Wood presents important supporting evidence that Franklin is more complex than his stereotype. In his book, Wood follows two broad courses, from Franklin’s difficult progress from an English supporter, to becoming a more committed American. In chapter one, "Becoming a Gentlemen," Wood lists events chronologically that were a result of Franklin's…
As Gone with the Wind begins, Scarlett O’Hara is illustrated as an attractive wealthy spoiled brat. She is just that. She can get any man in her vicinity; well, she can get all but the one she has wanted for some time. She is rather haughty with the knowledge of her being able to do what she wants. She has a very provocative demeanor. The way she bats her eye lashes, fidgets with clothing, or what she wears.…
August’s experience in the book Wonder was a positive and a necessary journey in his life. In the story August Pullman goes through bullying, betrayal, friendship.…
In Kenneth Stampp’s text ‘The Era of Revolution 1865-1877’ he tells us that Lincoln hoped that with reconstruction the nation’s wounds would heal and to achieve a long and lasting peace. Throughout this period however it became apparent that this…
According to the background essay, the Southerners started to elect governments that only wanted white people to rule. In many of the states, they had made sure that a black person didn’t get a place in office, despite the fact that the US Army was protecting the rights of the blacks. Then the election happened. It was Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, against Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic candidate. The entirety of America was on edge, and people thought that the North and the South were going to go to war again. To avoid a war, which also would’ve effectively ended Reconstruction, Rutherford B. Hayes became president. But there was a catch. In order for Hayes to become president, he had to remove the federal soldiers in the South. Nobody could enforce the Southerners to respect the blacks, so it undid the entire effort that went to reconstruction. If it weren’t for the Southerners resistance, Reconstruction would’ve happened and America would be a much different…
Although Bailey does make an attempt to convey the overall mess that was the Republican government of the South, leaving no party blameless, I cannot help but feel that he carried through an undertone that would suggest that the Southern states were thrown to the wolves left to fend for themselves against their opposition from all sides. Whether it be their once public enemy, the Northerners who would present as manipulators whose sole objective was to exploit the Southern destruction for their own personal gain, the ignorant Negroes who couldn’t tell up from down, or the traitorous Southern scalawags who would leave behind their Southern brethren exchange for their stake in the power game, Bailey presents a sad and impossible state of affairs for the suffering whites of the South. Try as he may to deliver an unbiased explanation of the time, Bailey’s tone gives an overall negative opinion of the “carpetbaggers” and “scalawags.”…
A shift in the attitudes and beliefs of any ancestral society is most often a convoluted and lengthy task, caused by a combination of many people's actions. The text "To Kill A Mockingbird," and the film "The Power of One," address the extent of influence one person's risk and sacrifice can have on the ideologies that are adhered to by a society. Both stories contain characters that show courage and morality by acting on their disapproval of the prejudice that is rife in their respective communities. Atticus Finch, of the text, is remarkably judicious and wise throughout the novel, and it is these mannerisms that gain him the respect of his society. Ironically, it is this righteousness that also leads him to jeopardise his standing and reputation…
The Puritan dilemma is a constant struggle inside one's self to follow through with the demands of the bible. John Winthrop throughout this monograph deals with many different types of situations in his life that challenges a Puritan. First John Winthrop must decipher if traveling to America is a mere ploy for him to rum away from the corruption of the church of England and the English government that he had recently came in contact with, or whether, the trip offers a chance to be an example to all men on how God wants his people to live. Once John Winthrop settled in Massachessetts the problems only grew for him. John Winthrop became the first governor. After he became governor John Winthrop faced a lot of different problems flowing from the puritan dilemma. The main question of the colony was how they were to be governed. The people obviously were not going to want a king or anything related to England. This is when the puritan concept of the "covenant" with God came into to play. So like always John Winthrop as every other puritan of the time resorted to the Holy Bible for the guidance they were looking for. John Winthrop later in the novel had another great problem on his hands in the character Roger Williams. Roger Williams was a member of the puritan congregation that personally believed that it was neccassary for every member of the puritan church not only to make a public declaration of the repentance for having communion with the churches of England but to also to renounce the church all together. Roger Williams felt as though this was sufficient to have banished that churches errors from the Puritan congregation. John Winthrop obviously did not agree with this theory, Winthrop saw that taking this stance would only promote the puritan people the withdrawing further and further away from the world. John Winthrop felt if people distance themselves from the world then how can they change it. In the monograph it was evident from the beginning…
In an attempt to civilize the patriotic memory of the Tea Party, the genteel “ladies” ironically participated in parties that domesticated the tradition of dissent with toy chests of tea, women dressed in “ye old costumes”, actual drinking of tea and speakers who espoused America’s exceptionalism while also dismissing the “lawless violence” of the Boston Tea Party.8 For example, Robert C. Winthrop, a Republican congressman and president of the Massachusetts Historical Society disavowed the “destruction of the tea” saying, “We are not here today I think to glory over a mere act of violence, or a merely successful destruction of property.”8 Other speakers at the city-sponsored celebration continued to tone down controversy in the Tea Party narrative. These popular parties attempted to tame its memory, concealing its radical and rebellious history, making its memory a literal tea party. In contrast to to the genteel ladies celebrating the Boston Tea Party as an eloquent reminder of the country’s greatness, the suffragists resurrected the voices of the early protestors to remind the nation how much of that greatness had yet to be…
“Charity towards all, and malice towards none”, were Lincoln’s words and his vision of the path of Reconstruction. After the bloody defeat of the rebellious Southern states in the Civil War, America needed peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction. What was intended to be a painless, effortless plan turned into another irrelevant conflict that ended up a failure. Although, the southern reaction to northern rule was a factor that lead its to failure, northern political factors also killed Reconstruction.…
One of the ironies of the Civil War era and the end of slavery in the United States has always been that the man who played the role of the Great Emancipator was so hugely mistrusted and so energetically vilified by the party of abolition. Abraham Lincoln, whatever his larger reputation as the liberator of two million black slaves, has never entirely shaken off the imputation that he was something of a half-heart about it. "There is a counter-legend of Lincoln," acknowledges historian Stephen B. Oates, "one shared ironically enough by many white southerners and certain black Americans of our time" who are convinced that Lincoln never intended to abolish slavery--that he "was a bigot...a white racist who championed segregation, opposed civil and political rights for black people" and "wanted them all thrown out of the country." That reputation is still linked to the 19th-century denunciations of Lincoln issued by the abolitionist vanguard.…
The Ugly American demonstrates a kind of ignorance that lingers in the American Ambassadors and the process by which foreign policy is created and implemented. Throughout the novel the characters consistently prove of this theory. One character in specific is that of the Honorable Gilbert MacWhite who is sent to Sarkhan in replacement of the Honorable Louis Sears. His downfall in office was a compilation of things of seemingly his own fault and misjudgment of his own and others. On the other hand there was, simultaneously, a plethora of success from non-government officials in state just adding to the bad image that is created for government officials serving in other countries.…
As Catton observes, Lee came from a “privileged” class from which “the county would get its leadership.” “He embodied a way of life that had come down through the age of knighthood and the English county squire.” Lee came from the noblest elements of tradition and “chivalry” living in a “static society.” Everything happened to the country because of the higher class giving it “strength” and “virtue.” Even more so, he believed to not be one with the nation himself, but “the Virginia aristocrat, inevitably, saw himself in relation to his own region”. He felt tied to the region he lived in; he fought to preserve the way of life he had known. “Back of Robert E. Lee was the notion that the old aristocrat concept might somehow survive and be dominant in American life.”…
There, in Winthrop's own words, is the Puritan dilemma of which Mr. Morgan speaks here, "the paradox that required a man to live in the world without being of it." Superficially Puritanism was only a belief that the Church of England should be purged of its hierarchy and of the traditions and ceremonies inherited from Rome. But those who had caught the fever knew that Puritanism demanded more of the individual than it did of the church. Once it took possession of a man, it was seldom shaken off and would shape--some people would say warp--his whole life. Puritanism was a power not to be denied. It did great things for England and America, but only by creating in the men and women it affected a tension which was at best painful and at worst unbearable. Puritanism required that a man devote his life to seeking salvation but told him he was helpless to do anything but evil. Puritanism required that he rest his whole hope in Christ but taught him that Christ would utterly reject him unless before he was born God had foreordained his salvation. Puritanism required that man refrain from sin but told him he would sin anyhow. Puritanism required that he reform the world in the image of God's holy kingdom but taught him that the evil of the world was incurable and inevitable. Puritanism required that he work to the best of his ability at whatever task was set before him and partake of the good things that God had filled the world with but told him he must enjoy his work and his pleasures only, as it were, absent-mindedly, with his attention fixed on God. Caught…
This article was written to illustrate the common citizen of the colonies and their struggles, both good and bad, through the revolution. By writing “The Shoemaker and the Revolution” Alfred F. Young shows the mass civilian involvement that acted as a catalyst for the anti-British sentiment that swept the nation, and specifically Boston. Young uses George Hewes, a lowly shoemaker, as an example of the power each individual holds. Hewes went from a shy apprentice, too scared to speak up in front of John Hancock, to an outspoken patriot…