Jason Dexter

History 1700-011
American Civilization Reflection
Michael Stone
Writing Center: 4/27/16 Jordin H.
The American Civilization course has pushed me this semester. Through the three writing
assignments I have tried to look for ways to go deeper than the surface question. I especially liked the
Lincoln-Douglas debate paper because I feel like I was given leeway to give a different viewpoint that is
less common. At the beginning of the semester I was able to look at what I wanted out of the course and it
has been interesting to see how much I have been able to accomplish from the goals that I had. While I
didnt get all that I could have, I did get a lot out of this course.
When the prompt for who won the Lincoln-Douglas debates was given I decided to try a different
approach. I wanted to show that American Democracy had won and the outcome was very interesting. I
studied the topic for several days trying to make my point. However, I came to see that from the
viewpoint that I had (that the essence of democracy was the popular vote) democracy had failed. I had
two options: I could change my essay or I could look at it from a new view point. I decided to try to make
my paper work as it was. It was a challenge but I was able to show from the perspective of how American
democracy was and is established that it functioned exactly as it was supposed to and therefore won. I
feel that the one of the weak points of the paper is that I dont actually agree with it. It failed to change the
way I see things. I still feel that popular vote should be the governing vote. However, despite this failing, I
feel that the paper succeeded in a number of ways. For example it showed its ethos through the use of
statistics especially that of the numbers from the 1860 election. The opposing view was addressed and
then discredited showing that it was baseless, and the organization of the paper made it easily readable.

I have always been fascinated by religions. I am a very religious person and I want to know as
much about both my own religion and the religions of others as I can. I hoped that this class would
provide more insight into the progression of religions in the Americas. Throughout the class I was able to
get a lot of information about different religions. I was not aware of the deep resentment toward Catholics
in the early history of the colonies. It was also interesting to learn about the different colonies that were
set up by different protestant groups. The way they governed their settlements widely varied as did what
they thought was correct and proper.
I also wanted to learn about the advancement of tolerance and acceptance in the history of the
United States. Learning more about how others were mistreated helps us as a nation and community avoid
those same problems. It was great that this course went so deep into various issues like the views on
Catholics and Protestants, the treatment of the Native Americans, the treatment of African Americans and
how that changed over the years, how Mormonism was initially received, the difference between political
parties, the difference between pro-slave Americans and pro-abolition Americans, and much more. Seeing
all of these different examples of intolerance that became tolerance which moved to acceptance and
integration was extremely interesting. Looking at these examples will help us continue to make strides
toward a more efficient and fair society.
I have long felt that it was important for us to look for cycles in history, especially those that may
cause us to repeat our failings. I hoped to notice some cycles as I went through this class. If we arent able
to review and accept our past for what it was we wont be able to move forward and we will be stuck in
an endless cycle of mistakes. There was one cycle that I thought was particularly interesting. If we look at
the Red Scare and compare it to the Salem Witch Trials we can see a similar idea. Along that same line
we see that those two instances bare an interesting resemblance to the treatment of Muslims in the United
States following the September 11th terrorist attacks and the ensuing War on Terror.
I hope to become a seminary teacher for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The
seminary program is a study of history from a religious view. I feel that it is important to also get a

secular view of history because so much of what happened in religious history was shaped by secular
history and so much of religious history shaped secular history. England was greatly shaped by the change
from Catholicism to Protestantism. Many of the early settlers of the new world came in pursuit of
religious freedom. The time of religious revival in the early 1800s led to the formation of various new
religious groups including the Mormons. This class has given me a lot of useful knowledge that will help
me tell things how they really were.
The papers that we wrote in this class were interesting but the Lincoln-Douglas debate essay
really challenged me. I really enjoyed learning more about who Lincoln actually was, how the voting
system worked at that time versus now, and writing a paper that argued a point that I didnt agree with.
Taking the time study the outcomes and workings of the elections and passing of the Thirteenth
Amendment really helped me learn to be more effective at researching as I had to search several different
websites to validate information. This will be very helpful as I work through, not only future history
classes, but also throughout my academic career.