Download Lesson: Prelude to the Civil War Author: Joe Waite Grade Level

Lesson: Prelude to the Civil War
Author: Joe Waite
Grade Level: Middle School
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and
secondary sources.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary
source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.3 Identify key steps in a text’s description of a process related to
history/social studies (e.g., how a bill becomes law, how interest rates are raised or lowered).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text,
including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos,
or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1 Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1a Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and
distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence
logically.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1b Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate data
and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic or text, using credible sources.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1c Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the
relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1d Establish and maintain a formal style.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.1e Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and
supports the argument presented.
Wisconsin Academic Standards:
B.8.2 Employ cause-and-effect arguments to demonstrate how significant events have influenced the
past and the present in United States and world history
B.8.3 Describe the relationships between and among significant events, such as the causes and
consequences of wars in United States and world history
B.8.4 Explain how and why events may be interpreted differently depending upon the perspectives of
participants, witnesses, reporters, and historians
B.8.5 Use historical evidence to determine and support a position about important political values, such
as freedom, democracy, equality, or justice, and express the position coherently
B.8.6 Analyze important political values such as freedom, democracy, equality, and justice embodied in
documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of
Rights
B.8.7 Identify significant events and people in the major eras of United States and world history
B.8.12 Describe how history can be organized and analyzed using various criteria to group people and
events chronologically, geographically, thematically, topically, and by issues
Essential Question: What caused the Civil War?
Learner Outcomes – Students Will Be Able To:
Explain the causes of the Civil War.
Trace the changing map of slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War.
Discuss ethical questions that deal with American history.
Write a persuasive letter through the eyes of Americans during the Civil War era.
Procedure:
Phase 1
1. Introduction: Begin with this question...”If you could go back in history and told them what the
USA will look like in 1865, after the Civil War, and convince them that the events they are
inventing or participating in are making that happen, do you think you could convince them to
stop the path to war?”
2. Pass out student packets. Call on volunteers to read the introduction on page one.
3. Tell students to follow along with the next portion, the Missouri Compromise, as you present it on
the attached PowerPoint presentation.
4. Show students the map for the Compromise of 1850. Call on volunteers to read this section in the
student packet.
5. Call on volunteers to read the sections in the student packet dealing with the Kansas-Nebraska
Act and John Brown, while showing the relevant slides on the PowerPoint.
6. Pair-share: What caused violence to erupt in Kansas and the West? How could it have been
avoided? Why was John Brown such a polarizing figure? Is terrorism, as used by John Brown,
ever justified? Call on pairs to share their ideas.
7. Call on students to read the remaining sections on the election of Abraham Lincoln and Dred
Scott.
1. Activity: Students will complete the electoral map questions – Activity 1 on the attached student
packet.
2. Pair-share: Why do you think Lincoln was more interested in keeping the Union together than
abolishing slavery?
3. Activity: Complete the timeline – Activity 2 – in the student packet.
Phase 2
1. Introduction: Projecting the blank United States map on the board, ask students to explain how
slavery changed on the map between 1820 and 1850. Call on volunteers to explain how the map
changed. Ask students why the West was so crucial in the slavery debate at this time.
2. Call on volunteers to read “The First Shots” portion of the student packet.
3. Pair-share: How did Lincoln attempt to avoid armed conflict? Call on pairs for ideas.
4. Activity: Students will complete the map on Activity 3.
5. Have students rejoin their partners. One member playing the role of the North and one playing the
role of the South.
6. Each student will come up with an argument for either extending slavery to new states and
territories or arguing against the expansion of slavery.
7. After writing down their best arguments, students will alternate giving their best arguments within
their pairs.
8. Whole-class: Call on pairs to share their best arguments.
9. Students will now work on their own on Activity 4, writing a letter to Lincoln. Remind students that
they are looking at the
Phase 3
1. Call on students to share their letters with the class.
2. Activity: Assign roles in Dred Scott hearing role play Anti-Slavery witnesses: Angelina Grimké, Justice McLean, James Madison, Frederick
Douglass
Pro-Slavery witnesses:
James Henry Hammond, Dr. Cartwright, Justice Taney
Impartial witness:
President James Buchanan
2 Defense Laywers, suing for Dred Scott’s freedom
2 Prosecutors, trying to keep Dred Scott as property of his master.
There will be two Newspaper reporters, one from Columbia SC and one from Boston, MASS.
Supreme Court Justices: John McLean, James M. Wayne, Roger B. Taney, John Catron,
Peter V. Daniel, Samuel, Nelson, Robert C. Grier, Benjamin R. Curtis, John A. Campbell
Disclaimer: This lesson will depend heavily on role-playing. Students will be instructed that
they don’t have to believe in the cause they are assigned to, but are expected to immerse
themselves into their assigned roles.
Class members will be coached into their roles and what is expected of them.
This website is particularly helpful in researching parts for the role play.
3. Students will be given research time to complete their roles. Each student will prepare
dialogue to be delivered at the hearing.
4. The teacher will organize the hearing so that students will deliver their dialogue in a coherent
order and both sides have the opportunity to present their cases.
Closure: Students will present the Dred Scott hearing role play.
Assessment: Multiple-choice test (attached).
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
EVENTS THAT LED TO THE WAR
Massive books have been written about the American Civil War. Maybe someday you will take more
advanced classes on this subject in which you’ll have to read some of these massive books. Maybe you want
to read massive books about the Civil War for fun, like I do. Either way, understand that this is a very brief
text that will attempt to introduce to you about this very important time in American history... a time in which
our country almost split into two and maybe more, parts.
Some historians argue that the Civil War started with the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the
American Constitution. In order to keep all 13 states unified and joining the Independence movement,
Northern States agreed to allow slavery in the Southern States. Rather than dealing with the issue then, they
decided to put it off. They kept putting the issue of slavery off for 70 years until war became inevitable.
Many people think that Civil War was just about slavery. It is true that the issue was a very large part of what
was happening, but there were other reasons as well. Southern states believed that each state should have
more rights than the federal government. The federal government had tried to assert its power over the
states, saying that federal law superseded state law. The southern states believed that this was an attempt to
take away their freedom. They feared that the federal government would make a law banning slavery, and
force them to accept this as law.
The population of the North was becoming much more urbanized because of the Industrial Revolution. Former farmers were flocking to the cities for better paying jobs. Northerners were having many more babies
than Southerners, and the northern population was increasing much faster than the southern population.
Immigrants from Europe would move to the North in search of factory jobs rather than the farming jobs of the
south... which depended on slave labor anyway.
Not all southerners owned slaves. In fact, only one-third of them did. These slave owners were the richest of
the rich, and controlled southern politics. Northern abolitionists, those that wanted to slavery ended, saw the
southern slave owners not only as immoral, but also as corrupt, money hungry, greedy, and evil. As northerners became more vocal against southern slave owners, southerners became more defensive. This led to a
rise in nationalism for each region, not only in the south but in the north too. Rather than seeing themselves
as Americans, northerners saw themselves as Northerners and southerners saw themselves as Southerners,
which a very different way of life.
Missouri Compromise
Every time a new state was admitted into the Union, it had to be declared as a slave state or a free state. To
put off war, federal politicians from the north and south came up with the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This
compromise, the first of many, was unpopular in both halves of the country. It stated that every state north of
36º North should be free, while every new state south of that line would be considered a slave state. Because
Missouri was north of that line, it was given “special status” making it a slave state. Northerners were really
ticked off about that. In addition, Arkansas was admitted into the Union about that time, making the number
of slave states equal to the number of free states. 1820 was the beginning of the end. The war would not be
averted after this time. In what appeared to be a compromise just prolonged the problem rather than dealing
with the problem of slavery. States above 36ºN that were already slave states would remain slave states. The
southerners wanted that line to be moved much further to the north.
Compromise of 1850
As the country continued to move to the west, the issue of slavery became even more heated. At the end of
the Mexican-American War, in which Texas would be eventually admitted into the Union as a slave state,
southern planation owners continued to try and hold onto their power. The Compromise of 1850 featured five
different bills, all of them wildly controversial in both halves of the country. Texas, admitted as a slave state,
was forced to give up claims to the New Mexico Territory, but was given control of the Texas Panhandle and
cash as compensation. Rather than say that states that might be formed out of the New Mexico and Utah
Territories would automatically be called slave states, it was decided that those new states would be able to
vote on it themselves. Southerners had to give up claims that southern California should become a slave
state because it was south of 36ºN. Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia, further angering
Southerners.
The Fugitive Act was signed, which was deeply hated in the North. It stated that any slave caught running
away to the north and caught had to be returned to their masters in the south because they were considered
property. Most northerners saw blacks as people deserving of freedom and individual rights. This law did not
sit well with them at all.
Northerners who were angry at compromises given to the Southern slave owners formed a new political party
called the Republican Party. Republicans were very opposed to slavery. Their party would gain strength and
power very quickly in the north, though it was almost non-existent in the south.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Like the Missouri Compromise before it, it simply put off the problem instead of dealing with it. Things quieted
down for awhile, but not for long. Four years after the Compromise of 1850, the Nebraska-Kansas Act was
passed.
The lawmakers who signed this Act hoped that it would quiet the tensions between the two regions, but it did
just the opposite. The law stated that the Missouri Compromise would be repealed and that the citizens of the
new states of Nebraska and Kansas could decide for themselves on whether or not they should be slave
states or free states. The North saw this as a victory for southern slave owners. They felt that the southern
politicians would be able to control the votes in these territories and create slave states north of 36ºN. In
addition, the new Transcontinental Railroad, financed by northerners, was set to run through those states.
Politicians from both sides argued on the route that the rail should follow... Northerners did not want to see
the tracks run through a slave state. Nebraska, still sparsely populated, would become a battle ground over
this issue.
Look at the “primary source” below (remember a primary source of information comes from a specific time
period... this map is from the 1850’s). The states shown in pink are Free States, those in gray are Slave
States, and those in green have yet to be decided as they were still territories. Notice Kansas-Nebraska in
the middle. Because of their proximity to the 36ºN line, they became a battle-ground state in the debate.
It was a very complicated debate, and several things happened because of it, including a northern Senator
being nearly beaten to death by a southern Senator. Missourians, who were pro-slavery, began moving into
the territory to influence the vote.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act pretty much cancelled out the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise
of 1850, and further divided the nation into two separate halves.
John Brown
John Brown was an abolitionist. An abolitionist believed in the ending of slavery. John Brown has been called
a fanatic and a lunatic, and even a fanatic patriot. He was so against slavery that he decided to rebel the
government in what we would call today “terrorist plots.”
From Kansas, he and his supporters were different than most Abolitionists who carried out peaceful
demonstrations. Brown and his men believed that violence against Southerners was the best way to get their
point across. He and his men killed five pro-slavery southerners in Kansas in 1856. In 1859, he led a raid on
Harper’s Ferry, a federal arsenal in Virginia, with the intent of stealing weapons and arming slaves that would
attack southern plantations. Seven men were killed, including a free black, and ten were seriously wounded.
Brown was captured and taken to trial.
Captured in Virginia, he would found guilty of murder and treason under Virginian law. He was sentenced to
hang. Southerners celebrated his death, seeing the death of a terrorist and traitor displayed before them.
Northerners saw him as a martyr... somebody that died for a holy cause. Either way, his death caused the
deepening division between North and South to grow even wider. Many southerners blamed the Republican
Party, an upstart party that was anti-slavery, that had been born in Ripon, Wisconsin, just a few years before.
John Brown is still controversial, even today. Do you consider him a hero? Did his cause (ending slavery)
justify his means (terrorism and murder)? The War Between the States as it was called in the South, or the
Civil War as it was called in the North, would begin 16 months later.
Dred Scott
Dred Scott was a slave, born in Virginia and eventually purchased by a US army officer. He followed his master from Missouri to Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory which was free soil. His master even allowed him to
marry at Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory, which was generally prohibited to slaves.
Scott, his wife, and his young daughter became the property of John Sanford after the death of his previous
masters. He sued for his freedom based on the fact that he had resided in a free state, and once there,
should have been freed. Initially, the courts disagreed with Scott. They stated that he should have sued for
his freedom once in Illinois or Wisconsin. They more or less said it was too late. Scott pursed his freedom,
with the case eventually reaching the United States Supreme Court. It became a political question on
whether or not slavery should be legal. Abolitionists and those who supported the status-quo awaited the
outcome.
The Supreme Court voted 7-2 against Scott’s quest for freedom. Chief Justice Roger Taney summed it up by
saying that no black man could ever become a citizen of the United States, whether or not he was free or a
slave. Since Scott was black, he was not a citizen, and since not a citizen, he could not legally sue the courts.
Abolitionists were outraged, while Southerners rejoiced believing that Justice Taney had stood up for the
South. It was another polarizing event that further divided the North and the South.
The Election of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was a tall, gangly lawyer from the new state of Illinois. Considered a “Westerner” by the rest
of America, it was very unlikely that this quiet and unassuming man would ever become President... much
less one the greatest Presidents in American history. But he did, and our lives became forever affected by his
leadership and his decisions.
Politics in the 1860’s were quite a bit different than they are today. For one thing, there was more than two
major political parties, making winning a majority in the Electoral College much more difficult. Each party had
a different opinion on what to do regarding the controversy over slavery. Lincoln believed in abolition, but his
main concern was that the Union of all states remain intact. Ironically, the southern states said that if he got
elected President, they would leave the Union. The country was on the very edge of destruction, and it didn’t
look like there was any possibility to save it.
Lincoln and one of his opponents, Stephen Douglas, also from Illinois, had a series of famous debates.
Douglas argued in favor of compromise... that states with slavery should be allowed to keep their slaves, but
that slavery should not be allowed in the Territories. That split the Democratic Party into the Southern
Democrats and the Northern Democrats. Running for the Southern Democrats was John Breckinridge, a proslavery candidate that would carry all the southern states.
Activity 1
Take a look at the electoral college maps of the elections of 1860 and 2008 below:
1) What were the 10 biggest states in 1860, in order?
2) What were the 10 biggest states in 2012, in order?
3) What similarities do you see in the two maps? What do the similarities tell
you?
4) What about the differences? Same thing.
Activity 2: Make a time line below showing the steps that led to war.
Use lines to give yourselves more room if you need it.
1776
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
The First Shots
Hostilities in the American Civil War (still called the War Between the States in the South) officially began with
the Battle of Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter was an American fort in the bay just outside of Charlestown, South
Carolina. Lincoln wanted to send supplies to the troops guarding the fort, as they were running out of food
and had very little ammunition. As union ships approached the fort, Southern forces began firing on the
ships, forcing them to turn away. The Captain of the fort surrendered to the South Carolina after a 34 hour
bombardment, seeing that the situation was hopeless. The South had won the first battle of the war. It was
April, 1861.
Lincoln moved quickly. He sent troops into the “Border States” to keep those states from seceding as well.
When pro-Confederate riots broke out in Baltimore, Maryland, Lincoln arrested state officials who were sympathetic to the south, held them without trial, and declared Martial Law, which meant he more or less
assumed dictatorial powers. He sent pleas to every state in the North asking for a each state to sign up their
own militias. They did. As soon as he did that, four more southern States, North Carolina, Tennessee,
Virginia, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy, raising the number of states that seceded to 11, where it
would remain throughout the war. Lincoln had said during his inaugural address that he had no intentions of
invading the south or banning slavery in southern states that had it. That all changed when shots were fired.
Activity 3: Map
States that seceded right away RED
States that seceded after Lincoln asked for State Militias to form PINK OR PURPLE
Border states, states that would not join the Confederacy even though they had slaves, YELLOW.
States that fought with the Union in BLUE.
Put a bright RED CIRCLE where Fort Sumter is.
Put a bright BLUE STAR where Washington DC is.
Put a bright RED STAR where Richmond is.
Activity 4
Pretend you are a southern politician who owns slaves: Write a short letter to President Lincoln telling him
why you will be seceding the Union.
CIVIL WAR QUIZ 1
Name__________________
SECTION 1: MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. ______ When did differences regarding
slavery
begin between the North and the South?
A. 1776 - American Constitution
B. 1820 - Missouri Compromise
C. 1850 - Compromise of 1850
D. 1857 - John Brown’s raids
2. _______ Though the Civil War was going to
be a
fight about slavery, what was the South’s
main reason to secede?
A. Wanted to protect rural way of life
B. Believed State’s rights superceded
Federal rights.
C. Felt they were losing power in the Senate
because of population shifts, prompting
them to secede.
D. Believed that the Industrial Revolution
was a threat to their way of life.
3. _______ Which of the following statements is
true?
A. The South was becoming urbanized
B. The South was becoming industrialized
C. Only 1/3 of Southerners owned slaves
D. Southern factories depended on slaves
4. _______ What line of latitude was used for
the
Missouri Compromise?
A. 26º-30’N
B. 32º-30’N
C. 36º-30’N
D. 40º-30’N
5. _______ What did the Missouri Compromise
primarily state?
A. Missouri was north of the compromised
line, so it was given special status as a slave
‘ state.
B. Missourians would be able to vote on
whether or not to allow slavery.
C. Missouri would be admitted as a slave
state as long as Maine could be a free state.
D. Both Missouri and Kansas would be
considered “sovereign states” in which they
would vote yes or no for slavery.
6. ______ What state had land taken away
from it
from the Compromise of 1850 in exchange
to have its debts paid of by the US?
A. Arkansas
B. Kansas
C. Missouri
D. Texas
7. _______ Speaking of the Compromise of
1850,
where was slavery prohibited?
A. District of Columbia
B. Delaware
C. Virginia
D. Texas
8. _______ Where else was slavery prohibited
because of the Compromise of 1850?
A. Kansas
B. Missouri
C. Southern California
D. Texas
9. _______ What did the Fugitive Act state?
A. runaway slaves could be kept.
B. runaway slaves had to be returned to
their rightful masters.
C. runaway slaves were granted freedom.
D. runaway slaves had the right to beat
their masters if they came after them.
10. _______ What political party was born in
Ripon, Wisconsin, about 1850?
A. Constitutionalists
B. Democrats
C. Northern Democrats
D. Republicans.
11. ______ What is the name of a person who
tries
to find “middle-ground” politically?
A. conservative
B. extremist
C. liberal
D. moderate13
18. ______ What is a person called by his followers
when he dies for a cause?
A. Hero
B. Martyr
C. Memorandia
D. Tyrant
19. _______ The United States does NOT elect a
president based on popular vote. Each state
is winner take-all, with each of the states
delegates going one way or another. What
is the name of this?
A. Congressional Privilege
B. Electoral College
C. Parliamentary Procedure
D. Senatorial College
20. _______ How many candidates for President
were there in 1860?
A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4
21. _______ How does the map of 1860 compare
with the map of 2008 as far as a pattern
is concerned?
A. Totally Different
B. Totally the Same
C. Very Similar
D. No correlation
22. _______ Who won the election of 1860?
A. Bell
B. Breckinridge
C. Douglas
D. Lincoln
23. ______ Southern states threatened this if
Lincoln was elected.
A. compromise
B. division
C. fillibustering
D. secession
12. ______ What did the Kansas-Nebraska Act
state?
A. they were to become free states
B. they were to become slave states
C. there were to choose for themselves
D. it was to be decided by the government
13. _______Where was this cartoon best received?
A. North
B. South
C. Neither
14. _______ What kind of historical “source” is this
map considered to be?
A. Primary
B. Secondary
C. Neither
15. _______ What color uniforms did the North wear?
A. blue
B. black
C. camoflauge
D. black
16. _______ What controversial man was a hero in
the North but a villain in the South in 1858?
A. John Brown
B. Stepehn Douglas
C. Frederick Douglas
D. Abraham Lincoln
17. ______ What raid from the above man (#16)
led to the death of white slave owners?
A. Bosporous Springs
B. Harpers Ferry
C. Virginia Falls
D. Turners Falls24. _____ How many southern states broke away from the Union right
away, following the election?
A. none
B. four
C. seven
D. eleven
25. _____ How many additional southern states broke away after the President asked state
militias to support the war?
A. none
B. four
C. eight
D. eleven
26. _____ What was the first battle of the war?
A. Fort Douglas
B. Fort Saratoga
C. Fort Sumter
D. Fort Thomas
27. _____ What was the first flag of the Confederacy?
A. Stars and Stripes
B. Confederate
C. Union
D. Swastika
28. _____ What state was the first to secede the Union?
A. Alabama
B. South Carolina
C. Virginia
D. Texas
29. _____ What border state did Lincoln consider the
most important to keep in the Union?
A. Delaware
B. Kanahwa
C. Kentucky
D. Maryland
30. _____ What is it called when a President assumes
dictatorial powers?
A. Constitutional
B. Dictatorial
C. Martial Law
D. Powers of the Tyrant
31-50. Color the map below the following way...
NORTH is blue
SOUTH is gray
BORDER is something else