Date: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 Time: 10:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m.

Did slavery cause the Civil War? Or was it a conflict over states' rights? Or was it the inevitable clash between an industrial society and an agrarian society? Or was it a struggle between two imperialistic powers over territorial expansion? Or was it really about slavery after all? Find out how recent scholarship answers these questions.

LEADER:

Edward Ayers President, the University of Richmond Trustee, the National Humanities Center

• Assigned Readings
  1. "What Caused the Civil War" reprinted from What Caused the Civil War? by Edward L. Ayers, 2005. (PDF)
  2. "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?," 1852, from The Oxford Frederick Douglass Reader. (PDF)
  3. "Right makes might," speech at the Cooper Union, February 27, 1860, from This Fiery Trial: The Speeches and Writings of Abraham Lincoln. (PDF)
  4. Elizabeth Brown Pryor, "Upon a Fearful Summons" from Reading the Man, A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters. (PDF)
  5. Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861, from The Civil War and Reconstruction. (PDF)
  6. "Alexander H.H. Stuart's Open-Ended Unionism" from Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union. (PDF)
• Seminar Presentation (PowerPoint, 5.98MB)
• Seminar Evaluation
• Forum
• Seminar Recording
  1. Streaming recording
  2. Download recording (You will need to install the WebEx ARF player, available at download, to playback the recording.)