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Was Slavery the Primary Cause of the Civil War? TAH Charms Kristen DErrico [email protected] Kristen D’Errico Foxborough High School Teaching American History Year 2- Final Project Lesson Plan: Identifying Slavery as the Cause of the Civil War The causes of the Civil War have persistently been identified with a myriad of conditions and agendas that led to Southern secession. Tariffs, state’s rights, constitutional interpretations, preservation of the Union, slavery’s expansion into the Western territories, and divergent cultures have all been used to explain the reasons for the Civil War. Yet, can we define slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War? Wasn’t this peculiar institution at the root of it all? James Madison at the Constitutional Convention saw this as the dividing line between the states as he prophetically observed, “It seems now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lies not between the large and small but between the Northern and Southern states. The institution of slavery and its consequences form the line.” [1] Emancipation was declared by the Union in 1863 and was officially made law via the 13th Amendment. The Federal government then ensured the rights of freedmen with the 14th and 15th Amendments; but Southern states quickly found vehicles through mandate and law to maneuver around total freedom and rights guaranteed under the Constitutional Amendments. Early Reconstruction attempted to secure rights for freed slaves and to ensure a new social order in the ‘New South’. But Jim Crow laws and Black Codes were passed in former slave states in an effort to maintain social order and power structure. Why then did the Union accept a return to the status quo? Why was Reconstruction not fulfilled? Looking at the climate of the nation following the Civil War it becomes apparent that most of the country wanted to forget and forgive the horrors of the Civil War and move forward. The United States of the late nineteenth century was concerned with industrialization, immigration, closing of the Western frontier, and economic issues. Slavery and its remnants quickly became a topic to be ignored and both historians and politicians failed to recognize emancipation’s failures following the Civil War. This teaching strategy will ask students to look at both primary and secondary sources to answer the essential question: In the decades following the Civil War, how did the North and South view slavery as the war’s primary cause? Students will be asked to consider why the nation chose not to deal with slavery’s legacy, as well as the abandonment of the freed slaves who now lived under Jim Crow and the KKK. Standards: Mass State Frameworks and AP College Board Standards NCSS: Era 5: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) -- Standard 1A: Explain the causes of the Civil War and evaluate the importance of slavery as a principal cause of the conflict Mass State Framework: USII.9 Analyze the post-Civil War struggles of African Americans and women to gain basic civil rights. (H) A. Carrie Chapman Catt B. W.E.B. Du Bois C. Marcus Garvey D. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) E. Alice Paul F. Booker T. Washington AP College Board Frameworks: 13. The Origins of the New South Reconfiguration of southern agriculture: sharecropping and crop-lien system Expansion of manufacturing and industrialization The politics of segregation: Jim Crow and disfranchisement Themes in AP US History Reform Diverse movements focusing on a broad range of issues, including anti-slavery, education, labor, temperance, women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, war, public health, and government Slavery and Its Legacies in North America Systems of slave labor and other forms of unfree labor (e.g., indentured servitude, contract labor) in American Indian societies, the Atlantic World, and the American South and West. The economics of slavery and its racial dimensions. Patterns of resistance and the long-term economic, political, and social effects of slavery. Objectives 1. To examine slavery as the pivotal cause of the Civil War. 2. To investigate post Civil War documents to understand how slavery was discussed and presented in the late nineteenth century. 3. To discuss historiography of Civil War legend following the war. 4. To interpret primary and secondary sources. Time Frame Three-four class periods consisting of 55 minute periods. Background Slavery had been a stain on the United States’ credo of liberty and freedom, and the antebellum era was ripe with contentious political, moral, religious, and economic debate over slavery’s existence in the United States. Pro slavery proponents extolled the virtues of slavery’s paternalistic character, while abolitionists, like escaped slave turned orator Frederick Douglass, highlighted the cruel and vicious nature of the peculiar institution of the South. The eruption of the Civil War created a contest between the states; one side fighting for preservation of the Union, the other fighting for individual and state’s rights. Slavery became the focal point of the war’s purpose in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln announced that the Emancipation Proclamation would ensure freedom for all slaves. The inevitable aftermath of emancipation and the image of a remade nation extolling the virtues of equality and prosperity would be short lived and unfulfilled within a decade of the war’s conclusion. In American Slavery, Kolchin observed this post war condition stating, “Almost everyone- freed people, former slave owners, poor whites, Yankee reformers- seemed to feel (although from diverse perspectives) that things were going terribly wrong. The myth of Reconstruction as a “tragic era” was born in this pervasive disillusionment with the aftermath of emancipation.” [2] The South, soon after the war ended, began presenting the ‘Lost Cause theory to reflect on the defeat of the South and to portray a pre-war south that was mythic and idyllic. [3] The North and South found Reconstruction efforts to be insufficiently lacking and the nation turned away from civil rights to issues of industrialization, imperialism, and economic pursuits in the late nineteenth Century. As a result we see through documents that the promises of emancipation and equality have remained largely unfulfilled. We see how cartoons by Thomas Nast comment on the suppression of blacks by the Democratic Party as well as the unfulfilled financial promises made by the Freedman’s Bureau. Frederick Douglass pondered the condition of freed slaves in the “The Future of the Negro, 1884,” and asserted that former slaves would not leave the United States, but their condition in their homeland remained uncertain. Finally the current article by David Von Drehle reflects on how the United States quickly forgot the pivotal role slavery and its demise was to the events of the Civil War. Through this lesson, student will examine both the discussion of slavery immediately after the Civil War, the inability of Reconstruction efforts to eradicate slavery’s ghosts, and the current opinion that slavery was a primary reason for the contest between the states. Procedure Day 1-2 Investigation and discussion of slavery as cause of Civil War a. Students will be introduced to the subject of slavery as cause of Civil War through a listing of statements made by politicians and historians. Students will have to determine what the cause of the Civil War was according to quote. b. Using their quotations sheet, students will debate whether slavery was considered the root cause of the Civil War once the war was over. Day 3-4 Document Reading for Historical context and understanding- Essay assessment a. Students will be placed in heterogeneous groups to read a selected text packet that illustrates the history of North or South following the Civil War. Documents will include the following topics i. Frederick Douglass Excerpt, The Future of the Negro ii. Carl Schurz, “The Condition of the South” Excerpt iii. Thomas Nast’s “Waiting, 1879” iv. Thomas Nast’s “This is a White Man’s Government, 1866” b. Essay prompt: Was slavery the primary cause of the Civil War according to late nineteenth century reflection and discussion? c. Homework reflection: Reading- The Way We Weren’t by David Von Drehle (Time Magazine) Endnotes 1. David Von Drehle, “The Way We Weren’t,” Time Magazine, 18 April 2011, 42. 2. Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery, 1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang Publishing, 1993. 3. Speiser, M. A. (2009). Origins of the Lost Cause: The Continuity of Regional Celebration in the White South, 1850-1872. Retrieved 9 18, 2011, from University of Virginia- Essays in History: http://www.virginia.edu/history/EIH/?p=49 Was Slavery the Primary Cause of the Civil War? [email protected] Read the following statements and then based on the contents of the quote determine how strongly it suggests that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Answer on a scale of 1‐5 (1= Slavery was not a primary cause of War, 5= Slavery was the only cause of the war) 1. "I would not have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. Such history will do full credit to the courage, endurance and soldierly ability of the American citizen, no matter what section of the country he hailed from, or in what ranks he fought....For the present, and so long as there are living witnesses of the great war of sections, there will be people who will not be consoled for the loss of a cause which they believed to be holy. As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man." Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. NY: Charles L Webster & Co. 1885, Vol. 1, p.170) 2. "The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times." (Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. NY: Charles L Webster & Co. 1885, Vol. 1, p.56) 3. "There is very little moral mixture in the 'Antislavery' feeling of this country. A great deal is abstract philanthropy; part is hatred of slaveholders; a great part is jealousy for white labor, very little is consciousness of wrong done and the wish to right it." - Abolitionist writer George William Curtis, 186161 4. WASHINGTON, D. C., August 16, 1880. DEAR SIR:--At the great reunion of the Ohio soldiers last week I tried to show that to complete the victory gained by the Union arms it was necessary that the means of education should be amply provided for all parts of our country. Wherever universal education prevails in the United States, the results of the war are cheerfully accepted and the constitutional amendments embodying those results are inviolable. Ignorance is the enemy most to be dreaded by the friends of free government. Ignorant voters are powder and ball for the demagogues. The right to vote will lose its value in our country if ignorance is permitted permanently to prevail in any considerable portion of it. The schoolmaster alone can abolish the evils which slavery has left in the South. Universal education is the only safe foundation for universal suffrage. Men cannot be fitted for the duties of citizenship in a republic without free schools. Jefferson said: "Without education universal suffrage will be a farce or a tragedy, and perhaps both." In too many instances elections are already the farce he predicted. Let us hasten to provide for all our countrymen the means of instruction, that we may escape the tragedy which Jefferson predicted. [Sincerely, R. B. HAYES.] [Unidentified.] 5. “Let not slavery prove a barrier to our independence…Although slavery is one of the principles that we started to fight for…if it proves an insurmountable obstacle to the achievement of our liberty and separate nationality, away with it.” Jackson Mississippian, 1864 (from Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson, P.833) 6. The shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the negro people, - a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people.” W.E.B. Du Bois from The Souls of Black Folk (from American Slavery, Peter Kolchin, p. 233) If you scored a 5-10 you have found that slavery was not a primary cause of the Civil War If you scored a 10-20 you have found that slavery was potentially a cause of the Civil War If you scored a 21-30 you have found that slavery was clearly the cause of the Civil War. Questions to Consider: According to the previous statements what conditions existed in the nation following the Civil War? What language is used that leads to your conclusion about slavery as the cause of the Civil War? Using the quotations as evidence, create an argument that either places slavery as central cause of Civil War, or the contrary opinion that slavery was NOT the pivotal reason for the war.