H105, American History I

This week’s optional readings carry American history forward from the aftermath of the American Civil War to the present day when the United States is still struggling mightily to achieve greater justice, equality, and freedom in this country, as well as in the wider world.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, statement about GI Bill (1944):  In 1944, as World War Two was coming to a close, the then-President offered a vision of re-absorbing military veterans into the nation, one which contributed to an extraordinary two decades of postwar prosperity (albeit favoring whites over blacks, consistent with that era’s discriminatory racism).  What benefits did the Roosevelt administration extend to (white) veterans?  How were these benefits thought to be important not only for (white) veterans but for the nation as a whole?

Ho Chi Minh, speech (1945):  While many people have chosen to emigrate from other parts of the world to the United States, few other countries have sought to emulate the system of government of the United States, especially given American foreign policy’s frequent support for brutal dictatorships in the “Third World,” such as its energetic support of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq throughout the 1980s.  Beginning in the 1940s, and until his death in 1969, Ho Chi Minh led an independence movement in Vietnam, initially against French colonial rule, and eventually against American intervention.  Why did he invoke both the American Declaration of Independence from 1776 as well as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man from 1789?  How did the grievances voiced in his speech resemble the grievances of the United States in 1776?  How did they differ?

United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948):  The United Nations, of which the United States is one of 193 member nations, adopted this declaration of human rights in 1948, which has become the standard for evaluating government behavior and national conditions throughout the world.  Which principles are similar to those found in the American Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution?  Which principles carry the notion of “rights” to a higher and broader standard?  Which rights envisioned in international law are not yet guaranteed or protected under United States constitutional law?

Students for a Democratic Society, Port Huron Statement (1962):  This statement was issued on the cusp of an interval of heightened student activism in the 1960s.  The 1962 statement was premised on a sense that the ideals voiced by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 — government of, by, and for the people — were being rapidly destroyed, so that American democracy was growing weaker at home, even as American foreign policy was growing more brutal abroad.  How did the students who wrote this statement feel positioned with respect to mainstream American society?  How did they feel positioned within the university?  How did they feel positioned with respect to the future?  How did they divide the world into (problematic, in my view) binary oppositions?

CivWorld Citizens Campaign for Democracy, Declaration of Interdependence (2003):  This statement was issued in response to the horror of September 11, 2001, and seeks to blend the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Overlooking its well-intentioned naivete, why did the statement emphasize the principle of democracy as the paramount solution at the global level?