Teaching American History for All

MDUSD/UCBH-SSP

8th Grade Lesson: Civil War

How did Slavery Contribute to the Onset of the Civil War?

Unit Topic: Civil War and Slavery

Teaching American History Grant Focus Question:

How did definitions of citizenship change from the 17th century to the 20th century?

8th Grade Yearlong Focus Question:

How did federalism shape the roles of the national and state governments?

How did the rights of citizens expand and contract during the 18th and 19th centuries?

Unit Focus Question:

How did the United States solve social, political, and economic challenges as the nation grew?

OR

In its early years as a republic, how did the United States tackle the social, economic, and political effects of its growth?

Multi-day Lesson Focus Question:

How did slavery contribute to the onset of the Civil War?

Multi-day Lesson Teacher’s Working Thesis:

Although slavery deeply divided the country socially and economically, the political impact of slavery was the most important cause of the Civil War.

OR

Slavery deeply divided the country by changing the social, economic, and political relationship between the North and the South.

Reading Strategy Lessons:

1. Passage Level Organization

8.9.1 Lesson Question: How did abolitionists respond to attempts by southern

politicians to expand slavery?

2. Sentence Deconstruction and 3. Analysis

8.9.5 Lesson Question: How did the Dred Scott Decision create further divisions over the

issue of slavery?

Writing Strategy Lesson:

Choosing Evidence

Suggested Amount of Time:

5 days

Textbook:

Holt: United States History: Independence to 1914, 2006. Chapter 14, A Divided Nation,

pages 434 – 464.

Other Resources:

Frederick Douglass’ speech: “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro”

Context of the unit:

The sections of the North, South, and West have been taught. Students have analyzed the

attempts to abolish slavery.

History-Social Science Content Standard:

8.9 Students analyze the early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

1.  Describe the leaders of the movement (e.g., John Quincy Adams and his proposed constitutional amendment, John Brown and the armed resistance, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass).

5.  Analyze the significance of the States' Rights Doctrine, the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Wilmot Proviso (1846), the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay's role in the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (1857), and the Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858).

8.10 Students analyze the multiple causes, key events, and complex consequences of the Civil War.

Grades 6 -8 Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills

Historical Interpretation

2. Students understand and distinguish cause, effect, sequence, and correlation in historical events, including the long- and short-term causal relations

California English-Language Arts Content Standards: Grade 8

Reading

Expository Critique

2.7 Evaluate the unity, coherence, logic, internal consistency, and structural patterns of text.

Writing

2.4 Write persuasive compositions:

a. Include a well-defined thesis (i.e., one that makes a clear and knowledgeable judgment).

b. Present detailed evidence, examples, and reasoning to support arguments, [differentiating between facts and opinion].


8th Grade Civil War Unit Writing Prompt

Background: From the beginnings of the United States there were conflicts over the institution of slavery. These conflicts carried over into every aspect of American government and ultimately divided the nation in two. After many compromises failed, a civil war occurred.

Question: How did slavery contribute to the onset of the Civil War?

Expectations: Construct a written argument in a multi-paragraph essay which has:

  1. A multi-paragraph format with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
  2. A clear thesis statement.
  3. At least three body paragraphs which discuss how slavery impacted the social, political and economic development of the United States.
  4. Accurate, evidence which support the body paragraphs.
  5. An analysis of each piece of evidence explaining why it is relevant and significant.
  6. A concluding paragraph that restates the thesis.

Teacher’s Working Thesis:

·  Although slavery deeply divided the country socially and economically, the political impact of slavery was the most important cause of the Civil War.

·  Slavery deeply divided the country by changing the social, economic, and political relationship between the North and the South.

8.9.1 Lesson Question

How did abolitionists respond to attempts by southern politicians to expand slavery?

“The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” a speech by Frederick Douglass,

Rochester, New York, July 5th, 1852.

Context

In antebellum America, the Fourth of July was a major holiday. Orators praised the nation and described the American Revolution as the starting moment of a new and promising phase in the history of the world. In this excerpt from a speech in Rochester, Frederick Douglass points out the inconsistencies between the promise of the American Republic and the slavery practiced in the South. In so doing, he claims the legacy of the American Revolution for the abolitionist cause. During the early nineteenth century, upstate New York was a hotbed of religious revivalism, radicalism, and communitarian experimentation; the region was given the nickname of the “Burnt-over District” because of the waves of fiery movements it experienced. Rochester in particular was a center of abolitionist sentiment. Frederick Douglass was speaking to the Ladies Antislavery Society (600 people) in Rochester, New York.

Section commentary: “You hurl your anathemas at the crowned heads of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina….” This refers to Tsar Nichols I of Russia and Francis Joseph of Austria. In 1848 and 1849 there were a series of emergent working class revolutions in Hungary, Germany, France, and Italy. These revolutions for democracy were crushed by various armies. “You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad…” This refers to a number of survivors from the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 who toured the United States.

In another part of this speech, Douglass responds specifically to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This most proslavery component of the Compromise of 1850 put the federal government in the business of helping catch slaves. Federal marshals were required to help "recover" slaves. Alleged fugitives would be tried by federal fugitive slave commissioners without a right to a jury or a right to testify on their own behalf. Even worse, these judges were paid 10 dollars if they sent the accused back into slavery and only 5 if they ruled him or her to be a free person. Both legally free blacks and escaped slaves who had lived free for years, now feared kidnapping by federal slave catchers. Meanwhile, the new law demonstrated the unsettling political power of slaveholders to many northern whites who had previously been uninfluenced by the antislavery

movement.

2

UCB History Social-Science Project Academic Literacy Strategies

2/6/07

8.9.1 Lesson Question: How did abolitionists respond to attempts by southern politicians to expand slavery?

“The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” a speech by Frederick Douglass

Rochester, New York, July 5th, 1852. (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2945)

Americans! Your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three million of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot, and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation – a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty … You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three-penny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe “that of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth,” and hath commanded all men everywhere, to love one another; yet you notoriously hate (and glory in your hatred) all men whose skins are not colored as your own. You declare before the world, and are understood by the world to declare that you “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens, I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad: it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement; the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! Be warned! A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

8.9.1 Lesson Question

How did abolitionists respond to attempts by southern politicians to expand slavery?

From “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” a speech by Frederick Douglass, at Rochester, New York, July 5th, 1852. (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=2945)

Americans! Your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three million of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and

Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot, and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation-a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty.... You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three-penny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe “that of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth,” and hath commanded all men everywhere, to love one another; yet you notoriously hate (and glory in your hatred) all men whose skins are not colored you’re your own. You declare before the world, and are understood by the world to declare that you “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens, I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie… It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union…

2

UCB History Social-Science Project Academic Literacy Strategies

2/6/07

8.9.1 Lesson Question: How did abolitionists respond to attempts by southern politicians to expand slavery?

From “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” a speech by Frederick Douglass, Rochester, NY, July 5, 1852.

Thesis: “Americans! Your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent.”

Inconsistencies

TM/Cn / What Americans Say and Do / The Reality for Slaves
while / You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, / while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three million of your countrymen.
while / You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions,
but / You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water;
yet / yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation - a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty…
but / but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America.
TM/Cn / What Americans Say and Do / The Reality for Slaves
yet / You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor;
and yet / You can bare you bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three-penny tax on tea;
yet / You profess to believe "that of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth," and hath commanded all men everywhere, to love one another;

Content Questions: