and the most brutal form of despotism, the Civil War, as far as the issue of free government was involved, was a sham battle. Indeed, both northern and southern people in 1861 were alike profoundly attached to the principles of free government. A systematic study of both northern and southern opinion as expressed in their newspapers, speeches, diaries, and private letters, gives irrefutable evidence in support of this ass ertion. Their ideology was democratic and identical. However, theoretical adherence to the democratic principles, as veil we know all too well in these days of plutocratic influences in our political life, is not sufficient evidence that democratic government exists. I believe that I shall not be challenged in the assertion that the economic structure of a section or a nation is the foundation upon which its political structure must rest. For this reason, therefore, it will be necessary to know what the economic foundations of these sections were. Was the economic structure of the North such as to support a political democracy in fact as well as in form? And was the economic structure of the South such as to permit the existence of free government? Time does not permit an extended treatment of this subject; it will be possible only to point out certain conclusions based upon recent research. By utilizing the county tax books and the unpublished census reports a group of us conductin g a cooperative undertaking have been able to obtain a reasonably accurate and specific picture of wealth structure of the antebellum South, and to some extent that of the other sections. We have paid particular attention to the distribution of capital wealth and the ownership of the means of production. As has been generally known the Northwest was agricultural and its population predominantly small farmers, though a considerable minority were large farmers comparable with the southern planters. It seems that in 1860 about 80 percent of the farmers in the Old Northwest were landowners. A fairly large fraction of the remaining farm population in that area were either squatters upon public lands or were the members of landowning families. Only a small per cent were renters. In those areas farther west the ownership of land was not as widespread because the farmers had not yet made good their titles to the lands that they had engrossed. Taken as a whole the people of the Northwest wer e economically self-sufficient. They could not be subjected to economic coercion and, hence, they were politically

Long MLK Analysis Essay

Long MLK Analysis Essay Long MLK Analysis Essay Curtis Long COMM 300 MLK Analysis This paper will analyze and discuss the â€Å"I have a dream speech† by Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. which was presented in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial. The speech is about the failed promises of equality for all, focusing mainly on blacks. The speech culminated a civil rights march on Washington in an attempt to secure rights for African-Americans. The march, King's speech, and other boycotts and protests eventually led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed many aspects of discrimination. The reason that the speech had such a massive impact is due to the tense social mood of the time and it gave black activists a vision for the future. It hit directly into the hearts and minds of white and blacks across America, and made people willing to change history. In just 17 minutes, Dr. King influenced and informed generations and generations of people about the racial inequality. According to almost all scholars, the seventeen-minute speech is a masterpiece of rhetoric usage . He referred to many other famous speeches and documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the United States Constitution, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. This is obvious when analyzing the speech as one can notice that King structures his speech to appeal to a large array of audiences and supporting it with the three rhetorical modes of ethos, logos and panthos engraving Dr. King’s name in history. The act was Dr. King’s â€Å"I Have A Dream† speech. This speech was about civil rights and was aimed towards all people in the hopes that one day everyone can live together equally. He also made many references to the economy, by stating that he refuses to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. The scene, was the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. This location helped devlier a huge advantage for Dr. King, as Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which had freed the slaves, so associating himself with Lincoln he portrayed himself as a great leader, and someone who was a champion for black's rights. This combined with his statement of 100 years later the negro is still not free and is crippled by the manacles of segregation. He also mentions many southern states who were staunchly opposed to desegregation, in particular he mentions Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification", in an attempt to point out the hate these people have towards blacks. The agent, is Dr. King, who gave the speech. He gave this speech because he wanted equality among races, and worked in order to achieve this goal. hoped that the children that they would see that someday.â€Å"Through his activism, he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American, and following this game changing speech he became the face the movement. The agency, was the change that Dr. King sought out. The change in laws which were oppressing black men and women. He continually repeats that â€Å"I have a dream†, this is to emphasis that equality is not a reality, but that there is hope to achieve his dream. He also mentions