United States History to 1877

Civil War and Reconstruction: 1860s to 1877

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Begin the unit by asking students how the issues of states' rights and slavery increased sectional tension between the North and South.
• Explain that as the South feared that the North would take control of Congress, and Southerners began to proclaim states' rights as a means of self-protection. The North believed that the nation was a union and could not be divided. While the Civil War did not begin as a war to abolish slavery, issues surrounding slavery deeply divided the nation.
• An important issue separating the country concerned the power of the federal government. Southerners believed that they had the power to declare any national law illegal. Northerners believed that the national government's power was supreme over that of the states.
• Southerners felt that the abolition of slavery would destroy their region's economy. Northerners believed that slavery should be abolished for moral reasons.
• There were a number of compromises that attempted to resolve differences.
  • Missouri Compromise (1820): Missouri was a slave state; Maine, a free state.
  • Compromise of l850: California was a free state. Southwest territories would decide about slavery.
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act: People decided the slavery issue ("popular sovereignty").
• Allow students to read about (or research) the following issues leading up to the Civil War. You will also need to discuss the difference between slave states and free states.
  • Missouri Compromise
  • Compromise of 1850
  • Kansas Nebraska Act
• Create a simulation for each of the issues.
• MISSOURI COMPROMISE
  • Split your class in half. Assign one side the title of SOUTH and the other NORTH.
  • Ask three students from SOUTH to stand. These students are to represent Slave States. Ask three students to stand from the NORTH side. (Tell students that there were more than three of these states on each side but for numbers purposes we use three.) Explain to students that with three on each side there was a "balance of power" and both sides wanted to keep this balance.
  • Ask another student to stand from the SOUTH side. This student represents Missouri. Explain to students that Missouri wanted to enter the United States as a Slave state. Ask students what this does to the balance of power.
  • To keep the balance of power, the nation decided that Maine was also ready to become a state. Ask a student from NORTH side to stand to represent Maine.
  • Explain to students that this is considered a compromise because both sides are happy with their new additions. The balance of power remained.
  • You may also consider teaching about the line that was created in the Louisiana Territory, but this is not in the Curriculum Framework for United States History I.
• COMPROMISE OF 1850
  • Continue with your class split in half.
  • Have your students from the Missouri Compromise remain standing (including Missouri and Maine).
  • Explain to students that the population was growing in western states and slowly new states wanted to be admitted into the Union. Ask a student from the NORTH side to stand and represent California.
  • Remind students that Congress viewed slavery as only necessary in land where it was geographically essential. California was not one of these areas and, therefore, it wanted to be a free state.
  • Unfortunately, the balance of power could not be kept if California was to be free (there were no other slave territories at this time). To make the southern states content, Congress decided that residents within any new state wanting to join the Union would be able vote whether to enter as a slave or free state.
  • Ask students on the SOUTH side how this makes them feel. Was it a true compromise or not?
  • You may also choose to teach the Dred Scott decision here, but again it is not in the Curriculum Framework for this course.
• KANSAS NEBRASKA ACT
  • Continue with the above simulation.
  • Ask two students to step to the front of the classroom to represent Kansas and Nebraska. Explain to students that these students are coming to the front because they are the first states that can decide for themselves to be free or slave.
  • Have students vote as if they are citizens of the area whether they will be free. Have them debate the issues caused by being free or by being slave.
  • Explain to students that both Kansas and Nebraska became free states by choosing for themselves (popular sovereignty).
  • You may also choose to teach the event "Bleeding Kansas" with this to signify the urgency that each side (slave states and free states) felt about this pressing issue.
• Explain Southern Secession.
• Following Lincoln's election, the southern states seceded from the Union. Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, marking the beginning of the Civil War.
• Lincoln and many Northerners believed that the United States was one nation that could not be separated or divided. Most Southerners believed that states had been freely created and joined the Union and could freely leave it.

WEB SITES

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h511.html
Missouri Compromise of 1820

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=22
Missouri Compromise of 1820

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html
Compromise of 1850

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm043.html
Compromise of 1850

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=451
Kansas-Nebraska Act

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/warweb.html
American Civil War Home Page

http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/civilwar/cwar.htm
Civil War for Kids

http://www.civil-war.net/
Civil War Home Page

http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/index.html
A Nation Divided

Copyright ©2008 Prince William Network/Virginia Department of Education