Download 3-4.3 Explain the reasons for South Carolina`s secession

3-4.3 Explain the reasons for South Carolina’s secession from the Union, including the abolitionist movement,
states’ rights, and the desire to defend South Carolina’s way of life.
Assessment Guidelines
Appropriate assessments
would require students to
explain the reasons for
South Carolina’s secession.
Essential Knowledge
Slavery was accepted by almost all
South Carolinians as their way of life,
even though many South Carolinians did
not own slaves.
Abolitionism was seen by South
Carolinians as a threat to their way of
life.
States rights was the idea that the
state had the right to decide whether
or not to obey national laws.
When Abraham Lincoln won the election
of 1860, South Carolinians were afraid
that he would free their slaves.
Essential Question: Why did South
Carolina secede from the Union?
Lesson Plans
Materials: Copies of selected passages from
the primary source with questions.
Readers’ Theater: “Why?”
Background Text: “The Secession Convention”
Vocabulary Web: secede
Graphic organizer for causes of secession
Skit frame
Activities: 1. Review with students the
differences between the North and the South
during the Antebellum period.
2. Divide the students into 4 groups. Give out
copies of “Why?” and have students practice
and then present the Readers’ Theater choral
reading. Discuss what students think might be
some of the reasons South Carolina decided to
leave the Union.
3. Read together and discuss the background
document, “The Secession Convention.”
4. Look closely at the essential question and
complete a vocabulary web with the students
for the word secede.
5. Give each group of students a copy of an
excerpt from the primary source. Have them
work together to answer the accompanying
questions about their excerpt. Teacher will
provide extra vocabulary and comprehension
support.
6. Complete a graphic organizer showing the
causes of secession with input from each
group.
7. Explain that each group is going to
dramatize the cause of secession that its
excerpt explained. Provide and model the skit
frame.
8. Students will complete their skit frame,
practice, and present their skits to the rest of
the class. Teacher may video the skits.
9. Students will receive a copy of the classgenerated graphic organizer to put in their
social studies notebooks.
10. On the facing page of their notebook,
students may illustrate the cause their group
dramatized.
Primary Source: "Declaration of the
Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify
the Secession of South Carolina from the
Federal Union”
BACKGROUND TEXT
THE SECESSION CONVENTION
For many years, the people of South Carolina had been unhappy with some of the decisions of
the United States government. They believed that many of the jobs of government should be left
to the states. When South Carolina joined the Union, it was with the agreement that slavery was
protected by the Constitution. The abolitionists had tried to take away these protections by
saying that slavery was wrong and should not be allowed anywhere. South Carolinians, even those
who did not own slaves, felt that slavery was important to their state’s economy and way of life.
In November, 1860, the people of the United States elected Abraham Lincoln as president.
In South Carolina, members of the General Assembly voted to hold a special meeting. The
meeting, which became known as the Secession Convention, was begun in Columbia, then moved to
Institute Hall in Charleston. There, on December 20, 1860, the members voted to leave the
United States of America.
Just as Thomas Jefferson had listed the reasons for the colonies to become free from England
in the Declaration of Independence, the South Carolinians who voted for secession wanted to tell
why they had made this decision. They wrote a document called the “Declaration of the
Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal
Union.” This was approved by the convention on December 24, 1860.
READERS THEATER
WHY?
1: It’s December, 1860, in Charleston, South Carolina.
2: People are meeting to decide if our state will stay in the United States.
3: If we leave the Union, we’ll have to be our own country!
4: Or we can get other Southern states to join us!
1: They are voting now on what to do.
2: I think they will decide we need to stop being a state in the USA.
3: That’s what everyone in Charleston is saying.
4: But why do we have to go?
ALL: That’s what we need to find out!
VOCABULARY WEB
SKIT FRAME
Names ___________________________________________
Which cause for secession did your group’s excerpt talk about?
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Discuss with your group what a South Carolinian in 1860 might have said about this cause. Then
write a statement for each member of your group reflecting this point of view. Be ready to
practice and present your statements.
Speaker # 1: ___________________________________________
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_________________________________
Speaker # 2: __________________________________________
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Speaker # 3: __________________________________________|
_________________________________________________________________________
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Speaker # 4: __________________________________________
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Speaker # 5: __________________________________________
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Speaker # 6: __________________________________________
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GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
WHY DID SOUTH CAROLINA SECEDE FROM THE UNION?
EXCERPT 1
Excerpt from “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of
South Carolina from the Federal Union”
In the Constitution…the right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political
rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burdening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by
authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years, and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
Questions:
1. What rights did South Carolinians feel they had been given in the Constitution regarding their slaves?
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2. Why was the taxation on only 3/5 of their slaves important to South Carolinians?
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EXCERPT 2
Excerpt from “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of
South Carolina from the Federal Union”
The General Government…passed laws to put into effect these stipulations [about slavery]…but the compact has
been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding states…those states have assumed the right of
deciding on the propriety of our domestic institutions, and have denied the rights of property…recognized by the
Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institutions of slavery; they have permitted open establishment of
societies…which have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes…
Questions:
1. Why did South Carolinians feel that their compact with the federal (General) government had been broken?
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2. What did the document accuse the Northern states of doing to South Carolina’s slaves?
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EXCERPT 3
Excerpt from “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of
South Carolina from the Federal Union”
Two great principles [were] asserted by the colonies, namely, the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a
people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted…each colony
became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN, AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
To this Constitution…an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution…are reserved to the states.
Questions:
1. What were the two principles that the colonies based their independence upon?
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2. What did the Constitution say about any powers that were not given to the United States? Why was this
important to South Carolinians?
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EXCERPT 4
Excerpt from “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of
South Carolina from the Federal Union”
A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the
election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to
slavery…he has declared that the “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free.”
…this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that…a war must be waged against slavery
until it shall cease throughout the United States…The slaveholding states will no longer have the power of selfgovernment, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
Questions:
1. Who was elected president in 1860, and why did that upset people in South Carolina?
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2. Why did South Carolinians feel that the Federal Government would become their enemy?
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