Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Levellers' View Of History, Margaret Trowe

Honors Theses

The name "Levellers" applies to a political organization which functioned as a potent force in the politics of England in the late 1640s. During this period a fierce struggle for power was being fought, partly on an ideological level. The fighting of the first civil war had ended in 1646; the army of Parliament had defeated the royalist forces and had captured the King. In the wake of military victory, the various factions among the victors began to vie for power. In 1645 and 1646 tracts supporting the establishment of a representative democracy, the guarantee of civil and religious freedoms, …

The Diplomatic Mission Of Yancey, Rost And Mann: The Inadequacies Of Confederate Foreign Policy, 1861, Paul Zingg

Master's Theses

During the secession movement of January- February 1861, which culminated in the Montgomery Constitutional Convention, the young Confederate government established well-defined policy objectives for the purpose of securing European allies and material assistance. Basically these aims were three-fold: to secure recognition of the sovereign status of the Confederate states; to induce intervention by the European powers on the side of the Confederacy; and, after April, 1861, to gain a repudiation of the Union blockade from these same powers. Relying predominantly on the coercive power of cotton, the South began its quest for these objectives with diplomatic efforts directed at the …

Agriculture In The Fredericksburg Area, Harold J. Muddiman

Master's Theses

This paper is a study of agriculture and rural conditions in the Virginia counties of Caroline, Culpeper, Orange, Spotsylvania, and Stafford from 1800 to 1840. These counties are located in the north-central section of the state. The easternmost of the counties, Caroline, is located on the edge of the Tidewater section; Orange and Culpeper, in the Piedmont, extend to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The land is generally flat in the east, becomes more rolling as it approaches the mountains. Soils range from sandy loams in Caroline County to the sandy and clay loams with underlying crystalline rock …

Loyalists And Rebels : The Election Of 1928 In Virginia, Susan Parker

Honors Theses

The election of 1978 was a unique event in the political history of Virginia. For the first time since Reconstruction the state went Republican in a national election, Herbert Hoover getting 53.9% of the total vote. This was not the beginning of a definite trend because the state did not go Republican in a presidential election again until 1952. The hold of the Democratic Party over the people appeared as strong as ever on both the local and national levels after this bolt.

Since the Civil War the Republican Party in the South had been identified with Reconstruction, emancipation, and …

The Immediate Reaction To The Nat Turner Rebellion (August - November, 1831), Rebecca Saunders

Honors Theses

Being primarily concerned with the safety of their wives and children, however, they felt it necessary to secure their protection. This was done in a variety of ways. Some in the grip of terror fled to the woods with only those provisions they could carry by hand, remaining there for days at the time. Others congregated in public places such as Cross Keys, Jerusalem and the surrounding county seats of Virginia and North Carolina. A letter from Jerusalem on August twenty-forth described the situation there: "Every house, room, and corner in this place is filled with women and children, driven …

Laud's Influence On The Star Chamber From 1630-1637, Leonard I. Sweet

Honors Theses

If the Virginia denominations could have forecast President Lincoln's request that the Commonwealth supply 2,340 troops to enforce the suppression of her sister southern states, unanimity would have prevailed from 1859 onward, and this paper would be unnecessary except for a single statement: The religious elements in Virginia endorsed secession. Although many of the clergy professed gifts of prophecy, their vision was eternal rather than secular. A religious calling meant exemplary stewardship as God's vassal, and as such their interests and concerns transcended political affairs. The men of the cloth kept abreast of current event,s but, as God's viceregents, felt …

The Virginia Protestant Reaction To The Secession Crisis : October 1859-May 1861, Leonard Ira Sweet

Honors Theses

If the Virginia denominations could have forecast President Lincoln's request that the Commonwealth supply 2,340 troops to enforce the suppression of her sister southern states, unanimity would have prevailed from 1859 onward, and this paper would be unnecessary except for a single statement: The religious elements in Virginia endorsed secession. Although many of the clergy professed gifts of prophecy, their vision was eternal rather than secular. A religious calling meant exemplary stewardship as God's vassal, and as such their interests and concerns transcended political affairs. The men of the cloth kept abreast of current events, but as God's vice-regents, felt …

Diplomatic Disobedience In American History 1781-1807, Thomas Lynwood Powers

Honors Theses

The United States of America owes much to its disobedient diplomats. They secured for this country its independence and original boundaries and later gained the expansion of these boundaries.

This paper examines early examples of such disobedience. It deals with the acts themselves, the viewpoints of the givers and the violators of instructions, and the overall significance to the United States.

The Virginia Resolutions Of 1798 : A Study Of The Contemporary Debate, Alice J. Retzer

Honors Theses

The Virginia Resolutions of 1798 have been praised as a defense of the basic freedoms of person, speech, and press and equally denounced as an early precedent for the principles of states rights, nullification and interposition. Involved in the crisis which arose over the Alien and Sedition Laws were such outstanding Virginians and national figures as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Taylor, William Branch Giles, John Marshall, Patrick Henry, and Henry Lee. Without major emphasis upon the contributions or activities of these statesmen or the historical implications of the Resolutions, the purpose of this paper is to examine the contemporary …

Virginia's Response To Nullification 1832-33, Robert Lawrence Musick Jr.

Honors Theses

The year 1832 found the United States in the midst of acute internal turmoil. Plagued by numerous and various problems, the Union felt its bonds strained to the bursting point. A serious rupture between the states and the federal government seemed imminent.

Congress in 1828 had enacted a tariff, known in the South as the Tariff of Abominations, which boosted the duties on certain manufactured goods and raw materials from about 37 per cent to 45 per cent. An effort by the South was made in 1832 to reduce this onerous burden. However, the new tariff law fell far short …

The Senate Debate On The League Of Nations, Ann Packard

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Activities Of I.G. Farbenindustrie In The United States, 1929 Until March 11, 1942, William C. Neubauer

Honors Theses

The activities of I. G. Farbenindustrie in the United

States afforded Americans the opportunity to observe Third

Reich activities as they existed in pre-war America. This preview

of Naziism in America helped unite popular opinion against

Hitler. It is the purpose of this paper to point out the origins

of such a system in this country, the conditions which nurtured

its growth, characteristics of the system, and the steps which

lead to the collapse of the system. The lack of a detai]ed and

determined policy by the Germans prevented their utilization of

I. G. Farbenindustrie to its upmost strategic value …

Virginia Agriculture 1840-1860, Susan Agee

Honors Theses

The eighteen country sample mentioned in the paper refers to a list of counties scattered throughout the present state of Virginia. Records of the West Virginia counties were unavailable. The countries were:

Tidedwater

• Hanover
• King and Queen
• Lancaster
• Nansemond
• Surry
• Westmoreland

Piedmont

• Albemarie
• Amelia
• Amherst
• Appomattox
• Halifax
• Fauquier
• Henry

Valley and Trans-Alleg

• Alleghany
• Augusta
• Shenadoah
• Floyd
• Russell

1960 : The Dilemma Of Adlai Stevenson, Robert A. Kester

Honors Theses

The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-61, seemed to many Americans to be an "era of good feeling." The hard divisions over the Korean War and McCarthyism had been healed, and the country enjoyed peace and prosperity; "I like Ike" was more than just a political slogan--it was a national sentiment.

Yet, to the liberals in America, Eisenhower seemed to be merely a latter-day McKinley. To the liberals, this peace and prosperity was a euphemism for the stagnation and drift caused by the inaction of the Eisenhower Administration.

So, to most American liberals, with their terrible sense of urgency, the …

Richard Hooker And John Locke : Political Theory In Perspective, Alice M. Justice

Honors Theses

John Locke in his Second Treatise on Civil Government quoted extensively from Richard Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. It has often been taken for granted that Hooker was a precursor of the political theories of the origen of government, the consent of the governed, and sovereignty as developed and perfected by Locke. The historical and philosophical problem to be considered in this thesis is the relationship of Hooker to Locke: the purpose of the two works, the particular development of ideas in each, the concepts borrowed or shared, and the historical realities and philosophical outlooks which contribute to their distinctive …

The Development Of Lenin's Theory Of Imperialism, Robert L. Musick

Honors Theses

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, devoted revolutionary and architect of the Soviet state, ranks as the foremost exponent of Marxist economic and political thought. As a theorist Lenin interpreted and amplified the teachings of Marx and contributed several concepts to Communist doctrine. Chief among those contributions was his theory of imperialism as the highest, final, decadent stage of capitalism.

Lenin's definitive essay on the subject, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," was written in 1916 and culminated several years of intensive thought and reading. The essence of the "new" imperialism that Lenin described was the competition among several modern world powers for …

The War Aims Of The Russian Provisional Government, Susan Parker

Honors Theses

The outbreak of the first World War marked the end of an era in the history of Euroe; nowhere was this to be more true than in Russia. At th eoutset there was a great show of popular support for the war, much more so than for the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Anti-government and revolutionary activity had soon revived following the temporary hiatus after the seemingly successful Revolution of 1905, but it disappeared almost entirely in the rise of national feeling and loyalty that accompanied the declaration of war on August 1, 1914.

The French And British Socialist Missions To Russia, 1917 : A Thesis, Thomas L. Powers

Honors Theses

In 1917, several Allied countries sent Socialist representatives to Russia to try to convince the Russian Socialists to stay in the war. I have concentrated on the British and French missions because they, as representatives of the two largest of the Allied countries, contacted more people and groups, were more deeply involved in the situation in Russia, and made themselves more conspicuous than did the others. The other missions (principally the Belgian and Italian) did very little the British and French did not do and had few characteristics which the British and French did not share.

The American's also sent …

The Court Of Star Chamber, Susan Agee

Honors Theses

The Court of star Chamber in the last decade of the reign of Elizabeth had great prominence in the life of Tudor England. It was an efficient model or a typical Tudor institution, yet its uniqueness was recognized as early as the 1570's by Sir Thomas Smith. In later years, it abused its power and became a symbol of Stuart tyranny, but, during this period, it was a necessary and a respected body. A distinction should be made between the Star Chamber and the Privy Council. Besides the slight difference in its membership, the star Chamber was an exclusively judicial …

Scottsburo : Influence Of The International Labor Defense, John E. Griswold

Honors Theses

The Scottsburo Case - a series of litigations which shook the thirties began on March 21, 1931 in an alleged rape of two white girls by nine Negro boy son a train near Point Rock, Alabama. From a simple beginning near this sleepy mountain town in Alabama, this case had ramifications throughout the United States and the world. It will be my purpose in this paper to examine the case from the standpoint of Communism as seen through the efforts fo the International Labor Defense, a Communist front organization. I will trace the history of the I.L.D. and its campaign …