Entering the Conversation

As you respond to each of the following prompts, support your position with appropriate evidence, including at least three sources in this Conversation on Abraham Lincoln, unless otherwise indicated.

  1. In his annual remarks to Congress on December 1, 1862, a month before the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln said: “We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free,—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” Write an essay that supports this claim.

    In 1880 in the North American Review, James C. Welling wrote, “It was a day of elemental stir, and the ground is still quaking beneath our feet, under the throes and convulsions of that great social and political change which was first definitely foreshadowed to the world by the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.” It might be said that “the ground is still quaking” under our feet today. Write an essay that examines the extent to which Welling’s statement still applies to our time.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Entering the Conversation: - In his annual remarks to Congress on December 1, 1862, a month before the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln said: “We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free,—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” Write an essay that supports this claim.In 1880 in the North American Review, James C. Welling wrote, “It was a day of elemental stir, and the ground is still quaking beneath our feet, under the throes and convulsions of that great social and political change which was first definitely foreshadowed to the world by the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.” It might be said that “the ground is still quaking” under our feet today. Write an essay that examines the extent to which Welling’s statement still applies to our time.
  2. Do you agree, as Cuomo (p. 703) states, that the work Lincoln inspires us to do is “unfinished”? Write an essay that explores Cuomo’s idea.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Entering the Conversation: - Do you agree, as Cuomo (p. 703) states, that the work Lincoln inspires us to do is “unfinished”? Write an essay that explores Cuomo’s idea.
  3. View the 2012 film Lincoln, produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. Compare how Abraham Lincoln is depicted in the film with how he is depicted in the sources in this Conversation.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Entering the Conversation: - View the 2012 film Lincoln, produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. Compare how Abraham Lincoln is depicted in the film with how he is depicted in the sources in this Conversation.
  4. President Lincoln preserved the Union. President Lincoln freed the slaves. Was Abraham Lincoln a visionary who strove to ensure for all Americans, white and black alike, what the Declaration of Independence promised? Was he a great and dutiful statesman and politician who took the pragmatic route to save the Union at all costs? There are those who see Lincoln as the Great Emancipator (of slaves) and those who see him as the Great Preserver (of the Union). Write an essay that defends or qualifies one of those positions.

    Read “O Captain! My Captain!” (p. 659), a poem about Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman. Write an essay that discusses and evaluates Whitman’s view of Lincoln, referring to several texts in this Conversation. You might also read “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” another Whitman poem about Lincoln.

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Entering the Conversation: - President Lincoln preserved the Union. President Lincoln freed the slaves. Was Abraham Lincoln a visionary who strove to ensure for all Americans, white and black alike, what the Declaration of Independence promised? Was he a great and dutiful statesman and politician who took the pragmatic route to save the Union at all costs? There are those who see Lincoln as the Great Emancipator (of slaves) and those who see him as the Great Preserver (of the Union). Write an essay that defends or qualifies one of those positions.Read “O Captain! My Captain!” (p. 659), a poem about Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman. Write an essay that discusses and evaluates Whitman’s view of Lincoln, referring to several texts in this Conversation. You might also read “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” another Whitman poem about Lincoln.
  5. In paragraph 9 of “Abraham Lincoln and Our ‘Unfinished Work’” (p. 703), Cuomo writes, “The old bigotries seem to be dying.” Do you agree? What are the “old bigotries”? Are there new bigotries as well? How can the example of Abraham Lincoln and his legacy help guide us past new bigotries as well as old?

    Question

    ALMF/kS1zzW73MouRsoXk1h0lKY=
    Entering the Conversation: - In paragraph 9 of “Abraham Lincoln and Our ‘Unfinished Work’” (p. 703), Cuomo writes, “The old bigotries seem to be dying.” Do you agree? What are the “old bigotries”? Are there new bigotries as well? How can the example of Abraham Lincoln and his legacy help guide us past new bigotries as well as old?