Comments closed, except for Kris's question below

No more comments for participation credit will be allowed as of now, so we can go in and start tabulating everything for grades. Please delete any duplicate comments you may have posted, which you should be able to do by clicking the little trash can icon.

You can still ask questions on term sheet post.

P.S. Kris's students can also still answer his NASCAR-Confederate flag question, since he promised to give to until the 15th. Just noticed that.

One last extra credit participation: Kris Maulden's students

As was promised earlier, the above link will take you to a recent Yahoo! News article on the problems that the Confederate flag poses to NASCAR's growth. Read the article and consider the following questions: how should we approach the Confederate flag today? Is it appropriate for public display or not? If so where, and if not why? Is NASCAR's leadership right to suggest that its fans should no longer use the flag? In future controversies over the flag, where will you side? (Note: the cutoff for online participation is Friday, December 15, at 5 p.m., when I will tally up final blog posts.)

[FURTHER NOTE: You may notice a slight delay in your comments appearing on the site, as I have turned on "comment moderation" to prevent people from making further comments on earlier posts. -- JLP]

Last chance for participation credit -- question for all

To this day, southerners often claim that the secession of the South and the ensuing Civil War was not about defending slavery or white supremacy, but instead about defending their "way of life"? Is that true? (In other words, was there a southern way of life independent of slavery and white supremacy, or was slavery primarily an especially crude and brutal form of capitalist exploitation?) If the answer is "yes," was it a good enough excuse?

Kris Maulden's Questions - Dec. 7/8

This week we'll be covering the coming of the Civil War. My apologies to the Friday sections for not getting to Celia, but I'll answer questions and cover the book as quickly as we can. As for reading, please read the Elliot Gorn article in online unit 11; it's very interesting and should be a good way to end the semester. As for the questions:

1. How do the fighters in the Gorn article show Southern commitment to a code of honor? What does that code consist of, and how does it allow Southerners talk of the Civil War as a defensive action when they took the first steps in it by seceding and then shelling Fort Sumter?

2. As Dr. Pasley mentioned in lecture, is slavery just an economic or a social system? Did slavery exist to make profits for the owners or was it a "way of life"? Please explain your reasoning and what you think are the implications of your response.