Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Commentary: What It Means To Be A Citizen, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

It was one of the great shocks of my life, and it came early. In fifth-grade government class. Though I can't remember much else that we learned then, a detail in Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution reached out and grabbed me like the hound of the Baskervilles: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." [excerpt]

Commentary: 14th Amendment Laid Foundation Of Civil Liberties, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

They had just glued the world back together, and within a year it was threatening to come apart again.

That might sound like a description of the Arab Spring, or even the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact, it's what happened 150 years ago in the United States. [excerpt]

No Justice Given, Alison P. Lauro

SURGE

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time analyzing privilege and looking at how systems in the United States often work to further oppress the vulnerable, while keeping the privileged in power. I have taken note of how my light skin, middle-class background, and young, abled body has given me opportunities and advantages others don’t have. But, I hadn’t thought too deeply about the privileges that come with being a natural born, American citizen. I’ve stood up to salute the flag every day in school, watched fireworks on the fourth of July, and generally felt proud to be an American; but, …

Book Review: Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln And The Movement For Black Resettlement, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

“There is a clause in the Act which is likely to meet with misconstruction in Europe,” wrote Frederick Milnes Edge about the legislation that emancipated the slaves of the District of Columbia in April 1862, “namely the appropriation for colonizing the freed slaves.” Ignore it, Edge advised. It only “was adopted to silence the weak-nerved, whose name is legion—and to enable any of the slaves who see fit to emigrate to more genial climes.” And this, for a long time, has been the way that most commentators have understood colonization—a plan ostensibly designed to expatriate any emancipated blacks to …

From "No Country" To "Our Country!" Living Out Manumission And The Boundaries Of Rights And Citizenship, 1773-1855, Scott Hancock

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

During the Revolutionary War and the first decades of the early U.S. Republic, as free people of color sought to define their place in the new nation, they expressed little connection to an American nationality. But antebellum black leaders later articulated a powerful vision of Africans and Americans. As slaves and free blacks had done during the Revolutionary era, they based this African American identity in part upon a biblical view of human rights and a natural rights philosophy, but they also buttressed black identity formation by making a rights discourse the fulcrum of their argument for full inclusion in …

How Abe Lincoln Lost The Black Vote: Lincoln And Emancipation In The African American Mind, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

No other American president has wielded the power of words with greater skill than Abraham Lincoln. "No one can read Mr. Lincoln's state papers without perceiving in them a most remarkable facility of 'putting things' so as to command the attention and assent of the people," wrote Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times in 1864, and Raymond had an editor's unerring eye for this sort of thing. Massachusetts congressman George Boutwell, reminiscing for Allen Thorndike Rice twenty years after Lincoln's death, thought that "Lincoln's fame" would "be carried along the ages" by his writings, and especially the …

3. Rome: Roman Citizenship, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section I: Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem: Background of Western Civilization

The Roman concept of citizenship represents both a measure of their capacity to govern and one of their key contributions to Western culture. In the Greek city-state, citizenship was something which could not be separated from the intimate and varied life of the polis. It enabled a man to live the good life because it entitled him to participate in all the activities which the polis sponsored. Justice, Plato wrote, meant that every man in this society was doing that for which he was best suited and was receiving in return what was his due. It was the result of …

2. Rome: Roman Civilization, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section I: Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem: Background of Western Civilization

For our purpose, the importance of the Romans lies in the fact that it was most directly from the ruins of their civilization that our own developed. Therefore, before completing the account of the decline and fall of their empire, we will consider the cultural contributions made by the Romans.

The Romans were not great cultural innovators. During the early republic, they were a simple agricultural people who were isolated from the civilizations upon whom the Greeks had drawn as well as from the Greeks themselves. As they began to expand, they came into contact with the Greeks -- first …

1. Rome: Republic And Empire, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section I: Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem: Background of Western Civilization

It is believed that about the same time certain barbarian people were entering Greece from the north, others came into the Italian peninsula from the same direction. A fusion with earlier inhabitants similar to that which took place in Greece produced the Italian people of recorded history. In terms of mountains, soil, mineral resources, and climate, there were similarities between the two countries, with Italy in general being the more favored. There was a significant difference: the relative lack of navigable rivers and natural harbors offered much less inducement for trade and commerce than was the case in Greece. Throughout …