General Topics for the Research Essay
(Mr. Meyers’ Sections)

(Choose one topic area and come up with a specific question about one aspect of your topic)

Columbus: Hero or Villain
City on a Hill and Manifest Destiny
The American Paradox: Slavery and Freedom
American Revolution: Radical or Conservative
Whose Revolution: Race and the American Revolution
Republicanism and Democracy in the Early Republic
Jefferson: Idealist or Pragmatist
The Monroe Doctrine and American Foreign Policy
The Constitution: The Federalist Controversy
The Constitution: Tyranny of the Masses or Tyranny of the State
The Constitution: A Living Document?
Democracy and Capitalism in the Jacksonian Era
Jacksonian Democracy and the Transformation of the Agrarian Ideal
Reform of the Slums: The Motives of Moralism
Gender and the Invention of the Suburbs
Abolition and Women’s Rights
Slavery and States Rights: the Constitutional Argument
Abolition and Free Soil: The Republican Debate
Sectionalism and the Origin of the Civil War: Ideology or Economics
The Supreme Court and Civil Rights
Lincoln: Idealist or Pragmatist
The Civil War and the Growth of the State
 

Topic due:    Thursday, 10/1
Thesis Question and Outline due:  Friday, 10/30
Rough Draft due:   Friday, 12/11
Final Draft due:   Friday, 1/15

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