2. Slavery and the Antebellum South

Questions:
1. How did slavery shape southern white society?
2. How different from each other were the antebellum North and South?
3. How useful is the concept of "paternalism" for understanding southern slavery?
4. Why did supporters of slavery think it was necessary for the "peculiar institution" to expand in order to survive?

Edward Pessen, “How different from each other were the antebellum North and South?” American Historical Review 85 (Dec. 1980)
James M. McPherson, “Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A new look at an old question,” Civil War History 50.4 (2004) 418-433
Robert Cook, “A Robber and a Jailer: The Antebellum Republic,” from Civil War America: Making a Nation, 1848-1877 (London: Longman, 2004)
William W. Freehling, “The Divided South, Democracy’s Limitations, and the Causes of the Peculiarly North American Civil War,” from The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
Otto H. Olsen, “Historians and the Extent of Slave Ownership in the Southern United States,” Civil War History 50.4 (2004) 401-417
Genovese, “The Origins of Slavery Expansionism” in The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy & Society of the Slave South (New York: McGibbon & Kee, 1966)
William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: vol. 1, Secessionists at Bay (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)
William A. Link, Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003)