History

Time and Place: 1861: The Coming of the American Civil War

Module code: V1425
Level 5
15 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Lecture, Seminar
Assessment modes: Coursework

In 1861 the United States stood on the brink of civil war. Seven Deep South states had seceded from the Union in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's presidential victory. By April all hopes of peace had been extinguished.

In this module you probe the causes of a conflict that resulted in the deaths of at least 620,000 Americans. We begin with President Polk's decision to go to war against Mexico in 1846, a disastrous policy mistake that resulted in divisive political debate over the expansion of slavery into territory ceded by the Mexicans after their surrender. 

We chart the:

• ill-fated Compromise of 1850
• subsequent demise of a national party system that had held the Union together since the 1830s
• rise of North-South tensions in the wake of passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• sources of southern proslavery nationalism in the 1850s
• outbreak of sectional infighting in Kansas
• rise of the antislavery Republican Party
• South's response to Lincoln's election
• refusal of most northerners to allow the southern states to secede from the Union.

Although the module is primarily political in focus, close attention is given to the social and economic context in which the sectional crisis occurred

Module learning outcomes

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of the causes of the American civil War.
• Assess the relative significance of political, social and economic factors in Civil War causation.
• Critically engage with historiographical debates over the coming of the Civil War.
• Compare and contrast the contribution of elite and non-elite historical actors to the outbreak of war.
• Analytically assess primary documents and write argumentative essays based on independent research.