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Lincoln and Emancipation: a Man's Dialogue with His Times

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Lincoln and Emancipation: a Man's Dialogue with His Times DOCUMRNT flitSUP48 ED 032 336 24 TE 499 934 By -Minear, Lawrence Lincoln and Emancipation: A Man's Dialogue with His Times. Teacher and Student Manuals. Amherst Coll., Mass. Spons Agency-Office of Education (DREW). Washington. D.C. Bureau of Research. Report No -CRP -H 1 68 Bureau No-BR-S-1071 Pub Date 66 Contract -OEC 5-10-158 Note-137p. EDRS Price MF-$0.75 HC Not Available from EDRS. Descriptors -*Civil War (United States),*Curriculum Guides, Democracy, Government Role, *Leadership Qualities, Leadership Styles, Political Influences, Political Issues, Political Power, Role Conflict, Secondary Education, Self Concept. *Slavery. *Social Studies. United States History Identifiers -*Abraham Lincoln. Emancipation Proclamation Focusing on Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation of the Negro, this social studies unit explores the relationships among men and events, the qualities of leadership. and the nature of historical change. Lincoln's evolving views of the Negro are examined through (1) the historical context in which Lincoln's beliefs about Negroes took shape, (2) the developments in Lincoln's political life, from 1832 through 1861, which affected his beliefs about Negroes, (3) the various military, political.. and diplomatic pressures exerted on Lincoln as President which made him either the captive or master of events, (4) the two Emancipation Proclamations and the relationship between principle and expediency, (5) the impact of the emancipation on Lincoln's understanding of the conduct and purposes of the war and the conditions of peace, and (6) Lincoln's views on reconstruction in relation to emancipation, Inlcuded are suggestions for further reading, maps. charts. and writings from the period which elucidate Lincoln's political milieu. (Not available in hard copy due to marginal legibility of original document.] (Author/J[3) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION & WELFARE 1 OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEENREPRODUCED EXACTLY AS EXPERIMENT AL MATERIAL RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATIONORIGINATING IT. SUBJECT TO REVISION POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY PUBLIC DOMAIN EDITION REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICEOF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. TEACHER'S MANUAL INCOLN AND EMANCIPATION: 4 A MAN'S DIALOGUE WITH HIS TIMES Lawrence Minear New Trier High School Winnetka, Illinois This material has been produced by the Committee on the Study of History, Amherst, Massachusetts under contract with the U. S. Office of Education as Cooperative Research Project #H-168 417, ".. ...tut: .2.. -1 ) ( NOTE TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN EDITION This unit was prepared by the Committee on the Study of History, Amherst College, under contract with the United States Office of Education. It is one of a number of units prepared by the Amherst Project, and was designed to be used either in series with other units from the Project or independently, in conjunction with other materials. While the units were geared initially for college-preparatory students at the high school level, experiments with them by the Amherst Project suggest the adaptability of many of them, either wholly or in part, for a considerable range of age and ability levels, as well as in a number of different kinds of courses. The units have been used experimentally in selected schools throughout the country, in a wide range of teaching/learning situa- tions. The results of those experiments will be incorporated in the Final Report of the Project on Cooperative Research grant H-168, which will be distributed through ERIC. Except in one respect, the unit reproduced here is the same as the experimental unit prepared and tried out by the Project. The single exception is the removal of excerpted articles which originally appeared elsewhere and are under copyright.While the Project received special permission from authors and publishers to use these materials in its experimental edition, the original copyright remains in force, and the Project cannot put such materials in the public domain. They have been replaced in the present edition by bracketed summaries, and full bibliographical references have been included in order that the reader may find the material in the original. This unit was initially prepared in the summer of 1966. *WM, t 01r ;1: This unit deals with the classicquestion of the roleof the "great man" in history. It focusses on AbrahamLincoln and the emancipation of the negro,and thus poses thequestion in terms of one of the greatestAmerican heroes and anaccomplish- ment which is usually cited as amonghis greatest. Confronting the evidence at hand, thestudent is asked to assessthe extent to which Lincoln's role as"the Great Emancipator" wasforced upon him by histimes, and the extent towhich he himselfshaped those times in pursuit of adesired end. As a teaching device, the question is put bluntlyand familiarly: Do the times make the man, or does the manmake the times? The hope is that in pursuing it the student will comenot only to anappreciation of the subtlety of thequestion, but that in sodoing he will develop a greater sophisticationin thinking andtalking about such questions as therelationship between menand events, the nature of "greatness," andthe nature of historicalchange. The Introduction poses thegeneral question ofthe relation of men to their times. Section I provides thestudent with evi- dence of the historicalcontext in whichLincoln's beliefs about negroes tookshape. Section II shows thedevelopments in Lin- coln's political lifebefore his inauguration asPresident and Sec- the concomitantdevelopments in his beliefsabout negroes. tion III asks the studentsto study the various pressuresexerted on thePresident during the years1861-1862, and to determine whether in issuing thePreliminary EmancipationProclamation, Lincoln was the captive of events ortheir master. Section IV presents the two EmancipationProclamations against thebackground of the important militaryand political eventsof the times. The student is asked whetherthe Great Emancipatoracted' on grounds of principle orof political expediency, orboth, and in what measure. Section V studies the impactof emancipation of the on Lincoln'sunderstanding of the conduct and purposes war and theconditions of the peace. Section VI presentsLincoln's views on reconstructionin relation to emancipation. The foregoing suggests whatthe unit is, it mightbe well to make clear from the outsetwhat the unit is not. The unit is not a study of theorigins of the civil war,although some of them are evident fromthe documents. It is not a study ofthe It war itself,although the guns are alwaysin the background. is not a study ofthe EmancipationProclamation, except as that document is set in thecontext of Lincoln's totallife and thought. It is not a study of thewide-ranging effects of thatProclama- tion, except as theyeffect Lincoln himself. It is not a study of Reconstruction,though the outlines ofthat tragic era are clearly discernible. The suggestions which follow arenot intended to set a pattern by which theunit must be taught andthe teacher should feel free at all timesto vary from the proceduresuggested in this manual. The student, however, shouldbe encouraged to ques- tion and to think, andthe teacher should seehimself as a guide -2 IMO to discovery rather thana mere supplier of facts. The time requiredfor study of this unitmay vary greatly in accordance with individualcircumstances. In terms of an all over period of twoweeks for study of the entireunit, the recommended time allotmentwould be approximatelyas follows: Introduction 1 day Section I 1 day Section II 2 days Section III 2 days Section IV 1 day Section V 1 clay Section VI 1 day This allocation oftime leaves one day which, atsome point in the study of the unit,could well be spent in analyzingLin- coln's literary style. It mar be ofsome interest to the students to recall that President-electKennedy did thisvery thing before preparing his own inauguraladOress. This unit 'providesan ex- cellent basis for sucha study, ", offering selections from both his writings and hisspeeches over thespan of his entire politi- cal career, and from formaladdrsses and documents tomore in- formal letters and speeches. INTRODUCTION The Introduction confrontsthe student with three statements about the relationship betweengreat men and their times. Carlyle says that men determine history. Lincoln credits events with the key role. Hegel speaks ofa mutual interaction betweenmen and events. The student might beasked which of these heagrees with. A short written assignment,prepared outside of class might encourage the student to be specificon this subject or since the issue is at least initiallyfairly clear cut,a class discussion might be productive. Such a discussion mightfocus on a major figure in American historypreviously studied during theyear- - Washingtonor Jefferson, for example. Wherein did their greatness lie? Did they represent thehopes of the people at large? Or did they themselvessomehow inspire those hopes? Is it mere accident that they appearedat a critical moment inhistory, or did they .help to precipitatethe crisis? Did they act,or react? Did they guide events,or channel in p certain direction people's responses to already existing events?In short, whatwas their relationship to their times? Hegel may havd few, ifany, disciples at this stage of the unit. It would probably be betterfrom the point of view of 71,11.11- -3 - general teaching strategy not to forcehis views on theattention of students, who might thereby findthemselves talking hislanguage without really
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