Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, Teacher's Edition, Volume I: Discovery–1877

Golden Thread Academic / Encounter Books

Based on the Book by Wilfred M. McClay

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 — Beginnings: Settlement and Unsettlement

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

0.1 Introduction and 1.1 Opener

1.2 We Are All Immigrants

1.3 The Mystique of the West

1.4 The Unsettlement of Europe

1.5 Trade with the East

1.6 Columbus Emerges

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 2 — The Shaping of British North America: How the English Prevailed

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

2.1 Chapter Opening

2.2 Luther and Calvin

2.3 The Reformation in England

2.4 Spain versus England in the New World

2.5 How the English Colonies Were Different

2.6 The Puritan Way in New England

2.7 A Collection of Experiments

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 3 — The Revolution of Self-Rule: A Separate People

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

3.1 Chapter Opening

3.2 The French and Indian War

3.3 Stirrings of a National Consciousness

3.4 Organizing an Empire and Provoking Resistance

3.5 The Path to Independence

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 4 — A War, a Nation, and a Wound: A New Nation is Born

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

4.1 Chapter Opening

4.2 Times that Try Men’s Souls

4.3 The Road to Victory

4.4 What Kind of Revolution?

4.5 The First American Constitutions

4.6 The Constitutional Convention of 1787

4.7 The Great Compromise

4.8 The Constitution and our National Identity

4.9 The Stain of Slavery

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 5 — The Experiment Begins: The Constitution Comes to Life

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

5.1 Chapter Opening

5.2 Would It Work?

5.3 Hamilton versus Jefferson

5.4 A Fragile Unity

5.5 The Embattled Successor

5.6 The Successful Transfer of Power

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 6 — From Jefferson to Jackson: The Rise of the Common Man

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

6.1 Chapter Opening

6.2 Jefferson Expands the Nation

6.3 Jefferson and Foreign Affairs

6.4 The War of 1812

6.5 The Monroe Doctrine

6.6 A National Economy

6.7 The Missouri Dilemma

6.8 Enter Andrew Jackson

6.9 The Fate of the Natives

6.10 Tocqueville’s Observations

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 7 — The Culture of Democracy: Something New Under the Sun

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

7.1 Chapter Opening

7.2 Millennial Visions, Utopian Communities & 7.3 Experiments in Living

7.4 The Rise of the Antislavery Movement

7.5 Who Reads an American Book?

7.6 American Literature Comes of Age

7.7 Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 8 — The Old South and Slavery: A World Apart

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

8.1 Chapter Opening

8.2 The Shape of the Old South

8.3 The World of Slaves

8.4 The Proslavery Argument

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 9 — The Gathering Storm: A Reckoning Approaches

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

9.1 Chapter Opening

9.2 The Mexican War

9.3 The Bittersweet Fruits of Victory

9.4 Problems with the Compromise of 1850

9.5 The Dred Scott Decision

9.6 The Rise of Lincoln and the Republicans

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 10 — The House Divides: A War of Brothers

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

10.1 Chapter Opening

10.2 The Tide Begins to Turn

10.3 The Emancipation Proclamation

10.4 Vicksburg and Gettysburg

10.5 Grant and Sherman Come to the Fore

10.6 Winning the Election in Wartime

10.7 Finishing the War

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Chapter 11 — The Ordeal of Reconstruction: Repairing the Breach

Chapter Overview

The Planner

Backgrounds

Background Reading for Educators

Daily Lesson Plan

11.1 Chapter Opening

11.2 How to Reunite a Nation?

11.3 Johnson Takes Over

11.4 Congress Takes Charge

11.5 Evaluating Reconstruction

Summative Assessment — Answer Key

Student Map Appendix

Appendix: Founding Documents

The Declaration of Independence

The Constitution of the United States

Amendments to the Constitution of the United States

Florida United States History Honors Standards, Volume I & II

Florida United States History Honors Standards Found in This Volume

Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, Teacher's Edition, Volume I: Discovery–1877

INTRODUCTION

A Few Words to Teachers

“Society is indeed a contract. . . . It becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

—Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

Land of Hope tells one long story. It is the story of the American people—of the ideals they inherited, the institutions they built, the mistakes they made, and the hopes that carried them from one generation to the next. Wilfred M. McClay wrote it not as a catalog of names and dates but as a narrative with shape, movement, and meaning: the story of a people who have repeatedly believed that the way things are given to us need not be the final word about them.

This Teacher’s Edition is a companion to that story. It does not retell the Student Edition. Instead, it supplies what teachers and homeschooling parents need to bring the story to life: chapter overviews, historical background, guidance on primary sources, works of art, and maps, questions, exercises, writing assignments, timelines, daily lesson plans, language support, and assessments. It is designed not only to help students understand Land of Hope but also to deepen the teacher’s command of the history being taught. Good instruction in history depends upon a teacher who is continually learning, and this book has been written with that teacher in mind.

The Teacher’s Edition offers more than any one course will use, and this is deliberate. One group may come to life over a document, another through debate, another through the close study of a painting or map. The materials are ordered so that they can be found readily, but they are not meant to crowd out the teacher’s judgment. Choose what serves the students before you, the time available, and the questions that deserve to be pursued.

A Guide, Not a Script

No history course can include every worthy person, document, or question, nor should it try. Part of the craft of teaching is deciding where to linger—which conversations to pursue, which sources to dwell on, and which possibilities to reserve for another year. This book leaves those judgments with the teacher, where they belong.

The lesson plans therefore provide structure without prescribing a performance. The “In a Single Class Period” pathway offers one workable route through a lesson’s materials, usually identifying what to read, what exercise to use, which questions to discuss, how to bring the lesson to a close, and what to assign next. It is a recommendation, not a requirement. Other materials in the lesson allow a teacher to expand, compress, or redirect that route.

The same principle applies at the kitchen table. Homeschooling parents may use the suggested class-period plan as written, divide a lesson across shorter meetings, replace group discussion with oral narration or conversation, and adapt collaborative exercises for one or two students. The intellectual destination remains the same even when the path and pace differ.

How the Book Is Organized

Each chapter follows the corresponding chapter of Land of Hope and uses Student Edition page references throughout. It opens with an overview of the history and its principal themes, then moves through planning and teacher preparation to daily instruction and assessment. Cross-references connect sources, images, maps, and ideas across lessons and chapters so that students do not lose sight of the larger narrative.

The Chapter Overview

The Chapter Overview lets the teacher take in the whole before descending into the parts. The Chapter Summary refreshes the narrative and places important people, ideas, and events in relation to one another. The Chapter Learning Objectives state what students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter’s end. The Key Persons and Key Concepts sections identify the principal figures, institutions, and ideas. The Timeline fixes the chapter’s events in order. Chronology alone does not explain history, but it helps students follow the narrative.

The Chapter Planner

The Planner divides the chapter into numbered lessons corresponding to sections of the Student Edition. It supplies page ranges, estimates the number of class periods each lesson may require, and lists the teaching points that the section is meant to convey. Use it to see the chapter’s proportions, anticipate where additional time may be valuable, and make deliberate choices before teaching begins. The suggested pacing is a planning aid, not a checklist for coverage.

Backgrounds and Background Reading

The Backgrounds section prepares the teacher to use the chapter’s epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps. These notes supply context, identify connections, and suggest ways to ask what a source reveals, what it cannot establish by itself, and how it helps students understand the history presented in the chapter. Written and visual sources are treated as evidence rather than ornament: a painting, photograph, map, speech, or letter has a maker, a setting, a purpose, and limits that students can learn to examine.

Background Reading for Educators follows with a short list of books for teachers who want to read further. The list is neither required reading nor an endorsement of every argument in every title. It is an invitation to continue learning. One useful practice is to choose a single book from the list each time the course is taught; over several years, that modest habit builds genuine depth.

Daily Lesson Plans

The Daily Lesson Plans are the working heart of the Teacher’s Edition. Each lesson corresponds to a portion of the Student Edition and follows a stable sequence, allowing teachers to become familiar with the organization and then concentrate on the history. The recurring elements serve distinct purposes:

For a Single Class Period. A concise pathway through the lesson identifies a manageable combination of reading, exercise, discussion, closure, and homework.

Essential Understanding. A concise statement identifies the central historical idea students should grasp by the lesson’s end. It guides the teacher’s emphasis and provides the focus for the Daily Recap.

Lesson Objectives. These describe what students should be able to do once the lesson is complete. They translate the Essential Understanding into observable intellectual work.

Key Dates. A selective chronology identifies dates and sequences students should know. Dates matter here because they clarify order, causation, and change over time.

Key Concepts. Explanations develop the ideas and relationships on which the lesson turns, placing concepts in their historical setting rather than treating them solely as vocabulary to memorize.

Key Terms. Concise definitions establish the vocabulary students need in order to read, discuss, and write about the lesson accurately.

Classroom Experience. This portion gathers the lesson’s suggested homework, exercises, questions, and teacher guidance. It is a menu from which the teacher builds the day’s instruction.

Suggested Homework Assignments. Reading and written work prepare students for the lesson or extend it afterward. Assignments should be chosen according to time, purpose, and students’ readiness.

Suggested Exercises and Foundational Skills Opportunities. Activities make historical thinking visible through close reading, writing, geography, debate, civic discourse, comparison, critical thinking, and problem solving. The skill label identifies the principal habit being practiced; the historical content remains central.

Guiding Classroom Questions and Insights. Questions organize discussion around the Essential Understanding. Emphasized questions deserve priority when time is short. Accompanying Insights suggest the substance and reasoning of a strong response without requiring students to reproduce a fixed script. Context notes supply background, Further prompts extend the inquiry, and Teaching Notes offer practical advice.

Formative Assessment. A brief check near the lesson’s end combines Recall items, which confirm essential factual knowledge, with an Explain item, which asks students to deploy what they have learned. The paired acceptable responses help the teacher decide whether to proceed, review, or reteach material.

Daily Recap. A short closing synthesis returns the lesson to its Essential Understanding and gives the teacher language for drawing the day’s threads together.

Looking Ahead. A brief bridge identifies the question or development that carries the narrative into the next lesson.

Language Support. Targeted teaching supports help English-language learners participate in the lesson’s reading, discussion, and writing while working toward the same historical understanding as their classmates. They are available when needed, not intended as the standard sequence for most students.

Language Support

Language Support appears at the end of each lesson plan for easy reference; its position does not mean that it should be taught at the end of class. It is intended chiefly for English-language learners who need help with the academic English required to read historical texts, follow discussion, or express their ideas. It can also help a student whose understanding exceeds what they can readily communicate in English. Most students will use the regular lesson without these additional supports. Teachers should select them according to need and use them at the relevant point in the lesson, including before students encounter unfamiliar language.

The four recurring supports can be used separately or together:

Establish first. Introduce the essential words and phrases students will need to understand the lesson. Explain them in their historical context and check that students can use them meaningfully.

Frames that carry the reasoning. Offer sentence beginnings or structures that help students express a comparison, cause, consequence, or claim. Students must still supply the historical evidence and explanation; the frame helps them put their reasoning into words.

Rehearse aloud, then write. Let students formulate and test an answer in speech before developing it in writing. A brief exchange with a partner or teacher can help them organize both the idea and the language needed to express it.

Show understanding without a paragraph. Where appropriate, use a sequence, diagram, chart, labeled map, or oral explanation to assess historical understanding without making extended prose the only means of demonstrating it. Include labels, captions, or a brief explanation as appropriate to the student’s proficiency. When sustained writing is itself the objective, use the alternative as preparation for that writing rather than as a substitute.

These supports are consistent with general principles of the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, particularly its integration of language development with social studies learning. Vocabulary gives students access to the content; sentence frames and oral rehearsal help them explain relationships and support claims; varied forms of response allow them to demonstrate understanding while developing English. Teachers using WIDA should adapt these supports to the appropriate grade-level Language Expectations and each student’s proficiency profile, in consultation with language specialists where available. Retain required accommodations and reduce optional scaffolding as students gain independence. The section supplements, rather than replaces, a student’s English-language-development instruction.

Assessment

Assessments appear at two levels. The Formative Assessment within each lesson helps the teacher judge understanding and decide what needs further attention. The Summative Assessment at the end of the chapter evaluates learning across the chapter. Its recurring sections include Timeline; Key Persons and Concepts; Geography; Short Answer; and Essay, with additional source work where appropriate.The Answer Key follows the student assessment’s organization and supplies answers, model responses, and essay scoring guidance.

The assessments are models, not mandates. Teachers may use them as written, select individual sections, alter the number of questions, or substitute work completed during the chapter. When a prompt is adapted, its answer or scoring guidance should be adapted with it so that the two remain aligned.

The Standards Index

The Standards Index identifies connections between the curriculum and Florida’s state standards so that teachers and administrators can locate the knowledge and skills addressed. Use it alongside the chapter and lesson plans; it is a reference tool, not a separate teaching sequence.

Using the Book Well

Begin planning with the Chapter Overview and Planner. For each lesson, identify the Essential Understanding, choose the materials that best serve it, and decide what evidence will show that students have understood it. The single-class-period pathway provides a sound default when time is limited; the larger collection of sources, questions, and exercises allows teachers to revisit difficult material or pursue a topic in greater depth.

Do not mistake abundance for obligation. Time spent well on one document or one question is worth more than a hurried pass through everything a lesson contains. What matters is that students retain the narrative, learn to reason from evidence, and become capable of explaining why events unfolded as they did.

A Final Thought

We hope this Teacher’s Edition helps you tell that one long story well. Every class will linger over different people, documents, images, and questions. So it should be: the American story is rich enough to reward those differences anew each year. If these pages deepen students’ understanding and help teachers continue learning as they teach, they will have accomplished their purpose.

OUR APPROACH

Thinking Historically

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”

—Cicero, Orator

As students study American history, they should also learn what it means to study history. The past is everything that has happened; history is our effort to recover, question, and understand it through the evidence that survives. Students need to ask how we know what happened, why some accounts are more trustworthy than others, and where our knowledge remains incomplete.

This is not a specialized art reserved for scholars. It is a disciplined way of attending to the world that any thoughtful person can learn and that free citizens require. Land of Hope is written for readers who will inherit a country, and an inheritance should first be understood. The habits described here—weighing evidence, following a story through time, distinguishing established facts from disputed interpretations, listening to those who came before—are habits of good citizenship as much as of good historical inquiry.

History Begins with Evidence

The word history comes from the Greek historía, meaning inquiry or knowledge acquired by investigation. The name points to the work of the historian: asking questions and seeking answers that can be tested against evidence.

Many students imagine that the past comes down to us whole and settled, as if narrated by someone who saw everything. One of the first things a history course should do is show them where knowledge of the past comes from: historical accounts draw on letters, laws, logbooks, ledgers, speeches, photographs, paintings, artifacts, and ruins. The historian has learned to ask careful questions of such evidence.

This is why Land of Hope consistently puts sources before students. When they read Columbus’s log describing the islands he encountered or King Manuel’s letter announcing a sea route to India, they are not being handed the past itself. They are being handed evidence from which an account of the past is built and asked to see how that reconstruction was done.

History Unfolds in Time

Facts about the past remain inert until they are placed in order. A date memorized in isolation means little; the same date set within a sequence of causes and consequences begins to mean a great deal. To think historically is to see events not as a heap but as a developing sequence—to ask what came before, what followed, and how one development altered the conditions in which the next occurred.

Land of Hope follows the American story through time while tracing themes that connect one period to another. Narrative helps students understand how events relate to one another; chronology lets them test whether a proposed cause could have preceded its effect. Knowing the order of events is a beginning, not an explanation in itself.

History Is Interpreted, Not Invented

One of the most demanding lessons of historical study is that interpretation is necessary without being arbitrary. History is built on evidence, but evidence does not speak for itself. It must be read, weighed, placed in context, and interpreted, and thoughtful people sometimes interpret the same evidence differently. This does not mean that every account is equally sound. It means that between the evidence and the finished account lies the work of judgment—and that this work can be done well or badly.

Students learn this best by watching it happen. Consider two bodies of sixteenth-century images of the New World: John White’s watercolors, painted from life among peoples he observed, and Theodor de Bry’s engravings, based on White’s work but made by an artist who never crossed the Atlantic and who reshaped White’s images for European eyes. Set side by side, the two sets of images vividly demonstrate that every source has a maker, a purpose, an audience, and a history of transmission. Every source invites the same essential questions: Who made this? For whom? Why? What does it reveal? What does it leave out? What other evidence would help us understand it?

History Is a Conversation

To study history is to enter a conversation with people who cannot answer back—and yet, if we read carefully, very nearly do. People of the past left words, images, institutions, and objects behind them. The historian’s task is partly to listen: to let them speak in their own voices before rendering a verdict upon them.

That conversation extends into the classroom. History is not merely received; it is discussed, argued over, and reasoned through aloud. Good questions do not ask students to guess what the teacher is thinking, nor do they pretend that every answer is equally sound. They ask students to reason from evidence, explain their conclusions, and listen to one another with an openness to reconsidering their own views.

History Requires Imagination

To understand people of the past, students need more than names and dates. They must imagine their way into a world not their own. This is not imagination in the sense of invention; historical imagination remains bound by evidence. It is imagination in an older and deeper sense: the power to enter a way of life whose assumptions, fears, and hopes may be strange to us, and to see it from within before judging it from without.

The book’s stories, works of art, epigraphs, maps, and primary voices help make a vanished world briefly inhabitable, so that students meet the past as something once lived rather than merely finished. Cultivated over a year, this sympathetic imagination disciplined by evidence becomes one of the most valuable gifts a history course can give. It approaches what we mean by wisdom about human affairs.

History Ends in Judgment

The end of this work is judgment—but judgment of a particular kind, which comes only after understanding. People in the past lived under conditions unlike our own, and before evaluating their choices we owe them the effort of seeing the world as they saw it. This is not the same as excusing them. It requires only that understanding come first and that judgment, when it comes, rest on evidence rather than on the accident of our having been born later.

Two temptations lie on either side of that path. One is to condescend to the past—to treat earlier generations as benighted and history as the record of how much better we have become. The other is to romanticize it—to admire our forebears uncritically and refuse to see their failures plainly. The book steers between these temptations and asks students to face the American story whole.

It asks for one thing more, which gives the book its name. Land of Hope approaches the past not only with scrutiny but with gratitude: the recognition that we have received far more than we made and that those who came before us, for all their faults, left an inheritance deserving both thanks and honest examination. Gratitude is not the enemy of judgment; it keeps judgment from curdling into contempt. To think historically, in the end, is to hold the two together—to tell the truth about the past and to receive it as one’s own.

CHAPTER ONE

Beginnings:

Settlement and Unsettlement

30,000 BC–AD 1506 · pp. xix–27, with the book’s Introduction

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

From the time of the ancient Greeks, there has been a mystique about the West as a site of renewal, a mystique that helped fuel European fascination with America. In fact, it is impossible to understand the history of America apart from the history of Europe. America was an offshoot of European civilization planted at a time when Europe was undergoing large economic, social, religious, technological, and cultural changes. America proved to be a new environment where laws and customs and ideas from Europe had the freedom to develop and flourish without constraint from incumbent societal structures.

The European discovery of America resulted from Europe’s growing commercial interest in the East. By the Late Middle Ages (1300–1500), Europe was experiencing continent-wide transformations in innovation, exploration, trade, and expansion. By the late 1400s, France, England, Spain, and Portugal had emerged as wealthy nations with the opportunity to explore potential trade routes overseas to the Far East (“the Indies”).

Convinced of the earth’s spherical shape, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus believed that sailing west would provide the most direct way to access the East, and he persuaded the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella to support him in that endeavor. Columbus began his exploratory voyage westward on August 3, 1492, and on October 12, his party spotted one of the islands of the Bahamas, which Columbus named “San Salvador,” meaning “Holy Savior.” Columbus eventually commanded four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas from 1492 to 1503, establishing connections between the Old World and the New that later gave rise to the establishment and settlement of America. Yet, despite the world-historical significance of Columbus’s discovery, he never quite understood what he had found. Even then, the true meaning of America was hard to see. His voyages also began something he could not have foreseen: a great collision of cultures. The lands he found were not empty, and the settlement of America by newcomers would in time bring a profound unsettlement to the peoples already living there.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter’s end:

How social, religious, technological, and cultural changes in the Old World created the circumstances that yielded the Age of Exploration and, ultimately, the discovery and settlement of the New World.

• The conditions in the Old World: medieval Christendom was a highly developed but confined and relatively static society.

• The conditions and peoples in the New World prior to the arrival of European explorers.

• New learning (e.g., the Renaissance), new attitudes (e.g., the Reformation, taken up in Chapter 2), new institutions (e.g., national languages and monarchies) challenged the settled assumptions of European society.

• Economic factors, events, and technological breakthroughs ignited a race between advanced nations (Portugal, Spain, France, England) to explore and to exploit the resources of the undiscovered world.

• The key figures involved in the Age of Discovery; how and why Christopher Columbus established the first enduring contact between the Old World and the New.

Key Persons

Leif Erikson (ca. 970–ca. 1020)

Erik the Red (ca. 950–ca. 1003)

Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512)

Christopher Columbus (1451–1506)

Mohammed (ca. 570–632)

Marco Polo (ca. 1254–1324)

Kublai Khan (1215–1294)

Key Concepts and Terms

Republican form of government

Monarchy

Crusades (1095–1291)

Silk Road (130 BC–AD 1453)

Ottoman Empire (1299–1922)

Feudalism

City-state

Nation-state

Age of Discovery

“The Indies”

History

Citizenship

Timeline

Match the event to the correct year(s).

ca. 30,000–12,000 BC First human settlers begin arriving in present-day North America

ca. AD 450 Zenith of the Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan, with a population estimated as high as 250,000

AD 632 Death of Mohammed and beginning of Muslim conquest of Christian lands (June 8)

ca. AD 980 Erik the Red discovers Greenland

ca. AD 1000 Leif Erikson discovers Vinland (Newfoundland area)

AD 1096–99 The First Crusade

1215 England’s King John signs the Magna Carta (June 15)

1259–95 The journeys of the Polo family

1420 Prince Henry the Navigator sponsors Portuguese explorations

1453 Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople (May 29)

1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope

1492 Christopher Columbus lands at San Salvador (October 12)

1497 John Cabot explores the eastern coast of North America for King Henry VII of England

1498 Vasco da Gama arrives in India (May 20)

1499 Amerigo Vespucci begins his first journey to the New World (May 18)

1502–4 Columbus’s fourth and final voyage to the New World

1506 Death of Christopher Columbus (May 20)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students’ progress warrants.

Introduction · One Long Story and Chapter One · Beginnings: Settlement and Unsettlement (5 to 9 class periods)

0.1–1.1 Introduction: One Long Story and Chapter One Opener pp. xix–6 (1 class)

• The purpose of studying history

• What is history? What is it not?

• The influence of national-scale historical processes on each individual’s personal history

• The importance of a knowledge and understanding of history in order to fulfill the duties of citizenship

1.2 We Are All Immigrants – pp. 6–10 (.5 to 1 class)

• The distinction between the terms “immigrant” and “native”

• The prehistoric arrival of humans in North America

• Survey of pre-Columbian societies in North and Central America

• Pre-Columbian European expeditions to North America (Vikings)

1.3 The Mystique of the West – pp. 10–11 (.5 to 1 class)

• The human urge to explore and expand our horizons

• The perennial tendency of human migration and its drivers

• The longstanding cultural significance of “the West” to European societies

• The association of “the West” with utopia or ideal human societies

1.4 The Unsettlement of Europe – pp. 12–13 (1 to 2 classes)

• America as an offshoot of Europe

• The geopolitical motivations of the early European navigators and explorers

• Disruption and innovation as core to America’s national identity

• The impact of America’s discovery on European society: the new availability of land and raw materials had far-reaching implications for European economic and political life, accelerating the decline of feudalism and further stimulating the growth of urban manufacturing.

1.5 Trade with the East – pp. 13–19 (.5 to 1 class)

• Context of the Crusades, the Silk Road, Marco Polo

• Fall of Constantinople

• Desire of European countries to discover safer trade routes to Asia

• Advancements in nautical technology

• Emergence of a trade-based middle class in Europe

• Competition of the early colonial powers (France, England, Spain, and Portugal)

1.6 Columbus Emerges – pp. 19–27 (1.5 to 3 classes)

• The early leadership of the Portuguese in exploration

• The Portuguese explorers: Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama

• The motivations and early struggles of Christopher Columbus

• Columbus’s voyage and first landfall in the Caribbean islands

• The irony of the scale of Columbus’s achievement in relation to his own estimation of it and that of his patrons

• Robert Frost’s poem “And All We Call American” and its relevance to Columbus

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter’s epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Amerigo Vespucci, Mundus Novus (1503) (p. 3)

Amerigo Vespucci was a Florentine explorer and navigator who took part in voyages along the coast of South America. Mundus Novus (1503), attributed to him, describes lands encountered across the Atlantic and presents the voyage as both dangerous and providential. Its language of “a continent, new lands, and an unknown world” reflects an understanding of the discoveries distinct from Columbus’s continuing belief that he had reached Asia.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 1.1. Christopher Columbus, Letter to Luis de Santángel Announcing the Discovery of the New World, 15 February 1493 (p. 22)

Written on the return voyage and addressed to Luis de Santángel, a royal official closely involved in financing the expedition, Columbus’s 1493 letter announced the voyage’s results and was quickly printed and circulated in Europe. It describes the islands, their inhabitants, and their apparent resources for an audience connected to the court that had supported the voyage. Columbus wrote while still believing that he had reached lands associated with the Indies.

Figures

Figure 1.2. Watercolor Map of the Algonquian Village of Secotan, North Carolina, John White, ca. 1585 (p. 8)

John White was a sixteenth-century British artist who created a series of watercolors documenting the people, wildlife, agriculture, and terrain of the New World. His artwork largely focuses on his observations while exploring Roanoke, present-day North Carolina, where he briefly served as governor of the failed colony, and its surrounding areas. The paintings were created to inform England of what life was like in the Americas and were among the earliest visual records of the native peoples the British encountered.

This watercolor depicts an aerial view of Secotan, an Algonquian village in North Carolina, showing the village layout and providing insight into Carolina Algonquians’ way of life. On the right-hand side of the page, corn is sectioned off into “rype corne,” “greene corne,” and “corne newly sprong.” A man-made structure sits in the midst of the ripe corn, housing a guard to protect the crops from animals. In the background to the left are hunters with bows and arrows. In the center, a communal bonfire is attended by two figures, while homes—rounded structures likely made from bent saplings fastened together—are irregularly placed throughout the village. Further below, other villagers are seen eating or “sitting at meate.” Along the bottom of the page to the right, figures participate in a ceremony with “strange jesturs and songs,” dancing around “posts carved on the topps lyke mens faces,” while others sit in line waiting for their turn to join. To the left is another bonfire or “place of solemne prayer” and a house or “tombe,” perhaps holding the remains of their deceased leaders.

The fields of corn reveal that the Algonquians had a highly developed farming system, where corn was planted such that different fields matured at different times, allowing for a continuous harvest and consistent food supply. The architectural layout of the village—irregularly placed homes with no property-defining fences—suggests a communal pattern of life in which resources were widely shared, though a single image cannot by itself tell us how the Secotan understood the ownership of land. This is reinforced by the many communal depictions of people eating, hunting, and praying together. Religious rituals and places of prayer demonstrate a deep and structured spiritual life, where prayer could be either solemn or lively and the dead were honored. These scenes would have been of interest to European readers at home who had little knowledge of the New World, and to future settlers, who would have found the rich agriculture appealing.

White’s watercolor shows us one Carolina Algonquian community on the eve of European contact, whose life was characterized by a system of hunting and farming, a strong sense of community, and regular spiritual practices tied to nature and their ancestors. Some similarities with European cultures include organized villages, religious belief systems, and active communities. Some key differences can be seen in the architecture, the open arrangement of dwellings and cultivated fields, and technologies such as the use of bows and arrows rather than guns.

Figure 1.3. Leif Erikson Discovering America, Christian Krohg, 1893 (p. 10)

Christian Krohg was a prominent late nineteenth-century Norwegian artist who created this painting for a competition associated with the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The work presents Leif Erikson’s sighting of land as a heroic moment: Erikson, brightly dressed and standing above the crew, points toward the coast while sailors crowd the deck. Dark clouds and rough water emphasize the hazards of North Atlantic travel. The painting is a nineteenth-century commemoration of a tenth-century voyage rather than a contemporary record of the event.

Figure 1.6. Tapestry Showing Vasco da Gama’s 1498 Arrival in India, Flemish School, sixteenth century (p. 18)

This tapestry was commissioned by King Manuel I of Portugal to commemorate the country’s first voyage to India. It depicts Vasco da Gama’s arrival in Calicut harbor and reception by the locals at the bustling port. Caravel ships, whose innovative design helped enable the Age of Exploration, sit at the center equipped with triangular lateen sails and a shallow draft, meaning relatively little of the hull extends below the waterline. The shape of the sails made the ships highly maneuverable against the ocean winds and the shallow draft allowed explorers to avoid sandbanks and submerged rocks when sailing close to unfamiliar shorelines. To the left, Vasco da Gama is seen kneeling at the feet of the Zamorin of Calicut, the Hindu leader, presenting a letter presumably from King Manuel I, establishing political relations. All sorts of exotic animals are being unloaded from the ships: ostriches, camels, caged wild animals, and even a unicorn. The encounter as depicted is not entirely accurate. Gama in fact presented simple gifts such as clothing, coral, and sugar that were considered mere trifles by the wealthy Indian merchants. However, the exotic commodities shown reflect the Western view of the possible riches attainable in India, now made more accessible by the new sea routes that enabled direct economic exchange, and the cultural wonder that the East evoked in Europe.

Figure 1.7. Illustration from Jerome Benzoni’s America, Part Four: Distinguished and Admirable History of Western India, Discovered for the First Time by Christopher Columbus in the Year 1492, Theodor de Bry, 1594 (p. 22)

Theodor de Bry was a sixteenth-century Flemish engraver and publisher who created this image for Americae, volume IV of his Grandes Voyages series, a compilation of accounts chronicling voyages to the New World that De Bry illustrated and published. These books served as many Europeans’ first encounter with the New World, making De Bry’s illustrations highly influential in shaping the Western perspective on the Americas. This engraving depicts Columbus landing on the Caribbean Islands. His confident stance indicates his dominion over the new lands, while deferential natives offer him riches. In the background, Columbus’s men raise a cross, asserting the Christian religion, and natives flee in terror from the harbored ships. Certain aspects of Columbus’s first contact with the New World are accurately displayed including his arrival by ship, claiming the lands for Spain, and the desire to spread Christianity. However, De Bry never traveled to the New World himself and based his images on firsthand accounts and images produced by others, while also adding his own artistic interpretations for European viewers. This can especially be seen in his illustration of the natives, whose Greco-Roman physiques and gifts of necklaces and chests are tailored to the classical European aesthetic. These idealized illustrations contrast with John White’s more observational depictions, which were based on his experience in the New World. De Bry copied many of White’s visual depictions for his own illustrations; a side-by-side comparison of their works highlights the ways in which De Bry took artistic liberties.

Figure 1.9. The Allegory of America, frontispiece page from Thomas Salmon’s Present State of America, J. C. Philips, 1765 (p. 23)

Jan Caspar Philips was an eighteenth-century German-born draughtsman and engraver active in Amsterdam, known for his architectural, book, and portrait illustrations. The engraving’s various characters and their surroundings represent the European perspective on the great abundance of agriculture, natural resources, and land the New World offered to explorers and settlers. Navigation personified discovers the manifold “fruits” or opportunities of the Americas, symbolized by the Native American’s overflowing cornucopia, and introduces them to the rest of the world, depicted as a globe which she unveils. Columbus, represented by his portrait, and Spain, represented by the Spanish flag, seem to be divinely guided to its discovery and conquest, symbolized by the cherubs or gods supporting their figures. In the background, precious goods and rarities abound, portraying the discovered lands as a new Eden.

Maps

Map 1.1. Two Theories of the Peopling of the Americas, ca. 20,000–12,000 BC (p. 7)

This map depicts two theories about possible routes taken by the earliest people of the Americas. One route shows the way through glaciers, while the other shows an aquatic path following the coast. The first route demonstrates the Bering Land Bridge Theory, which proposes that people from Asia migrated to the Americas by crossing a land bridge exposed by low sea levels, connecting Siberia and Alaska. From there, people traveled through the Ice-Free Corridor, a narrow land passage created by receding glaciers, namely the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets. The second route shows the Coastal Migration Theory, which hypothesizes that people migrated to the Americas by boat, moving along the coastline of the Bering land bridge and then southward down the Pacific shoreline, surviving on fish and other marine resources. Possible motivations for migrations include hunters following animal herds for food, necessity such as war or scarcity, an innate sense of adventure, and hope for a better life.

Map 1.2. The Journeys of the Polo Family, 1259–95 (p. 14)

The map shows the routes taken by Marco Polo on his expedition to Asia and back. Each part of his journey presented a unique set of perils: the Mediterranean Sea, though more familiar to European sailors, had all the typical dangers associated with seafaring, including pirate attacks, limited nautical technologies, sickness, and dangerous weather. The overland journey across Asia introduced new trials, some of which included treacherous mountain and desert terrain, bandits, levies, foreign languages and customs, and disease, making the trip extremely costly and slow. After the fall of Constantinople, more than a century and a half after the journeys of Marco Polo, overland trade with the East became increasingly inaccessible due to factors such as political instability, heavy taxes imposed by the ruling Muslim Turks, and epidemic outbreaks.

Map 1.3. Henricus Martellus, World Map from Insularium Illustratum, ca. 1489 (p. 17)

Henricus Martellus was a German cartographer active in Italy in the late fifteenth century. His world map drew on Ptolemaic geography, travel accounts, and recent Portuguese exploration. Europe, Africa, Asia, the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean are recognizable, but their scale and shapes differ substantially from modern maps. The Americas and Pacific Ocean do not appear because they were not yet known to European cartographers. The map therefore records the geographic knowledge and assumptions available in Europe shortly before Columbus’s first voyage.

Map 1.4. Global Explorations, ca. 1000–1522 (p. 21)

This map traces major routes of exploration from the Norse voyages to the first circumnavigation of the globe. It includes Leif Erikson’s route from Greenland to Vinland; Marco Polo’s overland journey across Asia; Portuguese voyages along and around Africa; Columbus’s westward Atlantic crossing; Vespucci’s exploration of the South American coast; and the Magellan expedition, completed after Magellan’s death in 1521. Together the routes show the widening geographic reach of European exploration and the contrast between established eastern routes and Columbus’s westward plan.

Map 1.5. The Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1492–1504 (p. 25)

This map shows the water routes of Columbus’s four transatlantic voyages, each made in an attempt to find a quicker, more direct path to Asia. The first two routes show Columbus’s initial voyages to the Americas, where he landed in the Caribbean Islands. The third route shows Columbus’s path to South America, where he began to believe that the lands he discovered were not Asia itself, but rather a barrier to the continent. The fourth route traces his final journey to Central America and demonstrates how close he was to discovering the Pacific Ocean in his search for a strait leading directly to Asia. Columbus was confident he had succeeded in finding India because he underestimated the circumference of the earth and had no knowledge of the Pacific Ocean and the American continents, leading to his resolute conviction that sailing west would lead to the Indies. Though he failed to find his western water route to Asia, his journey can be considered a success as he was the first to establish lasting contact between the Old World and the New.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter’s subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• In The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, John Lewis Gaddis provides an introduction to the historical method.

• The Ground We Stand On: Some Examples from the History of a Political Creed, by John Dos Passos, traces the background and rise of America’s early political structure, the variety of influences upon it, and the men who gave it a stable foundation.

• In Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–1700, Carlo M. Cipolla traces the use of technological advancements for mercantilist purposes in early Western European expansion.

• In The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself, the twelfth Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin gathers and analyzes the history of discovery.

• Russell Kirk’s Roots of American Order identifies the beliefs and institutions which undergird the American idea. His narrative approach is called “five cities” because he attributes the character of America’s founding to various cultural features of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia.

• In Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World, Daniel Hannan traces the roots of economic and political liberty in the British anglosphere as compared with other European colonial empires.

• In David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, Fischer details how the cultures of four distinct areas of Great Britain informed early American political culture.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

0.1 Introduction and 1.1 Opener (pp. xix–6)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows a consistent structure. Teachers may teach the lessons in sequence or select among them according to their students’ needs.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: The Introduction and pages 5–6, the chapter opening.

Exercise: The distinction between the past and history, using the opening discussion.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why history must be selective and on what citizenship has to do with knowing it.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign We Are All Immigrants (pp. 6–10).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

What history—our collective memory of the past—is, why we must study our nation’s history, and how we should approach this important task.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Define history and explain how it is important

• Compare the words “story” and “history”

• Create a history of your family

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

ca. 30,000–12,000 BC  The first human settlers begin arriving in North America

ca. AD 1000 Leif Erikson reaches North America — the encounter that does not take

1492 Columbus makes landfall — the encounter that does

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

History is the study of significant human events over time, including “the eruptions of the extraordinary into the flow of the regular” (p. xxi). It depends on inquiry, or the honest investigation of the past, and uses story to help people understand their identity and place in the world.

History also shapes citizenship in a republican form of government, where citizens govern themselves through elected representatives. Knowledge of the past helps citizens understand their responsibilities to their community.

McClay defines hope as the belief that present circumstances “cannot be the final word about them” (p. xxii). American history reflects both hope and disappointment, including “dashed hopes” (p. xxii).

Studying history also encourages gratitude. By understanding the challenges earlier generations faced, we can appreciate their achievements, recognize their failures, and learn from both.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

History: From the Ancient Greek historía, inquiry — knowledge acquired by investigation, not merely the record of what happened (p. xix).

The past: Everything that has already occurred. History is the selective account we make of it; the two are not the same (p. xxi).

Memory: What history is to a civilized society, memory is to an individual identity — the faculty by which continuity is held (p. xxii).

In media res: Latin, “into the middle of things” — beginning a narrative already underway rather than at its origin (p. xxiii).

Citizenship: Membership in a self-governing political community, which the book argues requires a knowledge of that community’s history (p. xxv).

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Assign students to read the book’s Introduction and the opening section of Chapter One (pp. 5–6).

Invite students to consider their own personal history. (How do we come to know the unknown? Where do we start?)

Invite students to trace their genealogy as many generations as they can, to the best of their own knowledge, their parents’ knowledge, and any other available resources.

Invite students to reflect in writing—a paragraph of four to six sentences: how far back in time would they have to go to explain their own stories?

Further: How do you approach this task? What are the methods one would use to answer questions about the past?

Further: How have the experiences of those who came before them shaped their own lives? How did their ancestors’ home nation shape their lives?

Further: When did their ancestors arrive in the United States? Where did they arrive from and what were their lives like there? How did the United States shape their lives and the lives of their ancestors?

Invite students to reflect on the final sentence of the first chapter section (p. 6): “The goal, in short, is to help us be full members of the society of which we are already a part.”

In their own written words, ask students to express what it means to be a citizen. What is good citizenship?

Further: Why is a knowledge of history necessary in order for someone to practice good citizenship?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Speaking Skills: Invite students to share the genealogies they created for homework.

How did they go about this work of inquiry and discovery?

How was this knowledge imparted to them? Whose memories and stories were shared with them? How were those memories transmitted over time?

What did they learn from this experience?

Analytical Skills: Instruct students to read aloud and explain Vespucci’s Mundus Novus. Use the following questions for either class discussion or a written short answer.

Who is the author? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

What does the epigraph reveal about the explorer’s perspective on the discovery of the new lands? Consider the epigraph’s mention of the difficulty of the journey and the role of divine providence in its discovery.

Writing Skills: In pairs, invite students to write and share a short paragraph giving their own definition of the discipline of history.

What is the goal of studying history? What should we expect to take away from our examination of our nation’s past?

Further: What aspects of daily American life require some knowledge of history?

Civic Discourse: Lead a discussion on the question, “What is history and what is not history?” Start by having students brainstorm examples and then invite them to share and explain.

Guide students toward the understanding that history and “the Past” are not equivalent. “The Past” is an accumulation of facts listing all the events that have happened before, while history is what those in the Present find useful to remember about the past.

What makes a story a good story? Why must history (and stories) be “selective in order to be intelligible”?

Is history a science? Is history objective or subjective? How do we decide what stories to tell? What do we leave out?

Return to the genealogies that students made. Ask students why understanding a nation’s history matters in the same way.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

Insight gives the core ideas that help advance the essential understanding of the lesson material. Further offers an additional layer of understanding for teachers looking to extend the discussion.

What is the goal of studying history? What is the difference between “history” and “the past”?

Insight: The textbook addresses this question by saying that the goal of history is to help us become knowledgeable and responsible members of our society. “The past” includes every person and event that has ever happened before, while “history” is a carefully told, meaningful story about particular people or events in the past.

Why does the author of Land of Hope choose to begin in media res—in the middle of things?

Insight: The author chooses to begin in media res since wherever one chooses to start the story, there are always events that occurred before. You have to start somewhere, even though there is always more detail or context that could be provided. The story of American history begins in the middle of things because the context can reach back through European history, all the way to ancient Greece and Rome, or even further. Adding too much additional information would defeat the purpose of telling a story that makes sense—so he starts in the middle of things.

What are the challenges of studying history? What makes for good history and what makes for bad history?

Insight: Answers will vary. One challenge is discerning what information is and is not essential to the story: history is not the sum of the whole past and cannot include every detail. Interpretations of events can also change over time—new information emerges, the values of a society shift. Students might also raise propaganda designed to manipulate our interpretations. A good history is well-organized, honest, and based on evidence and sound reason; a bad history is factually in error, one-sided, or draws too strong a conclusion from poor sources. The goal of history is always the truth—while keeping in mind that any account can only approximate it, and the reality of the past is always more complicated than the historian says.

Is history more a science or a branch of literature? What are the benefits and shortcomings of each approach?

Insight: Some historians have hoped history could be made into a science, and there are benefits to a scientific approach—the use of reason and the examination of evidence. But it fails to take into account that we need stories to speak to the fullness of our humanity and orient ourselves in the world. Literature can bring important truths to light even through fiction; history is full of interesting stories that really happened. History can never be purely objective because memory is always partial. Complete objectivity is impossible when human beings study human beings—which is why the author treats history as closer to a branch of literature than a science. Students may reasonably weigh the balance differently.

What is citizenship? What is good citizenship? Why is a knowledge of history necessary for someone to practice good citizenship?

Insight: Citizenship is the relationship between an individual and a state in which the citizen owes allegiance and duties to the state in return for its benefits. Good citizenship requires active and informed participation in government, including protecting and defending what is best in the state’s institutions and ideas. History provides examples of what good citizenship looks like and helps us emulate them; it helps us understand and appreciate our nation, find our place in its story, and fulfill our duty as citizens.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

In this lesson’s terms, what is the difference between the past and history?

Name one reason the author gives for why citizens should study their nation’s history.

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) the past = all that has happened; history = the remembered, selected, interpreted account of it. (2) any reason the lesson states—e.g., that self-government depends on citizens who know the story they are part of.

Explain

Why must history be selective to be intelligible—and what is lost and gained by choosing what to remember?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. A strong answer sees that a history recording everything would be as unusable as the past itself, so selection is what makes meaning possible—while acknowledging that every selection also leaves something out. A partial answer says history “keeps the important parts” without reaching why selection is necessary or what it costs. If most answers sit at the partial level, return to the idea before proceeding.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson’s threads together.

History is not the whole of the past but a selective, evidence-based account of it. Because citizens inherit institutions, obligations, and possibilities they did not create for themselves, knowledge of the past helps them understand the society of which they are already a part. The study of American history therefore joins inquiry and storytelling to the responsibilities of citizenship.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The Introduction has established what history is and why a citizen needs it. The next lesson applies that immediately to the hardest case in this chapter: a continent whose first peoples left no written record at all, so that everything we claim about them comes from evidence of other kinds.

Language Support

For students still building academic English. These supports give a student the words for what he can already grasp, and each draws on the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: History (distinct from the past); citizen and citizenship; inquiry. Pair each with a plain instance before the abstract term—“the past” is everything that happened; “history” is the part we choose to remember and why.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The past is ___, but history is ___.” · “One reason a citizen needs history is ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students tell one true story from their own family, then say which details they kept and which they left out—a first encounter with history as selection, spoken before written.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may build a short labeled timeline of his own life—choosing which events matter—in place of a written response.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

1.2 We Are All Immigrants (pp. 6–10)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 6–10.

Exercise: Map 1.1, the two theories of the peopling of the Americas, and Figure 1.2, the watercolor of Secotan.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the tension between “native” and “immigrant” and on what the evidence can and cannot settle.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Mystique of the West (pp. 10–11).

Essential Understanding

The conditions and peoples in the New World prior to the arrival of European explorers.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the cultures and extent of the pre-Columbian civilizations of North America.

• Compare and contrast the arrivals of the pre-Columbian inhabitants with the European explorers.

• Analyze the meanings of, and the tension between, the terms “native” and “immigrant.”

Key Dates

ca. 30,000–12,000 BC  First human settlers begin arriving in North America

9500 BC South America’s southern tip is settled

ca. AD 1000 Leif Erikson discovers Vinland (Newfoundland area)

Key Concepts

The distinction between the past and history matters here because the earliest peoples of the Americas left no written record comparable to later European sources. Their story must be reconstructed from archaeological, geographic, and other evidence, reminding students that history is a selective account built from the evidence that survives.

Migration is the common thread linking the earliest inhabitants of the Americas to later arrivals. The ancestors of the peoples long described as native to the Americas themselves came from elsewhere, probably from northeastern Asia, over many generations.

The terms native and immigrant therefore stand in productive tension. A people can become native to a place through long habitation and descent even when their distant ancestors arrived through migration. That tension helps frame the chapter’s larger theme of settlement and unsettlement.

Norse exploration provides an important contrast with the migrations of the first Americans and with Columbus’s later voyages. Leif Erikson reached Vinland around AD 1000, but the Norse settlements did not establish the enduring connection between Europe and the Americas that followed the voyages of the late fifteenth century.

Key Terms

Natives: people associated with a particular place by birth and descent.

Immigrants: people who settle in a land from which they do not originate and therefore differ from its natives.

Stone Age nomads: migrant peoples who long remained confined to a way of life in which fire and crude implements made of stone or bone were their chief shields against nature. The chapter distinguishes them from other peoples who moved on to build settled societies.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter One, Section Two, “We Are All Immigrants” (pp. 6–10).

Provide short answers to the following questions and prompts:

In your own words, what is the difference between the terms “native” and “immigrant”?

Around when did humans first arrive in North America? How do we know?

Describe the range of societies that existed in North America before the arrival of European explorers.

Was Christopher Columbus the first European to arrive in North America? If not, who was?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Geography: Display the Two Theories of the Peopling of the Americas map (Map 1.1). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Compare the two routes. What geographic features and obstacles shaped human migration? First discuss the possible land route (red): what does the Bering Land Bridge and the Ice-Free Corridor reveal about this path? Next discuss the possible sea route (blue): how might humans have followed the Pacific coastline southward by boat, and what would that journey have required?

Why might the early peoples have crossed over and explored the lands?

Insight: There are several possible motivations for this migration (see Map 1.1 in the background material): hunters following animal herds, necessities such as war or scarcity, an innate sense of adventure, and hope for a better life.

Further: Which of these are push factors—conditions driving people to leave where they were—and which are pull factors—conditions drawing people toward the unknown land? Are any of them both?

Writing Skills: In pairs, have students read and critique each other’s written homework responses, noting in two sentences what each response does well and what it leaves out. Invite some student pairs to share their responses.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine John White’s Watercolor Map of the Algonquian Village of Secotan (Figure 1.2). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the painting? What stands out to them? What are the people doing?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Further: What do the depictions tell us about the Natives’ agriculture, architecture, customs, and spiritual practices? Why would these scenes be of interest to English viewers at home?

Further: Have students discuss what characterized Native American life before European arrival. What were the similarities and differences between Native American societies and European societies?

Note to the teacher: Do not tell students yet that this image was later reworked by another artist. They will meet Theodor de Bry’s engraving in 1.6, and the comparison is far stronger if they meet White’s watercolor first, without suspicion. Have them look closely now; they will be asked to remember it.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the painting Leif Erikson Discovering America (Figure 1.3). Ask students the following questions:

What does the painting depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Show a world map and examine the distances from Iceland to Greenland, Greenland to Vinland (modern-day Newfoundland), and Vinland to the contiguous United States, while considering the biggest challenges for the Erikson voyage. What were the perils of the journey that these explorers undertook?

Further: What drives the human impulse to explore and expand one’s territory? Why would Leif Erikson and others risk death to explore possibly hostile lands?

Argumentation: Assign students to argue either side of a debate on the question, “Can Native American tribes be considered ‘immigrants’? Why or why not?”

Insight: This may be a sensitive topic for some students. Emphasize that the goal of this exercise is to explore the concepts of “native” and “immigrant” in the abstract, not to pass judgment on any particular group of people.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: What challenges would Leif Erikson have faced in sailing to North America across the North Atlantic? Remind students that he crossed the same seas where the much more technologically sophisticated Titanic sank almost one thousand years later. How would they go about addressing the challenges of the voyage?

Insight: No matter when they arrived in North America, the process of migration posed great adversities to the people who journeyed here. Emphasize that the peoples who reached the Americas came, in the book’s words, in search of something new and better.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Who can truly be called native to America? Why?

Insight: The author argues that no one can truly be called native to America because all peoples seem to have migrated here from other parts of the globe, including the “Indians” who originally came from Asia.

How did the first human inhabitants arrive in America? What are the two migration theories?

Insight: Scholars generally believe that the first human settlers came over from northeastern Asia into the Western Hemisphere sometime between the years 30,000 and 12,000 BC, crossing over the Bering Strait Land Bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska. The Ice-Free Corridor theory and the Coastal Migration theory are two leading theories of how they traveled past the Canadian ice sheets. The Ice-Free Corridor theory maintains that the first inhabitants traveled through an opening between the ice sheets that emerged around 15,000 BC. The Coastal Migration theory holds that they island-hopped along the Pacific shoreline around 20,000 BC.

Did the voyage of Leif Erikson’s crew have a lasting influence on the course of the West? Why or why not?

Insight: Though Leif Erikson and his crew discovered and explored parts of the New World, his attempt to establish a lasting colony in Newfoundland ultimately failed. The author argues that his attempts had no direct or significant role in the establishment of the settlements and institutions that would eventually make up the United States.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

By roughly what dates, and by what route, did the first settlers reach North America?

Define native and immigrant as this lesson uses them. Give one example from the reading of how societies in the Americas differed before European contact.

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) ca. 30,000–12,000 BC, by the Bering land bridge from northeastern Asia. (2) native—a people tied to a place by birth and descent; immigrant—a people who settle a land not originally their own. Examples of diversity should come from the reading and may contrast hunting and gathering with settled agriculture, or small communities with large cities.

Explain

The chapter is titled “We Are All Immigrants.” Explain what the author means, and why native and immigrant stand in tension.

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. A strong answer sees that the first Americans, native by long inhabitance, themselves arrived from elsewhere—so migration, not fixed origin, is the thread of the American story. A partial answer restates that people migrated but does not reach the tension in the two terms. If most answers sit at the partial level, the Essential Understanding has not yet landed.

Daily Recap

The first peoples of the Americas arrived through migration and developed societies that varied widely in their settlements, livelihoods, and customs. Their long attachment to these lands made them native peoples, even though their distant ancestors had migrated from elsewhere. Both their shared origins in migration and the diversity of their societies are essential to understanding the Americas before European contact.

Looking Ahead

Having seen how little the archaeological record settles, the next lesson turns to what Europeans believed about the West before they had any evidence about it at all—and to how durable those beliefs proved.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first, with the map: Native, immigrant, migration, land bridge. Show the Bering-land-bridge map (Map 1.1) as the terms are introduced: the route on the map is the definition of migration.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The first Americans were native because ___, yet also immigrants because ___.” · “Crossing the land bridge required ___, which tells us ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students explain how a people can be both native and immigrant, before whole-class discussion.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may label the migration map—route, land bridge, direction—in place of a written response.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

1.3 The Mystique of the West (pp. 10–11)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 10–11.

Exercise: Figure 1.3, Krohg’s Leif Erikson Discovering America, with the questions on how a nineteenth-century painter imagined a tenth-century voyage.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what draws people westward and on why the Norse settlements did not last.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Unsettlement of Europe (pp. 12–13).

Essential Understanding

The allure of the unknown West; the depth of its significance as a symbol of unexplored, bountiful, and even utopian territory in the European cultural mythos; and the perennial human urge to expand outwards and settle new areas.

Lesson Objectives

• Identify the reasons why human beings are drawn to exploration

• Draw conclusions about why the West has held such significance across European mythologies

• Analyze how the concept of “utopia” has been associated with the West

Key Dates

ca. AD 980 Erik the Red discovers Greenland and names it to draw settlers

ca. AD 1000 Leif Erikson reaches Vinland; the Norse settlements come to nothing

Key Concepts

The West had long occupied a special place in the European imagination as a direction associated with abundance, mystery, renewal, and lands beyond the known world. The less Europeans knew about what lay beyond the western horizon, the more readily hopes and legends could be projected onto it.

Exploration turned imagined geography into known geography. Norse voyages to Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland gave concrete form to older ideas of western lands, even though those settlements did not create a lasting connection with the societies that would later develop in North America. The tension between the imagined West and the encountered West prepares the way for the later Age of Discovery.

Key Terms

The West: In Europe, the West had long been associated with renewal and discovery, a place of wealth and plenty, a land of hope—a vivid anticipation of what a New World could be like.

Post-Roman Europe: Western European civilizational life stagnated in the “Dark Ages” after the fall of Rome in AD 476. The term “Dark Ages” contrasts the period of late antiquity and medieval Europe with the “light” of classical antiquity. (But remember the Eastern Roman Empire lasted another thousand years. There were no Dark Ages in Constantinople.)

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Read the third section of Chapter One, “The Mystique of the West.”

Using the text, identify at least two cultures that had a cultural mythos around “the West.” What were some similarities in their stories about this faraway land?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Start an open-ended discussion on the human urge to explore. Would they want to explore a new city, maybe in a different country? What would that experience be like? What would it be like if they did not have a smartphone?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask the class, “Why does the West, as opposed to the other three directions, hold such a special place across the mythologies of many European cultures?” Invite a variety of opinions and encourage the students to debate respectfully.

Further: Before the discovery of the Americas, what did Europeans believe lay beyond the “pillars of Hercules” (the straits of Gibraltar)?

Further: Where does the word “Atlantic” come from? Atlantis?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask the class, what does the word “utopia” mean? Where does it come from? Why are utopias and the West so frequently associated? Invite a variety of opinions and encourage the students to debate respectfully.

Insight: Utopia comes from the Greek words “ou,” meaning “not,” and “topos,” meaning “place,” thus it means “not-place” or “somewhere that does not exist.”

Guiding Classroom Questions

What drives human beings to explore? What forces unsettle them and cause them to leave their places of origin for the unknown?

Insight: Answers may vary. Sometimes people are forced to explore and settle new lands out of necessity: war, famine, and overpopulation are frequent causes. Other causes include ambition, monetary gain, and desire for honors. However, there are also reasons that extend beyond mere survival or external motivations, including an innate desire to discover and explore the unknown.

What are some potential motivations that pre-Columbian explorers had for leaving their place of origin for the New World?

Insight: The author poses the need for survival as a potential motivation for the earliest Asian peoples to migrate to the New World. Other motivating factors, such as those of the Norse explorers, include the availability of western lands and their restless, pioneering spirit. Many explorers were also motivated by the mystery of the West, deeply embedded in the culture of Europe, reaching as far back as ancient Greece.

Why is the West, in particular, significant? Why did European peoples commonly associate the West with idealized, even mythologized, societies?

Insight: Before the discovery of America, the “mystique” of the West had long been present in European literature, myths, and religious traditions, which portrayed western lands as places of hope and opportunity. The Greeks believed the Isles of the Blessed and the Elysian Fields were located in the western lands. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis are other examples that point to the idyllic image of these uncharted lands.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What does utopia mean, and where does the word come from?

Name two things Europeans imagined they might find in the West.

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) an ideal or perfect place; from Greek for “no-place.” (2) any two the lesson gives—wealth, land, a fresh start, the fabled or the ideal.

Explain

Why did the idea of the West have such power over the European imagination, even before anyone had crossed it?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. A strong answer sees that the West’s power lay in its being unknown—a blank onto which hopes could be projected—so its mystique was a matter of imagination as much as geography. A partial answer lists what people wanted without reaching why the unknown itself was the draw. If most answers sit at the partial level, return to the idea.

Daily Recap

For Europeans, the West long carried meanings beyond simple direction: it was the unknown beyond the horizon, a place onto which hopes of abundance, renewal, and even utopia could be projected. That inherited mystique helped give later western exploration a cultural significance that exceeded the practical search for land or trade.

Looking Ahead

The mystique of the West explains why Europeans looked outward. The next lesson explains why, in the fifteenth century, they were finally in a position to act on it—and why that had as much to do with trouble at home as with ambition abroad.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Mystique, utopia, myth, horizon, the West (as idea, not only direction). Gloss utopia from its Greek roots—“no-place”—so the word itself carries the lesson’s point.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “People imagined the West as ___ because ___.” · “A place can be a symbol when ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students name a place today that holds a “mystique” and say why, then connect it to how Europeans imagined the West.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may draw the “imagined West” and label three things Europeans hoped to find there, in place of a written response.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

1.4 The Unsettlement of Europe (pp. 12–13)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 12–13.

Exercise: The Black Death, the fall of Constantinople, and the Reconquista as three shocks to European stability.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what unsettled Europe and on how disruption at home produced expansion abroad.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Trade with the East (pp. 13–19).

Essential Understanding

The major changes (religious and philosophical; scientific and technological; economic, social, and political) unsettling Europe at the time of the New World’s discovery, with some sense of how they interacted and reinforced one another.

Lesson Objectives

• Categorize the various disruptions that changed Europe between 1000 and 1500

• Predict how these disruptions will impact the future trajectory of America

Key Dates

AD 1096–99 The First Crusade

AD 1271–95 Marco Polo travels the Silk Road

AD 1420 Prince Henry the Navigator sponsors Portuguese explorations

Key Concepts

America as an offshoot of Europe is the central relationship of the lesson. The societies that developed in North America inherited selected European laws, customs, religious traditions, technologies, and political ideas, but those inheritances would develop under very different conditions across the Atlantic.

The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. Between the later Middle Ages and the early modern period, religious conflict, new learning, commercial expansion, stronger monarchies, and technological change disrupted older arrangements and widened the range of what Europeans thought possible.

Innovation and disruption reinforced one another. Improvements in ships, navigation, and mapmaking expanded the practical possibilities of long-distance travel, while growing trade and political competition gave rulers and merchants reasons to finance it.

Exploration was therefore both a consequence and an agent of change. Voyages undertaken for trade and geopolitical advantage brought Europeans into contact with lands and peoples previously outside their ordinary experience and further transformed European economic and political life.

The discovery of the Americas intensified this process. Columbus’s 1492 voyage became a landmark not because it arose in isolation, but because it joined technological change, commercial ambition, political competition, and the old European fascination with the West in a single consequential event.

Key Terms

The modern age: The era subsequent to the Middle Ages characterized by a great upsurge in fresh energies and disruptions associated with new technologies, discoveries, and ideologies.

Silk Road (130 BC–AD 1453): This vast Eurasian overland trade network connected European markets with the East, though travel along its constituent routes was slow, costly, and dangerous.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Read the fourth section of Chapter One, “The Unsettlement of Europe.”

Written response questions:

After a long historical process, the United States emerged from a great series of disruptions, or an “unsettlement,” in Europe between 1000 and 1500. Describe at least two of these disruptions. Explain how you think these disruptions influenced the character of America.

Culturally speaking, America is an offshoot of Europe but one that, geographically, developed very far from its parent source. What effect do you predict that this situation will have on the trajectory of American history?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Start a discussion, based on the homework assignments, on the idea of “unsettlement” or “disruption” as the instigating event for America. What does it mean for America that the events leading to its founding were quintessentially disruptive or unsettling?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What does the author mean in saying that America is an “offshoot of Europe”?

Insight: The author’s description argues that America was neither a direct product nor a transplant of Europe. Rather, America retained certain aspects of Europe, particularly its customs and laws, and gave them the opportunity to develop and flourish in a new way.

What does Mumford mean by “The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe”?

Insight: Europe was rapidly changing, and while many of the new political institutions and economic practices it was generating were disruptive to Europe, they found a home in the newness of America.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name two of the changes that unsettled late-medieval Europe.

What does unsettlement mean as this lesson uses it?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) any two—the Reformation, the new learning of the Renaissance, scientific and technological advance, new economic and political arrangements. (2) the coming-apart of a settled order—the disruption of long-held assumptions and institutions.

Explain

Why does the author treat this unsettlement as the precondition for exploration rather than a separate story?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. A strong answer connects the upheaval to the outward push—a Europe whose certainties were breaking became a Europe willing to venture, fund, and risk. A partial answer lists the changes without linking them to the voyages that followed. If most answers sit at the partial level, return to the connection.

Daily Recap

The settlement of America grew out of changes already transforming Europe. New learning, technological innovation, expanding commerce, stronger monarchies, and religious upheaval unsettled older ways of life. These changes helped give Europeans both the means and the motives to explore and settle beyond their continent.

Looking Ahead

An unsettled Europe wanted what the East had. The next lesson follows the trade routes themselves—and the moment they closed.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Unsettlement, disruption, Reformation, innovation. Anchor unsettlement against its opposite—a settled order coming apart—so the term names the lesson’s whole movement.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “One change that unsettled Europe was ___; it mattered because ___.” · “Before this change, ___; afterward, ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students restate one disruption (religious, scientific, or economic) in their own words and name what it overturned.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may fill a two-column “before / after” chart for one change, in place of a written response.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

1.5 Trade with the East (pp. 13–19)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 13–19.

Exercise: Map 1.2, the Polo family’s journeys, with Figure 1.5; and Figure 1.4, the mariner’s astrolabe, on the role of technology.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what Europeans wanted from the East and on what made the voyages newly possible.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Columbus Emerges (pp. 19–27).

Essential Understanding

Why European demand for trade with the East was so great, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 made the overland routes of the Silk Road slower, costlier, and more dangerous, and how the Portuguese found an alternate route to the East.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the importance of the Silk Road in terms of economics and politics

• Assess the importance of various navigational technologies for making new discoveries

• Analyze how competition and trade spurred the development of a new type of economy

Key Dates

AD 1096–99 The First Crusade

AD 1271–95 Marco Polo travels the Silk Road

AD 1420 Prince Henry the Navigator sponsors Portuguese explorations

AD 1453 Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople

Key Concepts

The Crusades brought western Europeans into sustained contact with the eastern Mediterranean and helped enlarge European demand for goods from Asia. That demand became part of a much larger commercial network linking Europe to markets across the Middle East and Asia.

The Silk Road was not a single road but a network of routes over which goods, people, and information moved across Eurasia. Its length, political fragmentation, tolls, and physical dangers made eastern goods costly by the time they reached western Europe.

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 sharpened European interest in alternative routes to Asian markets. The old overland connections did not simply disappear, but changing political conditions made direct maritime access increasingly attractive to European merchants and rulers.

New maritime technology supplied the means. Improved ship design, compasses, astronomical instruments, and increasingly useful maps made long ocean voyages more practical. Portugal used these advantages to explore the African coast and ultimately reach India by sea.

Trade and exploration reshaped European society. Expanding commerce strengthened merchants and trading cities while national monarchies in Portugal, Spain, France, and England acquired greater capacity to sponsor ambitious voyages. Economic demand, political rivalry, and technological innovation thus converged in the Age of Discovery.

Key Terms

Crusades (1095–1291): religious wars initiated and supported by the Catholic Church to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule. Prior to the Crusades, two-thirds of the Christian world of Late Antiquity had been conquered by Islamic armies.

Silk Road (130 BC–AD 1453): a network of overland trade routes covering more than 4,000 miles across Asia and the Middle East, connecting societies across Eurasia and enabling the commercial exchange of spices from India and Arabia, gemstones from Thailand, nuts and dates from Persia, resins from Africa, glass from Egypt, jade, silk, and porcelain from China, and wine, honey, and horses from Western Europe.

Ottoman Empire (1299–1922): formed from a group of Turkish tribes, it became a significant power when it conquered Constantinople in 1453, bringing the Byzantine Empire to an end. At its height it included a large swath of southeastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Arabian Peninsula. Following its defeat in the First World War, the empire was dissolved; the sultanate was abolished in 1922, and the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed in 1923.

Feudalism: the hierarchical social, political, and economic system characteristic of medieval Christendom, based upon relationships of mutual obligation according to which lords granted land (known as fiefs) to vassals in exchange for military service.

City-state: a city that is an independent, sovereign political entity, generally with control of a surrounding agrarian hinterland. Ancient examples include Rome and Athens; Renaissance examples include Florence and Venice.

Nation: a group of people who share a language and culture, such as the emerging polities of France, England, Spain, and Portugal in late fifteenth-century Europe. (Compare “Nation-state,” defined in the Chapter Overview.)

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Read the fifth section of Chapter One, “Trade with the East.”

Written short-response questions:

What was the Silk Road? For how long did it exist? What made travel along it increasingly costly and dangerous?

What impact did the Crusades have on the Silk Road?

Identify some of the items that were available to European traders exclusively via the Silk Road, particularly the spices.

What effect did the fall of Constantinople have on trade?

What nautical advancements were being made around the same time as the fall of Constantinople?

How had trade with the East changed the sociopolitical dynamic in Europe? What did the fall of Constantinople mean for the European economy?

Who were the major players in the early efforts to find new trade routes to the East?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to consider what life in Europe was like during the pre-modern period. What difference did the goods available via the Silk Road make in European society? What would life have been like without them? Invite students to list some of their favorite goods that come from overseas and to imagine if they became unavailable.

Artifacts: Guide students through an examination of the image of the mariner’s astrolabe (Figure 1.4). Use it as a launch point for a discussion on the role of technology in the expansion of societies. What was the most important technological invention for navigation? Remind students that before its invention, accurate navigation on seagoing voyages was all but impossible.

Further: Connect these navigational tools to the maritime culture that later developed in American ports such as Nantucket and New Bedford. Long ocean voyages supported whaling communities, and that seafaring world helped shape American literature, including Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Ask students how technology can influence not only travel and commerce but also a community’s way of life and literature.

Civic Discourse: Prior to the economic developments of the late medieval period, European economies were largely static: wealth rested on land, productivity grew slowly, and a kingdom’s surest path to enrichment had long been conquest. With technological advancements, both new means of trade and new modes of productivity became available, gradually transforming the economy and spurring the race to discover new trade routes.

Classroom Discussion: Start a discussion around the emergence of a trade-based middle class in Europe. Explore possible factors that led to this change:

Social: Why did this new class emerge? What impact did the presence of this new class have on society and history?

Economic: How did the medieval economy, built on land, differ from the new economy built on trade?

Political: What new political structures, such as city-states, did this class’s wealth help create?

Legal: What new legal arrangements might this class have needed to govern trade and protect its wealth?

Insight: Expanding trade created a need for legal arrangements suited to contracts, credit, and commercial disputes across political boundaries. Merchants relied on customary commercial practices often called the “law merchant.” Ask students how these practices, together with guilds and urban charters, helped merchants organize and protect their activities. Connect their growing wealth to their influence in trading centers such as Florence and Venice.

Writing Skills: In pairs, have students edit and critique each other’s homework responses. Invite some students to share their partner’s ideas.

Reading Comprehension: Through questioning, test whether students understand the significance of the advancements in nautical technology that enabled Portugal, a relatively small kingdom, to get a head start on the Age of Exploration. Ask students to brainstorm reasons why Portugal got a head start. What factors allowed them to lead the way?

The development of the Genoese carrack enabled long-distance oceangoing sailing, while the Portuguese caravel featured sails that permitted traveling against the wind.

New ship designs and improved navigation technology, such as compasses and map design, facilitated exploration.

Teachers may need to explain how ships could make progress against the wind by angling their sails and “tacking” from side to side. Ships could rely on rowers’ muscles for power in confined areas, such as the Mediterranean, but harnessing the wind increased ship speed many times over.

Have students look at pictures of a dry magnetic compass, astrolabe, quadrant, and cross-staff to determine which is which and how they function. Students may be surprised to learn that the earliest Chinese compass tradition described the needle as pointing south, while European mariners read the same needle as pointing north. Either way, the compass gave sailors a steady sense of direction when clouds hid the sun and stars.

Geography: Display Henricus Martellus’s map (Map 1.3). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict? Have students identify the landmasses and bodies of water as best they can and compare it to a modern map.

What does the map get right? What does it get wrong? Is there more land or water?

How might this map have influenced Columbus’s transatlantic voyage?

How does the map reveal the European understanding of the known world in 1492?

Geography: Examine, along with students, The Journeys of the Polo Family map (Map 1.2). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

What does the map reveal about the West’s access to the East before water routes were established?

What difficulties did different parts of the journey present? Have students discuss with a partner which leg they think would be most difficult, then share and explain in a whole-class discussion.

Further: Examine the illuminated manuscript image of Marco Polo departing Venice (Figure 1.5) in conjunction with the class discussion of the map.

Argumentation: Explore the question of whether the Crusades were justified. Assign half the students to write an argument for one side, the other half for the other. Afterward, invite students to read their arguments and respond in a controlled mock debate or Socratic seminar.

Further: One side might argue that they were a precursor to European colonialism, while the other might insist that it was morally necessary to defend the sovereignty of Eastern Christians from Islamic conquest.

Further: Finalize the exercise with a reflection question, asking students to explain why the Crusades were an important part of the story of European exploration.

Analyzing Figures: Conduct a close examination of the da Gama tapestry (Figure 1.6). Ask students the following questions:

What does the tapestry depict? What stands out? Instruct them to give special attention to the distinctive caravel ships in which da Gama arrived.

What is a tapestry? When and where was this one made? How might its maker’s cultural perspective and intended audience have shaped the work?

What does the tapestry reveal about the European perspective of the East? In what ways is it accurate? In what ways is it not?

Further: What does this reveal about the economic exchange between the East and the West?

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did the Crusades indirectly create economic wants among Europeans? What were the barriers to satisfying these wants?

Insight: They brought Europeans into contact with riches from the East; the barriers were cost, distance, and the hostile cultures that controlled the known overland route (the Old Silk Road) to Asia. Levies that traders encountered along the way made the goods very expensive by the time they arrived at European markets.

What technological innovations aided in overcoming the barriers mentioned above?

Insight: New ship designs—ships that could sail against the wind—and improved navigation through things such as compasses and map designs. Specific examples include the Genoese carrack, the Portuguese caravel, the dry magnetic compass, the astrolabe, the quadrant, and the cross-staff.

Who was Marco Polo and what was the significance of his memoirs, The Travels of Marco Polo?

Insight: Marco Polo was a Venetian traveler whose memoir detailed his experiences and observations while traveling along the Silk Road. His firsthand account of the riches of the East and the opulent court of Kublai Khan captivated European audiences and stirred their imagination regarding the commercial possibilities in China and Central Asia, inspiring the expeditions of future explorers.

What social and political groups emerged during this time of unsettlement? What was the relationship between the expansion of trade and exploration and Europe’s changing social and political landscape?

Insight: The merchant class, who could become merchant princes; powerful city-states such as Florence and Venice; and national monarchies, of which the first to emerge were France, England, Spain, and Portugal. Trade and exploration empowered but were also enabled by the rise of these groups. Merchants expanded the trade market, while trade enabled merchants to accumulate vast wealth. This wealth gave merchants power and status and enabled them to create new political structures that challenged the old aristocratic system.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What was the Silk Road, and what happened in 1453 that changed it?

Name one navigation advance that made long sea voyages possible.

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) the overland trade network between Europe and the East; in 1453 the Ottomans took Constantinople, making the routes slower, costlier, and more dangerous. (2) any one—the caravel, the magnetic compass, the astrolabe, improved mapmaking.

Explain

Explain how the overland routes becoming slower, costlier and more dangerous, together with the new navigation tools, pushed Europe out onto the ocean.

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. A strong answer links motive and means—demand for Eastern goods that the overland routes could no longer cheaply supply, met by tools that made the sea a viable alternative—to explain why the Portuguese sought a route around Africa. A partial answer names causes or tools separately without joining them. If most answers sit at the partial level, return to the connection.

Daily Recap

European demand for Eastern goods created a motive for exploration, while the increasing difficulty and expense of overland trade encouraged the search for other routes. New ships, maps, and navigational instruments made longer ocean voyages more practical. Portugal used these advantages to establish a sea route around Africa to India.

Looking Ahead

European demand for Eastern goods and advances in navigation encouraged the search for new ocean routes. The next lesson follows Columbus’s attempt to reach Asia by sailing west—and examines the difference between what he intended and what his voyage accomplished.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Trade route, Silk Road, merchant, and the navigation tools by name (caravel, astrolabe, compass). Pair each tool with its picture; the image is the definition.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Goods from the East were costly because ___.” · “The ___ helped sailors ___, which made ___ possible.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students trace a finger along the Silk Road and the sea route and say aloud why one became preferable to the other.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may annotate a diagram of a caravel or astrolabe—naming its parts and what each did—in place of a written response.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

1.6 Columbus Emerges (pp. 19–27)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 19–27.

Exercise: Primary Source 1.1, Columbus’s letter to Santángel, with the authorship and purpose questions; and Map 1.5, the four voyages.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why Columbus persisted and on how the encounter should be judged.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter 2, The Shaping of British North America.

Essential Understanding

The story of Christopher Columbus in terms of the plans, assumptions, expectations, and outcomes of his first voyage to the New World.

Lesson Objectives

• Identify the motivations behind Columbus’s voyages

• Compare and contrast primary source material about Columbus’s landing on the New World

• Draw conclusions about how modern-day Americans should view the story of Christopher Columbus

Key Dates

AD 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope

AD 1492 Christopher Columbus lands at San Salvador

AD 1498 Vasco da Gama arrives in India for the first time

AD 1499 Amerigo Vespucci begins his first journey to the New World

Key Concepts

Portugal’s eastern route and Columbus’s western proposal grew from the same European desire for direct access to Asian trade. Portuguese success around Africa made Columbus’s plan less attractive to Portugal but more attractive to Spain, which sought another route to the same markets.

Columbus’s plan was deliberate even though its result was unintended. He sailed west expecting to reach the Indies and continued to interpret the lands he encountered within that framework. The voyage therefore illustrates the difference between historical intention and historical consequence.

The enduring significance of 1492 lies in the sustained contact it initiated between the Old World and the New. Earlier Norse voyages had reached North America, but Columbus’s crossings opened routes that European powers repeatedly used and that transformed societies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Key Terms

Age of Discovery: began in the early fifteenth century as an era during which seafarers explored regions across the globe, beginning with the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460).

“The Indies”: a term for places in the Far East used by European explorers in the Age of Discovery, particularly to describe the islands and mainland to the north and east of the Indian Ocean.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Read the sixth and final section of Chapter One, “Columbus Emerges.”

Answer the following reading questions:

What gave the Portuguese a head start in the race to navigate westward?

Who were some of the explorers that preceded Columbus? What did they achieve?

Why did the success of the Portuguese make them less interested in Columbus’s project but the Spanish more interested?

What types of ships did Columbus use for his initial voyage? (The Santa María was a carrack; La Niña and La Pinta were caravels.)

Who funded his first voyage? Why is this significant?

In what respect can Columbus’s voyage be considered a success?

What setbacks did Columbus suffer before he was able to set sail?

What did Columbus encounter when he arrived in the Caribbean?

How do you interpret Robert Frost’s poem “And All We Call American”? What does it say about Columbus?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Geography: Have students examine the maps of Global Explorations (Map 1.4) and The Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Map 1.5).

What do the maps depict?

Beginning with Erikson, compare the routes over time. What do the routes reveal about European motivations and the geographic challenges they faced?

Further: Ask students to relate technologies, such as the astrolabe and caravel, to the expanded seafaring capabilities shown in the routes.

Further: Use both maps provided in the section and have students examine the route Columbus took in the context of those of other explorers.

Further: What led Columbus to believe he had succeeded in finding India, even though he had not? Have students discuss why Columbus might have felt he had failed. Did Columbus succeed in this journey? Why or why not?

Writing Skills: Evaluate some of the factors that led to Columbus’s journey to the “New World.” Write a short persuasive essay explaining why someone should join his crew on the journey.

Civic Discourse: Have students debate whether or not it was a good thing that Columbus made his journey.

Ask students: Do you think Columbus should be celebrated for this expedition? Why or why not? If Columbus hadn’t sailed, how might history have played out differently?

Insight: Ask how the timing and character of European contact might have differed if Columbus’s 1492 voyage had failed. What other voyages described in the chapter suggest that further Atlantic exploration was likely?

Further: Have students reflect on the impact of Columbus’s expedition using the three words of the chapter title: Beginnings. Settlement. Unsettlement. Lead a discussion as to which of these three words best captures the European discovery of America.

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, content, and intended purpose of King Manuel’s Letter (book p. 20). Have students discuss the following questions:

What does the quote reveal about the effects of the newly discovered water route on trade between the East and the West? How will this affect the rest of Europe? How will it affect Portugal in particular?

What does the quote tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of Columbus’s letter to Luis de Santángel (Primary Source 1.1). Have students discuss the following questions:

How does Columbus describe the islands, their resources, and their inhabitants?

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Contrast Vespucci’s and Columbus’s understandings of the New World using the primary source and the opening epigraph. Consider Vespucci’s use of the word “continent” and Columbus’s impression that he was on the Indian sea.

Further: Who did Columbus believe would read his logs, and how might that intended audience have shaped what he chose to include or leave out?

Further: Examining the images and primary source excerpts in the text, have students consider and discuss the cultural collision that took place when Columbus first made landfall in the Caribbean and met its peoples. What did each side of the encounter have that the other did not?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Theodor de Bry’s engraving of the landing of Columbus (Figure 1.7). Ask students the following questions:

What does the engraving depict? What stands out?

Who was the artist? When and where was it made? How did his worldview influence the work?

Further: What aspects of Columbus’s experience did de Bry get right? What aspects, if any, were influenced by his artistic interpretation?

Have students compare and contrast de Bry’s depiction of the natives with John White’s of the American settlement. What do the differences reveal about the different motivations of each artist? How might these depictions have shaped European views of the New World?

Insight: Compare the artists’ sources, purposes, and audiences. White worked from observation, while de Bry produced images for European readers without visiting the Americas. Ask students which differences they can identify and what those differences suggest about the assumptions each artist brought to his work.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the engraving of The Allegory of America (Figure 1.9).

What does the engraving depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How did his worldview influence the work?

What message does the allegory convey?

What does it reveal about Europe’s perspective on the New World?

Reading Comprehension: Have a volunteer read Robert Frost’s poem aloud in class. Then engage the class in a line-by-line close reading. Draw out the meaning of the poem and how it connects both to Columbus and America as a nation.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Which nation led the Age of Discovery, and under whose guidance? What was the goal of this national effort? How, when, and by whom was it achieved?

Insight: Portugal took the lead under the guidance of Prince Henry the Navigator. The goal was to reach Asia by sailing around Africa, if they could. Bartolomeu Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope (the southern tip), and Vasco da Gama took a fleet all the way to India and began establishing a Portuguese trading empire there.

Why did the success of the Portuguese make them less interested in Columbus’s project but the Spanish more interested?

Insight: The Portuguese had the route to the East, around Africa, and held it as a fiercely guarded secret. The Spanish were playing catch-up; Columbus offered an alternative route that avoided Portuguese territory.

How many voyages did Columbus make to the New World? What lands did he discover? What was the significance of his discoveries?

Insight: Columbus made four voyages to the New World hoping to discover a western route to the Indies. His voyages took him to the Caribbean Islands, the eastern coastline of Central America, and the northern tip of South America. While he was not the first European to reach the Americas, his discovery was the first to establish enduring contact between the Old World and the New and marked the beginning of the settlement of America.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What did Columbus believe he would reach by sailing west, and who funded the voyage?

In what year did he first cross, and what did he actually reach?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) a western sea route to the Indies (Asia); funded by the Spanish crown, Ferdinand and Isabella. (2) 1492; the Americas—islands of the Caribbean, not Asia.

Explain

Columbus never understood what he had found. Explain the gap between his plan and his outcome, and why that gap matters to the American story.

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. A strong answer holds both halves—a voyage that failed at its stated aim (a route to Asia) yet succeeded world-historically (enduring contact between the hemispheres)—and sees that the meaning of a discovery is not always visible to the one who makes it. A partial answer notes he “found America by accident” without weighing intention against result. If most answers sit at the partial level, return to the distinction.

Daily Recap

Columbus sailed west to reach Asia but instead reached islands of the Americas and initiated enduring contact between the Old World and the New. His voyage therefore failed in its stated purpose while producing consequences far beyond what he or his patrons intended. Understanding the difference between intention and outcome helps students assess both his achievement and its consequences.

Looking Ahead

Columbus opened a route that Spain would exploit for a century. The story now turns to the English Reformation, the rivalry of European powers, and the distinctive institutions that eventually made British North America different from its competitors.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Voyage, sponsor, the Indies, circumnavigate. Distinguish plan from outcome early—the gap between them is the lesson.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Columbus believed ___, but he actually found ___.” · “His voyage can be called a success because ___, and a failure because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students tell the first voyage in four sentences—plan, patron, crossing, result—before any written work.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may build a four-panel storyboard of the first voyage, a phrase under each, in place of a written response.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Place the following into chronological order from earliest to latest.

A. Christopher Columbus makes his voyages to the Americas

B. The first human settlers reach the Americas

C. The First Crusade takes place

D. Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope

E. The Polo family makes its journeys to Asia

Answer: B · C · E · D · A

Key Persons and Concepts

Fill in the blank. Answers are in bold.

1. Ferdinand Magellan led the expedition that completed the first circumnavigation of the globe.

2. Leif Erikson emigrated from Iceland, lived in Greenland, and is thought to have been the first European to set foot in North America around AD 1000.

3. Vasco da Gama became the first European to reach India by sea.

4. Bartolomeu Dias became the first European explorer to round the southern tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope.

5. Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa and led a Spanish-funded expedition west across the Atlantic in an attempt to reach the Indies.

Geography

Consult this map for the answers to the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix.

[ART REQUIRED — CH01 Geography, ANSWER KEY: labeled map showing Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa, Pacific Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean, and Indian Ocean.]

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. Why does every history start “in the middle of things”? Why does a good history need to be selective, like a carefully cropped photograph?

Model response: Every history starts in the middle of things because there is always more time and events that came before it. History must be selective because it would be too confusing to try to include information about everything that ever happened. This textbook is telling the story of the United States with the purpose of helping people become informed, self-aware members of society.

2. Describe the arrival of the first human beings to the Americas.

Model response: The first humans arrived sometime between roughly 30,000 and 12,000 BC. They traveled from northeastern Asia, probably crossing an icy land bridge (the Bering land bridge, in the region of today’s Bering Strait) in what is now between Russia and Alaska. Humans would migrate into both North and South America, creating a wide variety of civilizations.

3. How does the author see the connection between the first American inhabitants and the history of the nation called the United States?

Model response: The author draws a careful distinction. The earliest civilizations had no direct or significant role in establishing the settlements and institutions that became the United States, so they play only a small part in this book’s story. But he immediately adds that, taken together with the Norse voyages, they point powerfully—if indirectly—toward the beginnings of American history, because they testify to America’s presence in the world’s imagination as a land of hope, refuge, and second chances.

4. How does the author describe the connection between the first Americans and the broader story of “the West”? In your answer, provide an example of how the idea of the West had a sense of mystique in European history.

Model response: The author affirms that the first Americans embody the notion of the West being a place of hope, refuge, and imagination. The first human settlers, although we call them natives, also have a history of immigrating to the land of America, probably in search of a better life, a better means of survival, or perhaps even the urge to explore. There are many examples of this mystique: the naming of Greenland; Greek mythology; Thomas More’s Utopia; Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis.

5. The author starts the story of the United States—“in the middle of things”—in the middle of the history of Europe. Why?

Model response: The author begins in the middle of the history of Europe because America is an “offshoot” of Europe. The ideas of Europe (like English laws and customs) were transplanted to American society. A new society was created in America, but it had roots in Europe. The very idea to explore America was a result of changes and innovations that were happening in Europe.

6. What were the Crusades, and how did they indirectly create a desire for Europeans to explore the East?

Model response: The Crusades were a series of religious wars sanctioned by the Catholic Church to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule. Though that was their aim, one of their indirect effects was to bring Europeans into contact with valuable goods from the East—silks, spices, dyes, and teas—creating appetites that European markets could not easily satisfy by the old overland routes.

7. Name and describe two innovations that allowed for more expansive sea exploration by the Europeans.

Model response: The Portuguese caravel, whose combination of differently shaped sails allowed ships to make progress against the wind, and the dry magnetic compass, which gave sailors a reliable sense of direction out of sight of land. (Any two accurately explained innovations—the carrack, the astrolabe, the quadrant, the cross-staff, improved mapmaking—earn full credit.)

8. Name the four major national states that emerged in Europe when the feudal system was outpaced by economic development and political consolidation. (No sentences needed for this question.)

Model response: France, England, Spain, Portugal.

9. Describe the first water route to Asia that was discovered. Use directions, landmasses, and bodies of water in your explanation.

Model response: Portuguese crews sailed south on the Atlantic Ocean, hugging the western coast of Africa. They rounded the southern tip of Africa and then sailed east across the Indian Ocean toward India.

10. Who was Christopher Columbus? What was his theory of exploration? How did he get the money to make his first journey?

Model response: Columbus was an explorer, originally from the Italian city-state of Genoa. He was inspired by the examples of the Portuguese explorers, and, like many of his peers, he was obsessed with finding an all-water route to Asia. Columbus had the idea that to sail west from Europe was the fastest water route to Asia. After failing to convince leaders in other parts of Europe, Columbus convinced the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella to fund his journey. He set sail with a large carrack called the Santa María, and two caravels, called the Niña and the Pinta.

11. Compare John White’s watercolor of Secotan (Figure 1.2) with Theodor de Bry’s engraving of Columbus’s landing (Figure 1.7). One artist saw the New World; one did not. Identify one specific difference between the images and explain what it reveals about each artist’s purpose and audience.

Model response: Answers will vary. Strong responses note that White painted from direct observation to inform England accurately, while de Bry, who never crossed the Atlantic, reworked others’ images for European buyers—giving his natives classical Greco-Roman physiques, for example. The difference shows that every source has a maker, a purpose, and an audience, and that the further a source stands from what it depicts, the more of its maker we see in it.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

Assess the validity of this statement: “Columbus’s discovery of America was an accident.”

Strong essays may defend either position, provided they argue from the chapter’s evidence. An essay affirming the statement can stress that Columbus sought Asia, badly underestimated the distances involved, refused to believe he had found anything else, and died without grasping the meaning of his discovery—America was the accident of a different search. An essay contesting it can stress that nothing about the voyage was accidental: Columbus formed a deliberate plan, pursued patrons for years, and executed a daring crossing; what was unintended was the meaning of the result, not the act itself. The best essays will distinguish intention from outcome—what we find is not always what we were looking for—and may note that the true significance of the voyages, enduring contact between the Old World and the New, was visible only in hindsight. Award credit for a clear thesis, accurate use of at least three specific details from pp. 19–27, and honest treatment of the strongest counterargument. Both verdicts, well argued, earn full credit.

CHAPTER TWO

The Shaping of British North America:

How the English Prevailed

1265–1733 · pp. 29–57

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

During the high Middle Ages, which culminated around 1300, Roman Catholicism dominated Western Europe. But there was growing tension between the Church and people of all classes. While the great cathedrals of Europe’s burgeoning cities testified to the Church’s wealth, power, and prestige, many of the poor began to resent the great divide between its opulence and the poverty of their own circumstances. The emerging middle class, too, became skeptical of Church interference with economic life, and increasingly powerful monarchs deplored the Church’s privileges in matters of taxation, property, and legal jurisdiction. Moreover, a growing number of clergy and theologians were troubled by what they saw as fundamental errors in Church doctrine and sought reforms to correct them.

These grievances ultimately contributed to the Protestant Reformation, which transformed the European religious landscape. Two theological reformers in particular led the way: Martin Luther, whose Ninety-Five Theses catalyzed the Reformation in 1517, and John Calvin, a French lawyer who rejected the Catholic Church’s episcopal and papal hierarchy and sought to order church and civic life according to Reformed biblical principles.

The Reformation’s direction in England was unique, a fact that would eventually have enormous implications for the trajectory of England’s North American colonies. In 1534, King Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church as a result of the pope’s refusal to grant him an annulment so that he could remarry. Unlike Luther and Calvin, Henry had little interest in theological reform, which distinguished the English Church from its Protestant peers on the European continent. Hence the Church of England found itself on an uneasy middle course, neither entirely Catholic nor entirely reformed, with contending factions maneuvering to push the Church one way or the other.

The Protestant Reformation’s profound effects on colonial life in North America followed a major power struggle between Spain and England in the sixteenth century. In the century subsequent to Columbus’s discovery of America, the Catholic Spanish had been the dominant force in the New World. But after its epochal defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, England became the primary source of colonists emigrating to North America, which strongly influenced the institutions, laws, and government structures that would come to prevail in the later United States.

A variety of motives contributed to English colonization of North America, as is well illustrated by the contrast between Virginia and New England. Virginia was the first permanent English colony, established in 1607 at Jamestown. Financed by a joint-stock company, the early colony was populated primarily by men seeking material wealth. Unsuited for the pioneering rigors of colonial life, Virginia’s first settlers numbered only 105 and struggled to establish themselves. The colony would never have survived without the commercial cultivation of tobacco, whose exportation stabilized the local economy. By 1639, Virginia’s tobacco production had exploded to three million pounds per year, and the colony had at last begun to grow after a deadly start—as late as 1624, despite the arrival of more than fourteen thousand settlers since 1607, its population had stood at barely a thousand.

By contrast, the New England colonies were founded by Puritans, men and women with deeply held Calvinist principles who believed that the Church of England had not sufficiently rectified the corruptions of Roman Catholicism. These Puritans wanted to restore the purity of apostolic Christianity, to build a New Zion in a new land. In drafting and signing the Mayflower Compact in 1620, the “Pilgrims” of Plymouth Plantation constituted themselves as a civil society before even setting foot on American soil, establishing an important precedent for American self-governance. Ten years later, at the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop’s “A Modell of Christian Charity” laid out the settlement’s mission and guiding purposes, which were profoundly religious in character.

Tension between the material and spiritual motives of settlers would come to shape the American colonial experience.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter’s end:

How the religious upheavals of the Reformation, and the rivalry among European powers, shaped the founding of Britain’s North American colonies.

• The conditions of European life before the Reformation, and the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church.

• The theologies of Luther and Calvin: how they differed from each other and from Roman Catholic belief, and why they spread.

• The distinctive, politically driven course of the Reformation in England under Henry VIII and his Tudor successors.

• Spain’s early lead in conquering and colonizing the New World, and the imperial rivalry that England mounted against it.

• The contrast between Continental absolutism and the emerging English tradition of limited, self-governing rule.

• Who the Puritans and Pilgrims were, and the covenant communities they established in New England.

• The diversity of the thirteen colonies’ founding intentions, and the shared English inheritance that united them.

Key Persons

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

John Calvin (1509–1564)

King Henry VIII (1491–1547)

Mary Queen of Scots (1542–1587)

Queen Elizabeth (1533–1603)

John Smith (1580–1631)

John Winthrop (1588–1649)

William Bradford (1590–1657)

Roger Williams (ca. 1603–1683)

William Penn (1644–1718)

James Oglethorpe (1696–1785)

Key Concepts and Terms

Justification by faith

Predestination

Anglicanism

Conquistadors

The English common law tradition

Covenant

Asceticism

Quakers

Timeline

Match the event to the correct year(s).

1265–74 Thomas Aquinas writes the Summa Theologica

1517 Martin Luther publishes his Ninety-Five Theses (October 31)

1533 Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn (January 25) precipitates the break with Rome

1534 Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy (November 3)

1536 John Calvin publishes his Institutes of the Christian Religion (August 1)

1547 Death of Henry VIII (January 28)

1558 Queen Elizabeth I ascends to the English throne (November 17)

1588 The English defeat the Spanish Armada (August 8)

1607 The Virginia Company establishes Jamestown (May 14)

1620 Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact (November 11); and land at Plymouth (December 21)

1624 Virginia becomes a royal colony (May 24)

1630 Puritans found the Massachusetts Bay Colony

1632 Maryland is founded as a refuge for Catholics (June 20)

1636 The colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island are founded

1638 The colony of New Sweden is established in Delaware (March 29)

1663 King Charles II establishes the colony of Carolina (March 24)

1664 New York and New Jersey are established as English colonies

1676 Bacon’s Rebellion begins in Virginia (May)

1681 William Penn receives the charter for Pennsylvania (March 4)

1733 James Oglethorpe founds the Georgia colony, the last of the original thirteen colonies (February 12)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students’ progress warrants.

Chapter Two · The Shaping of British North America (4 to 8 class periods)

2.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 31–32 (.5 to 1 class)

• Background of religious disputes in Early Modern Europe

• Inseparability of religion and politics during that period

• The grievances that gave rise to the Protestant Reformation

2.2 Luther and Calvin – pp. 32–35 (.5 to 1 class)

• Introduction to Martin Luther and his theological ideas

• The implications of Luther’s ideas for the structure of European society

• Introduction to John Calvin and his theological ideas

• The Calvinist rejection of church hierarchy

• Calvinism in the city of Geneva

2.3 The Reformation in England – pp. 35–39 (.5 to 1 class)

• King Henry VIII’s reasons for founding the Church of England

• King Henry VIII’s ambiguous relationship to Protestantism

• The political motivations of the English Reformation vs. theological motivations on the continent

• Survey of the reign of Elizabeth I and her political approach to the religious questions of her time

2.4 Spain versus England in the New World – pp. 39–43 (.5 to 1 class)

• Spain’s Golden Age

• Explorers other than Columbus

• The reasons for Spain’s primacy in exploring the New World

• Spanish contact with the indigenous peoples of North America

• The centralized administration of the Spanish colonies

• The Spanish Armada and the zenith of Spanish imperial power

2.5 How the English Colonies Were Different – pp. 43–49 (1 class)

• The monarchical absolutism of France and Spain vs. England’s parliamentary system

• The English legal tradition and its understanding of fundamental rights

• The mercantile spirit of the original English colonies, i.e. Virginia

• The deep roots of private enterprise in America

• The early difficulties of the Virginia colony

2.6 The Puritan Way in New England – pp. 49–53 (1 to 2 classes)

• The religious origins of the Massachusetts settlements vs. the commercial motives in Virginia

• The character of the “Pilgrims”

• The earliest notions of American self-government and their religious roots

• The religious devotion of the Massachusetts colonies and their idea of America as a “new Zion”

2.7 A Collection of Experiments – pp. 53–57 (.5 to 1 class)

• The founding visions of the subsequent early colonies

• The idealism of the founding colonists and the diverging trajectories of their populaces

• The twin legacies of hope and disappointment—“a disproving ground for utopias”

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter’s epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

John Smith, A Description of New England (1616) (p. 29)  

John Smith (1580–1631) was the soldier and adventurer who had helped found Jamestown in 1607 and who, in 1614, explored and mapped the northeastern coast, giving the region the name “New England.” Two years later he published this tract in London. Its purpose was practical: to encourage interest in the northeast and to draw settlers and investment to it. That aim shapes the writing throughout—Smith catalogs the region’s fish, timber, and fertile ground, presenting it as a place of opportunity for those willing to make the crossing. Students should read the passage as promotion rather than plain description, and ask what Smith is trying to persuade his readers to do. It pairs naturally with the engraved portrait of Smith (Figure 2.7), which was printed on the very map of the New England coast that accompanied this tract.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 2.1. Mayflower Compact, November 11, 1620  (p. 51)

The Compact was born of an emergency. The Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower held a patent to settle in the Virginia Company’s territory, but storms and navigation carried them far north to Cape Cod, beyond the reach of that authority. Faced with the risk of disorder before they had even landed, the adult men aboard drew up and signed this brief covenant, binding themselves into a “Civil Body Politic” empowered to frame “just and equal Laws … for the general good of the Colony.” The document begins by acknowledging the sovereignty of King James and states the Pilgrims’ goals—the glory of God, the advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of king and country—before establishing the covenant itself.

Figures

Figure 2.1. The Pilgrim Fathers: Departure of a Puritan Family for New England, Charles Cope, 1856 (p. 30)

This painting shows a Puritan family leaving for the New World. A small boat labeled “The Mayflower” pushes out from shore, its flag reading “Freedom of Worship”—the artist’s way of naming the family’s motive. On the shore a preacher raises his hands over the travelers in blessing as others pray, and a windmill in the background is a reminder that these Pilgrims sailed not directly from England but from the Netherlands, where they had lived in exile for more than a decade.

Figure 2.2. Luther at the Diet of Worms, Emile Delperée, 1878 (p. 33)

The Belgian painter Émile Delperée (1850–1896) completed this scene in 1878. It depicts the climactic moment of the Diet of Worms in 1521, the assembly of the Holy Roman Empire before which Martin Luther was summoned to answer for his writings. Luther stands at the center, upright and alone, addressing the seated emperor and the ranked princes, cardinals, and papal officials around him. Called upon to recant, he refused, and the Diet declared him a heretic and an outlaw. The composition fixes the lesson’s central drama: a single conscience, armed only with Scripture, set against the assembled power of church and empire.

Figure 2.3. John Calvin, Jacob Gole, ca. 1660–1737 (p. 35)

Jacob Gole (1660–1737) was a Dutch engraver who worked in Amsterdam. Like other reproductive prints of the reformers, this portrait was made long after its subject’s death, spreading Calvin’s likeness to a Protestant public across Europe. It shows the reformer in sober three-quarter view, in the plain dark gown and close cap of a Genevan pastor—an image of learned austerity fitting the man who made Geneva a disciplined Reformed community.

Figure 2.4. Henry VIII, King of England, France, and Ireland, Francis Delaram, ca. 1618 (p. 36)

This engraved portrait presents Henry VIII in full royal majesty, and the details around him carry the message. The Latin inscription names him “Defender of the Faith”—a title Pope Leo X granted Henry in 1521 for defending Catholic doctrine against Luther. Papal recognition of the title did not survive Henry’s break with Rome, but English law later restored the title to the Crown. The badge of the Order of the Garter and the regalia of kingship surround him, presenting the monarch as the settled head of Church and realm.

Figure 2.5. Discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto, William H. Powell, 1853 (p. 40)

This large canvas hangs in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol—one of a series meant to tell the nation’s founding story—which makes it worth reading as much for its point of view as for its subject. It depicts the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reaching the Mississippi in 1541: mounted men in armor advance with lances and flags (one bearing the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire) while priests raise and bless a great wooden crucifix, and a group of Native Americans watches from the shore, curious and wary, before their dwellings. The armored Spaniards and the planted cross dominate the scene; the Native peoples are pushed to the margins as onlookers to their own land’s “discovery.” Painted three centuries after the event for the nation’s Capitol, it is a useful case study in how nineteenth-century Americans chose to picture conquest—and in the difference between an event and the story a later age tells about it.

Figure 2.6. Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 8 August 1588, Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, 1796 (p. 42)

This dramatic seascape depicts the Battle of Gravelines, the decisive clash in which the English disrupted the Spanish Armada in 1588. English sailors row toward a Spanish vessel, ready to fight at close range, while at the center a Spanish ship founders and spills its occupants into the sea, and beyond the smoke the fleets’ flagships fly their colors. The Armada’s failure did not end Spanish maritime power, but it removed an immediate invasion threat and became a powerful symbol of England’s growing confidence at sea. In the following decades England expanded its Atlantic ventures and planted enduring colonies along the North American coast. The painting frames the clash as light against shadow, the English poised for triumph; painted two centuries after the battle, it is a heroic remembering rather than an eyewitness record—another chance to distinguish an event from its later celebration.

Figure 2.7. Engraved Portrait of John Smith, artist unknown, ca. 1617  (p. 46)

The artist who designed this engraving of Captain John Smith is unknown. Surrounding the portrait are the words, “The Portraictuer of Captain Iohn Smith, Admiral of New England.” Below the engraving are these lines: “These are the Lines that shew thy Face; but those / That shew thy Grace and Glory, brighter bee: / Thy Faire-Discoueries and Fowle-Overthrowes / Of Salvages, much Civiliz’d by thee / Best shew thy Spirit; and to it Glory Wyn; / So, thou art Brasse without, but Golde within.” In the upper left corner, a group of soldiers marches behind a flag. On the right is a globe and a compass, both navigational tools. In the bottom right corner, a man in armor seated on a rearing horse fires a short gun. And in the bottom left corner, a tall ship sails in relatively calm waters. This engraving was printed on a map of the coastline of modern-day Massachusetts through Maine included in Smith’s 1616 A Description of New England, published in London to encourage interest in and immigration to the North American northeast.

Figure 2.8. Woodcut Showing Virginia Plantation Owners Enjoying Leisure While Slaves Labor in a Tobacco Field, artist unknown, ca. 1700  (p. 48)

This woodcut was developed as a label for tobacco from the Virginia colony. In the foreground, it shows three gentlemen wearing wigs, long coats, and breeches, seated outside at a small table. On the left, one man looks away from his companions and the scene of slavery behind him. The other men look at each other, with the one in the center raising a goblet in the air as if to offer a toast. The other smokes using a long pipe. On the table between them are two pipes and what looks like a paper on which a mound of tobacco lies. The men are in the shadow of a large verdant tree, while behind it, below the radiating sun (given a human face by the artist), three Black figures with indistinct faces and features, wearing short garments, labor in a tobacco field.

Figure 2.9. The Pilgrims Board the Mayflower, English school, seventeenth century (p. 50)

In this woodcut, four Separatists—one man carrying belongings on a stick, two women, and a baby—fleeing religious persecution make their way toward the Mayflower in the English harbor of Plymouth. The burning figure in the background illustrates the danger and religious tyranny from which the Pilgrims sought to escape.

Figure 2.10. The Arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers, Antonio Gisbert Pérez, ca. 1864 (p. 51)

This painting shows the Pilgrims just after they have stepped onto the solid ground of Plymouth. At the center a clergyman lifts his eyes, hands, and a book toward heaven in open prayer, while the men and women around him take various attitudes—some praying, some looking on, two lying exhausted or sick on the ground—and a ship rides calmly in the harbor behind. Like the chapter’s other Pilgrim images, it was painted long after the event (here, during the American Civil War) and belongs to the tradition of honoring the Pilgrims as founders—useful for asking how and why later generations kept returning to this founding scene.

Figure 2.11. Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, Benjamin West, 1771–72 (p. 55)

Benjamin West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in 1738, the son of an innkeeper. He received little formal education in any subject, including painting, but became known locally for his portraits, and began to gain patrons who encouraged him to paint more ambitious subjects. In 1760, he traveled to Italy, and gained experience copying famous classical paintings, and met other artists. While he initially intended to return to North America, extended family in England convinced him to stay a while, and he purchased a house, married, and established himself in London. In 1770, he painted The Death of General Wolfe, depicting British Major-General James Wolfe’s death during the Battle of Quebec during the French and Indian War, and two years later he was appointed by King George to serve as historical painter to the royal court. He did not take a public position on American independence. West served as a mentor to many later American painters. This painting was commissioned by William Penn’s son Thomas, shortly after West painted “The Death of General Wolfe.” At a point in time when the Penn family was feeling embattled and opposed in their role in the colony, the painting hearkened back to an idealized scene from its founding. Tradition holds that William Penn met with the Lenni Lenape people in October 1682, shortly after his arrival from England, and that both parties pledged perpetual friendship. In the painting, settlers’ houses and American Indian tents are in close proximity, and native men and boys, women, and small children, gather together on the right side of the canvas. On the left, English men in hats and capes stand together, while less formally dressed men drape themselves on boxes that appear to be luggage. In the center, a group of chiefs gathers around the English men, one of whom is seated and holds a roll of cloth. The setting is idyllic, with many trees of many varieties and clouds drifting by in the sky, filtering the light peacefully. Whether this event happened is unknown; there is no known contemporary evidence that it did. This painting did a great deal to popularize the story.

Maps

Map 2.1. The Reformation in Europe, sixteenth century (p. 38)

This map depicts the dominant religions in Europe by the mid-sixteenth century, following the Protestant Reformation. While in many nations, Roman Catholicism remained dominant, it shows the spread of Calvinism in what is now Switzerland and Scotland; of Lutheranism in what is now Germany, the Baltic states, Norway, Sweden, and Finland; and Anglicanism in England. The areas now known as Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus are labeled “Mixed Christian”; and to the south and east of those areas, the region from Greece north to the upper reaches of Russia is labeled Eastern Orthodox. Africa, Turkey, and part of what is now Moldova and Ukraine are labeled Islam.

Map 2.2. Colonial Holdings in the New World, ca. 1650 (p. 44)

This map shows North and South America, from the Hudson Bay in what is now Canada to the southern tip of the southern continent in what is now Chile. The map shows the geographical spread of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedish settlements in the New World by about 1650. Spain controls the most land in both continents, from parts of what is now California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida, to what is now Mexico, Cuba, and the Caribbean islands, south to the north and east coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, as well as part of modern-day Argentina. Portugal’s holdings are primarily within the modern boundaries of Brazil, where the Dutch also have a few strongholds, in addition to part of modern-day Venezuela and around modern-day New York in North America. The other colonies from modern-day New England through to Virginia and North Carolina are shaded for England, as well as the eastern shore of Newfoundland and modern-day Belize. Much of what is modern-day eastern Canada, from the north banks of Lake Erie north through Quebec to the western shore of Newfoundland is marked for France.

Map 2.3. Colonial Holdings in the New World, ca. 1700 (p. 45)

This map shows North and South America in roughly 1700. Compared to the prior map, Spain’s holdings in North America increased primarily on the West Coast, while they expanded considerably in South America. Portugal’s holdings in South America also increased significantly, to more than equal Spain’s in that continent. French holdings extended south to modern-day Louisiana, and west across the Plains states, and into southern Canada. Dutch holdings in North America disappeared and those in South America shrank to a small territory on the coast in South America. The map shows English claims extending farther south along the Atlantic coast, toward Spanish Florida, and westward toward the Appalachian Mountains. A significantly smaller amount of land on both continents is labeled unclaimed.

Map 2.4. The Thirteen Colonies, ca. 1732 (p. 56)

This map shows the thirteen original colonies less than fifty years before the Declaration of Independence.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter’s subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• David Grayson Allen, In English Ways: The Movement of Societies and the Transferal of English Local Law and Custom to Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century—how English regional customs were carried to New England.

• David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America—how four distinct British regional cultures shaped early American life.

• Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763—the rise and reach of the Spanish empire.

• Kenneth A. Lockridge, A New England Town: The First Hundred Years—Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636–1736—a close study of a Puritan town’s founding and evolution.

• Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, eds., The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings—a foundational collection of Puritan texts.

• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650–1750—the lives of ordinary women in early New England.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

2.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 31–32)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 31–32.

Exercise: Examine Figure 2.1 and the pre-Reformation Church with the section reading questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold on the Church’s role and the sources of grievance.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign the Luther and Calvin section (pp. 32–35) for next lesson.

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The conditions of life in Europe prior to the Protestant Reformation and the sociocultural dominance of the Roman Catholic Church over that world.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Define religious experience and explain how religion can motivate human behavior.

• Identify the attributes of the Catholic Church in the High Middle Ages and explain how religious authority impacted the secular world.

• Assess the causes of the Protestant Reformation.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

ca. 1300 The approximate zenith of the High Middle Ages

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

Western European civilization of the High Middle Ages was broadly unified around an overwhelmingly shared Roman Catholic faith. That religious unity was weakened by socially disruptive plagues, fierce intrachurch quarrels, and growing secular and national sentiments, culminating in the great upheaval of the Protestant Reformation. Great historical changes are never attributable to any one single cause alone.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Religion: A shared body of beliefs and practices concerning ultimate meaning, the sacred, and humanity’s relationship to divine or transcendent realities.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Assign students to read the opening section of Chapter Two (pp. 31–32).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

What role does religion play in society? What aspects of a society can be inferred from the nature of its religion(s)?

What was the dominant religion in Europe in the High Middle Ages? What were its primary attributes?

How did the religious authority relate to the temporal, or secular, authority?

What triggered the Protestant Reformation?

Describe the various reasons different peoples may have had for supporting the Reformation.

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Analytical Skills: The chapter opens with lines from John Smith’s A Description of New England (1616), reproduced in the book on page 29. Have students read the epigraph and consider:

Who wrote this, and what was he trying to persuade his readers to do?

What kind of place does Smith describe—and how might his purpose (attracting settlers) shape the picture he paints?

Why should a reader treat a promotional tract with some caution as historical evidence?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine The Pilgrim Fathers: Departure of a Puritan Family for New England (Figure 2.1). Ask what they see, what the people are doing, who the artist was, and when and where it was made.

Further: What does the painting tell us about the pilgrims’ motivations? Why might the British Parliament have wanted to display it close to the House of Lords chamber?

Further: Have students compare this portrayal with Figure 2.9 (the seventeenth-century woodcut of the Pilgrims boarding the Mayflower) and Figure 2.10 (the circa 1864 portrayal of their arrival).

Civic Discourse: Invite students to discuss the question: is every society religious? Start by having them brainstorm their own definitions of what it means to be religious.

Insight: Ask whether all societies organize themselves around some conception of a higher good or shared ideal, and what examples support or challenge that claim. Invite students to consider what such ideals are today and how they differ from those of past societies.

Debate: Assign students, in pairs or small groups, to argue as either a Catholic defender or a Protestant advocate. Using the textbook, have them formulate three or four main points, then share and respond in a facilitated debate.

Further: Have each student write, in their own words, the main differences between the Catholic and Protestant perspectives.

Insight: The Catholic side may need extra guidance: Catholics held that Scripture was interpreted within the Church’s received tradition and sacramental life, and that ecclesiastical hierarchy preserved doctrinal continuity and order.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

Why has religion been, for most of human history, so important to different societies? What role does religion play in human life?

Insight: Religious belief has often supplied societies with shared moral frameworks, symbols, and accounts of ultimate meaning. Ask students whether secular societies organize themselves around analogous ideals and where the comparison breaks down.

How did different social classes differ in their grievances against the Church? Was there anything in common about these grievances?

Insight: Lower classes resented the Church’s extravagance; the merchant middle class wanted economic and religious independence; monarchs wanted uninhibited civil control; reformers took issue with doctrine. The common thread was the Church’s great wealth and secular power.

The Catholic Church still exists today—how has its influence in the world changed over the centuries?

Insight: The Church that dominated the world of this lesson no longer holds that place, and the chapter explains why: the Reformation “shattered the religious unity of Europe forever.” Ask students to explain how this challenge to the Church’s authority could affect both religious life and political society.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

What role did the Roman Catholic Church play in the daily life of medieval Europe?

Name one source of tension between the Church and a social group before the Reformation.

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) the Church was central to nearly every part of life—worship, education, birth, marriage, death; (2) any of: resentment of Church wealth/extravagance, desire for economic or religious independence, monarchs’ wish for civil control, or reformers’ doctrinal objections.

Explain

Why does the chapter begin with the medieval Church rather than with the colonies themselves?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. The Reformation reshaped the religious and political world from which the colonists came; their motives, divisions, and ideas of authority cannot be understood without it.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson’s threads together.

The Roman Catholic Church united much of medieval Western Europe through shared beliefs and institutions. Resentment of its wealth and authority, together with demands for doctrinal reform, created tensions that helped bring about the Reformation.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

These tensions raised questions about the Church’s teachings and authority. The next lesson examines Luther’s and Calvin’s answers, the differences between them, and the consequences of their reform movements.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Roman Catholic Church, medieval, Reformation, doctrine. Pair each with a plain instance—the Church touched birth, marriage, work, and death, not only Sunday.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Before the Reformation, the Church ___.” “One reason people grew unhappy was ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students name one way the Church shaped daily life, then write that sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may build a two-column chart—‘Church power’ / ‘Sources of tension’—instead of prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

2.2 Luther and Calvin (pp. 32–35)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 32–35.

Exercise: Compare Luther’s and Calvin’s core claims using Figures 2.2–2.3 and the text.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold on justification by faith and on what the reformers shared.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign the Reformation in England section (pp. 35–39).

Essential Understanding

Luther and Calvin’s theologies; how they differed from each other and from Roman Catholic belief; and the social, political, economic, and strategic consequences of their reform movements.

Lesson Objectives

• Compare and contrast Luther and Calvin in terms of arguments, beliefs, and geographical regions of influence.

• Create an argument for why someone would either join the Reformation effort or stay loyal to the Catholic Church.

• Predict how these religious reform movements will impact the social and political culture of the United States.

Key Dates

1517 Martin Luther publishes his Ninety-Five Theses

1536 John Calvin publishes Institutes of the Christian Religion

Key Concepts

Martin Luther, a German Augustinian monk, became the most famous early catalyst of the Reformation when his 1517 Ninety-Five Theses attacked the abuse of indulgences. The controversy quickly widened into a fundamental dispute over salvation, religious authority, and the structure of the Church.

Luther emphasized justification by faith and the authority of Scripture, challenging Catholic teaching about salvation and the Church’s authority to define doctrine. The spread of printing helped circulate reformers’ writings and gave growing numbers of readers access to the Bible in vernacular languages.

John Calvin shared the reformers’ emphasis on Scripture and salvation by grace but developed a Reformed theology marked by a strong emphasis on divine sovereignty and predestination. In Geneva, church and civic institutions worked together to create a disciplined Reformed community. Calvinism therefore carried a strong reforming energy beyond doctrine into social and political life.

Key Terms

“Justification by faith”: According to Luther, God’s gift of salvation was not something humans could ever deserve, let alone work to earn. Only faith, granted by God through an act of sheer grace, could secure salvation.

Predestination: According to Calvin, God’s omnipotence and omniscience meant that the eternal destiny of each soul was already known to God and settled before birth.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Two, Section Two, “Luther and Calvin” (pp. 32–35).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

Who was Martin Luther? What theological assertions did Luther make? How did they differ from those of the Church?

If implemented, how would Luther’s theology change the practice of Christianity?

What were the political effects of the emergence of Protestantism?

Who was John Calvin? What was his most important work? Where was his influence most felt?

How did Calvin’s theology differ from that of Martin Luther? What was his doctrine of predestination?

Did Calvin or Luther have a greater influence on early America? Why?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Compare and Contrast: What were Luther and Calvin’s complaints regarding Catholic doctrines and practices? Have students create a chart or graphic organizer to compare and contrast the complaints, beliefs, and geographic areas of influence.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Have students write an opinion in a paragraph of four to six sentences: Were Luther and Calvin’s criticisms justified? Were they persuasive? What would make some Christians agree with them, while others disagreed? Did their ultimate reforms successfully address the problems they identified?

Further: Do students see any influences of Protestantism on the culture or politics of the United States?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Luther Before the Diet of Worms (Figure 2.2). Ask students what they see, what event is occurring, who the artist was, and when and why it was painted.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the portrait of John Calvin (Figure 2.3). What do they see, and what stands out about the portrait? Who is the artist, and how might his background and situation have influenced the work? What aspects might not be historically accurate, and why?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What did Luther mean by “justification by faith,” and why was it so threatening to the Church’s authority?

Insight: Luther taught that salvation depended on faith granted by God’s grace rather than on human merit. His insistence on Scripture as the authority for Christian belief challenged Catholic claims about the authority of the pope and the Church.

What did Luther and Calvin share, despite their differences?

Insight: Both reformers emphasized Scripture and salvation through God’s grace. They challenged Catholic authority while developing different teachings and forms of church government.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What did Luther mean by justification by faith?

Name one important difference in emphasis or church organization between Calvin’s Reformation and Luther’s.

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone, granted by God’s grace, not earned by works; (2) possible answers include Calvin’s stronger emphasis on predestination and the disciplined reordering of church and civic life, or differences in church organization. Both Calvin and Luther affirmed justification by faith and divine election.

Explain

Luther and Calvin both broke with Rome, yet built different kinds of churches. Why did the same starting point lead to different results?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range. A strong answer sees both men challenging Roman ecclesiastical authority by appealing to Scripture, while developing different theological emphases and different forms of church organization. Calvin placed distinctive emphasis on predestination and the disciplined reordering of Christian society, while Luther remained closer to some inherited ecclesiastical forms.

Daily Recap

Luther’s teaching on justification by faith and Calvin’s doctrine of predestination challenged Catholic teaching and authority in different ways. Both reform movements helped reshape European religious life, with consequences for the colonies that Europeans would establish in America.

Looking Ahead

Luther and Calvin reshaped the Continent; England’s break came differently. The next lesson follows Henry VIII and his Tudor successors, whose Reformation owed as much to politics as to faith.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Justification, salvation, grace, reform. Gloss justification plainly—being made right with God—before the theological sense.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Luther taught that ___, while Calvin emphasized ___.” “Both reformers agreed that ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one Luther idea and one Calvin idea, then write the two sentences.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may fill a Venn diagram—Luther / shared / Calvin—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

2.3 The Reformation in England (pp. 35–39)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 35–39.

Exercise: Trace Henry VIII’s political break with Rome and its consequences.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold on the English Reformation’s political character.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign the Spain versus England section (pp. 39–43).

Essential Understanding

The events in England under Henry VIII and his Tudor successors led to a Reformation that was quite different from Luther and Calvin’s but just as consequential in its effects.

Lesson Objectives

• Identify the sequence of events that led to the establishment of the Church of England and classify the nature of this separation in comparison to Lutheranism and Calvinism.

• Compare and contrast the policies of Henry VIII’s various successors and explain why Elizabeth’s policies succeeded in creating stability in England.

• Evaluate why the Reformation in England can be described as a “compounded unsettlement.”

Key Dates

1534 Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy, making Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England

Key Concepts

The immediate cause of Henry VIII’s break with Rome was dynastic and political rather than a program of Protestant theological reform.

Under Henry, the newly independent Church of England retained much inherited Catholic doctrine and liturgy even as it rejected papal jurisdiction. Under Edward VI, Protestant reform advanced more rapidly; Mary I restored papal obedience; and Elizabeth I established a durable settlement that was Protestant in doctrine while retaining bishops and many older forms.

This compounded unsettlement—separation from Rome followed by recurring conflict over how fully the English church should be reformed—shaped English politics and produced dissenters and nonconformists whose migrations would profoundly affect American religious life.

Key Terms

New World: The New World offered asylum for religious dissenters and nonconformists from persecution in the Old World of Europe, contributing to much of the early settlement of the New England and Mid-Atlantic colonies.

Anglicanism: The form of Christianity established in the Church of England after the Reformation. Under Elizabeth I, the Church rejected papal authority and adopted Protestant doctrine while retaining bishops, a set liturgy, and other continuities with the pre-Reformation church; public conformity to the established Church was enforced by law.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Two, Section Three, “The Reformation in England” (pp. 35–39).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

What events led to the establishment of the Church of England?

Was Henry VIII a proponent of Protestantism? Explain your answer.

How did Henry VIII’s motives in separating from Catholicism differ from those of Martin Luther?

What happened in English politics after Henry VIII’s death?

What was Anglicanism? How and why did it emerge?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Compare and Contrast: How did the religious policies of Henry VIII’s various successors differ from one another? Invite students to create a chart or graphic organizer to contrast the religious policies of Henry VIII’s successors.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Why can the Reformation in England be described as a “compounded unsettlement”? Have students explain the two layers of division—from Rome, and within the Church of England itself—and predict how it might shape the American story.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Henry VIII, King of England, France, and Ireland (Figure 2.4). What do they see; who is the artist? What makes this art form different from a painting, and might it have a different intended audience? What does it mean to call Henry “defender of the faith”?

Geography: Display The Reformation in Europe map (Map 2.1). What does it depict? Which areas represent change, and which changed first? Which Protestant denominations spread furthest in the sixteenth century, and from which countries did most early colonial immigration come?

Further: How might this English unsettlement have shaped the religious diversity of the later American colonies?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did England’s Reformation begin for political rather than theological reasons, and how did that make it different from Luther’s and Calvin’s?

Insight: Henry’s immediate break with Rome arose from the pope’s refusal to annul his marriage and from a broader dispute over royal authority, not from a Protestant program of doctrinal reform. Under Henry, the English church therefore retained much inherited Catholic doctrine and worship even as it rejected papal jurisdiction.

Why would a Reformation begun for political reasons still have “enormous” long-term consequences?

Insight: The tension between the established Church of England and more thoroughgoing Reformed and Puritan reformers produced dissenters and nonconformists—many of whom later emigrated to North America and helped shape American religious life.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Why did Henry VIII break with Rome?

How did the English Reformation differ from Luther’s and Calvin’s in its motive?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) the pope refused to grant Henry an annulment, and Henry asserted royal supremacy over the English church; (2) the immediate cause of England’s break was dynastic and political rather than a Protestant theological program, although later English rulers introduced major doctrinal changes.

Explain

Why would a Reformation begun for political reasons still have “enormous” religious consequences for America?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range. A strong answer connects the Church of England’s unresolved internal divisions—especially conflict between the established settlement and more thoroughgoing reformers—to dissenters and nonconformists who emigrated and carried those religious disputes into the colonies.

Daily Recap

Henry VIII’s break with Rome began with a dispute over royal authority and his marriage. It left England with a national Church whose Catholic inheritance and Protestant reform movements remained in tension. Those divisions helped shape the religious motives of English colonists.

Looking Ahead

England’s religious divisions became part of its rivalry with Catholic Spain. The next lesson examines Spain’s earlier colonial expansion and the significance of England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Annulment, Church of England, Reformation, dissent. Anchor “annulment” and “dissent” with plain glosses before the historical detail.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Henry broke with Rome because ___.” “Unlike Luther, Henry’s reasons were ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students explain why Henry’s motive was political, then write the sentence they said.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may draw a simple timeline—request, refusal, break, Act of Supremacy—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

2.4 Spain versus England in the New World (pp. 39–43)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 39–43.

Exercise: Analyze the Spanish/English rivalry using Map 2.2 and the Armada narrative.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold on why England’s challenge to Spain mattered.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign the English Colonies section (pp. 43–49).

Essential Understanding

The Spanish Empire’s head start in conquering and colonizing the New World, the early imperial rivalry between Spain and England, the aftermath of the Spanish Armada’s defeat in 1588, and the significance to American history of England’s victory in that conflict.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze the motivations behind the Spanish Crown’s expansion efforts.

• Evaluate the significance of the English defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Key Dates

1588 The English defeat the Spanish Armada

Key Concepts

In the sixteenth century Spain possessed Europe’s leading American empire, supported by royal power, Atlantic shipping, conquest, and the wealth of its overseas possessions. Spanish expansion combined missionary ambitions, dynastic rivalry, and the pursuit of wealth, while conquest and colonial labor systems imposed severe costs on Indigenous peoples, whose populations were also devastated by epidemic disease.

Spanish America was governed through a relatively centralized imperial system of viceroys, audiencias, governors, and municipal councils, and its economy was strongly oriented toward imperial trade and the extraction of wealth. Private commerce and local government nevertheless existed. English colonies later developed a different pattern, with greater scope for private settlement initiatives and locally elected assemblies.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 did not end Spanish sea power, but it removed an immediate invasion threat and became an important symbol of England’s rising maritime confidence. Over the following decades, England expanded its Atlantic ventures and established enduring North American colonies, helping ensure that English laws, language, and political traditions would shape much of the future United States.

Key Terms

Conquistadors: Spanish conquerors and expedition leaders who, often with Indigenous allies, overthrew major states and claimed territory across the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Their campaigns brought Spanish rule and Christian missions but also warfare, coercive labor systems, and severe exploitation of Native peoples.

“Sea dogs”: English privateers like John Hawkins and Francis Drake sought to wreak havoc on Spanish shipping in the Atlantic and otherwise to defy and undermine Spain’s power and influence in the New World.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Two, Section Four, “Spain versus England in the New World” (pp. 39–43).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

What empire was the dominant power in the New World when the first English colonies were established? What conditions enabled its rise?

Describe the motivations of Spain in exploring and establishing colonies in the New World.

What was the fate of the indigenous peoples under Spanish colonialism? How did Spain manage its colonies?

How did the English and the French begin to challenge Spanish hegemony in the New World?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Have students defend a stance on the primary motivation of the Spanish crown’s expansion—wealth, religion, or some combination. Students write an argument with two supporting points from the text, discuss in pairs or small groups with follow-up questions, then share with the whole class.

Cause and Effect: What were the leading factors in Spain’s establishment of a New World empire? Have students create a chart linking causes to effects.

Insight: Students may need guidance on Spanish government. The Crown sought stronger central control than England generally exercised over its colonies, using viceroys, governors, audiencias, and imperial trade regulations. Yet Spanish America also had municipal councils, private merchants, and locally rooted institutions; the contrast is one of degree and structure, not the complete presence or absence of local government or enterprise.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto (Figure 2.5). What do they see, and what actions are occurring? Who is the artist, when was it painted and for what purpose, and how might his background have shaped it? What does it suggest about Spanish motives for colonizing?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Defeat of the Spanish Armada (Figure 2.6). What do they see? Who is the artist, when and why was it painted, and what does the use of light in the painting communicate?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 matter so much for the future of North America?

Insight: The Armada’s defeat did not instantly transfer maritime supremacy from Spain to England, but it reduced the immediate threat of invasion and strengthened English confidence at sea. In the decades that followed, English Atlantic ventures expanded and permanent colonies took root, allowing English language, law, and institutions to become especially influential along the Atlantic seaboard.

How did Spain’s extractive relationship to its colonies differ from what would develop in the English colonies?

Insight: Spanish colonies were more tightly integrated into a centralized imperial and mercantilist system and were important sources of imperial revenue. English colonies were also part of a mercantilist empire, but many developed greater latitude for representative assemblies, local lawmaking, and privately organized settlement. The distinction is relative rather than absolute.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Which empire dominated the New World when England’s first colonies were founded?

What happened in 1588, and why did it matter?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) Spain; (2) England defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, reducing the immediate invasion threat and encouraging English maritime expansion, although Spain remained a major European and Atlantic power.

Explain

Why did the defeat of the Spanish Armada shape the eventual character of the United States?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range. A strong answer treats 1588 as a turning point rather than an instantaneous transfer of power: England’s victory strengthened maritime confidence and contributed to the longer-term growth of English Atlantic ventures and settlement, through which English laws, language, and institutions became influential in the future United States.

Daily Recap

Spain gained an early lead in conquest and colonization in the Americas, combining missionary aims with the pursuit of wealth and power. England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was an important turning point in their rivalry, but Spanish power remained formidable; England’s permanent North American colonies developed only in the following decades.

Looking Ahead

Spain governed its American empire through a comparatively centralized monarchical bureaucracy. The next lesson draws out the contrast that would matter for America: English colonists carried with them a political tradition in which royal authority operated alongside Parliament, common law, and representative institutions.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Empire, colony, extractive, armada. Gloss “extractive” plainly—taking wealth out—before applying it to Spain’s colonies.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Spain treated its colonies as ___.” “The defeat of the Armada mattered because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state why 1588 mattered, then write the sentence they said.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a cause-and-effect arrow—Armada defeated → English maritime confidence grows → Atlantic ventures and colonies expand—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

2.5 How the English Colonies Were Different (pp. 43–49)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 43–49.

Exercise: Contrast absolutism with the English tradition of limited monarchy and common law.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold on liberty and self-government.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign the Puritan Way section (pp. 49–53).

Essential Understanding

The contrast between the more centralized monarchies of Spain and France and the English tradition of a monarch constrained by Parliament, common law, and customary rights; also, the comparatively decentralized character of English settlement, beginning with the difficult early years of Jamestown.

Lesson Objectives

• Compare and contrast England with France and Spain in terms of royal power.

• Compare and contrast England with France and Spain in terms of their approach to colonization.

• Analyze how Jamestown’s commercial nature led to its near collapse but also contributed to its ultimate success.

Key Dates

1607 The Virginia Company establishes Jamestown

1620 Pilgrims found the Plymouth Plantation

1630 Puritans found the Massachusetts Bay Colony with a charter from King Charles I

1636 The colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island are founded

1663 King Charles II issues a charter establishing the Province of Carolina

1664 New York and New Jersey are established as English colonies

Key Concepts

England’s island geography did not isolate it from Europe, but its political development produced institutions that differed in important ways from those of France and Spain, especially Parliament and the common-law tradition.

Compared with the more centralized monarchies of France and Spain, English kings governed within a political order in which Parliament, common law, customary rights, and representative institutions imposed important constraints on royal authority.

The English approach to colonization was comparatively decentralized and often improvised. Joint-stock companies, proprietors, religious communities, and the Crown all founded or governed colonies, giving local institutions and private enterprise considerable room to develop within the imperial system.

Virginia’s survival and eventual growth resulted from several developments rather than any single reform. Tobacco created a profitable export economy; land incentives and private property encouraged settlement; continuing migration supplied labor and population; representative institutions emerged; and in 1624 Virginia became a royal colony. These changes followed an extraordinarily deadly beginning—as late as 1624, despite the arrival of more than fourteen thousand settlers since 1607, the population stood at barely a thousand.

Key Terms

The English common law tradition: A body of law developed through custom and judicial decisions, in which precedents from earlier cases help guide later judgments. Alongside statutes and institutions such as Parliament, common law formed an important part of the English inheritance carried to the colonies.

English colonization: The English settlement of North America was a haphazard collection of uncoordinated private undertakings by a diverse group of entrepreneurs, visionaries, and religious dissenters.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Two, Section Five, “How the English Colonies Were Different” (pp. 43–49).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

How did England’s political institutions differ from those of France and Spain?

What does it mean to say the English monarch was “limited”? By what?

How was the English approach to colonization different from Spain’s?

Why did Jamestown nearly collapse, and what contributed to its eventual success?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Argumentation: Have students write a persuasive argument of one page, stating a claim and supporting it with at least two pieces of evidence from the chapter, for why Spain’s or England’s approach to colonization was better—drawing on political, economic, religious, or philosophical reasons.

Further: After writing, have students exchange papers for comments, or share arguments in a class discussion.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: How did Jamestown’s commercial nature contribute to its early difficulties?

Geography: Display the Colonial Holdings in the New World map (Map 2.2).

What does it depict?

Compare the holdings of each country—which cover the widest area? What religions did each nation bring, and what sets the future United States apart from much of Central and South America?

Recall how religious divisions in England encouraged migration to the New World. Identify the migrants’ place of origin and destination. How might their departure have affected England, and their arrival have affected the colonies?

Geography: Display the Colonial Holdings in the New World map (Map 2.3). Compare the shaded areas again: which colonizing countries expanded their reach, and which lost their foothold? What advantages might control of a coast offer for maintaining colonies? Compare the areas where English and Spanish holdings meet on the two maps. These boundary zones are border areas. What challenges might settlers have faced where two colonial systems met?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the portrait of John Smith (Figure 2.7). What do they see; where was the engraving printed and what purpose did it serve? What does the text beneath it say about Smith—what accomplishments does it laud?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the tobacco label (Figure 2.8). What do they see in the woodcut, and where was it likely printed? It was an advertisement—is it only advertising tobacco? What does it reveal about the relationship of enslaved and free persons?

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did the English tradition of a limited monarch and common law differ from the absolutism of France and Spain—and why would that difference matter for America?

Insight: England’s ruler was constrained by Parliament, common law, and inherited rights to a greater degree than rulers in the more centralized monarchies of France and Spain. These traditions did not amount to modern democracy, but they supplied important precedents for colonial representative government and later American constitutionalism.

Why did the “haphazard” and commercial character of English colonization matter?

Insight: English colonization was comparatively decentralized: companies, proprietors, religious groups, and settlers founded colonies for different purposes, and locally elected institutions developed in several of them. This variety encouraged habits of local initiative and self-government even though the colonies remained within the British imperial system.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

How was the English monarchy different from those of France and Spain?

Name one thing that helped stabilize Virginia after its near collapse.

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) the English monarch was limited by Parliament and by a common-law legal system, rather than absolute; (2) any of: the institution of private property/the freehold, the growth of tobacco commerce, or the development of orderly political institutions.

Explain

Why would England’s traditions of limited monarchy and common law prove important for the future United States?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range. A strong answer links limited government, Parliament, and rights-based law to the American traditions of self-government and constitutional limits on power.

Daily Recap

English colonists carried traditions of common law and limits on royal power into settlements that developed with considerable local initiative. Jamestown’s early failures and later commercial growth illustrate both the hazards and the adaptability of English colonization.

Looking Ahead

Virginia’s commercial beginnings were one form of English colonization. The next lesson turns to the religious purposes of the Pilgrims and Puritans and the covenant communities they established in New England.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Absolutism, limited monarchy, common law, freehold. Contrast “absolute” vs. “limited” power with a plain example before the abstract terms.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Royal power was generally more centralized in France and Spain, while in England it was constrained by ___.” “Virginia became more stable as ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one difference between English and Spanish rule, then write it.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may fill a two-column chart—‘Absolute (France/Spain)’ / ‘Limited (England)’—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

2.6 The Puritan Way in New England (pp. 49–53)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 49–53.

Exercise: Examine Puritan and Pilgrim motives and the Mayflower Compact (Primary Source 2.1).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold on covenant and self-government.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign A Collection of Experiments (pp. 53–57).

Essential Understanding

Who the Puritans and the Pilgrims were (and in what sense they were distinct); the nature of the deep religious convictions that motivated New England’s settlers; and how their ideals and aspirations adapted in response to the realities of the New World.

Lesson Objectives

• Differentiate between the New England and Virginia colonies in terms of the motivations of the settlers and the geographical characteristics.

• Draw conclusions about how the motivations and actions of the early settlers of the English colonies would help to shape America into the future.

Key Dates

1620 Pilgrims found the Plymouth Plantation and sign the Mayflower Compact

1630 Puritans found the Massachusetts Bay Colony with a charter from King Charles I

1636 The colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island are founded

Key Concepts

The Pilgrims were Separatists who had broken with the Church of England; the Massachusetts Bay Puritans generally hoped to build a thoroughly reformed church and society without embracing Separatism in the same way. Both groups carried strong Reformed Protestant convictions to New England, where religious purposes mixed with the practical demands of settlement.

As the Mayflower reached Cape Cod, its adult male passengers drew up the Mayflower Compact, binding themselves into a “Civil Body Politic” and agreeing to make and obey laws for the colony’s general good. The document did not establish modern democracy, but it became an important early example of civil government formed by agreement among settlers. (Primary Source 2.1)

John Winthrop’s vision of a “city upon a hill”—drawn from Scripture—cast the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a model community whose conduct the world would watch, a self-understanding that would echo through American history.

Key Terms

Asceticism: The disciplined practice of self-denial for religious ends. Protestant reformers rejected the idea that monastic withdrawal was a spiritually superior calling, but Reformed traditions continued to prize self-restraint, disciplined conduct, and faithful work in ordinary vocations.

Covenant: A binding agreement, understood in religious terms as a solemn mutual promise—among people, and between a people and God—that formed the basis of Puritan communities and of the Mayflower Compact.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Two, Section Six, “The Puritan Way in New England” (pp. 49–53).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

What inspired the founding colonists of New England? How did their motivations differ from those of their counterparts in Virginia?

Who were the Pilgrims? Where did they come from and what were their beliefs?

What was the Mayflower Compact? Who was John Winthrop?

What was the central message of John Winthrop’s “A Modell of Christian Charity”? What is the source of the “city upon a hill” image?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Contrast the motives, experiences, and principles of Virginia and New England. Which has shaped America more? Have students provide examples from American history or today, and be prepared to defend their answer in class or in writing.

Reading Analysis: Read aloud in class the excerpt from William Bradford, and discuss its significance for the eventual development of the Plymouth colony.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the woodcut of the Pilgrims boarding the Mayflower (Figure 2.9). What do they see; what actions are occurring; who made it and for what purpose?

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of the Mayflower Compact (Primary Source 2.1):

By whose authority do the signers say they act? (Note the invocation of God and of King James.)

What do they agree to form, and for what stated purpose? (The “Civil Body Politic”; “just and equal Laws … for the general good.”)

Why do historians treat this brief document as a precedent for American self-government?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine The Arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers (Figure 2.10). What do they see; who is the artist; when and why was it painted?

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, content, and intended purpose of the Magnalia Christi Americana (Quote 2.1).

Further: How does the idea of covenant—binding oneself voluntarily to a community and its laws—anticipate later American ideas of self-government?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What does it mean to form a “Civil Body Politic” by covenant, and why is it striking that ordinary people did so in 1620?

Insight: The Mayflower’s adult male signers—rather than a king or parliament—agreed among themselves to form a civil body and obey laws made for the colony’s common good while remaining loyal subjects of the English Crown. Later generations treated this compact as an early precedent for government by consent.

How did the religious motivation of New England’s settlers shape the kind of society they built?

Insight: Because they came to build model godly communities, the Puritans emphasized covenant, shared moral order, education, and self-governance—leaving a distinctive imprint on American culture and institutions.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Why did Pilgrims and Puritans come to New England, and how did their relationships to the Church of England differ?

What was the Mayflower Compact?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) Both groups sought communities shaped by Reformed Protestant convictions. The Pilgrims were Separatists who had broken with the Church of England; the Massachusetts Bay Puritans generally sought a more thorough reformation of the English church and society without embracing Separatism in the same way. (2) a brief agreement in which the Mayflower’s adult male passengers formed a “Civil Body Politic” and agreed to make and obey laws for the general good.

Explain

Why do historians treat the Mayflower Compact as a precedent for American self-government?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range. A strong answer notes that the Mayflower’s adult male signers voluntarily formed a civil body and agreed to obey laws made for the common good while still professing loyalty to King James. Later Americans treated this as an early precedent for government by consent, not as a declaration of independence or a modern democratic constitution.

Daily Recap

Pilgrims and Puritans established New England communities for religious purposes, although they differed in their relationship to the Church of England. The Mayflower Compact joined its signers in a civil community by written agreement, while Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” expressed the responsibilities of a community founded on shared religious commitments.

Looking Ahead

Plymouth was only the beginning. The final lesson of the chapter surveys the full range of the thirteen colonies—how differently they began, and the English inheritance that bound them together.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Covenant, Pilgrim, Puritan, consent. Gloss “covenant” plainly—a solemn mutual promise—first.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Pilgrims came to New England because ___.” “The Mayflower Compact matters because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state and then write what the signers agreed to.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A short chart contrasting the Pilgrims’ and the Puritans’ reasons for leaving England, or a labeled timeline of the two settlements.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

2.7 A Collection of Experiments (pp. 53–57)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 53–57.

Exercise: Compare the founding intentions of several colonies.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold on diversity and shared inheritance.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign review of the chapter in preparation for the assessment.

Essential Understanding

The broad scope of diversity regarding the founding intentions of the thirteen colonies—the major ways in which they differed from one another, but also what made them similar.

Lesson Objectives

• Identify at least three different types of colonies and explain their original purposes.

• Describe the most important common feature of the thirteen colonies.

• Explain why Georgia’s founding restrictions failed and what became of the colony.

Key Dates

1682 William Penn arrives in Pennsylvania and establishes his government

1732 Georgia is chartered, with lands carved out of South Carolina

Key Concepts

The middle colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware were distinguished from those of the South and New England by their greater economic, ethnic, and religious diversity. Much of the region was settled not by English colonists but by Swedes, Dutch, and Germans, and it was notable for its religious tolerance, particularly in Pennsylvania.

Despite their differences, the colonies shared a common English inheritance—traditions of law, liberty, and self-government—that would bind them together even as they remained distinct experiments.

Georgia was chartered in 1732 as both a strategic buffer against Spanish Florida and a humanitarian and economic experiment. The Trustees limited landholding, initially prohibited slavery, later restricted rum and other strong liquor, and hoped settlers could produce silk, wine, and other Mediterranean commodities. Many of these plans proved difficult to sustain, and the restrictions were gradually relaxed before Georgia became a royal colony in 1752.

Key Terms

Quakers: Formally the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement that emerged during the English Civil War. Friends rejected a separate ordained clergy and fixed liturgy, emphasized the “inner light,” and became known for pacifism and religious toleration. These commitments strongly shaped Pennsylvania under the Quaker William Penn.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Two, Section Seven, “A Collection of Experiments” (pp. 53–57).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

Which colonies emerged after Massachusetts and Virginia? To what purposes were they dedicated?

Who founded the colony of Pennsylvania? What did its earliest settlers believe?

What was the founding purpose of the colony of Georgia?

Despite all their differences, what commonalities united the English colonies of North America?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Reading Comprehension: Identify the final colony. When and why was it founded?

Historical Evaluation: Have students pick the colony they find most interesting, then write a short paragraph and be prepared to explain its distinguishing features and why it stands out.

Writing Skills: Have students write an essay answering: to what extent were colonies founded in pursuit of high ideals, and to what extent from practical material desires? Have them build a thesis and gather specific evidence. What distinguished Georgia, and how was its evolution an example of what all the colonies were ultimately about?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (Figure 2.11). What do they see; who is the artist; when and why was it painted?

Geography: Display the Thirteen Colonies map (Map 2.4).

What does it depict? Have students compare the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies by geography and founding purpose. The following questions may be helpful:

What makes it its own distinct region?

What physical features define it?

What human activity defines it?

How have the people there and their environment shaped one another?

How has its geography shaped the decisions of the people who live there?

Geography: Identify the location of each colony on the map.

Further: How could colonies so different in origin and purpose eventually come to see themselves as one people?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Given how differently the thirteen colonies were founded, what did they nonetheless share?

Insight: A common English inheritance—traditions of law, individual liberty, and self-government—underlay the colonies’ diversity and would later make common cause possible.

Why did the Trustees’ original design for Georgia prove difficult to sustain, and what replaced it?

Insight: Georgia combined strategic, humanitarian, and economic purposes. The Trustees limited landholding, initially prohibited slavery, later restricted rum and other strong liquor, and hoped the colony would produce silk and wine. Colonists challenged several of these restrictions, economic expectations proved difficult to meet, and the Trustees gradually relaxed their rules before Georgia became a royal colony in 1752. Oglethorpe’s concern for imprisoned debtors helped inspire his reform efforts, but the first Georgia colonists were not transported from debtors’ prisons.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name two colonies with different founding purposes.

What did the thirteen colonies share despite their differences?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) any two with contrasting purposes—e.g., Pennsylvania (Quaker religious toleration) and Georgia (a strategic buffer and a humanitarian opportunity for the “worthy poor,” not a colony populated by imprisoned debtors); (2) a common English inheritance of law, liberty, and self-government.

Explain

How could colonies with different founding purposes nevertheless share a common English identity?

Acceptable responses: A strong response identifies contrasting founding purposes—for example, Virginia’s commercial origins and Pennsylvania’s Quaker commitments—and explains that the colonies nevertheless shared English traditions of law, liberty, and self-government.

Daily Recap

The English colonies began with different religious, commercial, and philanthropic purposes. Their founding plans did not always survive colonial conditions, as Georgia illustrates. Despite their differences, the colonies shared English traditions of law, liberty, and self-government.

Looking Ahead

The colonies shared an English inheritance while developing distinct communities. The next lesson examines how political upheavals at home distracted Britain from its colonies and gave colonial institutions room to develop.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Diversity, inheritance, self-government, tolerance. Anchor “inheritance” in its plain sense—something handed down—before the political meaning.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The colonies differed in ___, but they shared ___.” “Georgia’s founding rules failed because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students name one thing the colonies shared, then write the sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a web diagram—differences around the edge, shared inheritance in the center—instead of writing prose.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Match each event to the correct year(s).

1. 1517

2. 1588

3. 1607

4. 1620

5. 1676

A. The English defeat the Spanish Armada

B. Bacon’s Rebellion begins in Virginia

C. Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact

D. The Virginia Company establishes Jamestown

E. Martin Luther publishes his Ninety-Five Theses

Answer: 1–E · 2–A · 3–D · 4–C · 5–B

Key Persons and Concepts

Fill in the blank. Answers are in bold.

1. Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, a wealthy Quaker who wanted the colony to offer freedom of worship to all Christians.

2. Initially aimed at reforming the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation had profound effects on the American colonies. Different Protestant traditions carried different forms of church organization and religious discipline to North America, and some fostered habits of congregational participation that interacted with the colonies’ developing civil institutions.

3. The Pilgrims were Separatists who had broken with the Church of England and founded Plymouth Colony under leaders including William Bradford. The Massachusetts Bay Puritans, led politically by John Winthrop, sought to build a thoroughly reformed Protestant commonwealth while remaining distinct from the Pilgrims’ Separatist path.

4. Defeated in 1588, the Spanish Armada was the fleet sent by Philip II to invade England. Its failure removed the immediate invasion threat and became an important symbol of England’s rising maritime confidence, although Spain remained a major Atlantic power.

Geography

Consult this map for the answers to the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix.

[ART REQUIRED — Chapter 2_AssessmentAnswerKeyMap.jpg]

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. Why does this chapter focus so much on religion? What role did religion play in the society of Europe during the High Middle Ages?

Model response: Religion supplied medieval Western Europeans with shared beliefs, institutions, rituals, and accounts of ultimate meaning, and the Roman Catholic Church was deeply intertwined with social and political life. Church institutions shaped education, worship, marriage, charity, and public authority, while rulers and clergy remained distinct powers whose jurisdictions sometimes overlapped and conflicted.

2. The Catholic Church was the universal unifying entity in Europe for a long time. In the years leading up to the Protestant Reformation, why were certain groups of people starting to become unsatisfied with the Church?

Model response: Different groups objected to different aspects of late-medieval church life. Some clergy and lay reformers criticized corruption or doctrine; monarchs and princes resisted papal jurisdiction and church privileges; merchants and towns sometimes resented ecclesiastical restrictions or taxation; and ordinary believers could be angered by clerical wealth or abuses. These complaints were varied rather than a single unified movement.

3. What theological arguments did Martin Luther make against the Catholic Church? Explain why the author says that his objections “went to the very heart of Christianity’s self-understanding.” In your response, make reference to at least two of the following concepts: justification by faith; sacraments; scripture; the roles of the hierarchy, bishops, priests, and the pope.

Model response: Luther opposed the sale of indulgences and challenged Catholic teaching about salvation and religious authority. He taught justification by faith: salvation was God’s gift of grace, not something people could earn through their own works. He regarded Scripture as authoritative in matters of Christian faith and rejected church offices and practices that he believed lacked biblical grounding. These arguments challenged the authority claimed by the pope and the Catholic hierarchy.

4. What were the defining characteristics of John Calvin’s religious teachings?

Model response: Calvin emphasized God’s sovereignty and predestination—the doctrine that salvation ultimately depends on God’s prior election rather than human merit. He also developed a highly ordered Reformed church in Geneva, with ministers and elders exercising discipline, and sought to shape civic as well as religious life according to Reformed principles.

5. Why did King Henry VIII split England away from the Catholic Church? Why does the author say that the English Reformation was “the exact opposite” of Luther’s?

Model response: Henry VIII sought an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, in part because he wanted a male heir. When papal approval did not come, Henry and Parliament rejected papal jurisdiction and asserted royal supremacy over the English church. The immediate break was therefore dynastic and political rather than the result of a Protestant theological program. Under Henry, much inherited Catholic doctrine and worship remained, although the break with Rome created conditions for more extensive Protestant reform under later rulers.

6. Why is the Protestant Reformation important to the history of America?

Model response: The Reformation divided Western Christendom and profoundly shaped the religious world from which English colonists came. Many settlers were Protestants, including Puritans and Separatists influenced by the Reformed tradition. Protestant emphasis on Scripture, disputes over church authority, and competing forms of church organization all influenced colonial religious life and helped produce the diversity of English North America.

7. How does the author describe Spain’s motivations in its imperial push for the American continent?

Model response: The chapter presents Spanish expansion as driven by mixed motives: missionary conviction, dynastic competition, strategic power, and the pursuit of wealth. Spanish conquerors often relied on Indigenous allies against rival Indigenous polities, but conquest also brought warfare, coercive labor systems, and exploitation. Epidemic diseases introduced from the Old World caused the greatest share of the catastrophic Indigenous population decline.

8. Why did England, and not Spain, become the nation to take the lead in settling North America?

Model response: England’s defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was an important turning point, but it did not immediately make England the dominant Atlantic power. Spain remained formidable. Over the following decades, however, English maritime activity and colonial ventures expanded. Compared with Spain’s more centralized imperial administration, several English colonies also developed greater scope for private settlement, representative assemblies, and local lawmaking.

9. Which geographic area was inhabited mostly by the Puritans seeking to establish religious communities? Which geographic area was established by a joint-stock company seeking profits? Why is this important?

Model response: New England included the Separatist Pilgrims at Plymouth and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, whose settlements were strongly shaped by religious purposes. Virginia began as a joint-stock venture and developed around a profitable tobacco economy. These differences in founding motive, economy, culture, and geography helped create distinct regional societies within English America.

10. In many ways the American colonies were very different from each other. What traits did they share in common?

Model response: The colonies differed greatly in origin, religion, economy, and social structure, but most shared an English political and legal inheritance, ties to the Crown, the common-law tradition, and growing experience with local or representative institutions. Those common elements coexisted with strong regional differences.

Primary Source Analysis

Read the Mayflower Compact (book p. 51; provided by your teacher), then answer each in 1–2 sentences.

a. By whose authority do the signers say they act?

Model response: The signers invoke God and identify themselves as loyal subjects of King James. They do not claim independence from the Crown; rather, they agree to create a civil government for themselves in circumstances where their existing patent did not provide an immediately workable local authority.

b. What do they agree to form, and for what purpose?

Model response: They covenant to form a “Civil Body Politic” in order to make just and equal laws for the general good.

c. Why do historians treat this short document as a precedent for American self-government?

Model response: It is an early instance of government by consent—self-government by written agreement—which later generations treated as a precedent.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

The chapter presents the English colonies as “a collection of experiments.” Using at least three colonies as evidence, argue what made these experiments both diverse and recognizably English.

Strong essays use at least three colonies with contrasting founding purposes (e.g., Virginia—commercial; Massachusetts—religious; Pennsylvania—Quaker toleration; Georgia—a strategic buffer and humanitarian experiment for the “worthy poor”) and identify the shared English inheritance of law, liberty, and self-government that made them recognizably English.

CHAPTER THREE

The Revolution of Self-Rule:

A Separate People

1603–1776 · pp. 59–93

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

Self-government and commercial life flourish in settings where people are free from top-down control. Self-rule served as the ultimate aim of the American Revolution and of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

There were numerous significant cultural developments in the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment were two important movements that flourished in Colonial America. The Great Awakening refers to a wave of religious and spiritual revival that took place between approximately 1730 and 1760. It was led by great preachers such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, whose rhetoric encouraged a surge of piety among the general population. The Enlightenment, on the other hand, was an intellectual trend originating in Europe that spread novel political ideas among the colonies, particularly the principle that every individual possesses natural rights – so called because they derive from nature and God rather than any man-made law. The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment mutually reinforced one another in the American experience, because they featured important similarities. Both celebrated individualism, while also encouraging skepticism of traditional institutions and dissent against established forms of authority.

The most significant political episode in the American colonies prior to the Revolution was the French and Indian War (1754–63). The war concluded in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, which transferred Canada and French territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain. But the war also planted unexpected seeds among the Thirteen Colonies, stirring up national sentiment and leading to Benjamin Franklin’s proposed Plan of Union at the Albany Congress in 1754. The colonials were beginning to think of themselves as a distinct people, as Americans.

The French and Indian War had been extremely costly to wage, and there was growing sentiment in Great Britain that the colonies needed to pay a substantial share of the associated expense, especially since the war had been fought largely for their sake. But that required unprecedentedly high taxation, as well as a fundamental transformation of the colonies’ relationship to England. Many Americans bitterly resented Parliament’s interference with the self-rule to which they had become accustomed.

What followed was a series of attempts to tax the colonies, which produced little revenue while provoking much resistance. As Great Britain was perceived to transgress its rightful authority, a shift began to occur in the hearts and minds of colonists who were used to self-governance and cherished their rights as English subjects. When the royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Gage, received orders in the spring of 1775 to suppress the growing opposition to British rule, he sent seven hundred red-coated troops to Concord to seize a military supply depot established by Patriot forces. Shots were first fired at Lexington, though which side fired first has never been settled; the British troops were eventually forced to retreat back to Boston. The American Revolution was all but under way.

But the drastic act of formal separation required a strong justification. That rationale arrived with the January 1776 publication of Thomas Paine’s wildly popular pamphlet Common Sense, which argued powerfully for the necessity of independence. The Continental Congress followed suit. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a motion “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states” (p. 89). The resolution passed on July 2, and, on July 4, the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence that had been penned by Thomas Jefferson.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter’s end:

How, in just two decades, the British triumphed in a world war and then lost their most important overseas possessions; and, secondly, why previously loyal and cooperative British subjects turned into rebellious and independence-seeking Americans.

• The nature of the historical relationship between Great Britain and its American colonies was one of “salutary neglect,” in which American settlers were generally allowed to organize and govern themselves as they desired.

• The middle portion of the eighteenth century witnessed dynamic cultural and intellectual shifts in Colonial America, driven largely by the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment.

• The French and Indian War was sparked by the westward expansion of colonists, who had increasingly settled the American interior over previous decades. The war eventually became part of the global “Seven Years’ War,” which was decisively won—albeit at significant cost—by the British.

• The aftermath of the French and Indian War set the stage for the Revolutionary War.

• The elimination of France as a significant political force in North America reduced the benefits of British rule and protection.

• The war was followed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which alienated colonists by forbidding settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.

• The war had been extremely costly and led to the imposition of unprecedentedly high taxation on the American colonies, triggering a series of political disputes that culminated in outright rebellion.

• Influenced by Enlightenment ideals and resentful of increasingly heavy-handed British rule, colonial leaders eventually declared their independence on July 4, 1776.

Key Persons

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)

George Washington (1732–1799)

William Pitt the Elder (1708–1778)

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)

George Whitefield (1714–1770)

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)

Isaac Newton (1642–1727)

Patrick Henry (1736–1799)

Samuel Adams (1722–1803)

John Adams (1736–1826)

Paul Revere (1736–1818)

Thomas Paine (1737–1809)

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

George Mason (1725–1792)

John Locke (1632–1704)

Key Concepts and Terms

British Empire

Magna Carta

Bill of Rights (English)

Plan of Union

Great Awakening

The Enlightenment

Scientific Revolution

Deism

“virtual representation”

Boston Tea Party

Continental Congress

Declaration of Independence

Social contract

Timeline

1603 King James I ascends to the English throne, claiming to rule by divine right (March 24)

1642–51 The English Civil War, including execution of Charles I in 1649

1653–58 Oliver Cromwell serves as the Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland

1660 Restoration of the Stuart Monarchy in England, with ascent of Charles II to the throne (May 8)

1688 The Glorious Revolution

1734 Jonathan Edwards publishes A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul

1739 The British evangelist George Whitefield arrives in Philadelphia

1754–63 The French and Indian War

1763 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 places a limit on colonists’ westward expansion (October 7)

1764 Parliament passes the Sugar Act (April 5)

1765 Parliament passes the Stamp Act (March 22) and the Quartering Act (May 15)

1766 Parliament passes the Declaratory Act (March 18)

1767 Parliament passes the Townshend Acts (June–July)

1770 The Boston Massacre (March 5)

1773 The Boston Tea Party (December 16)

1774 Parliament imposes the Intolerable Acts (Spring and Summer)

1774 The First Continental Congress (September 5)

1775 The Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19)

1775 The Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17)

1776 Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense (January 10)

1776 The Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence (July 4)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students’ progress warrants.

Chapter Three · The Revolution of Self-Rule (3.5 to 7 class periods)

3.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 61–64 (.5 to 1 class)

• A review of the unique character of the English legal tradition

• The impact of the Glorious Revolution of 1688

• England’s “salutary neglect” of the colonies

• The English colonies’ advantages over those of France and Spain

3.2 The French and Indian War – pp. 64–70 (1 to 2 classes)

• The course of the French and Indian War within the context of the Seven Years’ War

• First combat experience of a young George Washington

• The geostrategic consequences of British victory

• The enormous expense of the war and the need to pay for it

3.3 Stirrings of a National Consciousness – pp. 70–76 (1 class)

• The Great Awakening

• The leading preachers of the Awakening: George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards

• The influence of the Enlightenment on American thought and self-understanding

• The figure of Benjamin Franklin as contrasted with Jonathan Edwards

• The confluence of the Enlightenment and Great Awakening in the emergence of a national consciousness among the American colonies

3.4 Organizing an Empire and Provoking Resistance – pp. 77–83 (1 to 2 classes)

• How and why the British Empire changed its policy of colonial administration after the French and Indian War

• The imposition of various burdens, taxes and otherwise, on the colonists

• The colonists’ reaction to the measures imposed by Parliament and the King

• Convening of the first-ever Continental Congress and the organization of militias

• The Battles of Concord and Lexington, April 1775

3.5 The Path to Independence – pp. 83–93 (1 to 2 classes)

• The early battles at Fort Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill

• Loyalists and the reluctance to split from the British Empire

• Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and its impact

• The provenance and significance of The Declaration of Independence

• The principles embedded in the Declaration

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter’s epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Patrick Henry, Stamp Act Resolutions Speech, May 29, 1765 (p. 59)

Patrick Henry proposed a series of resolutions in the Virginia House of Burgesses against the Stamp Act in May 1765. The House adopted the first four, adopted and then expunged the fifth, and rejected the final two. In the speech associated with the resolutions, Henry invoked Caesar and Charles I while warning George III against tyranny; the chapter epigraph preserves the famous reply to the charge of treason. No complete contemporary transcript survives, and its best-known wording comes from later recollections. The episode belongs to a period when colonial resistance was still framed chiefly as a defense of the rights of Englishmen rather than a demand for independence.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 3.1. Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 1818 (p. 72)

Franklin’s account of hearing George Whitefield preach in Philadelphia describes the evangelist’s persuasive power during the Great Awakening. Franklin, who was not one of Whitefield’s followers, recalls entering the gathering determined to give nothing and leaving having emptied his pockets into the collection. Whitefield often preached outdoors after established clergy denied him their pulpits, and his audiences crossed denominational and colonial boundaries. Franklin’s memoir therefore supplies testimony from outside the revival movement as well as a vivid account of Whitefield’s public appeal.

Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” July 8, 1741 (p. 73)

Jonathan Edwards delivered the sermon commonly known as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” during the Great Awakening, preaching its best-known version at Enfield, Connecticut, in 1741. Edwards was a learned Calvinist minister and philosopher whose sermons joined close theological argument to vivid imagery. His method differed from George Whitefield’s more theatrical open-air preaching, but both men became leading figures in a revival movement that crossed established congregational and colonial boundaries.

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 10, 1776 (p. 85)

Thomas Paine published Common Sense in Philadelphia in January 1776, less than a year after the fighting at Lexington and Concord. The pamphlet argued not merely against particular parliamentary measures but against monarchy itself and for American independence. Written in direct language for a broad reading public, it circulated rapidly and helped move the colonial debate from the defense of English rights toward separation. Paine drew on arguments about natural rights and self-government that long predated the pamphlet, but presented them with unusual clarity and force at a moment when military conflict had already transformed the political situation.

Primary Source 3.2. The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 (p. 88)

After the June 7, 1776 introduction of Richard Henry Lee’s resolution “that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states,” to the Second Continental Congress, a Committee of Five was formed to draft the formal Declaration of Independence. It was composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Jefferson wrote the first draft in a boarding house in Philadelphia, and then revised it with the other members of the committee. On June 28, the committee submitted the draft to Congress, which debated it and revised it before approving it on July 4. That night, copies were printed and sent out to the states and the army. On July 19, Congress ordered the preparation of a parchment version of the document, and in early August, delegates to Congress began signing it. Two paragraphs—one shorter, and one longer—prefaced a list of 27 “repeated injuries and usurpations” perpetrated by Great Britain and attributed to the person of the King, laying out the groundwork for the rest of the document and the declaration. These are excerpted in the textbook. The first paragraph states that the document will “declare the causes which impel them to the separation” from England. The second paragraph discusses human nature, the sources of authority in just governments, the right to revolution, the need for caution in exercising the right to revolution and the duty of revolution when faced with a serious threat of despotism. The list of “facts” is introduced by the assertion that “the history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” The document ends with three paragraphs which declared the King a tyrant, “unfit to be the ruler of a free people,” and declared “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States,” with “full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”

Figures

Figure 3.2. The Signing of the Magna Carta, Albert Herter, 1915 (p. 62)

Herter composed this mural for the Wisconsin State Capitol Supreme Court, painting it alongside his Signing of the American Constitution so the two documents stand together in one room. It shows the restraints placed upon King John in the Magna Carta of 1215 (book p. 62). Two things are worth drawing out. The first is that Magna Carta was not a grant of liberty to ordinary people—it was a settlement between a king and his nobles. What made it matter, as the book puts it, is that it placed lasting restraints on the power of the king (p. 62).

The second is how that document traveled. Colonists five and a half centuries later, an ocean away, invoked Magna Carta constantly—not as antiquarian decoration but as proof that the rights they claimed were ancient, English, and already theirs. When Parliament taxed them without their consent and tried smugglers without juries, they said so in exactly those terms. Ask students why a thirteenth-century baronial agreement was such a useful weapon in an eighteenth-century argument. The answer—that it let colonists claim they were conserving English liberty rather than inventing something new—runs through the whole chapter.

Figure 3.4. The Death of General Wolfe, Benjamin West, 1779 (p. 68)

This painting won American painter Benjamin West great acclaim. Painted just over a decade after the event it portrays, the scene shows the death of General James Wolfe, who had led the successful British attack against French fortifications at Quebec, at the height of that battle. In the background, smoke arising from the battleground blends into dark storm clouds over the water. On the left side, lines of men fire their guns; on the right, boats lie in a harbor. The foreground is divided into three groups of figures. On the left, six men—including one American Indian—watch the center with interest and emotion. The center group, also of six men, is gathered around the dying General Wolfe. Three immediately surround him, pressing cloth against his wound, supporting his back, and holding his arm. Two behind look concernedly over their shoulders, holding a huge flag gathered behind them. To the left, two men stand with hands clasped in prayer, over the figure of their leader who had sacrificed himself for their success. While the battle roars behind them, the immediate scene is one of peace and stillness.

Figure 3.5. “Join, or Die” Woodcut, Benjamin Franklin, 1754 (p. 69)

This image was first published in The Pennsylvania Gazette, owned by Benjamin Franklin, on May 9, 1754. Understood to have been drawn by Franklin himself, this was the first image to portray the English colonies as united, or rather as by rights united. The sections of the snake represent South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania (there is debate over this; some argue this is Rhode Island), New Jersey, New York, and New England.

Twelve years later, it was used in the masthead of a tract against the Stamp Act published in New Jersey in the guise of a newspaper. And in the years immediately preceding the American Revolution, it was repeatedly reprinted in colonial newspapers in Pennsylvania, as well as Massachusetts. What had initially been a symbol of the importance of colonial unity while allied with England became a symbol of the importance of colonial unity in order to resist English tyranny.

Figure 3.6. George Whitefield Preaching in Bolton, June 1750, Thomas Walley, 1863 (p. 71)

English painter Thomas Walley lived from 1817 to 1878; little is known about him otherwise. This painting portrays George Whitefield—a founder of Methodism with John and Charles Wesley—preaching before a large audience in the Manchester, England countryside. While he is primarily known as one of the key figures in the American First Great Awakening, having made seven trips to British North America from England to conduct revivals and preach, he also stirred up religious fervor in his native land, to encourage conversions. Here, Whitefield is shown with his followers at the top of a hill near Manchester, England. Standing on a wooden platform, he raises his arms in exhortation. Crowds surround him, including formally dressed women and men, children talking to each other, small dogs, older women and elderly men, men on horseback and working men with their tools. The diversity of the crowd suggests the wide swath of society that Whitefield and the Wesleys were able to reach.

Figure 3.8. Skull and Crossbones Emblem, The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, 1765 (p. 79)

This advertisement protested the Stamp Act’s requirement that newspapers be printed on stamped paper purchased from government agents. Around the skull and crossbones are the words, “An emblem of the effects of the STAMP. O! The fateful STAMP.” This mock stamp symbolized the death of the free press, and indeed the newspaper which printed it suspended publication with its October 31, 1765, edition rather than comply with the act’s demands.

Figure 3.9. The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring & Feathering, David Claypoole Johnston, 1830 (p. 80)

This image is an American print of a satirical print made in England based on another English print intended to stir up sympathy for British officials in North America. Map and print-maker Carrington Bowles produced “A New Method of Macarony Making, as practiced at Boston” in London in 1774, less than a year after the events it portrayed. The print shows a tarred and feathered excise officer surrounded by a crowd, one colonist holding the end of the rope and a long stick, and another holding a large copper teapot as if preparing to pour it on or into the feather-figure’s mouth. Three weeks after this print debuted, London printers Robert Sayer and John Bennett published “The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring & Feathering.” This color print was closely copied by the lithograph included in the textbook, printed in Boston in 1830. The background shows the Boston Tea Party and the Liberty Tree which has a large portion of bark removed and the words “Stamp Act” carved into its flesh. In the foreground, five sneering colonists surround the tarred-and-feathered John Malcolm. One holds his head back, while a second pours tea from a small teapot into his mouth (and it flows out, onto the ground). A third holds a rope around his neck and a long stick, and two bystanders look on with evident satisfaction.

Figure 3.10. The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street, Boston on March 5, 1770, by a Party of the 29th Regiment, Paul Revere, 1770 (p. 82)

Paul Revere was a Boston silversmith. Most of his designs were engraved on silver objects. After the passage of the Stamp Act, he began producing designs for Patriot publications. Revere published this engraving 15 days after the event it portrayed. Colonists angry about the British occupation of Boston had surrounded a British sentry stationed outside the Custom House, who then called for help. A captain and seven soldiers responded. Finding themselves similarly trapped, they shot into the crowd, killing three immediately and wounding eight, two of whom later died of their wounds. More a piece of propaganda than an accurate portrayal of events, the Revere engraving shows British soldiers in formation shooting into a shocked crowd of civilians. Revere’s engraving was evidently based on a sketch drawn by Henry Pelham, who published his version, titled “Fruits of Arbitrary Power.”

Figure 3.11. The Fight on Lexington Common, April 19, 1775, Howard Pyle, 1898 (p. 87)

Howard Pyle was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1853. After studying and working in Philadelphia and New York, he returned there in 1879. He became known as the “Father of American illustration,” creating more than 3,000 illustrations for a wide variety of magazines and books, and teaching the younger generation of artists including women artists at Drexel University. Pyle painted this oil painting for Scribner’s magazine in 1898, as an illustration for the first of a series of articles that Henry Cabot Lodge wrote titled “The Story of the Revolution,” which were later published as a two-volume book. His depiction shows the first battle of the Revolutionary War, in which 70 Patriot militiamen, gathered because Paul Revere had warned them the British were coming, were fired upon by British forces in the early morning. Eight Patriot men were killed and ten wounded — the first casualties of the fight for American independence. Pyle’s painting shows both the determination and confidence of the Patriot militiamen, a sense of the confusion of the moment, and the losses suffered.

Figure 3.12. Thomas Jefferson’s Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence, 1776 (p. 88)

This draft of the Declaration of Independence is Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten draft with edits that probably resulted from multiple reviews of the document by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and others in the committee to draft the declaration appointed by the Second Continental Congress. This image shows the following changes: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, & to assume among the powers of the earth the equal & independant station to which the laws of nature & of nature’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to change.

“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends...”

to

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature & of nature’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with inherent & inalienable rights; that, among these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights...”

Figure 3.14. The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, John Trumbull, circa 1786–1820 (p. 91)

Trumbull began painting this scene, which shows the Committee of Five presenting the draft Declaration of Independence to John Hancock, while visiting Thomas Jefferson in Paris. He included every member of the Continental Congress he was able to accurately portray, painting them from life or from existing portraits or based on relatives. The painting is not wholly historically accurate: The composition includes forty-two of the fifty-six signers and five other figures, some of the persons portrayed were not actually in attendance at the event portrayed, and some of the aspects of the room aren’t correct, in part because Trumbull relied on Jefferson’s memories of it while in Paris. Standing together by the desk are John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin—the committee responsible for drafting the Declaration. John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, sits at the table, with Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Congress, standing beside him.

Maps

Map 3.1. Eastern North America before the French and Indian War, circa 1750 (p. 66)

This map shows the eastern half of North America, just over 25 years before the Declaration of Independence. England controls much of modern-day Canada and most of the East Coast, excluding modern-day Florida; the Appalachians are contested by England and France; the latter country controls from modern-day Louisiana across the Midwest, and to modern-day Canada near the St. Lawrence River; and Spain controls modern-day Florida, Texas, Mexico, Cuba and Central America. France, England and Spain controlled roughly similar areas of land, but other factors distinguished their lands. France, for instance, nominally controlled large areas of lands but its forts were spread far from each other and weren’t well populated.

Map 3.2. Eastern North America after the French and Indian War, circa 1764 (p. 67)

This map shows the territorial aftermath of the French and Indian War—the loss of France’s mainland North American empire. France retained island possessions, including two small islands off Newfoundland and several in the Caribbean. Spain lost territory as well; modern-day Florida came under English control, as did the formerly French-controlled and contested New Brunswick. This map shows the Proclamation Line in red, which was the border running along the top of the Appalachian Range established by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which English settlers were forbidden from crossing to prevent battles with Indian tribes. This edict produced neither great protest nor significant compliance.

Map 3.3. Early Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775 (p. 84)

This map shows the locations of the battles of Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775, the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775, and the battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. Patriot forces took the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga through the Berkshire Mountains to positions outside the city of Boston, where their placement in 1776 led to the British military leaving the city.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter’s subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• Armitage, David. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.

• Bailyn, Bernard. Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1986.

• Franklin, Benjamin. Franklin: Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings. New York: Library of America, 2005.

• Taylor, Alan. American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804. New York: W. W. Norton, 2016.

• Yirush, Craig. Settlers, Liberty, and Empire: The Roots of Early American Political Theory, 1675–1775. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

3.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 61–64)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 61–64 and the Patrick Henry epigraph on page 59.

Exercise: The list of events shaping English politics, with the section reading questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why the colonies were left alone and on what self-government looked like in practice.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The French and Indian War (pp. 64–70) for next lesson.

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

Why the British largely ignored their American colonies for so long—because they were focused on domestic dynastic and political upheavals—and the consequences of this neglect in America.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Define “divine right monarchy” and explain how the overthrow of King James II discredited this view of royal authority in England.

• Analyze the effects of Britain’s colonial policy of salutary neglect.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1603 King James I ascends to the English throne, claiming to rule by divine right (March 24)

1642–51 The English Civil War, including execution of Charles I in 1649

1653–58 Oliver Cromwell serves as the Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland

1660 Restoration of the Stuart Monarchy in England, with ascent of Charles II to the throne (May 8)

1688 The Glorious Revolution

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

Salutary neglect describes Britain’s long practice of allowing the American colonies considerable latitude in their internal affairs. Because Britain was repeatedly absorbed by political conflict at home, colonial assemblies and local institutions acquired habits of self-government that colonists later came to regard as established rights.

Absolute monarchy and divine right represented a contrasting theory of political authority. The English Civil War and Glorious Revolution weakened claims that monarchs ruled without effective legal or institutional restraint and strengthened a constitutional tradition in which political power was limited by law and Parliament.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Mercantilism: This economic theory maintains that a nation’s wealth is closely linked to its balance of payments and consequently encourages protectionist and autarkic policies. It was popular in Early Modern Europe and highly influential in colonial policy, using tariffs, trade restrictions, and other forms of centralized control of trade and economic life.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Assign students to read the opening section of Chapter Three (pp. 61–64).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

Did the English have a “master plan” for their overseas colonies? How did the absence or presence of this plan lead to success in the colonies?

How was England’s political culture distinct from that of France and Spain?

What events in England occupied the focus of the British government during the early settlement of North America?

What were the consequences of England’s “salutary neglect” for its American colonies?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Have students make a list of the events leading up to the overthrow of King James II. Then have them respond to the following questions, either on paper as a written assignment or in a classroom discussion.

Define “divine right monarchy.” How did the overthrow of King James II discredit this view of royal authority in England?

Why were the people of England not willing to fully embrace the idea of absolute power? Cite evidence from the text in your answer.

Why was the overthrow of King James II such an important event? What did it mean for England? What would it later mean for America?

Analytical Skills: Instruct students to read aloud and explain the excerpt from Patrick Henry’s Stamp Act Resolutions Speech (Chapter 3 Epigraph). Use the following questions for either class discussion or a written short answer.

Who is the author? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

What goals might Brutus, Cromwell, and the colonists have had in common? What does Henry’s comparison of the colonists to these men suggest about his understanding of the fight over the Stamp Act?

Writing Skills: Invite students to consider the advantages and disadvantages of “salutary neglect” for the American colonies, then divide students into two groups, each assigned to develop a written argument that either the pros or the cons of such neglect were more significant. It might help to start this activity by defining and reviewing the policy of salutary neglect, and then inviting students to brainstorm the types of policies that Britain might have implemented if they had taken a hands-on approach to governing the colonies.

Further: Consider the results as a class and discuss. Should Britain have had a more hands-on colonial policy, particularly after its government stabilized during the eighteenth century?

For a final reflection, allow students to abandon their group’s argument and have them write their own conclusions. Make sure they defend their conclusions with points from the discussion.

Analytical Skills: Have students trace the sources of the colonists’ claims to rights, using the text at pp. 61–63 and Figure 3.2 (p. 62).

Analytical Skills: What did Magna Carta (1215) and the English Bill of Rights each establish about the limits of royal power? Magna Carta placed restraints on King John and on every king after him; the Glorious Revolution of 1688 discredited the divine right of kings, established parliamentary supremacy and a far-reaching Bill of Rights, and provided a vital precedent for the American Revolution. Have students state, in one sentence, what Magna Carta established, and in a second sentence, what the Glorious Revolution and its Bill of Rights together established.

English constitutional tradition and common law: English liberties rested on a combination of charters, statutes, legal precedents, and established practices rather than a single written constitution. Have students connect Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights to the colonists’ claims about limits on government. Why would colonists regard interference with these inherited liberties as a violation of their rights as English subjects?

Further: Introduce students to republicanism and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Republicanism reflects a fear of corrupt power and a duty of civic virtue; the Judeo-Christian tradition reflects the conviction that rights come from a source above the king. Then ask: how might these two traditions work together to justify resisting a king, one arguing from politics, the other from religion?

Further: In Lesson 3.5, have students consider the influence of the European Enlightenment, including Locke’s account of natural rights and the social contract.

Insight: Students often assume the Revolution invented American rights. Ask students to distinguish demands for new rights from appeals to rights colonists believed they already possessed as Englishmen. Have them return to this list after reading the Declaration and mark which inheritance each grievance draws on.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

Why were the English-American colonies mostly left to their own devices? How did this compare to Spain and France?

Insight: The colonies developed freely because the British were occupied by their own political conflicts at home. For much of the 17th century, they experienced a back-and-forth power struggle between the monarchy and the Parliament. Further, Britain was distinct among European monarchies in that it had a tradition (starting from the Magna Carta of 1215) of limiting the power of the monarchy. Therefore, Britain was already less likely than Spain or France to exert absolute control over the American colonies.

What is the difference between mercantilism and free market economics?

Insight: Mercantilism was used by the more absolutist governments of France and Spain. The idea was to extract wealth from a place. It was a more fixed view of wealth, that it was tied to material resources like precious metals, that it needed to be controlled. The free-market view is that wealth can be created organically through voluntary exchange. Free market economics holds that two parties can benefit from buying and selling things with each other.

In practice, what did “self-government” look like in the British American colonies? Who could participate in government, and who couldn’t? How did this compare to other parts of the world?

Insight: The colonies mirrored Britain itself in that the colonial governors and the legislative assemblies would be jockeying for power. But each colony had its own government where people could actively participate. Women could not participate, nor could Native Americans or African Americans. But the author points out that our modern expectations for “fairness” in democracy were non-existent in the entire world at that time. In the English-American colonies, a higher portion of the adult population participated in government than anywhere else on the planet.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

Name two features of English government that colonists believed protected their liberty.

What does the phrase “salutary neglect” describe?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) any two of: Parliament’s power of the purse, trial by jury, the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, representative assemblies; (2) the long stretch in which Britain largely left the colonies to govern their own internal affairs.

Explain

Why did Britain’s inattention make the colonies harder to govern later?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. Decades of self-government produced assemblies, habits, and expectations that colonists came to regard as rights rather than privileges; when Britain moved to govern more closely, colonists experienced it as the removal of something already theirs.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson’s threads together.

Britain’s tradition of constitutional monarchy and its political turmoil during the seventeenth century paved the way for a period of “wise and salutary neglect.” This unofficial British policy allowed for the colonies to begin experimenting with the process of self-government. The British approach differed markedly from Spanish and French colonization, which were far more centrally administered.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The colonies had been left to themselves for most of a century. The next lesson turns to the war that ended that arrangement—the French and Indian War—and to the debt that would send Parliament looking to America to pay it.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Mercantilism, salutary neglect, Parliament, assembly. Gloss “salutary neglect” plainly—helpful ignoring—before the political sense.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Britain paid little attention to the colonies because ___.” “One right the colonists believed they had was ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students name one way the colonies governed themselves, then write that sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may build a two-column chart—‘What Britain controlled’ / ‘What the colonies controlled’—instead of prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

3.2 The French and Indian War (pp. 64–70)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 64–70.

Exercise: Examine Map 3.1 and Map 3.2 together and identify what changed.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what prompted the war and why it mattered so much to American history.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Stirrings of a National Consciousness (pp. 70–76).

Essential Understanding

The story of the conflict with France in North America from 1754 to 1763, which was part of a larger world war that Britain won.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the causes of the French and Indian War and describe the perspectives of the various sides of the conflict.

• Draw conclusions about the impact of Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” cartoon.

• Evaluate the reasoning behind William Pitt’s strategy of expending enormous sums to defeat the French in North America.

Key Dates

1754–63 The French and Indian War

Key Concepts

The French and Indian War encouraged the colonies to consider acting together on shared frontier concerns. At the Albany Congress, representatives of seven of the thirteen colonies considered Benjamin Franklin’s Plan of Union, which proposed a grand council to direct treaties with Native peoples. The proposal was an early attempt at colonial cooperation, even though it did not establish a union.

British victory also raised the question of who would control westward settlement. After the Treaty of Paris in 1763, George III’s Royal Proclamation established a Proclamation Line beyond which colonists were forbidden to settle. The war thus brought opportunities for colonial cooperation alongside new restrictions imposed by Britain.

Key Terms

Frontier: A frontier is an informal border that marks the limits of settled lands. For much of the seventeenth century, the frontier of the American colonies hugged the eastern coastline, but it began to extend westward over the eighteenth century, triggering competition with the French that ultimately led to war.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Three, Section Two, “The French and Indian War” (pp. 64–70).

Encourage students to note the viewpoints of the various sides of the conflict: The Virginia/Pennsylvania settlers, the French, the Native tribes, and the British.

Elicit students’ opinions on the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

Insight: After the war, Britain sought to prevent further conflict between colonists and Native peoples by prohibiting settlement west of the Proclamation Line. This restriction was unpopular, especially among settlers who had hoped the war would open the Ohio Valley to expansion. The public response was relatively subdued, however, because the proclamation did not directly involve taxation and settlers felt free to defy it. Britain’s subsequent efforts to make the colonies help pay for their protection intensified the dispute over imperial control.

Invite students to anticipate who the “winners” and “losers” of the war were.

The British government paid an enormous sum to defeat the French in North America. What effect was this likely to have on their relationship to the American colonies after the war’s success?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Analyzing Figures: Examine the famous “Join, or Die” cartoon (Figure 3.5). Use the following questions for a class discussion or a written exercise.

Ask students to describe the image. What do they see? What stands out to them?

How does this cartoon appeal to an emerging national consciousness among the American colonists?

If this were a written argument instead of a cartoon, what would be the thesis of the argument?

How might an image like this one have had a different impact on the public mind than a written argument?

Geography: Display the map of Eastern North America before the French and Indian War (Map 3.1). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Compare the land controlled by France, England and Spain, in terms of size, population, terrain, access to the ocean, etc.

Further: Which country’s position would likely have been the most stable? Which would have been most vulnerable?

Geography: Display the map of Eastern North America after the French and Indian War (Map 3.2). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Compare this map with the map of Eastern North America before the French and Indian War (Map 3.1). What changed?

Further: Have students identify the Proclamation Line. What geological feature does it identify? What was its significance?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine The Death of General Wolfe (Figure 3.4). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the painting? What stands out to them? What are the people doing?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How might his worldview have influenced the work?

Further: How does the artist portray the death of General Wolfe? Is he shown as vanquished, or in some manner victorious? Is it demoralizing or honorable?

Civic Discourse: Invite students to consider William Pitt’s potential motivations in expending enormous sums to defeat the French in North America.

Context: If time permits and a teacher wishes to add an extra layer of complexity, it is worth telling students that there were four French and Indian wars, only the last of which is called the French and Indian War. The others were King William’s War (1688–1697), Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), and King George’s War (1744–1748). These are not to be confused with King Philip’s War (1675–1678), named for the Wampanoag chieftain who fought a bloody war against the Puritans of New England. The three wars named for British monarchs were all parts of larger conflicts such as the War of Spanish Succession and the War of the League of Augsburg. These conflicts included “Indian” raids on the American frontier that were supported by the French in Canada. Of the 75 years between 1688 and 1763, about 33 were part of declared wars between France and Great Britain.

Further: Was Parliament’s expense justified? What were the strategic considerations for the British? Why might, counterintuitively, the removal of the French government from North America have damaged their own interests?

Insight: In their conquest of French Canada, the British eliminated most of the threat to the American frontier. As the book puts it, this victory meant the end of the era of “benign neglect” — such loose-jointed independence could not be allowed to continue, and Britain moved to tighten imperial control.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What prompted the French and Indian War? Was its outbreak unexpected?

Insight: The war between Britain and France broke out in the Ohio River Valley. It was a fight over territory: Settlers from the English colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia started moving into areas where the French had trading outposts. The French reacted angrily, and diplomatic efforts failed. The exact nature of the war might not have been predictable, but conflict between competing European powers in the Americas was bound to happen, eventually.

Why was the French and Indian War especially important to U.S. history?

Insight: The French and Indian War was a pivot point in history. The war changed the way Britain approached its colonies, just at the time when the Americans were starting to become a confident and distinct people. Britain’s attempt to exert dominance over their colonies backfired, sparking the American Revolution and the birth of the United States of America.

How did the Albany Congress demonstrate colonial unity?

Insight: The Albany Congress was the first seed of an effort to unify the colonies. The textbook figure 3.5 depicts the famous “Join, or Die” political cartoon drawn by Benjamin Franklin. While the Albany Congress did not succeed at forming a national union, the idea and the image later resonated strongly with the American people and helped them unify together in the struggle against Britain. This unifying success was remarkable given how different many of the colonies were from each other.

Was Prime Minister William Pitt’s lavish spending on the war ultimately justified?

Insight: The textbook says that Pitt recognized the significance of North America better than others in Britain. A different prime minister might not have exerted so much effort in this part of the world against France. The spending did pay off in the sense that the war established British dominance in North America. If Britain had taken a more deft approach to governing their independent-minded colonies, this investment would have been more tangible. As it happened, the after-effects of this spending led to another costly war to try to maintain control against a revolution.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Which two European powers fought the French and Indian War in North America?

What region was the focal point of the conflict?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) Britain and France, each with Native allies; (2) the Ohio River valley, and the interior west of the Appalachians more broadly.

Explain

Britain won the war decisively. Why did victory create new problems for Britain in America?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. Victory brought enormous territory and enormous debt; governing and garrisoning the new lands cost money, and Parliament turned to the colonies to raise it—while the removal of the French threat also made colonists less dependent on British protection.

Daily Recap

Britain’s victory in the French and Indian War had several consequences for the Thirteen Colonies. While the Treaty of Paris (1763) transferred Canada and French territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain, it also paved the way for the American Revolution. The war, while featuring partnership between colonists and the British government against their common enemies, also generated in many of them the first stirrings of American national sentiment — the feeling that something more than shared British language and heritage bound them together. Those first stirrings were manifest at the Albany Congress of 1754, which first explored a Plan of Union just over two decades before independence was ultimately declared.

Looking Ahead

The war left Britain victorious, indebted, and newly attentive to its colonies. Before the quarrel over taxes begins, the next lesson looks at what was stirring inside the colonies themselves—a religious awakening, Enlightenment ideas, and an emerging sense of a common American people.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Militia, frontier, treaty, empire. Anchor “frontier” in its plain sense—the edge of settlement—before the historical use.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The war began over ___.” “After the Treaty of Paris, Britain controlled ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one result of the war, then write the sentence they said.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a before-and-after map sketch—territory in 1750, territory in 1764—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

3.3 Stirrings of a National Consciousness (pp. 70–76)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 70–76.

Exercise: Examine Figure 3.6 and read Primary Source 3.1, Franklin on Whitefield (p. 72).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Whitefield’s effect and on the Enlightenment as exemplified by Franklin.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Organizing an Empire and Provoking Resistance (pp. 77–83).

Essential Understanding

The origins, ideas, and impact of both the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment on the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, as well as the contributions of two representative figures of these movements: Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards.

Lesson Objectives

• Compare and contrast the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment as social phenomena in the American colonies.

• Draw conclusions about how the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment might have contributed to the eventual American Independence movement.

• Explain how Benjamin Franklin was an exemplar of the Enlightenment.

Key Dates

1734 Jonathan Edwards publishes A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul

1739 The British evangelist George Whitefield arrives in Philadelphia

Key Concepts

The Great Awakening crossed colonial and denominational boundaries through revivals led by figures such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. The dispute between Old Lights and New Lights concerned religious authority and the legitimacy of revival preaching; it also helped spur the founding of new colleges by supporters of the revival.

The Enlightenment grew from the Scientific Revolution’s confidence in reason, observation, and the intelligibility of nature. In political thought, writers such as John Locke argued that legitimate government rests on natural rights and consent rather than inherited authority.

Benjamin Franklin embodied the practical Enlightenment through experiments, inventions, civic institutions, and the maxims of Poor Richard’s Almanack. Yet his admiration for Whitefield also illustrates how Enlightenment habits and religious revival could coexist in colonial America. Both movements encouraged individuals to exercise judgment rather than defer automatically to established authorities.

Key Terms

Great Awakening: the sweeping series of religious revivals that moved through the American colonies from the 1730s onward, crossing colonial and denominational boundaries and giving colonists a shared experience of religious enthusiasm.

Old Lights and New Lights: the two sides of the split the revivals produced among Calvinist-influenced Protestants—the Old Lights defending settled, learned ministry, the New Lights embracing the revivals’ emotional preaching and the authority of personal conversion.

Enlightenment: the European intellectual movement, growing out of the Scientific Revolution, that championed reason, observation, and the possibility of human improvement.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Three, Section Three, “Stirrings of a National Consciousness” (pp. 70–76).

Assign several of the following questions:

How did the result of the French and Indian War prove unsettling in the colonies? In Britain?

What were some of the major culture-shaping trends of the eighteenth century, both in Europe and America?

How might the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening have both contributed to the eventual American Independence movement?

Insight: Awakening preachers were challenging established assumptions about authority—mainly religious authority, but religion and political power were closely linked at the time.

Consider the fact that the Revolutionary Era was bordered or “framed” by the First and then the Second Great Awakenings. What does that framing suggest about the cultural environment of early America, and about the relationship between religious and political life in the period?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Have students make a comparison chart, writing the features of the Enlightenment on one side and the features of the Great Awakening on the other. Underneath, have them write an explanation about the similarities between the two. In a class discussion or a written exercise, have students articulate their view as to which had a greater influence on Americans’ emergent identity as a distinct people.

Insight: Both of these were social phenomena that encouraged skepticism toward traditional institutions and championed ideals of liberty.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine George Whitefield Preaching in Bolton, June 1750 (Figure 3.6). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the painting? What stands out to them? What are the people doing?

Who is the artist (see the description for Figure 3.6)? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Further: What does the painting suggest about the attractiveness of Whitefield’s preaching?

Further: What religious phenomenon or mode did revival meetings like the one portrayed here encourage (e.g., conversion, adoration, petition, etc.)?

Analytical Skills: Instruct students to read aloud and explain Benjamin Franklin’s description of George Whitefield (Primary Source 3.1). Use the following questions for either class discussion or a written short answer.

Who is the author? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

What does the text reveal about the author’s perspective on the value of Christianity in the colonies?

Further: Why does Franklin admire Whitefield? Why does Franklin say that his description of Whitefield should be more credible because “we had no religious Connection?” (Enlightenment [and Protestant] value placed on freedom from tradition and old loyalties seen as helpful for getting at the reality of things; see p. 74 in the textbook.)

Analytical Skills: Instruct students to read aloud and explain the selection from Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Use the following questions for either class discussion or a written short answer.

Who is the author? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

What does the text reveal about the author’s perspective on the attitude of God toward human beings?

Further: What was Edwards trying to provoke in his listeners? Why was this method of preaching attractive to so many people?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Did people living in the American colonies think of themselves as being British or being American? What do you think?

Insight: This section describes several factors that contributed to a growing sense of American national consciousness, but there are additional dynamics that students might consider. First, the colonies were growing older. Therefore, new generations were alive who had never been to Britain. Other things to consider might be how people started to settle further into the American interior, and the growth of colonial colleges.

Who was George Whitefield? How did his actions help to deepen a culture of liberty that was already part of the American colonies?

Insight: George Whitefield was a charismatic preacher who was part of the religious revival movement known as The Great Awakening. The movement was exciting because it was a new and fresh way to practice religion. It challenged religious authority and made religious life depend on the judgment of each person’s free and uncoerced conscience.

What was the Enlightenment? Why was Benjamin Franklin an exemplar of Enlightenment thinking?

Insight: America was fertile ground for the Enlightenment because of the colonies’ remarkable religious diversity and the high degree of tolerance it produced, in which belief in the biblical God and belief in an ordered, knowable universe were not seen as incompatible. The people of America took seriously the Enlightenment idea that we are born with natural rights, not dependent on any existing government or monarch. Beliefs easily intersected: Edwards saw the orderliness of nature as evidence of God’s design, while Franklin, who tended toward Deism, was captivated by Whitefield’s preaching. This is what Benjamin Franklin exemplified. He constantly worked on improving himself, and he was a brilliant creative thinker. He made many new inventions, not just in the scientific field, but also as applied to practical society, such as the subscription library and the fire service.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name the two preachers most closely associated with the Great Awakening.

What was Poor Richard’s Almanack?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards; (2) Benjamin Franklin’s widely read annual pamphlet, published 1732–1758, full of practical maxims reflecting Enlightenment ideas about self-improvement.

Explain

How did the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment each contribute to a growing sense of American identity?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. The revivals crossed colonial and denominational boundaries and encouraged independent religious judgment. Enlightenment ideas emphasized reason, self-improvement, and natural rights. Students should explain how these distinct movements helped colonists question inherited authority and recognize shared ideas or experiences.

Daily Recap

The eighteenth-century colonies were shaped by two related but distinct movements: the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment. The Great Awakening caused a resurgence in Christian fervor, restoring the rigor of New England’s Calvinism through a more emotional and experiential style of worship. Meanwhile, the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, science, and empiricism, made its influence felt through such crucial personages as Benjamin Franklin. While in some ways opposed, both shared a skepticism about received institutions and a lack of deference to established forms of authority, and both understood themselves as expressions of the spirit of liberty.

Looking Ahead

A people was beginning to think of itself as something more than a collection of separate colonies. The next lesson turns to the moment Britain began to organize its empire in earnest—and to the resistance that organizing provoked.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Great Awakening, revival, Enlightenment, consciousness. Gloss “consciousness” plainly—an awareness of who you are—before the phrase “national consciousness.”

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Great Awakening spread because ___.” “Colonists began to see themselves as ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one effect of the revivals, then write the sentence they said.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may fill a two-column chart—‘Religious change’ / ‘Political effect’—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

3.4 Organizing an Empire and Provoking Resistance (pp. 77–83)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 77–83.

Exercise: Compare the impression conveyed by Revere’s Boston Massacre engraving with the information in its accompanying caption (Figure 3.10, p. 82).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on whether the Stamp Act succeeded and on the purpose of the Declaratory Act.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Path to Independence (pp. 83–93).

Essential Understanding

The fractious period between the end of the French and Indian War and the beginning of the Revolutionary War; the British Empire’s motives and justifications for taxing the colonists and restraining their westward expansion; and the colonists’ spirited reaction to these measures, up to and including the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Lesson Objectives

• Evaluate Britain’s tax policy toward the American colonies after the French and Indian War.

• Examine multiple points of view about the Boston Massacre.

• Create an alternative British political strategy that might have averted an independence movement by the American colonies.

Key Dates

1763 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 places a limit on colonists’ westward expansion (October 7)

1764 Parliament passes the Sugar Act (April 5)

1765 Parliament passes the Stamp Act (March 22) and the Quartering Act (May 15)

1766 Parliament passes the Declaratory Act (March 18)

1767 Parliament passes the Townshend Acts (June–July)

1770 The Boston Massacre (March 5)

1773 The Boston Tea Party (December 16)

1774 Parliament imposes the Intolerable Acts (Spring and Summer)

1774 The First Continental Congress (September 5)

1775 The Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19)

Key Concepts

The Glorious Revolution strengthened parliamentary sovereignty, establishing Parliament’s authority against the claims of the monarch. After the French and Indian War, Parliament asserted that authority over the American colonies through taxation and stricter imperial administration. The colonists, however, had developed habits of self-government and believed that their rights as English subjects placed limits on what Parliament could demand of them.

The dispute therefore concerned more than the amount of a tax. It raised questions about representation, consent, and the location of ultimate political authority. The Stamp Act, the Declaratory Act, and subsequent measures exposed these competing understandings of the imperial relationship. Colonial petitions, boycotts, and cooperation through the Continental Congress sought to defend inherited liberties, while British leaders increasingly regarded resistance as a challenge to Parliament’s sovereignty.

Key Terms

Writ of Assistance: These general search warrants authorized British customs officials to search vessels suspected of smuggling goods in violation of the Navigation Acts.

Minutemen: These members of the New England colonial militia fought against British regulars in the opening battles of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord and at Bunker Hill. They were organized independently of the royal governor’s authority, and their name derived from their readiness to be mustered.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Three, Section Four, “Organizing an Empire and Provoking Resistance” (pp. 77–83). Have students make a list of the events and arguments that brought the colonial leaders to the point of declaring independence.

Ask students to consider the background of the escalating animosity between the British Parliament and the American colonies. How did the Seven Years’ War and the development of the English Constitution since the inception of colonization contribute to the standoff?

Provide students with the chance to place the Declaratory Act, Stamp Act, and Townshend Acts in chronological order.

Also ask students to place the Boston Massacre, Intolerable Acts, and Boston Tea Party in chronological order.

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Skull and Crossbones Emblem (Figure 3.8). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the print? What stands out to them?

Where was this stamp used? What was its purpose? What did it communicate to those who saw it?

Further: What level of seriousness in the colonists’ efforts to resist England can be inferred from this emblem? Describe some of the other efforts against the Stamp Acts (pp. 78–79 in the text).

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man (Figure 3.9). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the print? What stands out to them? What are the people doing?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made?

What is the history of this design? What was it initially intended to convey? What might it have conveyed to an American audience in 1830?

Further: What was the response of the British Parliament to the events portrayed in this image (particularly the background event)?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Paul Revere’s The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street (Figure 3.10). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the engraving? What stands out to them? What are the people doing?

Who is the artist? For what else is he known? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Further: What is the major difference between this image and the event it portrays? How significant is that difference for understanding what actually happened?

Argumentation: Examine Paul Revere’s depiction of the Boston Massacre (Figure 3.10, p. 82) before reading its caption.

What does the image suggest about the soldiers’ actions and the colonists’ behavior? Identify details that support your interpretation.

Read the accompanying caption. What additional information does it provide? Does that information change your interpretation?

What can the engraving tell us about the message Revere wanted to convey? What further evidence would we need to establish what happened?

Insight: Distinguish evidence about the event from evidence about how it was presented. An image can help explain public reactions even when it gives an incomplete or misleading account.

Further: Assign students to write as though they were composing a “Letter to the Editor” for a newspaper in Boston. Have them share their reaction, emotions, and opinions of the event, from the viewpoint of either a Boston patriot or a British loyalist.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: The various parliamentary acts in the aftermath of the French and Indian War ultimately undermined the British government’s hold over the Thirteen Colonies. How could they have better handled the situation? Have students prepare a British plan of action for the colonies that might have avoided a rebellion in the colonies.

Consider the importance of the American frontier, self-rule, and economic interests of the colonies.

Context: The colonies had legitimate grievances about their subordinate status. Britain’s mercantilist policies used tariffs and trade restrictions to direct colonial commerce toward the interests of the mother country.

British enforcement of various laws was also often arbitrary and unjust. To implement the Navigation Acts, the following policy was introduced: if smugglers were caught by the British navy, they were tried by an Admiralty Court; if convicted, they lost their ship and cargo, and proceeds from the resulting sale went to the court and to the men that had caught them.

Insight: The British attempts to enforce trade regulations and collect taxes, beginning after the French and Indian War, were a sudden reversal after a century of relative indifference. Teachers may note the abruptness of the reversal itself: a long period of inattention followed by sudden, systematic enforcement.

Further: Teachers may wish to share the following anecdote, which demonstrates the extent to which Americans, especially New Englanders, resisted the Navigation Acts and British control generally. In the Gaspee incident of 1772, a British revenue cutter (whose specialty was catching smugglers) chased its prey into a Rhode Island harbor and ran aground. The local citizens rowed out and threw fire bombs onto the ship, named the Gaspee, destroying it. The furious British investigated but no one in Rhode Island was willing to cooperate. Rhode Island was often called “Rogues Island” in reference to its large population of smugglers. No local jury would convict anyone accused of smuggling, as many of the jurors would themselves be smugglers.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: To what extent might Britain have been justified in their colonial policies following the Treaty of Paris?

Context: Britain had first introduced a stamp tax in 1694. After the Stamp Act of 1765, when Americans objected that they had never been made to pay an internal tax, Parliament repealed it and substituted the Townshend duties on imports, an external tax. The Americans then explained that they accepted external taxes only as regulations of trade but not to raise revenue.

Further: The colonists benefited in many significant respects from their status as subjects of the British Crown. For instance, their ships were able to trade all over the world under the protection of the Royal Navy.

Insight: A point of confusion in the dispute was the nature of the British constitution. The colonists protested their loyalty to the king but insisted that they had their own colonial legislatures and so were not subject to a parliament in which they were not represented. To the British this was nonsense, because by the 1760s parliamentary sovereignty had become an established constitutional principle. To the British, if the colonists agreed that they were subject to the king then they must also be subject to Parliament as well. Remember though that most of the Thirteen Colonies were originally chartered under the Stuarts, before parliamentary sovereignty became established.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Was the Stamp Act successful?

Insight: The Stamp Act was not successful. Colonial resistance was fierce and organized, and the Act was later repealed. The Stamp Act provoked a fierce reaction from the colonists because it was seen as a drastic threat to the right of self-rule.

What was the purpose of the Declaratory Act?

Insight: The Declaratory Act asserted the legal view of British authority over the colonies. As the Americans started to assert their legal rights under the British constitution, and even assert the fundamental right to self-rule, the British Declaratory Act proclaimed full sovereignty over the colonies. Parliament made the laws and the American colonies were expected to obey. Even though the Stamp Act was repealed, Britain was still planning to exert control over its empire.

How did the Continental Congress respond to the Coercive Acts?

Insight: After the Coercive Acts, the Continental Congress formally approved of the effort to resist British rule. The primary strategy of resistance at this point was the boycott, where people stopped buying British goods. A boycott is when people stop buying products with the purpose of making a political statement or causing economic harm. The boycott was a lawful effort to resist British rule and persuade Parliament to back off.

Where did the Revolutionary War officially begin? In what year?

Insight: The battles of Concord and Lexington were the first official fighting of the Revolutionary War. It is important for students to remember that the fighting broke out in 1775. This was after many years of struggling back and forth: the British trying to impose their will, the Americans trying to assert their rights. The Declaration of Independence followed the next year.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name three measures Parliament passed between 1764 and 1767 that colonists opposed.

What did the Declaratory Act of 1766 assert?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) any three of: the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), the Quartering Act (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767); (2) that Parliament had authority to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.

Explain

Colonists often paid less in tax than Britons at home. Why, then, did they object so strongly?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. The objection was to the principle rather than the amount: taxes levied by a body in which they had no representation, and enforced in courts without juries, threatened the self-government and English rights they believed they already possessed.

Daily Recap

By 1763, most of the colonies had developed their own ways of life over several generations. To finance its enormous war debts, the British Parliament decided that it would be justified in directly taxing the colonists, since they had benefited from resources expended by the British in the French and Indian War. But such direct taxation amounted to an unprecedented violation of the American colonies’ practice of self-government. Over the course of the twelve years between 1763 and 1775, various incidents made it increasingly clear that this dispute—over whether the colonies had the right to resist Parliament—could not be decided civilly. In 1775, after twelve years of mounting grievance, the dispute passed into armed conflict at Lexington and Concord.

Looking Ahead

Resistance had become organized, and both sides had begun to see the other as the aggressor. The next lesson follows the last steps—from the first shots at Lexington to the Declaration of Independence.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Boycott, duty, representation, resistance. Contrast “internal” and “external” taxes with a plain example before the constitutional argument.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Colonists objected to the Stamp Act because ___.” “Britain argued that ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state the colonial objection in one sentence, then write it.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a cause-and-effect chain—act → protest → British response—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

3.5 The Path to Independence (pp. 83–93)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 83–93.

Exercise: Read the excerpt from Common Sense (p. 85) and the Declaration (pp. 88–91) with the authorship questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the most compelling argument in Common Sense and on what “all men are created equal” meant.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter 4.

Essential Understanding

Why tensions between the empire and colonists erupted from low-level skirmishes in 1775 into a full-fledged war in 1776, especially through the lens of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson’s respective writings in Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the sequence of events that brought the colonial leaders to the point of declaring independence.

• Analyze Thomas Paine’s argument in Common Sense and draw conclusions about why this argument resonated so powerfully in the American colonies.

• Write a thesis about the meaning of the American Revolution and defend your argument with evidence from the chapter.

Key Dates

1775 The Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17)

1776 Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense (January 10)

1776 The Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence (July 4)

Key Concepts

The “State of Nature” was identified by John Locke in his Second Treatise of Civil Government as the pre-societal condition in which human beings have no common superior and are free to do as they will. According to Locke, in order to gain security, men enter into civil society via a social contract, by which they establish laws that become their common superior. Locke held that the rights secured by this contract were life, liberty, and property—a formulation Thomas Jefferson would echo, and depart from, in the Declaration of Independence’s “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” Locke’s analysis suggests that consent is the ultimate source of political authority, which implies that the consent of the governed is necessary for political legitimacy. This idea was to have a profound influence on the Founding Fathers.

Key Terms

State of Nature: John Locke’s term, in the Second Treatise of Civil Government, for the pre-societal condition in which people hold natural rights but have no common authority to secure them.

Social contract: the idea that legitimate government arises from the consent of the governed, who give up some freedom in exchange for the protection of their rights—the premise underlying the Declaration’s claim that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Minutemen: members of the colonial militia, especially in Massachusetts, who undertook to be ready to fight at a minute’s notice.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Three, Section Five, “The Path to Independence” (pp. 83–93).

Have students answer several of the following questions:

What was the central argument of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense? Why was it so effective, and how widely was it read?

According to the Declaration, where do governments get their power, and what should happen when a government fails to protect the people’s rights?

What philosopher’s ideas most shaped the argument of the Declaration?

What questions did the phrase “all men are created equal” leave unanswered at the time—about slavery, about women, about equality more broadly?

In the 1843 interview, how did Captain Levi Preston answer when he was asked why he fought at Concord? What does his answer suggest about ordinary colonists’ motivations for fighting?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Provide students with an excerpt of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and consider the following questions:

How, in Paine’s views, has the debate regarding the desirability of American independence changed?

How does Paine refute the counterargument that “England is our mother country”?

Does England protect the colonies in wartime?

What place, if any, does Locke’s theory of government play in the writings?

How does Paine address Britain’s treatment of Indians and slaves?

Geography: Display the Early Battles of the Revolutionary War map (Map 3.3). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Estimate the distance from Fort Ticonderoga to Concord, MA.

What relationship did the battle of Ticonderoga have to the defense of Boston later in the Revolutionary War?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine The Fight on Lexington Common (Figure 3.11). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the painting? What stands out to them? What are the people doing?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Further: What attitudes do you see reflected in the portrayals of the patriot soldiers? How does the painter want you to understand the battle of Lexington Common?

Analytical Skills: Instruct students to read aloud and explain the excerpt from the Declaration of Independence (Primary Source 3.2). Use the following questions for either class discussion or a written short answer.

What is this document?

Who is the primary author? When and where was it written? Who participated in revising it?

How might Thomas Paine’s Common Sense have influenced the Declaration of Independence (or what common elements do they have)?

Further: Have students recall Lessons 2.6 and 3.1, then ask what underlying ideas they can trace from Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact into the Declaration of Independence.

Further: Return to the four traditions introduced in Lesson 3.1: the Judeo-Christian tradition, republicanism, the English constitutional tradition and common law, and the European Enlightenment. Which ideas from these traditions can students connect to the Declaration’s language below? Require them to explain each connection; a passage may reflect more than one tradition.

“Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” / “all men are created equal”

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

“[F]or depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”

Analytical Skills: Instruct students to read aloud and explain Thomas Jefferson’s Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence (Figure 3.12). Use the following questions for either class discussion or a written short answer.

Further: How significant are the edits shown in this image? Do they change our understanding of what was the goal of the American Revolution?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 (Figure 3.14). Ask students the following questions:

What do they see in the painting? What stands out to them? What are the people doing?

Is this image historically accurate? What are the sources of historical inaccuracy? Are there ways in which it might be more accurate than some paintings of historical events?

Further: The five men standing together at the desk are the Committee of Five appointed to draft the Declaration: John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Drawing on what the chapter says about the Enlightenment and John Locke’s Second Treatise (Lessons 3.1, 3.3, and 3.5), explain how the document they are presenting relates to fundamental ideas brought forth in the Enlightenment. Frame the comparison around these core principles: national sovereignty, natural law, self-evident truth, equality of all persons, due process of law, limited government, popular sovereignty, and the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and property.

Further: Seated at the desk is John Hancock, President of the Second Continental Congress, receiving the draft on behalf of the assembled delegates. What was the President’s role at the Continental Congress and what does it suggest about popular sovereignty and the consent of the governed?

Consider the ideas of national sovereignty, natural law, self-evident truth, equality of all persons, due process of law, limited government, popular sovereignty, and the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and property in relation to American government today. How have these ideas served as the philosophical foundation of our government?

Further: Encourage the students to consider why the line “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and property” ultimately became “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Keep those questions in mind as students move forward to the grievance-sorting exercise below, which has students sort the Declaration’s grievances into due process of law, popular sovereignty and consent, natural rights, and individual rights, and the social contract.

Civic Discourse: Was the Revolutionary War justified? An excellent homework assignment would be to have students write responses of four to six complete sentences to this question, drawing upon the material covered in the chapter. It might help them in particular to consider the following questions:

Were Parliament and the Patriots’ differences irreconcilable?

To what extent did the Revolution create a new set of governing principles, and to what extent did it affirm principles that already existed in England?

Was there an inherent conflict between the English ideals of liberty and self-governance and their growing empire?

Do the grievances that Jefferson lists in the Declaration sufficiently justify American Independence?

At what point, if ever, did war become inevitable?

Context: After the passage of the Coercive Acts, Massachusetts organized to resist them, raising an independent militia (the minutemen) and collecting weaponry.

On the other hand, more than a year separated the outbreak of armed conflict and the Declaration. What were colonists fighting for during that time? It was not independence but rather their rights as English subjects. Might Great Britain have avoided war by compromising with their demands?

Analytical Skills: The Declaration is usually read for its opening paragraphs, but most of it is a list of twenty-seven grievances. Have students work through a sample of them (book pp. 89–91) and sort each by the principle it says the King violated.

Due process of law—e.g., depriving colonists of trial by jury; transporting them beyond the seas for trial; making judges dependent on the King’s will for tenure and salary.

Popular sovereignty and consent—e.g., dissolving representative houses; imposing taxes without consent; refusing assent to laws necessary for the public good.

Natural rights and individual rights—e.g., quartering troops among the population; keeping standing armies in peacetime without consent of the legislatures.

The social contract—the grievances taken together are the evidence for the argument in the opening: that a government destructive of these ends may be altered or abolished. Have students explain how the list functions as proof rather than complaint.

The second paragraph makes four claims before it makes any accusation: that certain truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with unalienable rights, and that governments exist by consent to secure them. Have students state each in their own words and say which of the grievances that follow depends on which.

Then have students define, in their own words, the ideas the Declaration rests on: national sovereignty, natural law, self-evident truth, equality of all persons, limited government, popular sovereignty, and the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Insight: The structure is the argument. Jefferson states a principle, then demonstrates by accumulation that the principle has been breached, then draws the conclusion. Students who see that will read the grievances as a legal brief rather than a list of complaints—and will be equipped for the essay prompt on the role of rhetoric.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Which of the various British acts was the most inflammatory?

Insight: Answers will vary, but it will be a good practice for students to compare the various measures and explain why they were inflammatory.

Why did many of the colonies want to stay loyal to Britain, despite what was happening?

Insight: There are many possible reasons that could be listed here. Britain was the mother country and many people still had fond feelings and loyalty toward her. The Declaratory Act is a good summation of the British side of the legal argument of the dispute with the Americans: The colonies were under the sovereign power of Britain, and they needed to follow the law. Some people were worried about the terrible consequences of war with Britain, the fear of anarchy or mob rule, or the challenge of what kind of new government would replace Britain if the revolution was successful.

What was the most compelling argument in Common Sense?

Insight: Accept different choices when students support them with evidence from Common Sense. Students might emphasize Paine’s attack on monarchy or his argument that Americans could establish a government of their own. Ask them to explain why the passage they select would have persuaded a reader in 1776.

Within the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson writes that “all men are created equal.” What does this mean?

Insight: Jefferson’s claim is that all people possess the same natural rights. These rights are endowed by the Creator — and not by government or any other human authority — and that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, which the book calls a crisp statement of the basic principle of self-rule. It is true that, at the time, women did not enjoy the same rights as men, and slavery was practiced in many of the colonies. But the heart of the Declaration is the principle of self-rule. The Declaration of Independence proposed a powerful idea that would be cited by the abolition movement and the women’s suffrage movement, topics that will emerge in more detail later in the story.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

On what date did the Second Continental Congress adopt the Declaration of Independence?

Who wrote Common Sense, and in what month and year was it published?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) July 4, 1776; (2) Thomas Paine, January 1776—published January 10.

Explain

Why did Common Sense have such an effect when the arguments in it were not entirely new?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. Paine wrote for ordinary readers rather than lawyers, attacked monarchy itself rather than a particular king or ministry, and gave a clear name to what many already half-believed—turning a dispute about English rights into a case for independence.

Daily Recap

Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence turned the dispute over colonial rights into an explicit argument for independence. Paine challenged monarchy and made the case for separation accessible to ordinary readers. The Declaration grounded legitimate government in natural rights and the consent of the governed, then presented grievances to justify separation. The account of Captain Levi Preston’s motives connects these arguments to colonists’ determination to govern themselves.

Looking Ahead

The colonies had declared themselves free; they had not yet won that freedom or built a government to hold it. The story now turns to the war itself and to the difficult work of making a new nation.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Independence, grievance, self-evident, unalienable. Gloss “unalienable” plainly—cannot be taken away or given up—before reading the Declaration.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Paine argued that ___.” “The Declaration says government gets its power from ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one grievance against the King, then write the sentence they said.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may build a three-part organizer—principles / grievances / conclusion—instead of writing prose.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Place the following into chronological order from earliest to latest.

A. The battles of Lexington and Concord

B. The American colonies declare independence

C. The Boston Tea Party

D. The French and Indian War

E. The Stamp Act is passed

Answer: D · E · C · A · B

Key Persons and Concepts

Fill in the blank. Answers are in bold.

1. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

2. A Virginia militia officer named George Washington, who as a young man fought with the British against the French in the Ohio River Valley, would later become the American general in the war for independence.

3. Another Virginian named Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

4. A Boston lawyer named John Adams was a patriotic leader during the American Revolution and later reflected that the Revolution occurred in the minds and hearts of the people before the war commenced.

5. The Continental Congress was the intercolonial decision-making body that first met in Philadelphia in 1774, petitioned the King in 1775, and voted for independence in 1776.

Geography

Consult this map for the answers to the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix.

[ART REQUIRED — CH03 Geography, ANSWER KEY: labeled map based on Map 3.2, Eastern North America after the French and Indian War, circa 1764, showing the Appalachian Mountains and the Proclamation Line of 1763.]

The Proclamation Line followed the Appalachian Mountains. Britain drew the boundary to reduce conflict between colonists and Native peoples west of the mountains. Many colonists disliked the restriction and often ignored it.

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. Why didn’t Britain take a more active role in governing the American colonies from the beginning? Why did they allow the American colonies to develop the habits of self-government?

Model response: The British were occupied by their own political conflicts at home. For much of the 17th century, they experienced a back-and-forth power struggle between the monarchy and the Parliament. Britain attempted to pass some laws, such as the Navigation Acts, to regulate trade in the American colonies, but the distance across the ocean made the laws difficult to enforce.

2. What caused the French and Indian War? In your answer, identify the two countries that fought and the geographic focal point of the conflict.

Model response: The war between Britain and France broke out in the Ohio River Valley in North America. It was a fight over territory: Settlers from the English colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia started moving into areas where the French had trading outposts. The French reacted angrily, and diplomatic efforts failed.

3. How did the French and Indian War change the relationship between Britain and the American colonies? What policies did Britain put in place after the war, and why?

Model response: Britain started to govern the American colonies more strictly after the war. Britain spent vast amounts of money to defeat the French in America, and they expected the colonies to help pay off the war debt. There are many examples of specific policies taken by the British, such as: The Proclamation of 1763 that aimed to prevent conflict with Native Americans by preventing settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains; the Stamp Act of 1765 that taxed printed materials; and the Sugar Act that imposed tariffs on sugar, tea, and other products to try to collect revenue.

4. Why does the author say that America was a “fertile ground” for Enlightenment ideas to grow? Why is Benjamin Franklin considered an example of this intellectual movement?

Model response: America was a fertile ground for the Enlightenment because it was a “new world” across the ocean from the European continent. The geographical distance contributed to the sense that new ideas and experiments could flourish. Franklin exemplified the Enlightenment because he was constantly in search of new ways of self-improvement. He was a writer and a scientist who invented many things, such as the lightning rod, and came up with many creative ideas, such as the subscription library.

5. Why does the author say that the Great Awakening was an expression of the “spirit of liberty” that was part of the culture of the American colonies?

Model response: The Great Awakening was a religious revival in the colonies led by compelling preachers like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. The movement was exciting because it was a new and fresh way to practice religion. It challenged the old religious authority and made religious life depend on the judgment of each person’s free and uncoerced conscience.

6. Why did the colonists react so strongly to the Stamp Act? What was different about this law than the previous actions taken by the British?

Model response: The Stamp Act was a direct tax on the colonies, and colonists interpreted this as a sign that Britain was trying to destroy their right to self-government. The previous measures, such as the tariffs of the Sugar Act, were objectionable but not seen as a drastic threat to the fundamental rights of the colonists.

7. Before the war broke out, what economic strategies did the American colonists use to resist British rule?

Model response: The colonists used a boycott of British goods. A boycott is when people stop buying products with the purpose of making a political statement or causing economic harm for political reasons. The boycott was a lawful effort to resist British rule and persuade Parliament to back off.

8. Some residents of the American colonies did not agree with the Patriot cause. Why not?

Model response: There are many possible reasons that could be listed here. Britain was the mother country and many people still had fond feelings and loyalty toward her. The Declaratory Act is a good summation of the British side of the legal argument of the dispute with the Americans: The colonies were under the sovereign power of Britain, and they needed to follow the law. Some people were worried about the terrible consequences of war with Britain, the fear of anarchy or mob rule, or the challenge of what kind of new government would replace Britain if a revolution was successful.

9. Explain what you think was one of the strongest arguments in support of the decision of the American colonies to declare independence from Britain.

Model response: There are many possible answers here, from those arguments presented in Common Sense, or from the Declaration of Independence itself. Students should demonstrate that they know and can explain a good argument in support. Example of a philosophical argument: Britain was violating the natural rights of the Americans and was no longer a just government. Example of a practical argument: America would be better off economically without being tied to Britain and her wars with other countries.

10. According to the Declaration of Independence, what is the purpose of a government? What is the difference between a just government and an unjust government?

Model response: The purpose of government is to protect the natural rights of its people. A government is just if it has the consent of the people. A government is unjust when it violates people’s rights and/or does not have the consent of the people.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

Evaluate the role of rhetoric in the American Revolution. (Rhetoric is the art of expressing thoughts and ideas in a persuasive manner that impacts other people.) Reference three of the following examples in your essay.

Model response: A strong essay explains how rhetoric helped shape colonial opinion and action, using three of the four examples in the prompt: Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” cartoon, George Whitefield’s preaching, Paul Revere’s depiction of the Boston Massacre, and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. For each example, identify its audience, persuasive means, and intended response. Credit specific evidence and clear connections between the examples and the essay’s argument. Students may qualify the influence of rhetoric by weighing it against events, but they must still analyze three examples. A response that merely names the examples or summarizes events without explaining how persuasion worked is incomplete.

CHAPTER FOUR

A War, a Nation, and a Wound:

A New Nation is Born

1775–1787 · pp. 95–131

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

Declaring independence was easier than achieving it. The colonies entered the Revolutionary War deeply divided: a substantial Loyalist minority opposed independence, while many others remained uncertain or disengaged. Great Britain possessed formidable military and naval power. The Americans nevertheless had important advantages: they fought on familiar territory, Britain had to project power across the Atlantic, and the revolutionary cause found an exceptional leader in George Washington, whom the Second Continental Congress named commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in June 1775.

The greatest immediate challenge Washington faced was recruiting, deploying, and maintaining an effective army to sustain the revolutionary cause. The winter of 1776–77 was exceptionally harsh for Washington’s men, and the prospects for a Patriot victory seemed bleak. But Washington was able to hold the army together, and their outlook improved after a surprising American victory at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, since the French became willing to support the revolutionary cause to weaken their British rivals. It would take another four harrowing years, however, before the Continental Army’s decisive victory over the British at Yorktown effectively ended the war. The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, and American independence became an internationally recognized legal reality.

The American people also had to establish a government capable of sustaining their new nation. Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation in 1777, although all thirteen states did not ratify them until 1781. The Articles preserved extensive state sovereignty and gave Congress important responsibilities for war and diplomacy, but their limits on taxation, commerce, and enforcement proved serious in peacetime. By 1786, pressure for reform was growing. The Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787; fifty-five delegates would attend over the course of the Convention. They faced two fundamental problems: how much power to invest in a stronger national government, and how to restrain that government from becoming too powerful.

A key issue was how the states would be represented in such a union. The delegates devised two proposals: the Virginia Plan (which allocated representation proportionate to population) and the New Jersey Plan (which followed the Articles’ pattern of equal representation for each state). The convention finally settled on a compromise between the two in the form of a bicameral (two-chamber) structure: states were accorded representation by population in the House of Representatives, while each retained equal footing in the Senate, where they had two representatives irrespective of size or population. Legislation would have to pass both houses and be presented to the president; Congress could override a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote in each house.

The new nation and the new Constitution were far from perfect, however. Slavery was deeply embedded in the economy and social order of several states, and the Constitution accommodated it in consequential ways, including representation, fugitive-slave obligations, and a restriction on Congress’s power to prohibit the international slave trade before 1808. At the same time, the Constitution did not use the words slave or slavery. Americans would live with the moral and constitutional conflict between slavery and the founding principles of liberty and self-government for decades.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter’s end:

The developments that transformed the Thirteen Colonies into the federal republic of the United States, from the outbreak of the Revolutionary War to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

• The Continental Army faced numerous disadvantages in the early years of the war, due to British military superiority and naval supremacy.

• But the leadership of George Washington, together with important help from abroad, helped to overcome these initial disadvantages, eventually forcing Britain’s withdrawal and settlement at the Treaty of Paris.

• The early United States were governed under the Articles of Confederation, which proved too decentralized to maintain order in the newly formed republic.

• Growing domestic instability and threats from abroad prompted the convening of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, which formulated a stronger central government whose powers were nonetheless restrained by numerous checks and balances.

• While the U.S. Constitution is a landmark document in political history, as the newly formed states proved that they could form a stable government on solidly republican principles, the practice of slavery in the early American Republic poses significant moral challenges to the philosophical consistency of the American founding.

Key Persons

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)

Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834)

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730–1794)

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786)

Charles Cornwallis (1738–1805)

John Jay (1745–1829)

Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757–1804)

James Madison (1751–1836)

George Mason (1725–1792)

George Washington (1732–1799)

Key Concepts and Terms

Chattel slavery

Articles of Confederation (1777)

Continental Congress

Northwest Ordinance (1787)

Shays’s Rebellion (1786–1787)

Impeachment

U.S. Constitution

Indentured servitude

Three-fifths Compromise

Timeline

1775 The Second Continental Congress establishes the Continental Army and appoints Washington its commander-in-chief (June 14–15)

1776 Washington boldly crosses the Delaware River, surprising a Hessian force at Trenton (December 25)

1777 Washington forces a British retreat from Princeton (January 3)

1777 American General Horatio Gates defeats British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga (October 17)

1777–78 The Continental Army is tested by a harsh winter at Valley Forge (December 19–June 19)

1778 France enters the war as an American ally (February 6)

1778 The Continental Army and the British Army face off at Monmouth Court House (June 28)

1778 The British capture Savannah (December 29)

1779 George Rogers Clark captures Fort Sackville in the Northwest Territory (February 25)

1780 British siege at Charleston (March 29)

1781 The Articles of Confederation are ratified by all thirteen states (March 1)

1781 The Battle of the Chesapeake (September 5)

1781 Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown (October 19)

1783 The signing of the Treaty of Paris officially ends the war (September 3)

1786 Shays’s Rebellion begins in Western Massachusetts (August)

1787 Northwest Ordinance adopted (July 13)

1787 The new Constitution of the United States is signed in Philadelphia (September 17)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students’ progress warrants.

Chapter Four · A War, a Nation, and a Wound (6 to 12 class periods)

4.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 97–100 (.5 to 1 class)

• The daunting odds that the Patriots faced against the British Empire

• An introduction to George Washington

• The necessity to the revolutionary cause of Washington’s leadership

4.2 Times that Try Men’s Souls – pp. 100–104 (.5 to 1 class)

• The challenges and setbacks of the early years of the war

• The successes of the Patriots at Trenton and Saratoga

4.3 The Road to Victory – pp. 104–108 (1 to 2 classes)

• The difficult winter of 1777–78: Valley Forge

• The crucial arrival of the Marquis de Lafayette and French support

• Campaigns in New Jersey, Ohio, and Virginia

• Victory at Yorktown and “The World Turned Upside Down”

4.4 What Kind of Revolution? – pp. 108–111 (.5 to 1 class)

• A discussion of the nature of the American Revolution: its originating forces and its true significance

• The idealism of the principles of the Declaration and their conflict with the institution of slavery

• The uncertainty as to what form of government would emerge in the wake of victory

4.5 The First American Constitutions – pp. 112–116 (1 to 2 classes)

• Resistance among the colonists to centralized government

• The Articles of Confederation

• The Northwest Ordinance

• Shays’s Rebellion and more chaos under the Articles

• Why a stronger central authority was necessary for the young nation to endure

4.6 The Constitutional Convention of 1787 – pp. 116–118 (.5 to 1 class)

• The remarkably high intellectual caliber of the delegates present at the Convention

• An introduction to James Madison

• Balancing the tension between states’ unique interests and the need for a unified overarching authority

4.7 The Great Compromise – pp. 118–121 (1 to 2 classes)

• The tension between the anti-monarchical principles of the Revolution and the Presidency

• The Great Compromise on the question of congressional representation

• The bicameral structure of Congress

• The principle of checks and balances

4.8 The Constitution and our National Identity – pp. 121–125 (.5 to 1 class)

• The uniqueness of the Constitution’s role in American life and its longevity

• The Constitution as the cohesive agent in our national identity

4.9 The Stain of Slavery – pp. 125–131 (.5 to 1 class)

• The historical context of slavery as a common human practice across time and space

• The differences between indentured servitude and slavery

• The contradiction between the principles of the Revolution and the practice of slavery

• The Three-fifths Compromise

• The belief among the Founders that slavery would fade away over time

• The tension between the founding’s principles and its accommodation of slavery

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter’s epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 10, 1776 (p. 97)

Paine’s claim that Americans had it in their power “to begin the world over again” captures the revolutionary scale of his argument: not merely that a government should be reformed or a grievance redressed, but that a people might establish a new political order. The line anticipates the chapter’s movement from war through the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, each an attempt to give institutional form to independence.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 4.1. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Walter Jones, January 2, 1814 (p. 99)

Dr. Walter Jones had served in the Revolutionary Army, U.S. Congress, and Virginia State House, after attending William and Mary College and studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He knew Thomas Jefferson from their participation in the Virginia constitutional convention. This selection from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Jones was in response to a draft of an article on the “putrid state into which our newspapers have passed” and to concerns Jones had about the way he had dealt with the figure of Washington in the piece. Jefferson’s description of Washington, who he claims to have known “intimately and thoroughly,” begins with, “His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, tho’ not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. it was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion.” The description of Washington’s character continues apace. In Jefferson’s telling, Washington wasn’t a genius or a virtuoso or someone with extraordinary talents, but was rather a well-rounded, virtuous, disciplined man whose talents and virtues combined to enable his strong leadership.

The letter is unusually useful for two reasons. First, Jefferson and Washington were not natural political allies by temperament, and Jefferson had spent years in conflict with the administration Washington led; his favorable judgment therefore deserves attention. Second, Jefferson wrote in 1814, more than a decade after Washington’s death and nearly forty years after the events described. The letter is retrospective memory and judgment rather than contemporaneous observation, making it a different kind of evidence from wartime correspondence.

Primary Source 4.2. James Madison, Notes of the Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787, August 22, 1787 (p. 128)

The discussion excerpted here from James Madison’s notes on the debates over the federal Constitution began the previous day, August 21, with Maryland’s Luther Martin’s proposal:

[T]o vary the Sect: 4. art VII. to allow a prohibition or tax on the importation of slaves. 1. as five slaves are to be counted as 3 free men in the apportionment of Representatives; such a clause wd. leave an encouragement to this trafic. 2. slaves weakened one part of the Union which the other parts were bound to protect: the privilege of importing them was therefore unreasonable. 3. it was inconsistent with the principles of the revolution and dishonorable to the American character to have such a feature in the Constitution.

The day’s disputation had ended with Pinckney stating that “South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade,” a position he held consistently. The segment of discussion included in the book is from the beginning of Madison’s notes on the conversations held on August 22. The three speakers present three distinct positions. Col. George Mason of Virginia—who was himself a slaveholder—argued that the institution of slavery worsened manners and morals, that it discouraged art and manufacturing, and that it was a “national sin” that would be punished in this life (“As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world”) by “national calamities.” Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut argued that “slavery in time will not be a speck in our Country,” if current trends kept up, such as the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts and pending abolition in his own state, but he also raised the point that perhaps the institution of slavery as such should be outlawed rather than just the slave trade. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina argued that the slave trade would probably vanish organically (because the number of native-born slaves would compensate for the need to import new ones), or be ended legislatively, but that if the national government were to “attempt to take away the right,” the southern states would object to the adoption of the national Constitution. Roger Sherman, after the excerpt in the book, stated that “He was opposed to a tax on slaves imported as making the matter worse, because it implied they were property.”

Figures

Figure 4.3. Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 1851 (p. 101)

Emanuel Leutze came to the United States from Germany as a child, arriving in 1825 and settling in Philadelphia. He worked as a portraitist in Washington before returning to Germany to study and establish a studio in 1840. He began this painting in 1849, following the revolutions of 1848 in Europe. A fire in his studio ruined his first version, but he soon began work on this version, shown here. George Washington is the tallest figure in the painting. Early dawn light illuminates the ice in the river against which the boats’ rowers are struggling, as well as the faces of Washington and the soldier behind him, who is standing and holding a large American flag—Betsy Ross’s version, which didn’t come into being until the following summer. While the setting is challenging, Washington and his companions appear calm and focused on their efforts.

Figure 4.7. Soldiers in Uniform, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine de Verger, circa 1781 (p. 110)

Jean-Baptiste-Antoine de Verger was a lieutenant in the Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment in the French army, which fought under General Rochambeau at Yorktown. This image comes from a diary he kept during 1780 and 1781, which also included drawings of ships, mounted troops, Native Americans, and maps. The care with which de Verger portrayed his subjects makes it possible to identify their units from their uniforms. The first figure on the left is a member of the First Rhode Island Regiment, which was largely African-American. The second is likely a member of the Second Canadian Regiment; the third a backwoodsman; and the last a member of the Continental Artillery. They are likely all infantrymen or gunners. This watercolor painting is one of the first known depictions of an African-American soldier.

Figure 4.12. Slave Trade, George Morland, circa 1788 (p. 126)

George Morland was the son and apprentice of a painter. He first exhibited his own work at the age of 10, and became well known as a prolific landscape and genre painter (someone who paints scenes from ordinary life). An alcoholic, he died in 1804 at the age of 41, shortly after his second arrest for debt. This painting and European Ship Wrecked on the Coast of Africa, known as African Hospitality were outliers in his body of work for dealing with this weighty subject. Slave Trade centers on an African family composed of a child clinging to its mother, a wife being held away from her husband and looking at him with surprise mixed with fright, and a husband looking intently at his wife as he is being separated from her and their child. Elsewhere, chained men crouch in two boats sitting in the surf, under the supervision of white slave traders; two bound men are led uphill by another black man; and a white slave trader talks to a black man and his daughter who are dressed in European clothing. European Ship Wrecked on the Coast of Africa reverses the scene, with African families caring for a European family who appear in distress, following a shipwreck, emphasizing the Africans’ humanity. Morland painted both works around 1788, the year after the British Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded; Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807.

Figure 4.13. Slave Auction Advertisement, 1760 (p. 130)

This is a newspaper advertisement promoting the sale of slaves at a settlement north of the city of Charleston on the Ashley River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Decorated with the figures of two partially-dressed black figures, it reads:

To be sold on board the Ship Bance-Island, on Tuesday the 6th of May next, at Ashley-Ferry; a choice cargo of about 250 fine healthy NEGROES, just arrived from the Windward & Rice Coast. —The utmost care has already been taken, and shall be continued, to keep them free from the least danger of being infected with the SMALL-POX, no boat having been on board, and all other communication with people from Charles-Town prevented. Austin, Laurens, & Appleby. N.B. Full one Half of the above Negroes have had the SMALL-POX in their own Country.

The mentions of smallpox are due to a smallpox epidemic in Charleston in 1760; the ad assures readers that the slaving ship won’t worsen or renew the epidemic, and that many of the slaves have acquired natural immunity to it. The Bance-Island ship was named after Bunce Island in Sierra Leone; the “Windward & Rice Coast” refers to the stretch of West African coastline that encompasses Sierra Leone. Austin, Laurens, & Appleby was an import-export firm founded by George Austin, Henry Laurens (and later joined by George Appleby), which sold slaves in addition to all manner of goods.

Figure 4.14. Slave Deck of the Albaroz, Prize to the Albatross, Francis Meynell, circa 1846 (p. 131)

Lieutenant Francis Meynell served as mate on the HM Albatross, which conducted anti-slavery patrols along the coast of Africa. The British Royal Navy began conducting these patrols after the passage of the 1807 Slave Trade Act, in order to suppress the transatlantic slave trade, and continued this mission through roughly 1860. The U.S. Navy also participated in this patrol, as the importation of slaves was banned in 1808. This painting, which comes from a sketchbook Meynell kept during his journeys, shows freed slaves on a captured Spanish slave-trading ship, the Albaroz, captured by the Albatross in 1845 near the Kwanza River in Angola. More than 700 slaves were on the ship when it was escorted to Freetown, Sierra Leone; nearly 150 died on the way, and just over 550 were emancipated there. The painting in the textbook shows slaves in the hold of the slave ship, presumably on their way to Sierra Leone, some among casks of water and filled bags. Because they have been freed, they are shown without chains and freely moving about, talking with each other and arranged in comfortable positions.

Maps

Map 4.1. Principal Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775–81 (p. 105)

This map shows the locations of the key battles of the Revolutionary War, from the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts in 1775; to the 1776 Battle of Trenton, New Jersey; to the 1777 Siege of Fort Ticonderoga and Battle of Saratoga in New York, to the Valley Forge quarters in Pennsylvania for the winter of 1777–78, to the 1778 Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey; to the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. Following the early battles near Boston, the British fought in defense of key ports, which could control the movement of supplies and people, before moving south.

Map 4.2. States and Territories of the United States in 1790 (p. 114)

This map shows North America’s political divisions in 1790, by sovereignty. The yellow-green areas are U.S. states; the olive areas are U.S. territories that hadn’t yet become states; the pink areas are British possessions; and the orange areas are Spanish possessions. The vast majority of the non-U.S. land in North America was under Spanish control, stretching from East and West Florida, to the Colony of Louisiana, to the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter’s subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• Bowen, Catherine Drinker. Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787. New York: Bantam Books, 1968.

• A vividly-written account, once widely used in high school courses, which is very accessible for students

• Brookhiser, Richard. Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington. New York: Free Press, 1996.

• An excellent short biography and a good introduction to a complex man

• Greene, Jack P. Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States 1607–1788. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

• Israel, Jonathan I. The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775–1848. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2017.

• Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Random House, 1998.

• McCullough, David. 1776. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005.

• McCullough was a master story-teller and here tackles one of the most important and complicated stories in our history.

• McDonald, Forrest. E Pluribus Unum: the Formation of the American republic, 1776–1790. Liberty Fund, 1979.

• McDonald’s wry humor makes this a fun read. He examines each of the thirteen states in detail to see why they might or might not want to become unum.

• McDonald, Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985.

• This one is a deeper dive into the ideas behind the Constitution; students may find it a challenging read.

• Paulsen, Michael Stokes, and Luke Paulsen. The Constitution: An Introduction. New York: Basic Books, 2015.

• Shain, Barry Alan. The Declaration of Independence in Historical Context: American State Papers, Petitions, Proclamations, and Letters of the Delegates to the First National Congresses. Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2014.

• Shain, Barry Alan. The Nature of Rights at the American Founding and Beyond. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013.

• West, Thomas G. The Political Theory of the American Founding: Natural Rights, Public Policy, and the Moral Conditions of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

• Wilentz, Sean. No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018.

• Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic: 1776–1787. Rev ed. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. First published 1969.

• This ponderous tome is essential reading for the experts but not for the casual student.

• Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1992.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 97–100)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 97–100, including the chapter opening and the Paine epigraph.

Exercise: The Epigraph analysis of Common Sense, with the authorship questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the colonies’ disadvantages and on Washington’s character.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Times that Try Men’s Souls (pp. 100–104).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The advantages and disadvantages that the Patriots experienced during the first months of the war, and the importance of George Washington’s leadership.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Analyze the advantages and disadvantages facing the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

• Create an argument as to why the French should support the Patriot American cause.

• Identify the traits that allowed George Washington to become an admired leader in the American colonies.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1775 The Second Continental Congress establishes the Continental Army and appoints Washington its commander-in-chief (June 14–15)

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

The thirteen colonies entered the Revolutionary War without full agreement on independence or the resources of a unified nation. French support could help offset their military disadvantages, while George Washington faced the task of holding the American forces together. His reputation for character and his commitment to the republican ideal of placing the public good above private interest were important to his leadership.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Manifesto: A public written declaration of aims, principles, or intentions.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Encourage students to read the introductory section of Chapter Four.

Assign several of the following questions:

Which nation was considered the most powerful empire in the world at this time?

What proportion of the colonies’ inhabitants opposed independence? How many supported separating from Britain?

What was the relationship between France and Great Britain at the time of the Revolutionary War’s outbreak?

How did George Washington present himself at the Second Continental Congress?

What was notable about Washington’s conditions regarding his payment for military service?

Which Roman did Washington seek to emulate and why?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Argumentation: Ask students to put themselves in the position of the colonists and to make an argument as to whether the upcoming war against the British is worth fighting.

Start by having students create a chart in their notes, listing the advantages and disadvantages facing the Americans. This will help them look at the possibilities for victory.

In making an argument, students should cite specific advantages or disadvantages from the text, as well as trying to come up with their own reasons.

This exercise can be turned into a debate by assigning half the students to one side of the argument, the other half to the opposite argument. Invite students from each side to share their arguments with the class.

Speaking Skills: Ask students to imagine they are a member of the Second Continental Congress. Have a few students share with the class (representing the rest of Congress) why they think George Washington should be considered for the position of commander-in-chief.

Writing Skills: Ask students to write a letter to elicit French support for the Patriots’ cause. Compile a list of reasons that would bolster their request.

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, and intended purpose of the Epigraph’s section from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Have students discuss the following questions:

What does Paine mean by saying that it’s possible “to begin the world over again”?

What do we know about the author’s motivations and worldview from Chapter 3?

Further: What does Paine think is a necessary condition for the preservation of American independence?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

What were the main problems the newly independent United States faced in winning the war?

Insight: The task ahead was enormous. First of all, there was a lack of unity in the country about the relationship with Britain. The author estimates that a third of the country remained loyal to Britain, a third were indifferent, and a third supported independence. Additionally, the American troops were poorly equipped and poorly trained compared to Britain’s large and professional fighting forces.

Further: John Shy, writing after the American defeat in Vietnam, characterized revolutionary conflicts as triangular, with two governments and their armies struggling to gain favor with the same civilian population. Whichever government succeeds can more easily recruit, solicit supplies, and, most importantly, attain political legitimacy. Consider the implications of this analysis for the Revolutionary War. The loyalists were probably a minority, but a large one, and tens of thousands of them fought for the British.

What advantages did the Americans have?

Insight: The Americans fought largely on familiar territory and did not need to conquer Britain; they needed to keep an effective resistance in the field until Britain judged the war too costly to continue. Britain, by contrast, had to project and sustain military power across the Atlantic. The possibility of aid from Britain’s European rivals and Washington’s leadership further improved the American position.

Why was choosing a military leader an especially important task for a revolution that was about self-government? Why was Washington chosen for this role?

Insight: Military leaders can be dangerous. If the troops are loyal to their commander, the commander can seize power by force. The American political leaders during this time had studied antiquity and were aware of this danger in the case of Julius Caesar. George Washington was known for his restraint and respect for the republican cause. In primary source 4.1, Jefferson describes Washington as a man of prudence and integrity: Washington carefully considered all possibilities before making a decision; he was humble; and he was loyal to the ideals of republican government.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

Name two disadvantages the Patriots faced at the start of the war.

Why was persuading France to support the American cause so important?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) any two of: the colonies were not yet a single country and were divided over the revolutionary cause; no standing army or navy; no treasury or reliable currency; Britain was the strongest military power of the age; (2) French assistance promised to compensate for the inherent weaknesses of the American position—money, a navy, and trained troops.

Explain

Washington was not the most experienced general available. Why did his character matter as much as his generalship?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. He was admired as a man of exceptionally noble character and modeled himself on the citizen who serves and then returns to private life. In a rebellion against monarchy, a commander who could be trusted NOT to seize power was worth more than a better tactician who could not.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson’s threads together.

In 1776, it appeared that the Patriots had a death wish. With no organized army or political leadership, they had grievously antagonized the most powerful empire in the world. But the colonists’ very real liberty-or-death attitude enabled them to stand against the leviathan. Their advantages were real but unconventional: they fought defensively on their own ground, and Britain’s European rivals had reason to assist them. They also had, as the book puts it, the indispensable man to lead the war effort.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The war’s first months tested whether the Patriots could survive at all. The next lesson follows the years that nearly ended it—the retreat across New Jersey, the crossing of the Delaware, and the victory at Saratoga that brought France in.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Patriot, Loyalist, militia, manifesto. Gloss “manifesto” plainly—a public statement of aims—before applying it to Common Sense.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Patriots’ main disadvantage was ___.” “Washington was respected because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students name one Patriot weakness and one strength, then write both sentences.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may build a two-column chart—‘Advantages’ / ‘Disadvantages’—instead of prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.2 Times that Try Men’s Souls (pp. 100–104)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 100–104.

Exercise: Examine Washington Crossing the Delaware (Figure 4.3) with the authorship and accuracy questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Trenton’s significance and on why Saratoga brought France in.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Road to Victory (pp. 104–108).

Essential Understanding

The major events of the Revolutionary War in the years 1776 and 1777, including the retreat across New Jersey, the Battle of Trenton, the winter at Morristown, and the Saratoga campaign.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain how the words of Thomas Paine motivated the Patriot cause in dark times.

• Draw conclusions as to why 1776 and 1777 were crucial in determining the outcome of the Revolutionary War.

Key Dates

1776 Washington boldly crosses the Delaware River, surprising a Hessian force at Trenton (December 25)

1777 Washington forces a British retreat from Princeton (January 3)

1777 American General Horatio Gates defeats British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga (October 17)

Key Concepts

George Washington’s central challenge was to recruit, sustain, and lead an effective Continental Army. His crossing of the Delaware and victory at Trenton in December 1776 helped restore American morale at a dangerous moment. The American victory at Saratoga in the fall of 1777 had a different consequence: it helped persuade France to enter the war as an ally. Together, these events show why keeping the army in the field mattered both militarily and diplomatically.

Key Terms

Hessians: German auxiliary troops, principally from Hesse-Kassel and other German states, whose rulers contracted their military service to Great Britain during the Revolutionary War.

Smallpox: A highly contagious viral disease that caused fever and a characteristic pustular rash and could be fatal. Concerned by its impact on the army, Washington ordered a systematic inoculation program for Continental troops in 1777.

Impregnable: unconquerable, incapable of being taken by assault

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Two, “Times that Try Men’s Souls” (pp. 100–104).

Invite students to consider several of the following questions:

What was Washington’s most immediate challenge?

How did the Winter of 1776 affect Washington’s total number of troops?

Who was Thomas Paine? How did he help in the war effort?

Where did the Hessian soldiers come from, for whom did they fight, and what motivated their involvement in the Revolutionary War?

Why was the Battle of Trenton so unexpected?

What was smallpox? How did it affect the Continental Army?

Who was British General John “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne and how did he impact the war effort?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Writing Skills: Encourage students to mimic Paine’s work and compose a pamphlet urging readers to join the Continental Army. It will help to have students read the excerpt of Thomas Paine’s American Crisis.

Ask students to identify the techniques of persuasion in Paine’s writing.

Analyzing Figures: Display Emanuel Leutze’s famous “Washington Crossing the Delaware” painting.

Provide the opportunity for students to consider the following questions: What elements of the scene seem to be emphasized?

How is George Washington portrayed here? How does the artist depict his characteristics?

How was Washington’s height used by the painter?

Which flag is depicted in the painting?

What was the country of origin of the painter?

Why do you think this painting has become so famous?

Civic Discourse: The winter of 1776 was the war’s low point: enlistments expiring, the army shrinking, Congress fled from Philadelphia. Ask students what ordinary people owed the cause when it was losing. Have them distinguish between what the Continental Congress could compel—requisitions on the states, which it could not enforce—and what depended entirely on people choosing to act: re-enlisting, supplying the army, holding local committees together.

Further: An institution survives a crisis only if enough people decide it is worth sustaining. Ask students: what made enough Americans decide that in 1776, and what would have happened had they not?

Further: Citizens can also communicate with public officials directly, outside of voting: writing or calling an official’s office, attending a public meeting, requesting a meeting, or submitting written information on a proposed law. Have students pick one method and identify a responsibility it could serve at the local level, one at the state level, and one at the national level—for example, attending a public meeting about a local zoning decision, writing to a state legislator about a state law, and contacting a member of Congress about federal policy.

Apply the question to modern times and their own state— what does a citizen owe their community now, when there’s no ongoing war or crisis? Use voting as a primary example. In Florida, a citizen must register before an election and may preregister starting at age 16. Ask students what reasons a young person might have for wanting to vote. Have students walk through the steps a Florida resident takes from registering to casting a ballot on election day.

Insight: Paine’s “times that try men’s souls” is an argument, not a description—he was trying to produce the persistence he described. Students should notice that the Revolution was preserved less by the government’s power than by voluntary civic engagement at a moment when the government had almost none. That pattern didn’t end in 1776: registering to vote, contacting an official, or agreeing on a response as a group are smaller versions of the same choice ordinary Americans faced that winter — whether to sustain an institution through action, or let it fail via inaction. Institutions are preserved or reformed by what citizens choose to do, and students should distinguish the circumstances of wartime mobilization from those of ordinary civic participation.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did Washington read Thomas Paine to his troops? What effect did it have on them and why?

Insight: Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis was written to strengthen morale at a moment when the Patriot cause appeared close to collapse. Its famous opening—“These are the times that try men’s souls”—framed perseverance itself as a test of civic character. Washington had the words read to his troops before the Trenton campaign.

What was the significance of Washington’s small victories in Trenton and Princeton?

Insight: These were important victories for the morale of the troops. They had been driven out of New Jersey and were about to experience a harsh winter. The Americans showed themselves to be capable of survival and it gave them momentum and a reason for hope.

How important was recruitment for the Continental Army?

Insight: Recruitment was a constant concern for Washington. He frequently wrote to the Continental Congress asking for support to ensure that enlisted officers could continue. Manpower was critically important on the battlefield, and it took time to train troops on how to fight. The harsh weather and lack of provisions made it hard to maintain units.

Further: Militiamen were generally ineffective in battle but nonetheless essential to the Patriots’ war effort. They were responsible for maintaining order everywhere except in the immediate vicinity of the British army, and militias were the institution through which military recruitment had historically been organized. A significant portion of the colonists were undecided between the Patriot and loyalist causes. But when the British entered a state the militia would be called up, forcing even ambivalent members either to fight the British or to refuse, thereby associating themselves with the loyalist faction. In other words, the militia system forced many colonists to pick a side—and most opted for the Patriots’.

Further: One of Washington’s unappreciated talents was his prowess in gathering intelligence. Something of a spymaster, he developed a network of informants to anticipate British movements. Such information was particularly important because the movements of a British fleet could not otherwise be anticipated, given Britain’s absolute naval supremacy in the war before French involvement.

What happened in the battle of Saratoga and why was it important?

Insight: Saratoga was a critical American victory in 1777 that ended Britain’s early strategic effort to crush the insurrection. British general Burgoyne was traversing from Canada toward Albany with the idea to cut off New England from the rest of the colonies. American forces attacked and defeated Burgoyne’s men in the woods of Saratoga and captured 5,700 British soldiers. In the next section, we learn that Saratoga was also a critical victory in securing the support of the French.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

On what night did Washington cross the Delaware, and whom did he surprise at Trenton?

Which battle persuaded France to enter the war openly?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) Christmas night 1776; a sleeping force of Hessians—German troops hired by the British; (2) Saratoga.

Explain

Trenton was a small engagement by European standards. Why did it matter so much?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. The cause was close to collapse after the retreat across New Jersey; enlistments were expiring and morale was failing. A victory—any victory—kept the army in the field and the cause alive. Its importance was political and psychological rather than military.

Daily Recap

Washington’s victories in New Jersey helped sustain the American cause through the winter of 1776–1777. The victory at Saratoga in the fall of 1777 helped persuade France to enter the war. American resistance depended on maintaining an army through repeated setbacks and securing the support needed to continue fighting.

Looking Ahead

France was in, and the war became something larger than a colonial rebellion. The next lesson follows the road to Yorktown—Valley Forge, the war in the South, and the surrender that effectively ended major fighting.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Hessians, retreat, enlistment, alliance. Anchor “enlistment” in its plain sense—signing up to serve for a set time—before explaining why expiring enlistments were a crisis.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Washington crossed the Delaware in order to ___.” “After Saratoga, France ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state why Trenton mattered, then write the sentence they said.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may draw a simple timeline—retreat → Trenton → Saratoga → French alliance—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.3 The Road to Victory (pp. 104–108)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 104–108.

Exercise: Map 4.1, the principal battles, tracing the war’s movement from north to south.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on French help and on Yorktown’s significance.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign What Kind of Revolution? (pp. 108–111).

Essential Understanding

The major events of the Revolutionary War in the years 1778–1781, including the entry of the French, the role of Lafayette, Valley Forge, hostilities in the Northwest theater, and the Battle of the Chesapeake.

Lesson Objectives

• Evaluate the significance of foreign allies in the American victory in the Revolutionary War.

• Explain the geographical and strategic mistakes that Cornwallis made at Yorktown.

Key Dates

1777–78 The Continental Army is tested by a harsh winter at Valley Forge (December 19–June 19)

1778 France enters the war as an American ally (February 6)

1778 The Continental Army and the British Army face off at Monmouth Court House (June 28)

1778 The British capture Savannah (December 29)

1779 George Rogers Clark captures Fort Sackville in the Northwest Territory (February 25)

1780 British siege at Charleston (March 29)

1781 The Battle of the Chesapeake (September 5)

1781 Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown (October 19)

Key Concepts

At Yorktown, the combined American and French army of about sixteen thousand outmaneuvered Cornwallis, whose force was less than half that size. French naval support helped prevent a British escape or relief by sea. The victory demonstrated the importance of cooperation between the Continental Army and its French allies.

The war was also a struggle among Americans: Loyalists and Patriots divided families, communities, and regions. Independence therefore involved more than defeating Britain. The Declaration of Independence set out principles of liberty and equality on which Americans sought to build a republican government.

Many Americans understood republican government through the example of ancient Rome. They associated the Roman Republic’s strength with civic virtue and its later decline with corruption and private self-interest. Fearing a similar decline in Britain, they looked to public-spirited conduct, exemplified by Washington, as essential to preserving their own republic.

Key Terms

Pretext: a reason given in justification of a course of action

Republican civic virtue: the subordination of private to public interest, as exemplified by the conduct of George Washington

Siege: the surrounding and blockading of a fortified place to force its surrender, as at Yorktown in 1781.

Loyalist: a colonist who remained loyal to the British Crown during the Revolution; Loyalists were numerous enough that the war carried the character of a civil war in some regions.

Guerrilla warfare: irregular fighting by small mobile groups using raids and ambushes rather than set-piece battles—the pattern of much of the fighting in the South.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Three, “The Road to Victory” (pp. 104–108).

Assign several of the following questions:

Who was the Marquis de Lafayette?

How did Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben impact the Continental Army?

What helped spark a resurgence in colonial involvement in the war effort in the spring of 1778?

What happened at Valley Forge over the winter of 1777–78?

What prompted the French entry into the war?

While the British possessed the world’s best navy, which key naval loss was inflicted on them?

What was British General Cornwallis’s critical error in judgment?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Lead a discussion with your students about the influence of foreign allies. Given the involvement of foreign leaders such as Steuben and Lafayette, as well as significant French, Spanish, and Dutch involvement in the war effort, could the American colonists have achieved independence without foreign aid?

Start by verbally quizzing the class about the specific ways in which foreign allies helped the Americans. Write a few of the specifics on the board.

During the discussion, encourage students to try to guess how the war would have gone without these specific influences.

Further: After the discussion, instruct each student to write a paragraph explaining which foreign intervention they think played the most significant role in helping the Americans win the Revolutionary War.

Geography: Display the Principal Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775–81 map (Map 4.1). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Compare the locations of the key battles. What geographic features are nearby most? What advantage would those geographical features give to the victor of the battles and the war?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Using a map of the Chesapeake Bay instruct students to brainstorm in their notes some of the geographical features of this area. Call on a few students to share their observations and then lead them in a discussion. Was Cornwallis’s strategy reasonable? Why or why not? How would things have gone without French naval support?

Close Reading: Read aloud from the text the English ballad, “The World Turned Upside Down.” To what extent does it appropriately characterize the Patriots’ defeat of the British?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did the French help the Americans in the Revolutionary War?

Insight: After the British surrender at Saratoga prompted French involvement, the conflict became another in the series of world wars between the British and French (and Spanish) Empires. The French had recently lost their holdings in North America after a war with Britain, and this was a chance for the French to weaken British power and gain a geopolitical edge.

What did the French do to help the Americans after the battle of Saratoga?

Insight: The French had already been helping with gunpowder and supplies, but after Saratoga, they officially recognized the United States and created a commercial treaty with them to boost the economy. Most importantly, the French joined the war with its navy, which was the biggest military advantage that the British enjoyed over the Americans.

What did Prussian general Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben contribute to the Patriot cause?

Insight: In addition to the French support, other foreign-born allies provided critical support to the American cause. Von Steuben was an expert at military training, and his drills turned the American troops into a cohesive military force.

What happened at Yorktown and why was it important?

Insight: The British General Cornwallis believed that Yorktown would be safe from a siege, but he was mistaken because the French navy proved to be a capable counter to British naval protection. A siege is when fighting forces surround an enemy and cut off supplies, basically trapping them. This is exactly what happened in Yorktown in 1781. The French were on the sea enforcing a blockade, and a large army of combined American and French troops was facing Cornwallis’s men by land. The surrender of Cornwallis effectively ended major fighting; the Treaty of Paris formally ended the war in 1783.

Further: Victory in a battle is usually defined by which side “holds the field.” The defeated army runs away (often throwing down weapons so they can run faster) and abandons their wounded. The winners can pick up everything useful and recover their wounded, many of whom will eventually be able to fight again, while capturing wounded enemies.

Further: In the Carolina campaigns of 1780–81, Nathanael Greene’s small Continental Army never won a battle against Cornwallis, in the sense that they never held the field, but he tied down and depleted the British army while Patriot militia guerillas under Francis Marion (the “Swamp Fox”) and Thomas Sumter (the “Gamecock”) suppressed the loyalists and defeated small British garrisons. Even after beating Greene at the bloody battle of Guilford Courthouse, Cornwallis found himself worse off than before he had fought. He realized that his forces were steadily shrinking, while Greene was continually being reinforced from Virginia. Cornwallis made the fateful decision to march north and invade Virginia, launching the campaign that ended at Yorktown.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Where did Cornwallis surrender, and roughly how large was the force facing him?

Name one way the Revolutionary War resembled a civil war.

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) Yorktown; a combined American and French force of about sixteen thousand, more than twice the size of his army; (2) any of: it pitted Loyalists against Patriots; divided families, towns, regions and social classes; produced fierce local struggles over political and social questions.

Explain

How did cooperation between American and French forces make the victory at Yorktown possible?

Acceptable responses: American and French troops combined to besiege Cornwallis on land, while French naval forces blocked British access by sea. Students should explain how these complementary actions restricted Cornwallis’s options; naming France without explaining its contribution is not sufficient.

Daily Recap

French assistance and the Continental Army’s growing discipline strengthened the American war effort. At Valley Forge, von Steuben helped improve military training. At Yorktown, American and French troops, supported by French naval power, forced Cornwallis to surrender. Independence nevertheless remained contested among Americans, and military victory left the task of establishing a durable government.

Looking Ahead

Major fighting had ended; what the fighting had meant was not settled. The next lesson takes up the argument historians still have—whether the Revolution was a radical break or a conservative restoration.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Siege, alliance, Loyalist, theater (of war). Gloss “theater” plainly—a region where fighting takes place—before using “the Northwest theater.”

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Cornwallis surrendered because ___.” “The war divided Americans when ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one reason the Americans won at Yorktown, then write it.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may annotate a copy of Map 4.1 with arrows instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.4 What Kind of Revolution? (pp. 108–111)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 108–111.

Exercise: The Compare and Contrast organizer weighing the radical and conservative readings of the Revolution.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the Revolution’s character and on alternatives to republican government.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The First American Constitutions (pp. 112–116).

Essential Understanding

The historical debate over the nature of the American Revolution: was it something conservative, by seeking to preserve or restore a previous way of life, or something radical in its attempt to establish an essentially novel form of government?

Lesson Objectives

• Compare and contrast different viewpoints on the nature of the American Revolution.

Key Dates

1776–80 The states write new constitutions of their own

1783 The Treaty of Paris ends the war (September 3)

Key Concepts

The American Revolution combined a defense of inherited liberties with a break from monarchy and the creation of republican government. Its commitment to liberty and equality also raised questions that existing institutions, especially slavery, did not resolve. Understanding its character requires attention to both continuity and change.

After independence, Americans generally regarded the states as the principal sources of political authority. Yet most successful republics since ancient Rome had been small city-states. The new nation therefore faced a practical question: how could thirteen states maintain their self-government while forming a republic across a large territory?

Key Terms

Sovereignty: A state is sovereign when it has the authority and the ability to govern itself.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Four, “What Kind of Revolution?” (pp. 108–111).

Invite students to consider the following questions:

How was the Revolutionary War like a civil war?

What did the size of the republic have to do with the task of governing it?

How many African Americans fought in the Revolutionary War effort?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Compare and Contrast: Have students make a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the different viewpoints about the nature of the American Revolution.

On one side of the organizer, instruct students to list the elements of the argument that the American Revolution was a radical change. On the other, have the students list the elements of the argument that the Revolution was about conserving the traditional ways of American self-government.

After the students have finished the organizer, conduct a short class discussion about the differences. Who, during this era, might have favored one argument over the other, and why? Are there any commonalities that the two sides might agree on? Any common ground? Are there any elements of this argument that still resonate today?

Further: Have the students write a paragraph explaining which side of the argument they tend to favor more, and why.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine Jean-Baptiste-Antoine de Verger’s watercolor painting of soldiers in the Revolutionary war. Ask students the following questions:

What does the painting depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Further: Why might this group of figures have been remarkable to de Verger, and worth recording?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Was the war a fight for independence or a truly revolutionary struggle?

Insight: Encourage students to explore the implications of these two viewpoints. History has shown that the Revolution contained elements of both. By the war’s end, the Americans had won independence and the collective right to self-government. This was an enormous outcome in terms of human history: a people had won independence from a powerful European monarchy and would soon establish a republican form of self-government. But the revolution did not radically change the structure of society in America, at least not right away. In the long term, advocates of an expanded set of democratic rights would use the cause of the Revolution and the spirit of the Declaration of Independence as rhetorical ammunition.

What form of government could the nation have taken instead of becoming a republic?

Insight: Americans tend to see “revolution” in general as a good thing; after all, ours was. But most have not been: the cases of France, Russia, China, and many others involved bad regimes being replaced, after much bloodshed, by regimes that proved no better and sometimes worse. The Americans would have had in mind the recent history of the English Civil War and how it led to the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell. Encourage students to consider the range of possibilities for how the nation could have gone – dictatorship on the one hand, or a spiral of inter-state conflict and anarchy on the other. The American Revolution differed in that its leaders went on to govern the republic they had founded. The republic they built has endured to this day.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

After the war, where did most American leaders think political power should mainly sit?

Before the United States, what kind of republic had usually succeeded?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) with the states, as the principal sources of political power and authority; (2) city-states—since the fall of Rome, the vast majority of successful republics had been small.

Explain

In what respects did the American Revolution preserve an older political inheritance, and in what respects did it introduce change?

Acceptable responses: Students may explain that Americans defended liberties they believed they already possessed while rejecting monarchy and establishing republican government. Strong responses connect both sides of the answer to evidence in the lesson and recognize that the implications of liberty and equality remained contested.

Daily Recap

The Revolution preserved important elements of the colonists’ political inheritance while replacing royal authority with republican government. Its principles of liberty and equality had implications that Americans had not fully resolved, particularly for slavery. With power largely centered in the states, the new nation still had to find a durable form of union.

Looking Ahead

If power was to sit with the states, some framework had to join them. The next lesson turns to the first attempt—the Articles of Confederation—and to why it did not hold.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Republic, sovereignty, radical, conservative. Contrast “radical” and “conservative” in their plain senses—breaking with the past versus preserving it—before the historical argument.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Some historians argue the Revolution was ___ because ___.” “A republic was hard to build over a large area because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one argument for each view, then write both sentences.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a two-column organizer—‘Radical’ / ‘Conservative’—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.5 The First American Constitutions (pp. 112–116)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 112–116.

Exercise: The flaws of the Articles, drawn from the text.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why the Articles were made weak and on what the Northwest Ordinance achieved.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Constitutional Convention of 1787 (pp. 116–118).

Essential Understanding

The basic character of the Articles of Confederation, how and why they were established, the nature of the Northwest Ordinance, and what caused the Articles to be replaced.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.

• Create an argument about Shays’s Rebellion.

• Assess the wisdom of the Northwest Ordinance.

Key Dates

1781 The Articles of Confederation are ratified by all thirteen states (March 1)

1783 The signing of the Treaty of Paris officially ends the war (September 3)

1786 Shays’s Rebellion begins in Western Massachusetts (August)

1787 Northwest Ordinance adopted (July 13)

Key Concepts

The Articles of Confederation named the union the United States of America and established its first constitution. Adopted in 1777 and fully ratified in 1781, they joined sovereign states in a “league of friendship.” Congress had responsibility for common affairs, including diplomacy and war, but depended on the states for revenue and lacked authority to regulate interstate commerce. Important decisions required nine states’ consent, and amendments required unanimity. These limitations hindered collective action; Shays’s Rebellion intensified demands for reform and helped bring about the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

The Confederation government also established a framework for western settlement and statehood. The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for surveying land into townships, while the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided for territorial government and the admission of new states on an equal footing with the original states. The latter prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory and protected religious freedom and other individual rights. Western territories were to become republican states rather than permanent dependencies.

Key Terms

Tariffs: a tax or duty levied on a particular class of imports or exports

Commodity: a raw material or primary agricultural product, especially one that is commonly purchased

Foreclosure: the taking possession of mortgaged property when a debtor fails to keep up with their payments

Inflation: a fall in the purchasing power of money that leads to a general increase in prices

Credit: the ability of a customer to obtain goods or services before payment

Confederation: a league of states in which the member states keep their sovereignty and the central government holds only the powers they choose to grant it.

Ordinance: a law or regulation; the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set the terms on which new territories would be organized and admitted as states.

Ratification: formal approval of a document by the bodies whose consent it requires—for the Articles, approval by every state, which is why it took until 1781.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Five, “The First American Constitutions” (pp. 112–116).

Assign several of the following questions:

How many new constitutions did the new United States have to devise? (The answer is fourteen, one for each state and one for the group as a whole.)

What were the Articles of Confederation?

Why were mortgages and foreclosures on the colonists’ minds?

What is inflation?

How did the Northwest Ordinance address slavery?

What caused Shays’s Rebellion?

Which meeting was called to address the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Argumentation: Encourage the students to reexamine the remarks of Jefferson and Washington regarding Shays’s Rebellion. Have students choose and defend a side, supporting their choice in the context of the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.

Geography: Students should review the 1790 map of the U.S. in the text (Map 4.2) and answer the following questions:

What does the map depict?

How much of today’s country was under U.S. control?

Which other groups had a foothold in America?

What did the Northwest Ordinance say about how new lands could be added to the United States?

Do you know the names of the modern states that currently occupy the “Northwest Territory?”

Further: Lead a class discussion about the Northwest Ordinance. Ask the class to summarize the author’s description about its wisdom. What would be the pros and cons of American expansion? Can it be done in a way that adheres to republican principles? How? What does the author say? What do the students think?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: It is notable that the Articles of Confederation were drafted in a time of war. In a class discussion or a written exercise, ask students to consider why they ultimately failed to last, considering both the circumstances of their composition and their content. What do you think was the British aim in their policy of “hypermercantilism” that ended up destabilizing the economy of the colonies?

Were the Articles of Confederation doomed to fail, or could they have succeeded if certain circumstances were different?

Civic Discourse: The Articles of Confederation answered a question Americans had to answer before they could answer any other: what should a general government decide, and what should each state keep for itself? Divide the class and have each group draw the line for themselves—listing three powers a national government must hold and three a state must keep—before they read what the Articles actually settled.

Then compare. Under the Articles, Congress could declare war but not raise taxes; could make treaties but not enforce them; could ask the states for money and be refused. Ask students which of their own lists the Articles honored and which they would now revise after seeing the consequences in Shays’s Rebellion.

Insight: This is federalism argued rather than defined. The framers of 1787 did not invent the division of power; they redrew a line the Articles had already drawn badly. Students who have made their own attempt will read the Constitutional Convention as a second draft rather than a first, which is what it was.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What sort of national government did the Articles of Confederation provide for the United States? Why did it not matter that they were not finally ratified until 1781?

Insight: Congress had already been conducting common affairs during the war, and the Articles largely formalized an existing confederation rather than suddenly creating a new national administration in 1781. Ratification still mattered legally: Maryland’s approval brought the Articles fully into force and confirmed the union’s constitutional framework.

How were the states viewed under the Articles of Confederation?

Insight: The Articles described each state as retaining its “sovereignty, freedom and independence” except for powers expressly delegated to Congress. The union was therefore a confederation—a “league of friendship”—rather than the stronger federal system created in 1787. Congress was a real common government, but it depended heavily on state cooperation.

What was the “singularly impressive and enduring accomplishment” of Congress under the Articles? Why does the author see this accomplishment as impressive?

Insight: The Northwest Ordinance allowed for new states to be added to the union. The law established a legal process that would enable new territories to be incorporated. These new states would join the original states and have equal power alongside the already existing states. This is a contrast to how the British colonies were subordinate to the British empire. The Ordinance established the legal foundation for the expansion of the nation. It is difficult for a republic to be maintained across a large territory, but the federal system would allow for the United States to successfully do this.

What was the significance of Shays’s Rebellion in Massachusetts?

Insight: The Confederation faced persistent fiscal and commercial problems because Congress could requisition funds but could not tax individuals directly, and it lacked general authority over interstate and foreign commerce. Shays’s Rebellion intensified fears about public disorder and helped build support for a convention to strengthen the union.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

When were the Articles of Confederation adopted, and when fully ratified?

Name one power the national government LACKED under the Articles.

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) adopted November 15, 1777; ratified March 1, 1781; (2) any of: no power to tax, no power to regulate commerce, no executive, no national judiciary; collective action required near or total unanimity among the states.

Explain

The Articles were deliberately weak. Why did the men who wrote them want it that way, and why did that become a problem?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. They had just fought a war against a distant government they judged too powerful, and they meant to prevent the same concentration at home. The weakness that was meant to protect liberty also made the union unable to raise revenue, settle disputes between states, or respond to disorder—which is what brought on the Convention.

Daily Recap

In the 1780s, the desire to preserve state sovereignty increasingly collided with problems that required collective action. Congress could conduct diplomacy and war and had achieved important measures such as the Northwest Ordinance, but it depended on state requisitions for revenue and lacked general authority over commerce. Economic distress, interstate tensions, foreign pressure, and Shays’s Rebellion strengthened the case for revising the constitutional system.

Looking Ahead

The Articles’ weaknesses increased pressure for constitutional reform. The next lesson goes to Philadelphia in 1787, where a convention called to revise them set about replacing them instead.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Confederation, ratify, ordinance, unanimity. Gloss “ratify” plainly—to approve formally—before the distinction between adoption and ratification.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Under the Articles the national government could not ___.” “The Northwest Ordinance mattered because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students name one weakness of the Articles, then write the sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may fill a two-column chart—‘Could do’ / ‘Could not do’—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.6 The Constitutional Convention of 1787 (pp. 116–118)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 116–118.

Exercise: The framers’ assumptions about human nature, drawn from the Adams and Washington passages in the text.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Madison’s role and on what the framers assumed about human nature.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Great Compromise (pp. 118–121).

Essential Understanding

The context, participants, and challenges of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, particularly the role of James Madison.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the principles behind the design of the United States Constitution.

• Create an argument for why the United States needs a stronger national government than what the Articles of Confederation provided.

Key Dates

1786 The Annapolis Convention calls for a broader meeting (September)

1787 The Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia (May 25 – September 17)

Key Concepts

The Constitutional Convention offered an opportunity to design a stronger government, but its participants did not assume that public officials would always act virtuously. John Adams celebrated the opportunity to create a new constitution, while Washington warned against having “too good an opinion of human nature.” The framers sought institutions that could function despite human selfishness and conflicting interests.

That concern shaped the system of checks and balances: the powers of the national government would be arranged so that no branch could readily dominate the others. Federalism also divided authority between the national government and the states. James Madison helped connect these principles to the practical work of designing the Constitution.

Key Terms

Separation of powers: One of the animating principles of the U.S. Constitution is the idea that power, being prone to corrupting its fallible possessors, should never be concentrated in any one person or office but should instead be divided and widely distributed.

Federalism: A political system is federal when it explicitly divides powers and responsibilities between a central government and regional governments, both of which have some degree of autonomy within their respective spheres.

Convention: an assembly called for a specific purpose; the 1787 Convention was summoned to revise the Articles and produced a new constitution instead.

Framer: one of the delegates who drafted the Constitution at the 1787 Convention.

Republicanism: the political tradition holding that legitimate government rests on the consent of the governed and on citizens who put the public good above private interest.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Six, “The Constitutional Convention of 1787” (pp. 116–118).

Assign several of the following questions:

Besides Washington, who were some of the other men present at the Constitutional Convention?

What was the average age of those at the convention? How many were present?

Who at the convention argued that power should not be concentrated in one man or office?

What are the three branches of the U.S. Government? How was the Constitution’s system of checks and balances devised?

What is a “federal system”?

What was the role of the national government as opposed to that of the state governments, according to the convention’s participants?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Have students identify the flaws of the Articles of Confederation and discuss how they might be remedied in a new constitution.

Start by having the students make a graphic organizer in their notes to compare the Articles of Confederation vs. the Constitution on three categories: National Power, State Power, and principles.

Students should use their knowledge from the previous section to fill in the graph on the Articles. They should use the reading from this section to fill in the “principles” section for the Constitution. This section describes the agreed-upon principles of an effective federal government: The Constitution should have enough power to maintain order, but the power should be divided and limited in several ways. Have students list those specific ways from the text.

Lead a discussion about the possible remedies to the Articles. Teachers have the option of teaching the basics of the Constitution now as a preview of the following section, or waiting until students have finished the chapter to fill in the rest of the chart.

Writing Skills: Students should imagine themselves as one of the 55 men present at the convention. Have them compose a short letter attempting to persuade their constituents why the national government should be strengthened relative to its powers under the Articles of Confederation.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why does the author highlight the contributions of James Madison?

Insight: James Madison is often called the “Father of the Constitution” because of the intellectual preparation he brought to Philadelphia, his influence on the Virginia Plan and Convention debates, and his later defense of the Constitution. His detailed notes are also an indispensable record of the proceedings. The title should not obscure the Constitution’s collaborative character: Madison did not write it alone and did not prevail on every major question.

What did the participants at the Philadelphia convention agree on from the start?

Insight: The delegates broadly agreed that the new government would remain republican and that national power had to be strong enough to govern while still being limited. They divided authority among branches and between the national government and the states. The precise design of those institutions—and especially representation—remained contested.

What experience did the participants bring with them to the Philadelphia convention?

Insight: Each state had to write a constitution after the Declaration of Independence. Some states had more than one – Pennsylvania’s was radically democratic in 1776 but was later replaced by one that had less direct popular control. The Articles of Confederation and the Northwest Ordinances were also constitutions of a sort. By 1787, American statesmen had had considerable experience in drafting plans of government.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

In what city and year did the Constitutional Convention meet?

Which delegate is most associated with preparing its intellectual groundwork?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) Philadelphia, 1787; (2) James Madison.

Explain

The framers are described as building with “the crooked timber of selfish humanity” in mind. What does that assumption imply about how they designed the government?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. They did not assume officeholders would always be virtuous, so they built a structure that would work even when they were not—dividing power, setting institutions against one another, and making ambition check ambition rather than relying on good character.

Daily Recap

Students should understand that the framers of the Constitution had an incredibly difficult task to accomplish: striking a balance between their desire for self-rule, which required establishing governmental authority as close to the individual as possible, with the practical necessity of centralized power. The delegates brought unusual experience and seriousness to the task, and the durability of what they produced owes much to it.

Looking Ahead

The delegates agreed on much and deadlocked on one thing: how the states would be represented. The next lesson takes up the bargain that broke the deadlock.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Convention, delegate, framer, deliberation. Gloss “delegate” plainly—someone sent to act for others—before “framer.”

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Convention met in order to ___.” “Madison prepared by ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state what the Convention was called to do, then write it.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may list the Convention’s who / where / when / why instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.7 The Great Compromise (pp. 118–121)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 118–121.

Exercise: Compare the Virginia and New Jersey plans and the compromise between them.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the powers granted to the national government and on what the Great Compromise settled.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Constitution and our National Identity (pp. 121–125).

Essential Understanding

The governmental structure laid out in the U.S. Constitution; how the branches of government were designed to interact; the nature and purpose of the Great Compromise; and the philosophy of human nature underpinning the “checks and balances” approach to governance exemplified in the Constitution.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the United States Constitution.

• Explain the practical and philosophical reasons for the Great Compromise.

Key Dates

1787 The new Constitution of the United States is signed in Philadelphia (September 17)

Key Concepts

The delegates agreed to give the national government powers that the Confederation lacked or could not effectively exercise, including taxation and regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. These powers would be enumerated in the Constitution. State governments would retain their own responsibilities, while the national government would be divided into legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

Representation proved more contentious. Roger Sherman helped devise the Great Compromise, combining representation by population in the House of Representatives with equal representation for each state in the Senate. This bicameral Congress accommodated both large and small states while requiring legislation to pass two differently constituted chambers.

The separation of powers and checks and balances addressed the framers’ concerns about concentrated authority. Each branch had distinct responsibilities and means of checking the others, so disagreement could be handled within the constitutional system.

Key Terms

The Virginia Plan: This proposal, championed by James Madison, would have determined congressional representation according to population.

The New Jersey Plan: This proposal, championed by William Paterson, would have maintained the Articles’ method of representation, according to which each state had an equal voice in Congress.

Impeachment: The constitutional process by which the House of Representatives formally charges the president, vice president, or another federal civil officer with “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” A simple majority of the House may approve articles of impeachment. The Senate then conducts a trial; conviction requires a two-thirds vote of senators present and results in removal from office. The Senate may separately vote to disqualify the convicted official from future federal office. The president’s pardon power does not extend to impeachment.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Seven, “The Great Compromise” (pp. 118–121).

Assign several of the following questions:

Name at least three of the new powers that the Constitution gave to the national government?

Which part of the new constitution had no precedent?

How did the Virginia and New Jersey plans differ?

What was the “Great Compromise”?

Who was responsible for it?

What does “bicameral” mean?

Which branch has the power to veto?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: In a class discussion or a written exercise, encourage students to consider the possible objections to the Constitution that arose during this time. Why would some people during this time have argued against this Constitution as it was designed? Instruct students to reference specific elements of the Constitution in their responses.

Further: As the text will later discuss, a group called the Anti-Federalists objected to the fact that the power of the national government was too large. The resulting compromise was the creation of the Bill of Rights. Teachers may preview this development by asking students whether a Bill of Rights (a list of protections of individual rights) was necessary or whether the Constitution could have remained as it was.

Writing Skills: Which group benefited more from the Great Compromise, small states or large states? Have students pick a side and articulate their reasoning in writing, in a paragraph that states the claim in its first sentence. Discuss as a group and compile a list of the relevant considerations.

Further: An alternative exercise along this same topic would be to assign the class to either large states or small states. Have each group create written arguments for their own plan (Virginia Plan or New Jersey Plan) and then take turns sharing arguments. At the end, students can write a paragraph explaining whether they think the Great Compromise was fair or not.

Analytical Skills: The Constitution does not simply organize a government; it constrains one. Have students work through the textbook pages 118 –120 and describe the Great Compromise while identifying where each of the following constitutional principles is put into practice: checks and balances, democracy, limited government, and representative government.

Checks and balances. The text explains that the Great Compromise “quickly took its place as one of the chief elements in the Constitution’s famously intricate network of checks and balances, a system by means of which each power granted to one unit of government is kept within safe limits by countervailing powers vested in some other unit.” It goes on: “Legislation would have to clear both of these very different houses, with their different principles of representation, and be signed by the president to be enacted into law.” Ask students what a bill would have to do to become law, and how many separate approvals it needs along the way.

Representative government. The text quotes John Adams, writing in 1776: “A representative assembly... should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large.” Have students explain what Adams means by this, then identify which chamber of the new Congress was designed to fit that description most closely, and why.

Limited government. The text explains that the new national government’s “powers would be enumerated, spelled out, and thereby limited by the Constitution itself.” Which powers were enumerated, and what follows from enumerating them at all? Have students state, in their own words, what it means for a government to possess only the powers it was granted.

Democracy. The text states that representation by state “seemed to violate the very principle of democracy itself, rendering the votes of those in the populous states less valuable than those in the small states.” Have students explain, in their own words, why equal representation for every state, regardless of population, creates a problem for democracy specifically. Then ask what the House of Representatives does differently, and why.

Further: Include individual rights as they are defined in this Chapter’s Key Terms and Key Concepts. Drawing from material provided in the Chapter, have students provide examples of the ways in which the structure and function of the U.S. government reflect these principles (e.g., term limits, different branches of government, the Articles of Confederation).

Further: The text calls the House “more responsive and more democratic,” while describing the Senate as more insulated from “the winds of popular will.” Why would the framers want one chamber to be more democratic than the other? Is a government more democratic, or less, when some part of it is deliberately shielded from popular opinion? Keep this tension in mind—the framers spent a great deal of thought on how large a republic could grow before it became unstable, and Chapter 5 picks this question up directly.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What powers would the new Constitution give to the national government?

Insight: The powers that were agreed upon were the ones that had been lacking in the Articles of Confederation and causing instability. The national government in the Constitution would have the power to levy taxes, regulate interstate commerce, maintain an army and a navy, negotiate treaties, and regulate currency.

What is impeachment? How is the process of impeachment conducted?

Insight: Impeachment is the legislative mechanism for removing an executive official from power. In the Constitution, this process starts by a vote in the House of Representatives, which then triggers a trial and a vote in the Senate. To be convicted and removed, the Senate needs a supermajority vote of two-thirds. This is one example of the checks and balances that are meant to keep the national government’s power limited.

What are the differences between the House and the Senate?

Insight: The House is larger, its members serve two-year terms and represent smaller regions; therefore, the House is closer to the people and more responsive to events. All tax and revenue bills must start in the House. The Senate is the upper chamber. There are two Senators per state, and they serve for six years. The upper chamber has a larger set of responsibilities, including confirming presidential appointments and overseeing foreign policy by approving treaties and ambassadors. The structure of the bi-cameral system was the result of a compromise between large states who wanted representation based on population, and small states who wanted equal representation.

Why was there reluctance among the convention’s participants to create a strong executive? Why did they do so anyway?

Insight: Washington’s reputation for relinquishing military power strengthened confidence that a strong executive need not become a monarch. Delegates widely expected that Washington would be the leading candidate to serve as the first president, and his character influenced how they imagined the office. The presidency nevertheless rested on constitutional powers and checks, not on trust in one individual alone.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name three powers the delegates agreed to grant the national government.

Who engineered the Great Compromise?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) any three of: levy taxes, regulate interstate and foreign commerce, raise and maintain an army and navy, call up the state militias, regulate a common currency, negotiate treaties, assess tariffs—and supersede the states’ claims to do these things; (2) Roger Sherman.

Explain

Why could the Convention agree so readily on national powers and yet deadlock on representation?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. Powers could be enumerated to everyone’s advantage; representation was zero-sum. Any formula that helped the large states cost the small ones directly, so the delegates settled it by compromise rather than by principle alone.

Daily Recap

The Great Compromise joined representation by population in the House with equal state representation in the Senate. The Constitution gave the national government greater authority while dividing and limiting its powers. Its structure provided ways to manage competing interests without placing all authority in one institution.

Looking Ahead

With its structure settled, the Constitution became something more than a plan of government. The next lesson asks how a legal document came to carry a nation’s identity.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Bicameral, compromise, enumerate, ratify. Gloss “bicameral” plainly—having two chambers—with the Senate and House as the instance.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Virginia Plan proposed ___, while the New Jersey Plan proposed ___.” “The Great Compromise settled the dispute by ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students explain what each chamber represents, then write the two sentences.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may fill a Venn diagram—Virginia Plan / shared / New Jersey Plan—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.8 The Constitution and our National Identity (pp. 121–125)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 121–125.

Exercise: The Constitution as a source of national identity, using the text’s claim about unity amid plurality.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the Constitution’s longevity and on unity amid plurality.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Stain of Slavery (pp. 125–131).

Essential Understanding

The uniqueness of the Constitution’s role as a founding document, as a cultural artifact, and as a unifying source of national identity.

Lesson Objectives

• Compare the Constitution to the Declaration of Independence in terms of style and structure.

• Explain why the Constitution has a special significance to the identity of the United States.

Key Dates

1787 The Constitution is signed at Philadelphia (September 17)

1788 The Constitution is ratified by the ninth state and takes effect (June 21)

Key Concepts

The Constitution has served as both fundamental law and a source of American national identity for more than two centuries. It provides a shared framework for people with different origins, beliefs, and interests. Rather than assuming that these differences will disappear, its institutions provide ways to govern amid them.

Key Terms

U.S. Constitution: The Constitution is the foundational governing document of the United States. It was drafted during the Constitutional Convention that began on May 25, 1787 and ended on September 17, 1787 with its signing. It was ratified by nine states–enough to go into effect–by June 21, 1788.

Fundamental law: the highest law of a political community, to which ordinary legislation must conform—the role the Constitution plays in American government.

Plurality: the condition of being made up of many different groups, origins and beliefs; the chapter treats American plurality as a permanent fact the Constitution was built to accommodate.

National identity: the shared sense of belonging to a nation; the chapter argues that in the United States this rests unusually heavily on a written document rather than on common ancestry.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Eight, “The Constitution and Our National Identity” (pp. 121–125).

Assign the following questions:

How old is the U.S. Constitution?

Which country has remained under the same constitution from its inception? Which have not?

When is Constitution Day?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to compare the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, in terms of their structure, content, and style. Which is more important to American identity? To American governance?

One way to illustrate the difference is to lead students through an example of an organization that has a “mission statement.” Maybe your school has a mission statement. Why would an organization create a mission statement? What function does it serve? In a school, what is the difference between a mission statement and a rulebook? How do they fit together?

Another way to extend this exercise would be to look at specific features of the Constitution, and ask students to try to match them with a lofty principle that is expressed in the Declaration of Independence. For example, fixed terms and regular elections give effect to the principle that government should act with the consent of the governed.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration, while a Committee of Five—Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston —was responsible for its drafting, and the Continental Congress itself further revised his draft before adopting it. Have students explain why a document credited mainly to one man and a document written by a convention of delegates might read so differently.

Further: Have students return to the comparison between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution in Lesson 4.6. How do all three documents relate to one another? Students should identify the key figures behind these documents, as well as the particular role they played.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why is Constitution Day a “singularly American holiday”?

Insight: While other countries are based on longevity in a geographical space, or of a culture that has experienced different types of governments, the American people have a distinct political origin story. Our Revolution produced the Constitution, under which we have been governed since 1789. Our identity is fundamentally connected to our Constitution. This is why it is so important for us to teach young people about the Constitution.

How does the Constitution account for human nature?

Insight: The brilliance of the Constitution is that it accepts the reality of human nature, rather than pretending it away. The Constitution sets up legal and peaceful ways for politicians to be competitive against each other. The separation of power and the checks and balances of those powers allow for ambition to counteract ambition. If these powers are properly respected and exercised, we will remain a free and self-governing people. The mechanics of the Constitution are designed to diffuse any passionate efforts aimed at tyranny, and to direct political energies toward policymaking that reflects the consent of the governed.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Roughly how old is the U.S. Constitution, and what is claimed to be unique about it?

What does the chapter mean by making “a workable unity out of our unruly plurality”?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) more than 230 years old—the only written constitution of that age still serving as a continuously authoritative expression of fundamental law at the center of national life; (2) that Americans differ in origin, religion, region and interest, and the Constitution was built to accommodate that difference rather than to erase it.

Explain

Why might a legal document, rather than a shared ancestry or religion, come to serve as the center of a national identity?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. The United States was not united by a single ancestry, church or ancient homeland. What its citizens could share was agreement on how they would govern themselves—so the document setting out that agreement had to do the work that older nations left to blood and custom.

Daily Recap

Students should understand that there is no nation with a founding document quite like the Constitution, both in content as well as in its sociocultural significance. The Constitution is emblematic of the United States in its practicality and functionality, but also in the principles that underlie it. These are deeply rooted principles that come together from a variety of sources but, crucially, are accessible to all people with an active willingness to adopt them as their own.

Looking Ahead

The Constitution accommodated much. One thing it accommodated it could not resolve. The final lesson of the chapter takes up slavery.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Plurality, identity, fundamental law, endure. Gloss “plurality” plainly—being made of many different parts—before the phrase “unruly plurality.”

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Constitution is unusual because ___.” “Americans are united by ___ rather than by ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one thing that unites Americans, then write the sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a web diagram—differences around the edge, the Constitution at the center—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

4.9 The Stain of Slavery (pp. 125–131)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 125–131.

Exercise: Primary Source 4.2, Madison’s notes on the Convention debate over slavery (p. 128), with the authorship and purpose questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on slavery’s place in world history and on how the Convention handled it.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter 5.

Essential Understanding

The contextual background of slavery as a widespread human phenomenon across time and space; the history of how slavery became an entrenched institution in the United States; the ethical complication that slavery posed to the framers of the Constitution and the differing ways in which they responded to it.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze the role of slavery in American society and government during the time of the Constitutional Convention.

• Draw conclusions about the framers’ decision to make compromises on slavery in the Constitution.

Key Dates

1787 The Convention adopts the three-fifths clause (July 12)

1808 The earliest date at which Congress could bar the importation of slaves, as fixed by the Constitution

Key Concepts

Slavery long predated the United States and existed in many societies. In the American colonies, however, racial chattel slavery developed into a system of permanent, hereditary bondage. Unlike indentured servitude, it did not end after a fixed term, and the children of enslaved people inherited their status.

By 1787, slavery was deeply embedded in the economy and social order, even as it contradicted the nation’s stated principles of liberty and equality. The Constitution’s compromises over representation and the slave trade reflected this tension. They helped secure agreement among the states while accommodating an institution at odds with the founding principles.

Historical understanding requires examining both the circumstances in which the Founders acted and the consequences of their decisions. Their achievements and failures must be considered together. The conflict between slavery and the principles of liberty and self-rule would become increasingly difficult for Americans to reconcile and would shape the nation’s subsequent history.

Key Terms

Chattel slavery: Chattel slavery is a form of slavery in which enslaved persons are seen as property that can be owned and exchanged like any other good.

Indentured servitude: An indenture is a contract which exchanges a person’s work for something else–at a minimum, food and shelter—for a fixed length of time, usually at least four years. These contracts could be voluntary or involuntary, and indentures allowed many people with limited financial resources to come to America. Convicted criminals were also sometimes indentured, as a way of serving out their sentences outside of prison.

Three-fifths Compromise: The Constitution provided that, for apportioning representation and direct federal taxes, a state’s population would include all free persons plus three-fifths of “all other Persons,” a circumlocution for enslaved people. The formula increased the political representation of slaveholding states compared with counting only free inhabitants, though less than counting the entire enslaved population. It drew on an earlier Confederation-era formula for allocating tax burdens and became one of the Constitution’s major accommodations of slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment later superseded this rule.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Four, Section Nine, “The Stain of Slavery” (pp. 125–131).

Assign the following questions:

What is chattel slavery?

What was the main labor system in the American colonies during the seventeenth century?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Guide the students through a class discussion about the role of slavery in this early stage of American history. Before the discussion, have students prepare responses to the following prompts:

How was slavery recognized in the Constitution? How was it not?

How harshly should we judge the Founders for the continuance of slavery? What does the author say? What do you think?

How did the Constitution’s framers distinguish between slavery and the slave trade? Why do you think they made that distinction? Was such a distinction legitimate?

The Declaration of Independence, itself authored by a slave owner, declares that all men are created equal. Does the practice of slavery in America affect the meaning of those words? If so, how?

Further: As a concluding written exercise, have students write a paragraph explaining whether the reading and/or the class discussion changed their perspective on the issue of slavery in American history. If so, how? If not, what did they find most interesting or meaningful about the reading or discussion?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the painting, Slave Trade (Figure 4.12). Ask students the following questions:

What does the painting depict? What stands out? What is the setting of this painting?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Compare Slave Trade with Execrable Human Traffick, or The Affectionate Slaves with European Ship Wrecked on the Coast of Africa. What are some similarities and differences in the way that the Africans and Europeans are portrayed in both? African families are shown in both; in both, the humanity of both groups is portrayed.

Further: Slave Trade shows what is likely an African slave trader talking with his European counterpart. Have students discuss what was new about slavery as it existed as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade [the institution of chattel slavery].

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of James Madison’s August 22, 1787 notes from the Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Primary Source 4.2). Have students discuss the following questions:

Who are the speakers in this transcript? What states did they represent?

How do Mason, Ellsworth, and Pinckney describe the topic? What do they each take to the subject of discussion—the institution of slavery as such, or the importation of slaves to the U.S.?

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the speakers’ motivations and worldview?

Are there any agreements between the speakers [that the slave trade would probably eventually disappear without too much argument]?

Further: How much willingness does there seem to be to discuss slavery as a moral issue? Or as an issue about rights? Who takes which position and seems most comfortable using this language?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the Slave Auction Advertisement (Figure 4.13). Ask students the following questions:

What does the advertisement depict? What stands out?

Where (location [South Carolina] and medium [newspaper]) and when [1760] was this printed?

To what event in South Carolina was the advertisement responding? What about the slaves and slave ship did the advertisement present as beneficial to potential purchasers?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the painting, Francis Meynell’s Slave Deck of the Albaroz (Figure 4.14). Ask students the following questions:

What does the painting depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

When was the importation of slaves banned in the United States? Did the U.S. Navy also participate in patrolling the coast of West Africa?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did black chattel slavery supplant the indenture system?

Insight: Indentured servitude was a practice where poor people could immigrate to America by selling themselves into servitude for a fixed amount of time. Racial discrimination toward black people led to slave codes being written by colonial assemblies establishing the institution of chattel slavery. Chattel slavery held black people in permanent bondage with no rights. Unlike indentured servitude, the children of chattel slaves were also held in permanent bondage.

Which group ‘won’ in regards to the Three-fifths Compromise?

Insight: The three-fifths formula linked representation and direct taxation. Slaveholding states benefited politically from counting part of their enslaved population for representation, while the same formula also increased their potential share of direct federal taxes. The provision did not declare an enslaved person to be “three-fifths of a person”; it established an apportionment rule that gave slaveholding states additional representation while accommodating slavery within the constitutional system.

How do we understand the contradictions of the Founders’ acceptance of slavery in an otherwise free society?

Insight: It’s okay if students express harsh opinions about slavery and the compromise made — slavery was a horrendous institution. Encourage them to distinguish between the principles articulated at the founding and the institutions and compromises that existed alongside them. The evidence in the chapter is that slavery was already deeply entrenched, that many of the founders recognized its conflict with the principles of liberty and equality, and that the Constitution contained compromises made to secure agreement among the states. Ask students to explain the tension rather than resolve it with a slogan. The author describes the compromise on slavery as a stain on the founding. The heroic struggle to end slavery will be described in upcoming chapters.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What does the chapter say about how widespread slavery has been in human history?

How was the enslaved population counted for representation under the Constitution?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) slavery existed in many societies long before the United States and across many regions of the world; (2) for representation and direct taxation, states counted their free population plus three-fifths of the enslaved population under the Constitution’s apportionment rule.

Explain

The chapter calls slavery a stain on the founding while also describing a founding built on self-government and liberty. Using the chapter’s evidence, explain how both can be true at once.

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. It distinguishes the principles the nation was founded on from the practices it tolerated. Slavery was an existing institution the founders accommodated rather than an ideal they built toward, and the chapter’s claim is that the founding principles supplied the standard by which the practice was later judged and abolished. Students may press on this: a defensible answer engages the tension rather than dissolving it, and may argue that accommodation on this scale was itself a founding choice.

Daily Recap

Students should understand that slavery existed before the United States and still exists today in some parts of the world. At the moment of the ratification of the Constitution, slavery was already a significant moral concern but had also become a deeply entrenched economic reality in the southern states. The Constitution recorded concessions to slavery’s defenders, among them the three-fifths clause. But the Constitution also allowed for its own evolution and modification in the form of amendments, through which slavery would later be outlawed and citizenship and the franchise would be guaranteed to black Americans. Furthermore, the question of whether slavery would be allowed to continue, and to expand into newly annexed territories, was the primary source of division in the young nation, so much so that the dispute prompted the bloodiest war in American history. Slavery preexisted the United States by millennia, and it generated great moral concern in the young nation before being abolished after the Civil War.

Looking Ahead

A constitution was written and a nation begun, with the question of the slave trade deferred rather than fully answered: the Constitution prevented Congress from prohibiting slave importation before 1808. Chapter 5, “The Experiment Begins,” follows the Constitution into practice.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Chattel slavery, indentured servitude, abolition, compromise. Distinguish “indentured servitude” and “chattel slavery” explicitly and early—a fixed term of unpaid service that ends, versus perpetual, inherited, race-based bondage with no legal rights.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Indentured servitude differed from chattel slavery because ___.” “The Convention dealt with slavery by ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one difference between the two systems, then write the sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a two-column chart—‘Indentured servitude’ / ‘Chattel slavery’—instead of writing prose.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Match the event to the correct year(s)

1. 1776

2. 1777

3. 1781

4. 1783

5. 1787

A. The signing of Treaty of Paris officially ends the Revolutionary War.

B. The new Constitution of the United States is signed in Philadelphia.

C. The British surrender at Yorktown.

D. Washington crosses the Delaware to surprise British forces in Trenton.

E. American General Horatio Gates defeats British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga.

Answer: 1–D · 2–E · 3–C · 4–A · 5–B

Key Persons

Match the description to the correct person.

1. Charles Cornwallis

2. Marquis de Lafayette

3. James Madison

4. Thomas Paine

5. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

A. He is called “The Father of the Constitution” because he attended each day of the Constitutional Convention, took notes on its proceedings, and played an important role in getting it approved

B. He wrote the pamphlets Common Sense and American Crisis, each one inspiring the Patriots at pivotal moments during the Revolution.

C. This Prussian military leader trained Washington’s rag-tag army into a professional force.

D. He was the British general who surrendered after the battle of Yorktown.

E. This French aristocrat joined the Americans in the Revolutionary war and observed firsthand the horrifying winter conditions the Patriot troops experienced.

Answer: 1–D · 2–E · 3–A · 4–B · 5–C

Key Terms and Concepts

Match the description to the correct term or concept.

1. Northwest Ordinance

2. The American Crisis

3. The Great Compromise

4. Three-Fifths Compromise

5. Valley Forge

A. This was an agreement between the large states and the small states to divide the Legislative Branch into two parts.

B. This law, adopted by the Confederation Congress, established the legal guidelines for admitting new territory into the union.

C. This was a Constitutional agreement between the Northern and Southern states about whether slaves would count toward a state’s population.

D. The words “These are the times that try men’s souls” are written in this document.

E. The name of the winter encampment that Washington’s troops endured harsh conditions in 1777–78.

Answer: 1–B · 2–D · 3–A · 4–C · 5–E

Geography

Consult the answer map for the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix. The student exercise also asks students to estimate the distance from Boston to Philadelphia and from Saratoga to Yorktown using the map scale; accept reasonable estimates based on the reproduced map.

[ART REQUIRED — Chapter 4_AssessmentAnswerKeyMap.jpg]

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. What were some of the advantages and disadvantages facing the Americans against the British in the Revolutionary War?

Model response: The advantages of the Americans were that the war would be fought on their home territory, and they would only need to play defense against the British. The other advantage was the leadership of George Washington, who was dedicated, wise, and virtuous. The American disadvantages were disunity over the cause of independence and the fact that its military forces were far inferior to the large and professional fighting forces of Britain.

2. What was it about George Washington that made him a respected leader in the American Colonies? Why does the author describe him as “indispensable” to the American Revolution?

Model response: George Washington was indispensable to the American Revolution because he was an effective military leader who was loyally committed to the republican principle of self-government. His perseverance held together the Patriot cause during the darkest times of the war. Later, when the Constitution was being designed, his trustworthy leadership became the model for the office of the president of the United States.

3. Describe one of the important battles in the Revolutionary War and explain why it was important.

Model response: Answers will vary. The text highlights three key battles. First, when Washington crossed the Delaware to attack British forces at Trenton in the winter of 1776. This battle brought a much-needed boost of morale for the Americans early in the war. Second, the battle of Saratoga, when the Americans attacked British troops who were trying to cut New England off from the rest of the colonies. The Americans captured thousands of British soldiers at Saratoga in 1777, and this victory prompted France to officially enter the war on America’s side. Third, the battle of Yorktown, when the British general Cornwallis thought he was safe from siege but miscalculated the presence of the French navy in the Chesapeake. The French navy secured the coast while combined American and French forces confronted the British by land. Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending major fighting; the Treaty of Paris formally ended the war in 1783.

4. What role did France play in the American Revolution? What was France’s motivation in taking these actions?

Model response: The French played a vital role in the American victory in the Revolutionary War. The French assisted financially and with supplies, and then officially entered the war and recognized American independence. The French navy was especially important because this was a major weakness of the American fighting forces. France had a rivalry with Britain and took this as an opportunity to weaken Britain and gain a geopolitical advantage.

5. What did it mean that the Articles of Confederation were more like a “league of friendship” than a strong national government? What were some of the flaws that needed to be fixed?

Model response: The Articles of Confederation lacked many of the key powers that would later be added to the Constitution. Each state was basically its own independent country. Under the Articles, there was no power to raise revenue from the states to pay for an army; there was no executive branch; there was no ability to resolve disputes between the states. This created disunity and chaos, exemplified by Shays’s Rebellion, which was a violent reaction to the financial instability that existed in America in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War.

6. What did the Northwest Ordinance say about how new territory could be added to the union? Why does the author say that the Ordinance “extended fundamental American principles” in the way it allowed for national growth?

Model response: The Northwest Ordinance was designed to allow the American union to add new territory in a way that maintained the principles of republican self-government. The key feature was that it provided a process for new territory to become fully incorporated into the union as new states. The new states would have the same power and rights as the original states. This is a contrast to how the British colonies were subordinate to the British empire.

7. Who was James Madison and why was he important to the Constitutional Convention?

Model response: James Madison was a delegate from Virginia who was known to be a brilliant philosophical thinker and a shrewd politician. He was a key leader during the Constitutional Convention. He attended every day of the session and took notes on the proceedings. His notes have helped us understand the debates that took place.

8. How did the Constitution try to place limits on the power of the national government? Describe at least two specific features of the document in your answer.

Model response: Answers will vary. The text describes various checks and balances put into place. For example, the impeachment power allows for the Congress to remove an executive from power. The Senate has the power to approve presidential appointees. The powers given to the national government are specified and limited. Power is divided into three branches of government, and this power is further divided because the Constitution establishes a federal system of government where the states retain a significant amount of power to make their own laws.

9. How was the balance of representation between small states and large states addressed in the Constitution?

Model response: The small states offered the New Jersey Plan for the Legislative branch, in which each state would have equal representation, as it was in the Articles of Confederation. The large states offered the Virginia Plan, where each state would gain representation according to population. The Great Compromise provided for a bicameral Legislative Branch. The Senate established equal representation between the states, and the House is based on population. Laws need to be passed by both the House and Senate.

10. What was the difference between indentured servitude and chattel slavery? How was the topic of slavery dealt with in the Constitution?

Model response: Indentured servitude bound a person to labor for a fixed term under a contract; when the term ended, the servant was legally free. Racial chattel slavery developed into permanent, hereditary bondage in which enslaved people were treated as property. The Constitution did not use the words slave or slavery, but it accommodated the institution in several provisions: the three-fifths apportionment rule, the fugitive-slave clause, and the restriction on Congress’s power to prohibit the international slave trade before 1808.

Primary Source Analysis

Read Primary Source 4.2, James Madison’s Notes of the Debates of the Federal Convention, August 22, 1787 (p. 128). Answer in complete sentences.

1. Who recorded this document, and what was his role at the Convention? What difference does it make that the record comes from a participant rather than an observer?

Model response: James Madison, a Virginia delegate and one of the Convention’s most active note-takers, recorded it. A participant’s record can be unusually detailed and well informed, but it can also reflect the recorder’s own perspective and priorities.

2. The delegates quoted here disagree with one another. Identify one argument made in favor of the slave trade’s continuation and one made against it.

Model response: Accept any arguments actually present in the excerpt. In favor, delegates warned that restricting the trade could endanger support for the Constitution from states such as South Carolina. Against it, delegates argued that the trade was inconsistent with Revolutionary principles, morally corrupting, or harmful to the Union.

3. The Convention did not resolve the disagreement; it postponed it. What did the delegates gain by postponing, and what did they defer?

Model response: The compromise helped preserve agreement among states whose positions on the slave trade differed sharply. It deferred federal prohibition of the international slave trade: Congress could not prohibit importation before 1808.

4. Madison’s notes were not published until after his death. How might that have affected what he was willing to write down?

Model response: A defensible range. The Convention’s secrecy may have encouraged candid note-taking, while Madison’s knowledge that the notes were not intended for immediate publication may have reduced concern about short-term political consequences. Students should distinguish reasonable inference from what the document itself proves.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

The textbook describes competing perspectives on the American Revolution. Some people considered the Revolution to be essentially conservative in its objectives, seeking to return America to its original self-governing principles. Others viewed it as a radical change, charting an entirely new path for its people. In your view, how revolutionary was the American Revolution?

Model response: Strong essays take a position on how revolutionary the Revolution was and defend it from the chapter’s own evidence rather than asserting it. The conservative reading has real support: the colonists claimed rights they believed they already possessed as Englishmen, most leaders expected political power to remain with the states, and the state constitutions written after 1776 preserved much of the colonial order. The radical reading has equal support: a hereditary monarchy was rejected outright, a republic was attempted over an unprecedented expanse of territory, and the principle that all men are created equal was set loose in a society that did not practice it. Credit essays that recognize the two readings are not simply opposed—that a revolution made in the name of restoration can still produce radical consequences its makers did not intend. Slavery is the sharpest test of any answer and a strong essay will reach it. Do not require a particular conclusion; require that the conclusion be argued from specifics in the text.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Experiment Begins

The Constitution Comes to Life

1787–1801 · pp. 133–163

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

For the new U.S. Constitution to become the supreme law of the land, it required ratification by the states – and its prospects for success were far from certain. The fierce debate over ratification featured two sides, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The Federalists strongly supported implementation of the new Constitution and its centralized national government. The Anti-Federalists, on the other hand, distrusted the Constitution’s concentration of power in the national government, especially in the Presidency. They favored maintaining the Articles’ decentralized approach to government, believing that the states should retain most of their sovereignty.

Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wrote eighty-five articles in support of ratification over a ten-month period beginning in October 1787. Published serially in New York newspapers under the collective pen name of Publius, The Federalist Papers are still regarded as the best account of the Constitution as the framers intended and understood it.

In the end the Federalists prevailed, and every state ratified the U.S. Constitution. But the Anti-Federalists left their mark too. Fearing the abuse of fundamental rights and liberties that might result from an overly powerful central government, they insisted that a Bill of Rights be added to the U.S. Constitution during the First Congress. It was in turn ratified by the states in 1791 and has become as integral to the Constitution as its original provisions.

George Washington was unanimously elected to serve as the first president on February 4, 1789. In establishing his cabinet, Washington selected Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state, Alexander Hamilton as secretary of the treasury, General Henry Knox as secretary of war, and Edmund Randolph as the first attorney general.

Faced with a fragile economy, the vigorous and inventive Hamilton proposed a three-part plan to order America’s finances and stimulate its economy. First, the national government would pay off all national debt at face value and would assume all war debts on behalf of the states. Second, high tariffs would be imposed on imported goods, promoting the development of American industries. Third, Congress would create a national bank to store government funds and to print bank notes, providing the basis for a stable U.S. currency.

All of these initiatives were adopted, though not without objection, particularly from Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s disagreement with Hamilton’s financial plan was rooted in his political philosophy, as he favored a decentralized republican form of government that would oversee a society mainly composed of small, self-sufficient farmers. Hamilton, on the other hand, supported urban commercial interests and sought to expand the economy through trade and manufacturing with the active support of a powerful central government.

After two terms, Washington stepped down as president, and the underlying theme of his Farewell Address on September 19, 1796 was the need for national unity. His vice president, John Adams, won the 1796 presidential election but failed to replicate his predecessor’s popularity. Adams erred in supporting the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which were adopted amid tensions with France and authorized the president to expel “dangerous” foreign residents and to curtail citizens’ freedom of speech. In response, Jefferson and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, proclaiming the right of states to interpose, or nullify, unconstitutional acts of the federal government. In the midst of all this turmoil came George Washington’s death in December 1799, serving as a somber reminder of the heroic role he had played in America’s fragile beginnings and raising questions about whether those who succeeded him would be up to the challenges of national leadership.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson won the fiercely contested presidential election, a victory that marked a change in the nation’s political direction and instigated the first transfer of power between competing parties in the nation’s history. And yet the “Revolution of 1800” proved to be a step toward unification of the fledgling republic. Indeed, the tone of Jefferson’s inaugural address, delivered in the new capital city of Washington, D.C., was one of humility and conciliation.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter’s end:

The important events and debates that shaped America’s history and political trajectory from the signing of the Constitution in 1787 to the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson in 1801.

• The debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists articulated a perennial division in U.S. politics between supporters and opponents of centralized power; both sides shaped events considerably, as the Constitution was ratified in 1788 and yet a Bill of Rights was added to it in 1791.

• Washington’s leadership was a stabilizing force for the early republic. His presidency set many important precedents, particularly his policy of non-intervention abroad, for which he advocated extensively in his Farewell Address.

• The divisions that developed around Hamilton and Jefferson over constitutional interpretation, economic policy, and foreign affairs helped crystallize America’s first political parties, the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans.

• Washington was succeeded by his vice president, John Adams, in 1797. Adams’s presidency featured increasing domestic partisanship amid a backdrop of worsening relations with France.

• Adams’s support of the Alien and Sedition Acts prompted Jefferson and Madison to author the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which advocated for state nullification of unconstitutional federal acts.

• After a heated campaign, Jefferson defeated Adams in the presidential election of 1800. Promising national reconciliation, Jefferson was inaugurated in the new national capital of Washington, D.C., which marked the first transition of power between political parties in American history.

Key Persons

Alexander Hamilton (~1757–1804)

James Madison (1751–1836)

John Jay (1745–1829)

Patrick Henry (1736–1799)

George Washington (1732–1799)

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Henry Knox (1750–1806)

Edmund Randolph (1753–1813)

John Adams (1736–1826)

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838)

Pierre L’Enfant (1754–1825)

Key Concepts and Terms

ratification

Federalists

Anti-Federalists

The Federalist Papers

“commission” (Puritan)

French Revolution

Jay Treaty

Democratic Republican party

Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)

Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798)

“compact theory”

Twelfth Amendment

Timeline

1787 “Brutus,” “Cato,” and other writers begin serially publishing the Anti-Federalist Papers, raising public objections to the Constitution (September 27)

1787 Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay begin serially publishing The Federalist Papers (October 27)

1788 The Constitution is ratified (June 21)

1789 The first Congress of the United States convenes in New York City (March 4)

1789 Congress counts the electoral votes and confirms George Washington’s unanimous election as president (April 6)

1790 Rhode Island is the last of the original states to ratify the U.S. Constitution (May 29)

1791 First Bank of the United States is established according to Hamilton’s plan (December 12)

1791 The Bill of Rights is ratified (December 15)

1793 Washington issues a Neutrality Proclamation (April 22)

1794 The Jay Treaty is signed (November 19)

1796 Washington publishes his “Farewell Address” (September 19)

1796 Adams defeats Jefferson in first contested presidential election (December 7)

1797–98 The XYZ Affair (October–April)

1798 Jefferson and Madison draft the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (November–December)

1798 The Alien and Sedition Acts are passed (Summer)

1799 Death of George Washington (December 14)

1801 Thomas Jefferson is elected the nation’s third president (February 17)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students’ progress warrants.

Chapter Five · The Experiment Begins (4 to 8 class periods)

5.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 135–141 (1 to 2 classes)

• The balance between state and federal power

• The Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalists

• The high stakes of the constitutional experiment

• The Bill of Rights

5.2 Would It Work? – pp. 141–146 (.5 to 1 class)

• The challenges of putting the Constitution into practice

• Washington’s leadership in the early days of the new Constitution

5.3 Hamilton versus Jefferson – pp. 146–150 (1 to 2 classes)

• Alexander Hamilton and the young nation’s financial situation

• The early sectional rift regarding federal debt assumption

• The differing visions of what America should strive to become

• The French Revolution and the question of American support

• The Jay Treaty

5.4 A Fragile Unity – pp. 150–154 (.5 to 1 class)

• The formation of the first American political parties

• Washington’s retirement and Farewell Address

5.5 The Embattled Successor – pp. 154–158 (.5 to 1 class)

• John Adams as Washington’s successor

• The nation’s changing opinion on its former ally, France

• The Alien and Sedition Acts

• Partisan acrimony between political factions in the press

5.6 The Successful Transfer of Power – pp. 158–163 (.5 to 1 class)

• The “Revolution of 1800”

• The peaceful transfer of power between parties

• The design and construction of Washington, D.C.

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter’s epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

James Madison, Federalist 10, November 22, 1787 (p. 142)

James Madison published Federalist 10 under the pseudonym Publius in November 1787 during the debate over ratification of the Constitution. The essay addresses the problem of faction: groups of citizens united by interests or passions adverse to the rights of others or to the permanent interests of the community. Madison argued that the causes of faction could not be removed without destroying liberty, but that its effects could be controlled in an extended republic, where a multiplicity of interests would make it harder for any one faction to dominate. The political conflicts of the 1790s would soon test that argument as organized Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties emerged.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 5.1. Robert Yates, Brutus 1, October 18, 1787 (p. 142)

This essay was likely written by Robert Yates, a Justice of the New York Supreme Court, and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. An anti-federalist, he left the Convention with fellow New York delegate John Lansing when it became clear that the Articles of Confederation were being replaced, not revised. It was published in the New York Journal on Oct. 18, 1787. The essay, addressed to the citizens of New York, begins with the instruction that the likely forthcoming question of whether to ratify the Constitution was “the most important question that was ever proposed to your decision, or to the decision of any people under heaven.” The author rephrases the question, saying that it is: “...whether a confederated government be the best for the United States or not? Or in other words, whether the thirteen United States should be reduced to one great republic, governed by one legislature, and under the direction of one executive and judicial; or whether they should continue thirteen confederated republics, under the direction and control of a supreme federal head for certain defined national purposes only?”

In the selection included in the textbook, the author argues that the size of the United States in terms both of geography and population would make true representative government impractical and unlikely. Later in the essay, he argues that beyond being unwieldy, a national government would result in the consolidation of power in the hands of a few men who would likely be corrupted by the exercise of power, and could not be called to account. Consequently, he concludes, “a free republic cannot long subsist over a country of the great extent of these states. If then this new constitution is calculated to consolidate the thirteen states into one, as it evidently is, it ought not to be adopted.”

Primary Source 5.2. James Madison, Federalist 10, November 22, 1787 (p. 142)

This essay was written by James Madison and published under the heading “The Same Subject Continued. The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection” in the New York Packet on Nov. 23, 1787. Madison concedes the danger of “faction,” which he defines as “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Two ways of removing the dangers associated with faction exist, he writes: by “removing its causes,” which he takes to be downright pernicious if not impossible, because “a zeal for different opinions” seems to be part of human nature, or by “controlling its effects.” In the selection included in the textbook, Madison argues that the large size of the United States would weaken the effects of intense partisanship. Having more people to choose from meant that the odds of selecting “fit characters” as representatives might be higher, and making factions face against each other would decrease the chances that “a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.” Consequently, the essay concludes, “In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.”

Primary Source 5.3. George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796 (p. 153)

What has become known as Washington’s Farewell Address was initially printed as a letter under the title “The Address of General Washington to the People of the United States on his declining of the Presidency of the United States,” in the Philadelphian American Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796. Beginning, “To the People of the United States,” he described his two terms as president as “a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire,” saying that he had been prepared to again retire from public life after the first but that the state of the new nation’s foreign affairs had convinced him to remain in office. After offering a benediction of sorts to the country, the first part of the selection of the Address included in the textbook follows. Washington warns that national unity would be “the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed.” He urges American citizens to value the unity of their country, and then goes on to tell them:

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.

Washington goes on to list different threats facing the nation and obedience to the Constitution and national government, including factions or parties and unchecked political power. Then follows the second part of the quote included in the textbook, Washington’s encouragement of religion and morality for the maintenance of political prosperity. He also encourages minimal utilization of public credit, keeping peace with other nations by neither vehement antipathies nor sympathies, and avoiding foreign interference. Washington’s letter ends with this hope:

I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

Primary Source 5.4. Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 (p. 160)

Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address began with an expression of humility about the demands of the role of the U.S. President, before noting that he could depend on the “resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal” in the legislative branch of government. He described the country as, “a rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye.” Before the segment of the address included in the textbook, he praised the new nation’s free religious and political expression. In the excerpt, Jefferson insists on the importance of unity, arguing that both Federalists and Republicans are necessary to maintain the country as “a happy and a prosperous people.” The next paragraph of Jefferson’s address lists the essential principles of American government—“Equal and exact justice to all men,” “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,” “the support of the state governments in all their rights,” “the preservation of the General government in its whole constitutional vigor,” “absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority,” “a well disciplined militia,” “the supremacy of the civil over the military authority,” “economy in the public expence,” “the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith,” “encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce,” “the diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason,” “freedom of religion; freedom of the press; and freedom of person, under the protection of the Habeas Corpus,” and “trial by juries impartially selected.” The concluding two paragraphs contained his assertion that while he might be wrong and be seen to be wrong when he was right, that he would never be intentionally wrong in his judgments, and a statement that he was relying on the “patronage of your good will,” until that ceased.

Figures

Figure 5.3. “The Federal Pillars,” Massachusetts Centinel, 1788 (p. 139)

This cartoon was the first in a series of three published by the Massachusetts Centinel during 1788, during the ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the states. The Centinel had been founded in Boston by Benjamin Russell four years earlier, and under his leadership it became a major Federalist voice. Above the title, text reads, “States—like the gen’rous vine supported live, the strength they gain is from th’ embrace they give.” Five columns are already standing, and joined together by arches from which hang stars: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut. A sixth column, labeled “Mass.” for Massachusetts, is being propped up by hands that extend out of a cloud. Beneath the columns, the motto “United they stand—divided fall” is given.

Figure 5.4. The Looking Glass for 1787, Amos Doolittle, 1787 (p. 143)

An engraver and silversmith who became known as the “Revere of Connecticut,” Amos Doolittle was in the Connecticut militia when the Revolutionary War began. He made a name for himself for the engravings he made depicting the battles of Lexington and Concord after seeing the battlefields and talking with local inhabitants of those areas within days of the battle, but went on to a long career engraving maps and other things, including this 1787 political cartoon. The caption under the cartoon reads “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” from the Gospel of Matthew. The wagon in the center of the engraving is labeled “Connecticut,” and it is filled with currency. Above the wagon, next to the man sitting atop it, is the label “Council of Twelve,” which was the upper house of the Connecticut Assembly during colonial times and the early years of the Republic. The speech bubble next to him says “Gentlemen this Machine is deep in the mire and you are divided as to its releas.” Five men representing the Federalists pull the wagon to the left, toward the benevolent sun in the upper left corner. Another six men representing the Anti-Federalists pull it to the right, toward an angry dark cloud issuing lightning and hail, and fire on the ground sending up clouds of dark smoke. A variety of figures appear in the foreground, including two rivals (and a skunk) making uncouth demonstrations at each other; those on the left are presented more respectably than those on the right.

Figure 5.7. Venerate the Plow, James Trenchard, 1786 (p. 148)

This image was engraved by the illustrator and publisher of the Philadelphian Columbian Magazine, the first American magazine that published more than a handful of issues. It was printed in the magazine’s November 1786 edition, with an “Essay on Farmlands” by George Morgan, one of the founding members of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, along with the design of a farmyard that had accompanied Morgan’s essay. The society awarded Morgan its first gold medal for the paper, which it did not actually have made until 1788, possibly following Trenchard’s design. The printed design included in the textbook shows a farmer following oxen with a plow, preparing fenced-in farmland for a new crop, with a house and barn in the background. He is followed by a personification of the United States, a woman with a crown of 13 stars (one for each of the states) above her and a headdress of arrows on her head, carrying a sheaf of wheat.

Figure 5.10. Providential Detection, anonymous, 1797 (p. 155)

This Federalist cartoon portrays Thomas Jefferson attempting to burn the U.S. Constitution on an “Altar to Gallic Despotism” decorated with skulls and crossbones, on which lie papers bearing the words “age of reason,” “J.J. Rousseau,” “Voltaire,” “Godwin.” An eagle symbolizing the United States grasps the document from his hand with one set of claws and threatens Jefferson with the other. An eye looks down from the heavens at the eagle, symbolizing God’s providence and protection of the new nation from Jefferson’s designs. With Jefferson’s other hand, he drops a document titled “To Mazzei” behind him. This is a reference to an April 1796 letter Jefferson wrote to his friend Philip Mazzei, then living in Italy, which Mazzei shared with friends, who shared it with the press, and which was eventually published in the United States in May 1797. In that letter, Jefferson described the “Anglican, monarchical and aristocratical party,” composed of “apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England,” which controlled “the Executive, the Judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all of the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators and holders in the banks and public funds.” He nevertheless argues that “The main body of our citizens however remain true to their republican principles, the whole landed interest is with them, and so is a great mass of talents....We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But...our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us.” The publication of this letter in the Federalist press caused a significant scandal, damaged Jefferson’s reputation, and ruined his relationship with George Washington.

Figure 5.11. Congressional Pugilists, anonymous, 1798 (p. 157)

This political cartoon shows the first physical fight in the U.S. Congress (then located in Philadelphia) between Federalist Roger Griswold of Connecticut and Democratic-Republican Matthew Lyon of Vermont on February 15, 1798. Tensions over President John Adams’s controversial foreign policy had come to a head at the end of January, with Lyon criticizing the Connecticut delegation, Griswold taking his words personally and personally insulting him in turn, and Lyon then spitting in Griswold’s eye. On February 15, Griswold responded by attacking Lyon with a wooden cane at his Congressional desk; Lyon grabbed fireplace tongs to return the blows. Their colleagues had to separate them. This image shows the two men fighting, to the amusement and dismay of their colleagues. In the background, a picture of a cockfight with the label “Royal Sport” hangs on the wall.

Maps

Map 5.1. The Ratification of the Constitution, 1787–90 (p. 140)

This map shows the states and territories of the United States during the ratification of the Constitution, together with the date on which each state ratified. Delaware ratified first, on December 7, 1787; New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify on June 21, 1788, satisfying Article VII’s requirement for the Constitution to take effect among the ratifying states. Virginia and New York followed later that summer, while North Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify until 1789 and 1790, respectively.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter’s subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• Charles, Joseph. The Origins of the American Party System. New York: Harper & Row, 1956.

• Hamilton, Alexander, John Jay, and James Madison. The Federalist. Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2001.

• Hartz, Louis. The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964.

• McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.

• Morgan, Edmund Sears. The Genius of George Washington. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980.

• Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812. New York: Knopf, 1990.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

5.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 135–141)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 135–141, the chapter opening and the ratification debates.

Exercise: The Federalist / Anti-Federalist comparison, using Primary Sources 5.1 and 5.2.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what each side feared and on what the Bill of Rights settled.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Would It Work? (pp. 141–146).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The general tenor of the ratification debates; the characteristics and positions of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists; and the role that the Bill of Rights played in quelling the fears of the Anti-Federalists.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Analyze the arguments of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists about the ratification of the Constitution.

• Explain the historical significance of the ratification debate.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1787 “Brutus,” “Cato,” and other writers begin serially publishing the Anti-Federalist Papers, raising public objections to the Constitution (September 27)

1787 Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay begin serially publishing The Federalist Papers (October 27)

1788 The Constitution is ratified (June 21)

1790 Rhode Island is the last of the original states to ratify the U.S. Constitution (May 29)

1791 The Bill of Rights is ratified (December 15)

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

Ratification by the people gave the Constitution a source of authority different from the state legislatures. Article VII required approval by conventions in nine states, reflecting the framers’ claim that the people themselves—not the existing governments—were the ultimate source of constitutional authority.

Federalists and Anti-Federalists disagreed over the dangers of the new system. Federalists argued that a stronger national government was necessary to preserve the Union and control faction; Anti-Federalists feared that distant, consolidated power would threaten liberty and the authority of the states. Their dispute established a recurring American argument over the proper reach of national power.

The Federalist and the Bill of Rights represent the lasting contributions of both sides. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay defended the Constitution in the essays published as The Federalist, while Anti-Federalist objections helped produce the first ten amendments. The constitutional settlement therefore emerged not from one side’s complete victory but from argument and compromise.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Federalist: These supporters of the Constitution favored a strong central government.

Anti-Federalist: These opponents of the Constitution favored retaining the decentralized approach of the Articles and distrusted the Constitution’s concentration of power in the national government, especially in the Presidency.

The Federalist Papers: Under the pseudonym Publius, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote these eighty-five essays over a ten-month period in 1787–88 to support the Constitution’s ratification.

Constitution: A constitution is the fundamental law of a polity that determines the institutions and procedures by which legitimate political power can be exercised in it; modern constitutions also often acknowledge various rights and liberties that the state guarantees.

Bill of Rights: The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which impose various limitations on the national government.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Assign students to read the opening section of Chapter Five (pp. 135–141).

Assign several of the following reading questions:

How was the U.S. Constitution ratified? Why did Madison and the other framers circumvent existing governmental structures?

Who wrote The Federalist Papers? Why are they considered classics of political thought? Where were they first published, and what does their eloquence suggest about the state of public debate today?

According to Federalist 10, what is the Constitution’s cure for the problem of faction?

According to Federalist 51, what ultimately protects the rights of the people?

How did the Anti-Federalists contribute to the eventual content of the Constitution?

Who was Patrick Henry? What were his views regarding the ratification debates?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Close Reading: Read aloud as a class the block quotation in the text from Federalist 1. Before you read together, write the following questions on the board: How does the essay show an awareness of the importance of the ratification debate? What, according to Hamilton, is at stake? How does his writing frame the rest of the Federalist Papers? After reading together, instruct students to answer the questions in their notes. After a time of reflection and note-taking, invite students to share their responses and conduct a discussion. Was Hamilton correct? What do students think about his writing style? Who was the audience for the Federalist Papers? How do you think Federalist 1 impacted the audience? Does Federalist 1 still matter to us today?

Insight: Encourage students to reflect on the history of Europe from the perspective of the Founders. For many centuries, the people on the continent were subject to governments ruled by kings of various family dynasties. The “accident and force” of Hamilton’s words was the gravity of history.

Further: This excerpt from Federalist I serves as an introductory statement for larger arguments spanning a federal system of government, separation of powers, and the accountability of a representative government. Have students keep this in mind as they move onto this lesson’s guiding classroom questions on the Federalist / Anti-Federalist tension and the Bill of Rights, as well as Lesson 5.2’s Analytical skills exercise contrasting Brutus 1 and Federalist 10.

Civic Discourse: The transfer of power in 1801 worked because enough people—officeholders and ordinary citizens alike—accepted an outcome they had voted against. Ask students what the framers assumed citizens would do to make that possible. Work from the ratification debate in this lesson: Brutus feared a republic too large for citizens to watch closely; Madison in Federalist 10 argued that the size was itself the safeguard. Both arguments assume a citizen who does something; ask students if they can think of examples of political and civic participation — do they reflect the participation envisioned in these arguments? Then bring the question forward. Have students list the responsibilities a citizen carries today, and sort them by level of government:

Local: Serving on a jury, attending a school board or council meeting, knowing who the sheriff and the county commissioners are.

State: Voting in state elections, obeying state law, petitioning the legislature.

National: Voting in federal elections, paying federal taxes, registering for selective service, staying informed enough to judge a national candidate.

Further: Ask the students which of these examples the framers would recognize, and which would surprise them. Have students consider what could narrow a person’s ability to participate in their government. Afterwards, ask them if this consideration has changed their view of these responsibilities.

Insight: The framers assumed an informed, participating citizenry at the local level above all. Tocqueville would later call the New England town meeting the school of democracy, and the responsibilities a citizen felt most directly in 1801 were the ones he owed close to home. Federal obligations were thinner: no income tax, and no federal office a citizen voted for directly beyond the House. Students should notice that the direction has largely reversed and consider what that reversal costs and what it buys.

Insight: A felony conviction can remove voting rights; legal limits exist on how much a citizen may contribute to a campaign; and permit requirements restrict where and when a protest may take place.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Read the Bill of Rights together as a class. Identify the various ways in which it restricts the national government’s power. How might the Calvinist understanding of human nature prevalent in Early America have informed the various amendments?

Critical Thinking: What is the relationship between Republicanism, Federalism, and Democracy? How do the concepts overlap and relate to each other? How are they different? How are they each protected and upheld in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights?

Further: Have students engage in a research project to distinguish between democracy as the most direct form of government, Republicanism as a more indirect democracy in which citizens elect representatives to govern for them, and Federalism, in which power is divided between national government and individual state governments.

Further: Once students understand the difference between the three concepts, have them identify at least one use of each in the Constitution.

Writing Skills: How did America’s founding principles shape the Constitution and the constitutional republic that Constitution created? Have students identify the purpose and authorship of the Declaration of Independence (Chapter 3), the Articles of Confederation (Ch 4), The Constitution (4.6-4.7) and the Federalist Papers. Assign a 500-word essay in which students argue either that a continuous thread runs from the founding principles through the Constitution to the kind of republic it created, or that no such thread exists. Students must take a side and defend it.

Debate: Divide the class into small groups and assign each group to represent either the Federalists or the Anti-Federalists. Allow the groups time to prepare for a ratification debate, preparing arguments and counter-arguments about the proposed Constitution. Each group will elect a spokesperson to represent them in the debate. After the groups are prepared, invite the speakers forward to give mini-speeches (1–2 minutes) in favor of their argument, taking turns with one Federalist argument followed by one Anti-Federalist argument.

Further: Option to extend the exercise by inviting follow-up rebuttals and/or questions from the audience to the speakers.

Further: After the debate, instruct every student to write a paragraph response explaining which argument they think was the strongest on both sides.

Insight: The primary sources 5.1 and 5.2 can be used in various ways for this exercise. Teachers could read it with the class as a model for the debate before assigning students to groups. Alternatively, teachers could instruct the groups to use these sources, in addition to the reading, as research to bring into the debate itself.

Context: James Madison, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1789. James Madison, who had begun his first term as a member of the first U.S. House of Representatives just over a month earlier. He had introduced the Bill of Rights earlier in the month. He wrote to Thomas Jefferson, who was then in Paris and consulting with the Marquis de Lafayette in early stages of the French Revolution, “We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us. It is consequently necessary to explore the way with great labour and caution. Those who follow will have an easier task.”

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of the June 30, 1789 letter from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson. Have students discuss the following questions:

How does Madison describe the task the First Congress had before it?

What does this primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Compare and contrast this with the quote from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (Epigraph, Chapter 4). Is the tone similar?

Further: What allusions might Madison have been making by referring to the first Congress as being “in a wilderness” [in the Old Testament, the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land; also, the American frontier]?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the cartoon, “The Federal Pillars,” (Figure 5.3). Ask students the following questions:

What does the cartoon depict? What stands out?

When and where was it made?

Compare this cartoon, printed in 1788, with Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” woodcut printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754 (Figure 3.5). How are the visual metaphors similar, and how are they different? Which states appear in both cartoons?

Geography: Display the Ratification of the Constitution, 1787–90 map (Map 5.1). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Which states ratified the Constitution first [New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and South Carolina]? Which ratified it latest [North Carolina and Rhode Island]?

Further: Why might many of the smaller states have ratified the U.S. Constitution earlier?

Being small and coastal meant they were potentially more vulnerable to attack, and more inclined to support a national government and navy.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

What was the “persistent tension” that divided the Federalists and Anti-Federalists and remains prominent in U.S. politics today?

Insight: The Federalists liked the idea of a strong and centralized government, but the Anti-Federalists feared that this kind of government would be too powerful and threaten the freedoms of the people on a local or individual level. The Anti-Federalists wanted a smaller and more decentralized type of government.

Why is it important for power to be divided? What view of human nature is reflected in this design?

Insight: Power is divided to prevent any one person or faction from gaining too much power. This reflected a realistic view of human nature. The Founders knew that power is corrupting, and the human tendency toward ambition can lead to the abuse of power. Therefore, power was divided so that ambition will counteract ambition.

According to Hamilton in Federalist Number 1, why was the matter of ratifying the U.S. Constitution an important event in world history? What question was before mankind?

Insight: The question was whether human societies could govern themselves according to reason and self-determination. The American people had an opportunity to do that by ratifying the Constitution. The alternative, according to Hamilton, was to be governed by force and accident, as had been the case for most of humanity throughout history.

Why was the Bill of Rights added to the Constitution? Why does the author say that the Bill of Rights proved the critics of the Constitution right?

Insight: The Bill of Rights was added as a compromise between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The Anti-Federalists were afraid that the Constitution granted too much power, so the Bill of Rights guaranteed that individual freedoms would be protected from abuse of power by the national government. The critics were right because the Bill of Rights has proved to be an essential component of the Constitution.

According to the author, how did the existence of faction end up improving the design of the Constitution?

Insight: The existence of faction at first glance is a negative. But in the case of the Constitution, the competing factions sharpened each other’s arguments in debate, leading to a better system of checks and balances, a system by means of which each power granted to one unit of government is kept within safe limits by countervailing powers vested in some other unit. If only one vision had been enacted, the design would have been worse. The competitive nature of the ratification of the Constitution reflects the dynamics of the republic itself. Through a competition of ideas and interests, consensus is forged. The outcome is better than the alternative, which is to let one person or faction decide everything.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

Under Article VII, how was the Constitution to become law?

Name the two sides in the ratification debate and one thing each wanted.

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) by ratification in conventions of the people in nine states—endorsed directly by the people, whom Madison called the highest source of authority, not by the state legislatures; (2) Federalists wanted the Constitution ratified as written and a stronger national government; Anti-Federalists wanted a bill of rights and feared a distant central power.

Explain

Why did the framers insist on ratifying conventions of the people rather than the state legislatures?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. A constitution ratified by legislatures would rest on the states’ authority and could be revoked by them. Ratified by the people in convention, it rests on a source above the states and binds them. Students may also note that legislatures had reason to resist a document that reduced their power.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson’s threads together.

Ratification transformed the Constitution from a proposal into the framework of government, but only after a vigorous public argument over the dangers of national power. Federalists defended the new system as necessary to preserve the Union; Anti-Federalists warned that centralized authority could threaten liberty. The eventual settlement reflected both positions: the Constitution took effect, and the Bill of Rights added explicit protections against federal abuse.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

Ratification settled what the government would be on paper. The next lesson asks the harder question the framers left open: whether it would actually work—and how much depended on the character of the first man to hold the office.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Ratify, convention, Federalist, Anti-Federalist. Gloss “convention” plainly—a body elected for one purpose and then dissolved—before explaining why ratifying conventions mattered.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Federalists argued that ___.” “The Anti-Federalists feared that ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students take one side each and state its main worry, then write both sentences.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a two-column chart—Federalist / Anti-Federalist—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

5.2 Would It Work? (pp. 141–146)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 141–146.

Exercise: The chart of Washington’s precedents, using the Critical Thinking and Problem Solving activity.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Washington’s cabinet and the precedent of leaving office after two terms.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Hamilton versus Jefferson (pp. 146–150).

Essential Understanding

The unprecedented nature of the early presidency and thus the essential importance of George Washington, who set an impeccable example for future presidential conduct.

Lesson Objectives

• Evaluate the importance of the precedents set by Washington as the first national leader.

• Draw conclusions about Washington’s actions as president given the experimental nature of the Constitution.

Key Dates

1789 The first Congress of the United States convenes in New York City (March 4)

1789 Congress counts the electoral votes and confirms George Washington’s unanimous election as president (April 6)

Key Concepts

The Constitution was an experiment in practice as well as a document on paper. It established offices and powers but could not specify every custom, procedure, or limit by which the new government would operate. The conduct of the first officeholders would therefore become precedent.

George Washington’s authority gave the new presidency legitimacy. His national reputation and personal restraint reassured Americans who feared executive power. By forming a cabinet, treating the presidency as a civilian office, and eventually leaving office voluntarily, Washington helped define practices that the constitutional text itself did not settle.

Precedent linked character to constitutional government. Washington understood that choices made at the beginning would become examples for successors. The early republic thus depended not only on institutional design but also on the judgment and restraint of the people entrusted with its offices.

Key Terms

Cabinet: a group of advisors brought together for the purpose of offering advice

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Five, Section Two, “Would It Work?” (pp. 141–146).

Assign the following reading questions:

What problems immediately confronted Washington after he was sworn in as the first president? Why did Flexner call him “the indispensable man”? Why did Washington agonize over every decision he made?

What was Washington’s attitude toward political parties? Who was in his first cabinet?

Why was there so much pessimism about the Constitution’s staying power, even among its supporters?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Close Reading: Read aloud as a class the excerpt in the text from Washington’s First Inaugural. Consider its differences and similarities with respect to the excerpt from Federalist 1 read in the last section. Invite students to share thoughts and opinions about the imagery and rhetoric used here. Would Washington’s rhetoric have proven effective given the context of his speech?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Create a chart with your students by listing “Precedents” on one side and “Why this is important” on the side next to it. After reading this section, fill out the chart together. Invite students to share why they think each one was important before filling in that section on the chart. After completing the chart, invite students to reflect on which precedent they think is most important and why. Students may consider Washington’s selection of a cabinet, his lack of favoritism in appointment-making, his refusal to serve more than two terms, or other features of his presidency. Later sections of the chapter will add more precedents, such as foreign policy considerations, and these precedents can be added later to the chart.

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the setting, authors, and intended purposes of Brutus 1 & Federalist 10 (Primary Sources 5.1 & 5.2). Have students discuss the following questions:

How do the authors of the two essays describe their subjects?

What do we know about the authors’ motivations and worldview?

Contrast the views of the geographical size of the United States and its relationship to the possibility of good representative government in Brutus I and Federalist 10. What arguments are presented by each author?

Further: How do both authors describe the diversity present in the United States?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the engraving, The Looking Glass for 1787, (Figure 5.4). Ask students the following questions:

What does the engraving depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview, or what can be known about his life [i.e., his residence in Connecticut] influence the work?

What traits [dignity, civility, intelligence] does Doolittle portray the Federalists as having? And the anti-Federalists [crudeness]?

Further: What do you think Doolittle is suggesting about the importance of—and possibility of—unity?

Further: What is another famous use of “A house divided against itself cannot stand” in American history?

Analytical Skills: The Constitution the states had just ratified rests on four principles that are easier to name than to locate. Have students find each one operating in the text or in the first years of the government.

Limited government: The federal government holds the powers the Constitution grants and no others. Ask what follows from enumerating powers at all.

Separation of powers: Legislative, executive and judicial authority sit in different hands. Have students say what problem this is meant to prevent.

Federalism: Authority is divided between the national government and the states. Hamilton and Jefferson disagreed about where the line fell—have students use that dispute as the illustration.

The rule of law: The Constitution binds the officers who serve under it, and it did so before anyone knew who they would be.

Insight: These four are easy to recite and hard to see working. The exercise asks students to point at a clause or an episode rather than repeat a definition. The Alien and Sedition Acts in Lesson 5.5 make a useful counter-case: a government that held the powers granted to it and used them in a way many Americans judged to violate the rule of law.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What role did precedent play in the period after the Constitution was ratified?

Insight: The Constitution was an experiment in self-government, so the first actions of those in power would set the model for future actions. The author describes the Constitution as an architectural blueprint or a piece of sheet music. It would need to be brought to life by the officeholders.

Why was Washington’s choice of cabinet members significant?

Insight: Washington’s choice reflects a leader who is genuinely seeking the best solution to difficult problems. As a military commander, Washington relied on councils of war in which each subordinate stated his views of what should be done, beginning with the most junior. Then Washington would choose the plan he liked best. His procedure as president was the same, as he relied on his cabinet for advice and the presentation of alternate views.

If Washington had decided to stay in office longer than two terms, what could have been a possible ramification?

Insight: Having just fought to free themselves from a king, Americans were not eager to replace him with a strong central government nor a strong executive. But Washington had proven that he could be trusted by refraining from seizing power when some in his army urged him to do so. Only the assumption that Washington would be the first president made a powerful executive tolerable.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

The chapter calls the Constitution an architect’s sketch rather than a finished building. What does that mean?

Name one precedent George Washington set as the first president.

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) that it laid out a rough outline of a government rather than a detailed plan, leaving much to be worked out in practice; (2) any of: forming a cabinet, serving two terms and then retiring, deferring to Congress on legislation, keeping the presidency civilian in character.

Explain

Why did it matter so much who held the presidency first?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. An office defined only in outline is shaped by whoever fills it first, because his conduct becomes the precedent. Washington’s restraint established that the office was limited by custom as well as by text—and a first president who had behaved otherwise would have set a different and equally durable pattern.

Daily Recap

The Constitution supplied the framework of the new government, but precedent would determine how much of that framework worked in practice. Washington’s reputation reassured a public wary of executive power, while his restraint helped establish the presidency as a limited civilian office. His choices—from forming a cabinet to leaving office voluntarily—became examples precisely because there were few earlier examples to follow.

Looking Ahead

Washington’s personal authority and conduct helped stabilize the new government. The next lesson shows the first crack: two men in his own cabinet who read the same Constitution and reached opposite conclusions.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Precedent, cabinet, executive, unprecedented. Anchor “precedent” in its plain sense—the first time something is done, which then becomes the pattern—before applying it to Washington.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Washington set a precedent when he ___.” “The Constitution was an experiment because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students name one thing Washington did first, then write the sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may list Washington’s precedents as bullets instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

5.3 Hamilton versus Jefferson (pp. 146–150)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 146–150.

Exercise: Hamilton’s three-part financial plan and the objections to it.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the two visions of the country and on strict versus loose construction.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign A Fragile Unity (pp. 150–154).

Essential Understanding

The divisions within Washington’s cabinet, centered on the figures of Hamilton and Jefferson; their different visions for the country and interpretations of the Constitution; the early controversies over the establishment of a national bank, whether to provide aid to revolutionary France in its war against Great Britain, and the Jay Treaty.

Lesson Objectives

• Identify and describe the three pillars of Hamilton’s financial plan.

• Draw conclusions about the legality and wisdom of establishing a National Bank.

• Compare and contrast Hamilton and Jefferson in terms of their perspective on the French Revolution.

Key Dates

1791 First Bank of the United States is established according to Hamilton’s plan (December 12)

1793 Washington issues a Neutrality Proclamation (April 22)

1794 The Jay Treaty is signed (November 19)

Key Concepts

Hamilton’s financial program sought to establish public credit, bind the states more closely to the national government, encourage domestic industry, and create a stable financial system through debt assumption, tariffs, and a national bank. Its success also raised a constitutional question: how much power could Congress exercise beyond powers expressly named in the Constitution?

Strict and loose construction emerged from Jefferson and Hamilton’s disagreement over that question. Jefferson read federal powers narrowly; Hamilton argued that the Necessary and Proper Clause permitted implied powers needed to carry enumerated powers into effect. Their dispute established a durable argument about constitutional interpretation.

Foreign affairs deepened the political divide. Jefferson sympathized with revolutionary France, while Hamilton and many Federalists favored closer relations with Britain. Washington’s neutrality policy and the controversial Jay Treaty turned disagreements inside the cabinet into broader partisan alignments across the country.

Key Terms

Sectional conflict: A sectional conflict is one in which political factions organized on the basis of geography advance their interests at the expense of their polity’s common welfare. Sectional conflicts between northerners and southerners, particularly over slavery, dominated the politics of the early United States.

The Jay Treaty (1794): Negotiated by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, this unpopular treaty settled lingering issues from the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain. According to its terms, the British agreed to withdraw from their western frontier forts and to compensate the United States for their past seizure of American ships in the West Indies. But they did so in exchange for highly favorable trading terms as well as promises to overlook many other cases of past British transgressions.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Five, Section Three, “Hamilton versus Jefferson” (pp. 146–150).

Assign several of the following questions:

What were the three main elements of Hamilton’s financial plan?

How well did each succeed?

Why was the creation of a national bank controversial?

Which European country did Jefferson most favor? Hamilton?

Why did Thomas Jefferson resign from his cabinet position under President Washington?

How did the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Era (1791–1815) affect the development of the fledgling United States?

When was the Jay Treaty signed, and what did it accomplish for the United States and Great Britain?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Ask students to advocate for the perspective of either Hamilton or Jefferson regarding the French Revolution. Allow students to pick which perspective they want to advocate for, and instruct them to individually write 1–2 paragraphs. Students should address how the French Revolution’s aims were different from or similar to those of the American Revolution. After allowing enough time for them to write, invite a class discussion by allowing students to summarize the arguments they wrote.

Speaking Skills: Encourage students to consider the position of an average American at the time and to speak in favor of or against the Jay Treaty. Have them organize their thoughts in writing and then call on a select few to share their perspective with the class.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Write the words “necessary and proper” on the board and invite students to share ideas on what they think each word means in the context of the Congress of the United States. Why do they think this clause was added? Use this discussion as a lead-in to a lesson on the significance of the debate over the national bank. First, have students create a 3 x 2 graphic organizer to describe the policy and rationale of the three pillars of Hamilton’s financial plan. Second, zero in on the national bank and make a list on the board of the Pros and Cons of the bank. Use the criteria of “necessary and proper” to critique the bank. Was it necessary? Was it proper? Hamilton’s reasoning might seem to expand the government’s powers dramatically. On the other hand, is the absence of an explicitly enumerated power in the Constitution to create a national bank truly a good enough reason to oppose what otherwise might be a very good idea? Finally, instruct students to explain, in writing, whether they would have voted “yes” or “no” on the national bank and have them explain why. Tally up the votes of the class to see if they would have approved or rejected the bank.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the engraving, Venerate the Plow (Figure 5.7). Ask students the following questions:

What does the engraving depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made, and in what medium was it published?

What sort of worldview does this work suggest? [See the discussion of Thomas Jefferson’s agrarianism on the same page in the text.]

Guiding Classroom Questions

What was the most controversial part of Hamilton’s financial plan?

Insight: The plan for the federal government to acquire the debts of the states was controversial because not all states had an equal amount of debt. The author takes more time to explain the controversy of the national bank. The bank was controversial for two reasons. First, Republicans distrusted the financial levers of banking and thought they could become corrupted if centralized. Second, the Constitution does not specify this as a power. There emerged an argument about how strictly or loosely the Constitution should be interpreted.

What were the major political differences between Hamilton and Jefferson? What was Jefferson’s vision for the United States?

Insight: Both of these men had supported the Constitution, though neither without reservations. Jefferson feared that the new government might be too powerful, while Hamilton worried that it was not powerful enough. Hamilton worked to stabilize the nation’s finances and support capital growth and manufacturing. Jefferson viewed the financial sector with suspicion and had a vision of a nation of self-sufficient farmers. Jefferson saw virtue in farming life because of the connection between freedom, self-government, and the self-sustaining ethic of farming life. On the issue of European conflicts, the Federalists were generally pro-British while the Jeffersonians were anti-British and leaned toward supporting the French.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name the three parts of Hamilton’s financial plan.

What did Hamilton and Jefferson disagree about in reading the Constitution?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) pay the national debt at face value and assume the states’ war debts; impose high tariffs on imported goods; charter a national bank; (2) whether the federal government held only the powers expressly granted—Jefferson’s strict reading—or also those implied as necessary to carry them out—Hamilton’s loose reading.

Explain

Hamilton and Jefferson read the same document and reached opposite conclusions. What does that reveal about a written constitution?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. That a text settles less than it appears to. The Constitution fixed the words but not their application, and the first serious dispute under it was about how to read it. Students may reasonably argue this is a weakness, or that a document rigid enough to foreclose the argument could not have lasted.

Daily Recap

Hamilton and Jefferson agreed on the need for constitutional government but disagreed sharply about what the Constitution permitted and what kind of country it should serve. Hamilton’s financial program strengthened national credit and federal power; Jefferson feared centralized finance and favored a more agrarian republic. Their disputes over the bank, constitutional interpretation, and the European war helped turn differences within Washington’s cabinet into enduring political divisions.

Looking Ahead

The cabinet disagreement did not stay in the cabinet. The next lesson follows it out into the country, where it hardened into the thing Washington had warned against.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Tariff, debt assumption, strict construction, loose construction. Distinguish “strict” and “loose” construction explicitly and early—reading the text narrowly versus reading it to include what it implies.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Hamilton wanted the government to ___.” “Jefferson objected because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one part of Hamilton’s plan and one objection, then write both.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a two-column organizer—Hamilton / Jefferson—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

5.4 A Fragile Unity (pp. 150–154)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 150–154.

Exercise: Primary Source 5.3, Washington’s Farewell Address, with the authorship and purpose questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on how parties formed and on what Washington warned against.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Embattled Successor (pp. 154–158).

Essential Understanding

How the first American political parties originated in Jefferson and Hamilton’s disagreements, as well as the themes and concerns expressed in Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the pros and cons of political parties in American government.

• Interpret the advice given by Washington in his Farewell Address.

• Draw conclusions about the foreign policy wisdom of George Washington.

Key Dates

1796 Washington publishes his “Farewell Address” (September 19)

Key Concepts

The first party system grew from disagreements that had begun inside Washington’s administration. Hamilton’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans differed over constitutional interpretation, economic policy, foreign affairs, and the proper balance between national and state power.

Washington’s Farewell Address treated national unity as the central safeguard of the young republic. He warned against the spirit of faction and against permanent foreign attachments, fearing that partisan and sectional loyalties could become stronger than attachment to the Union itself.

Key Terms

Faction: a group pursuing its own interest at the expense of the common good; Madison treats faction in Federalist 10 and Washington warns of it in the Farewell Address.

Political party: an organized body seeking to win office and enact a program; the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans were the first in the United States.

Neutrality: staying out of another nation’s war; Washington’s policy toward the conflict between Britain and France.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Five, Section Four, “A Fragile Unity” (pp. 150–154).

Assign several of the following questions:

What did most Founders think of political parties?

Who was the first leader of the Federalist Party? The Democratic Republicans?

How did members of the opposing political party treat one another?

What did opponents of Jefferson and Hamilton fear, respectively, regarding each’s followers?

Where did Washington retire?

With what anniversary did Washington’s Farewell Address coincide?

What recommendation did the Farewell Address make regarding the United States’ relationships with other countries?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Analytical Skills: Ask students to read Washington’s Farewell Address (Primary Source 5.3). Instruct students to re-articulate Washington’s message in their own words. Have them write 3 short paragraphs, one each on the topic of unity, religion, and patriotism, based on the perspective of Washington. Afterwards, have students exchange papers with other students to do a peer-editing exercise. Students may nominate peer-written paragraphs that they think are exceptional. After the peer exercise, teachers can read the nominated student paragraphs out loud to the full class.

Writing Skills: George Washington warned against the formation of political parties, but the two-party system was already being formed around the political personas of Jefferson and Hamilton. Have students craft a short essay from the perspective of either Jefferson or Hamilton about political parties, responding to Washington’s counsel in his Farewell Address.

Debate: Has Washington’s perspective regarding foreign policy become obsolete, or does the wisdom of his policy endure? If so, how? If not, why not? Encourage students to consider these questions and then stage a debate in class on the contemporary relevance of Washington’s opinions.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What role did regional differences play in the formation of political parties?

Insight: Washington was concerned that local and provincial interests would fracture the unity of the country. One example of regional disputes is the difference between those who worked on farms and those who lived in cities. Jefferson was a champion of the farming lifestyle and looked at Hamilton’s financial system with suspicion.

Why was Washington so concerned about the formation of political parties? Why did he think they might cause damage to the republic?

Insight: Political parties pose a risk to the unity of the country when partisan attachments become stronger than one’s commitment to the Constitution. We see an example of this in John Adams’ presidency, when the Federalists tried to suppress the freedom of speech, and the Republicans responded by trying to give states the right to reject the powers of the national government.

What recommendations did the Farewell Address make regarding American conduct? How is Washington’s address still salient for Americans today?

Insight: Washington’s Farewell Address has become a classic text because its wisdom still can be applied today. Washington was a unifying leader who was indispensable to the early success of the American experiment. He advised Americans to avoid developing unhealthy attachments. At home, he wants us to avoid becoming overly attached to a political party, which can blind us to the importance of the collective good. Abroad, he wants us to avoid getting tangled up with foreign countries in ways that would suffocate our national independence.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name the first two American political parties and their leaders.

In what year did Washington deliver his Farewell Address?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) Hamilton’s Federalist Party and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans; (2) 1796.

Explain

Washington warned against the “spirit of party” while parties were forming inside his own administration. Was the warning naive?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. Students may argue he underestimated how inevitable organized disagreement is in a free republic; or that his warning was about faction placing party above country rather than about disagreement itself, which is a narrower and more durable point. The strongest answers use his own words rather than the general reputation of the speech.

Daily Recap

By the end of Washington’s presidency, disagreements over finance, constitutional interpretation, and foreign affairs had hardened into organized Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties. Washington’s Farewell Address responded by making national unity its central concern. His warnings against faction and permanent foreign attachments reflected a fear that partisan or sectional loyalties could become stronger than loyalty to the constitutional Union.

Looking Ahead

Washington could warn against parties; his successor had to govern with them. The next lesson follows John Adams into the first contested election and its aftermath.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Faction, partisanship, farewell address, neutrality. Gloss “faction” plainly—a group pursuing its own interest against the whole—and distinguish it from a political party.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “Washington warned that political parties would ___.” “The two parties disagreed about ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state one thing Washington warned about, then write the sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may annotate a short excerpt of the Address instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

5.5 The Embattled Successor (pp. 154–158)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 154–158.

Exercise: The Alien and Sedition Acts and the First Amendment objections to them.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the sources of conflict during Adams’s presidency and objections to the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Successful Transfer of Power (pp. 158–163).

Essential Understanding

The background and character of John Adams; the major events of his administration; and the rapid descent of the nation into partisan turmoil during his presidency.

Lesson Objectives

• Create a political argument from the perspective of a Federalist or a Republican.

• Analyze the risks to the Constitution posed by the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.

Key Dates

1796 Adams defeats Jefferson in first contested presidential election (December 7)

1797–98 The XYZ Affair (October–April)

1798 Jefferson and Madison draft the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (November–December)

1798 The Alien and Sedition Acts are passed (Summer)

1799 Death of George Washington (December 14)

Key Concepts

The election of 1796 placed John Adams in the presidency as the first successor to Washington and the first president chosen in a contested partisan election. His administration therefore faced both the ordinary difficulties of governing and the new problem of leading a country divided into organized political camps.

The Alien and Sedition Acts exposed the danger of allowing partisan fear to override constitutional restraint. Adopted amid an undeclared naval conflict with France, the laws expanded federal power over aliens and punished certain criticism of the government, bringing the First Amendment directly into the political struggle.

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions answered one constitutional danger with another. Jefferson and Madison argued that states could interpose against unconstitutional federal action, advancing a compact theory of the Union that challenged federal supremacy. The crisis showed both parties pressing constitutional arguments toward dangerous extremes.

Key Terms

The XYZ Affair: A diplomatic dispute between France and the United States resulted when the Adams administration publicly revealed that French agents had demanded bribes as a precondition to negotiations regarding French interference with American shipping. That revelation caused a public uproar and an abrupt reversal in the American public’s formerly positive view of France, resulting in strained relations between the countries.

Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: This series of congressional legislation authorized the president to expel “dangerous” aliens and to censor and punish citizens for speech deemed contrary to the national interest.

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798): Drafted by Jefferson and Madison, these resolutions denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts. They declared that, because the Constitution was a compact among previously existing states, the individual states had the right to interpose themselves against—that is, to nullify outright—unconstitutional acts of the national government.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Five, Section Five, “The Embattled Successor” (pp. 154–158).

Assign several of the following questions:

Which was the first contested presidential election in U.S. history?

What was the XYZ Affair? How did it lead to the Alien and Sedition Acts?

How did the popular image of France change during Adams’ presidency?

Who wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions? What did they seek to accomplish?

What was the state of the public press in the 1790s?

When did George Washington pass away?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Writing Skills: Assign students to one of the two major early U.S. political parties and have them compose a short 150–200 word newspaper piece attacking their political opponents, focusing on policy differences. Encourage volunteers to read their work aloud in small groups and to discuss their various positions.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: The Alien and Sedition Acts and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were both extreme measures that tested the Constitutional order. Have the class analyze these two in terms of “Reasons” and “Risks.” Separate the class into small groups, assigning each group either to the Alien and Sedition Acts or the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Have the groups analyze the measures by writing (1) Reasons: the rationale for why the measure was created, and (2) Risks: why the measure was dangerous to the new Constitutional order. Were the reasons justified or not? What part of the Constitution was risked? How might they cause political instability? How should individuals and states respond to unconstitutional measures? After each group completes the analysis, do a jigsaw exercise to match students from opposite groups with each other to share their conclusions. As a concluding exercise, each individual student should write a response explaining which measure they think posed a greater risk to the Constitutional experiment and why.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the cartoon, Providential Detection (Figure 5.10). Ask students the following questions:

What does the cartoon depict? What stands out?

When was it made? What was its immediate context? [The publication of the Mazzei letter in the Federalist press.]

How does Jefferson cast the difference between the Federalist and Republican parties? [Good/bad, Republican/aristocratic, masses/few, etc.]

Further: Compare Jefferson’s description of the Federalist party with prior primary sources’ description of the problem of faction.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the cartoon, Congressional Pugilists (Figure 5.11). Ask students the following questions:

What does the cartoon depict? What stands out?

What might you infer about the attitude of the unknown artist to this event? [That it was not a very dignified one.]

Further: What was the significance of the event portrayed?

Insight: It was the first physical fight on the house floor; a symbol of the heightening tensions between the political parties in the lead up to the 1800 election.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why was John Adams’s presidency so contentious?

Insight: The departure of Washington as a unifying figure was bound to set loose a competitive battle between the two emerging political parties over the future direction of the country. The Federalists and the Republicans had distinct visions about what the country should stand for. They were both afraid that the other party’s ideas would destroy the country. On top of that, the conflict with France exacerbated the tensions. Many Americans called for war, but the American military was small and ill-equipped for war.

Further: Jefferson and Adams had been close friends and allies in 1776, but the animosity between them as party leaders was intense. Happily, after both had retired, their friendship was rekindled and carried on for years through correspondence. Remarkably, they both died on the same day, July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration they played leading roles in creating.

What unique challenges did Adams face as Washington’s successor?

Insight: Washington was a unique figure. As the beloved leader of the American Revolution, he was the living embodiment of national unity. Anyone following Washington would have struggled to maintain national unity. Moreover, John Adams was the opposite of Washington in terms of temperament. A man may have many great qualities and yet be ill-suited for a particular job or office. Thomas Jefferson was not a military man, and his time as governor of Virginia (1779–1781) was not very successful. Similarly, John Adams was ill suited for the roles of president and party leader.

Why was there widespread backlash against the Alien and Sedition Acts?

Insight: The Alien and Sedition Acts were an early test of whether the Constitution could withstand the passions of partisanship. As the book puts it, the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and press were regarded by most Americans as fundamental to their way of life and therefore sacrosanct — and those guarantees were what the Acts curtailed.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Who won the election of 1796, and what was unusual about it?

What did the Alien and Sedition Acts do?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) John Adams, narrowly over Jefferson—the first contested presidential election in American history; (2) they lengthened the residency required for citizenship, allowed the president to deport foreigners judged dangerous, and made it a crime to publish false or malicious writing against the government.

Explain

Adams was a serious defender of liberty who signed a law making it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious” criticism of high government officials. How do you account for that?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. Undeclared naval war with France made the administration treat opposition as disloyalty; the understanding of free speech in 1798 was narrower than ours; and Adams was under pressure from his own party. Students should notice that a principled man under pressure is a better explanation than a hypocritical one, and harder to dismiss.

Daily Recap

Adams inherited a republic without Washington’s unifying authority and governed amid fierce partisan conflict and worsening relations with France. The Alien and Sedition Acts tested the First Amendment by allowing the governing party to punish opposition speech, while the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions advanced a sweeping state-centered response. The crisis revealed how quickly fear and partisanship could push both sides toward constitutional extremes.

Looking Ahead

The Acts made the election of 1800 a referendum on whether the losing side would accept losing. The final lesson of the chapter is about what happened when it did.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Sedition, alien, partisan, undeclared war. Gloss “sedition” plainly—speech or writing that stirs up opposition to the government—before discussing whether punishing it is compatible with the First Amendment.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Alien and Sedition Acts made it illegal to ___.” “Adams signed them because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students state what the Acts did and one objection, then write both sentences.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may complete a cause-and-effect chart instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

5.6 The Successful Transfer of Power (pp. 158–163)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 158–163.

Exercise: Primary Source 5.4, Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, with the authorship and purpose questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why 1800 mattered and on the tone Jefferson took toward his opponents.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter 6.

Essential Understanding

The peaceful transfer of power in 1800; the conciliatory character of Jefferson’s inaugural address; and Pierre L’Enfant’s plans for the nation’s new capital in Washington, D.C.

Lesson Objectives

• Draw conclusions about Jefferson’s style of leadership.

• Explain why the election of 1800 was important for the United States.

Key Dates

1801 Thomas Jefferson is elected the nation’s third president (February 17)

Key Concepts

The Revolution of 1800 was significant because political power passed peacefully from one organized party to another under the new Constitution. Elections had already shown that Americans could choose leaders; the transfer of 1801 showed that the losing party could surrender office without abandoning the constitutional system.

Key Terms

“The Revolution of 1800”: This phrase, from a later letter of Thomas Jefferson, refers to the peaceful transfer of power from the Federalist Adams administration to the Jefferson administration. According to Jefferson, the “Revolution” testified to the nation’s success in producing change “not effected indeed by the sword . . . but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.”

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Five, Section Six, “The Successful Transfer of Power” (pp. 158–163).

Assign several of the following questions:

How did Hamilton contribute to the election of his arch-rival Jefferson?

What led to Hamilton’s death?

How did each party portray its opponents during the election of 1800?

How did Jefferson address the nation in his First Inaugural? What did Jefferson change, and what did he leave intact, of Hamilton’s financial plan after he gained power in 1801?

“We are all _______—we are all _______” said Jefferson in his Inaugural Address.

What was the Twelfth Amendment? Why was it considered necessary after 1796 and 1800?

Who commissioned Pierre L’Enfant to design the capital?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Civic Discourse: Lead your students through a discussion about presidential leadership. Start by having students review and brainstorm the beliefs that Jefferson stood for. These will include a strict interpretation of the Constitution, support for agricultural economy, support for France, and a strong dislike of Hamilton’s financial plan. Invite students to respond to the following questions. Teachers might instruct students to write down their thoughts first, or start with a partner/small group discussion, before extending the conversation to the full group:

If Jefferson had aggressively pursued his beliefs and governed in a radical way, what effect would it have had on the nation in 1800?

What were the risks facing the country after Jefferson won? Why was a transfer of power an uncertain thing back then?

Did Jefferson offer a more unified or less unified vision for the country after his victory? Why do you think he did this? What does it say about his qualities as a leader?

Further: As a concluding exercise, invite your students to write a paragraph about what kind of leader Jefferson was, using evidence or examples from the discussion.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Encourage students to consider why the peaceful transfer of power marked such an important landmark for the early republic.

Insight: The Founders had not anticipated the rise of political parties, so the transition of 1800–1801 showed that the constitutional order could absorb a development they had not foreseen.

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (Primary Source 5.4). Have students discuss the following questions:

How does Thomas Jefferson describe the importance of national unity?

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Contrast this selection with Washington’s discussion of national unity in Primary Source 5.3. What role do they see religion playing? Washington writes that religion and morality are the “great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens,” and Jefferson argues that “an overruling Providence...by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter.” Both see it as beneficial for national unity, able to “make us a happy and a prosperous people.”

Further: Contrast this address with the views of Federalists expressed in the Mazzei letter (see information about Figure 5.10). Explain the difference in audience [written to a private friend, versus given to the nation] and purpose [expressing a personal opinion and perhaps venting, versus taking on the responsibility of guiding the nation as a whole, including those with whom he disagreed.]

Guiding Classroom Questions

What were the risks facing the American political system heading into the election of 1800?

Insight: The first party system was characterized by intense paranoia and personal attacks. Jefferson was accused of being an atheist and as radical as the French Jacobins. Adams was accused of being a secret monarchist. There was a real risk of insurrection by whoever lost the election. Luckily, the transfer of power happened peacefully, and Jefferson sought to unify the country afterward.

Which was the most important precedent set by the election of 1800?

Insight: The point at which it could be said that the American Revolution was finally successful was March 1801, when power was peacefully transferred from Adams’ Federalists to the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans. The ability for the people to hand power to a different party upholds a fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence, where it says that legitimate governments operate with the consent of the governed.

How did Jefferson address his critics’ concerns during his First Inaugural?

Insight: Jefferson tried to unify the country with his Inaugural Address. As president, Jefferson was not as radical as the Federalists feared. Although he would implement many reforms according to his beliefs, Jefferson made clear that he would tolerate dissenting opinions and seek to uphold the spirit of the Constitution.

What was special or distinct about L’Enfant’s design of Washington, D.C.?

Insight: The author uses the architectural story of Washington, D.C. to draw our attention to the historical situation of the United States. The design of the government was complete, the work had begun, but the country was still a work in progress.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What was unprecedented about the inauguration of 1801?

What did Jefferson mean by saying Americans were all Republicans and all Federalists?

Acceptable responses: determinate. (1) it was the first orderly, peaceful and legitimate transfer of power from one political party to another under the Constitution; (2) that the parties differed over means rather than over the republic itself—a deliberate gesture of conciliation after a bitter election.

Explain

Why is a peaceful transfer of power treated as a greater achievement than winning the election?

Acceptable responses: a defensible range. Winning proves a party can gather support; handing over power proves the loser accepts the result and the system outranks the parties within it. Until 1801 no one knew whether the Constitution could survive its own losers. Students may add that Jefferson’s conciliatory tone was itself part of the achievement, not merely a description of it.

Daily Recap

The election of 1800 produced something the constitutional system had not yet demonstrated: an orderly transfer of national power from one political party to another. Jefferson’s conciliatory inaugural address sought to distinguish partisan disagreement from loyalty to the republic itself. The peaceful transition showed that political competition need not end in violence or constitutional collapse and established a precedent essential to the maturation of the new government.

Looking Ahead

The experiment had survived its first transfer of power and acquired a capital from which to govern. The story now follows the republic as it expands westward, tests the limits of national authority, and enters a new era of mass politics.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first: Inauguration, transfer of power, conciliation, capital. Gloss “conciliation” plainly—an attempt to reduce hostility—before analyzing the tone of the inaugural address.

• Frames that carry the reasoning: “The election of 1800 mattered because ___.” “Jefferson tried to reassure his opponents by ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write: In pairs, students say why 1801 was a first, then write the sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph: A student may build a simple timeline—1796 election → Alien and Sedition Acts → 1800 election → 1801 inauguration—instead of writing prose.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Place the following into chronological order from earliest to latest.

A. The Bill of Rights is ratified

B. The Constitution is ratified

C. George Washington publishes his Farewell Address

D. The Federalist Papers are published

E. Thomas Jefferson is elected president

Answer: D · B · A · C · E

Key Terms and Concepts

Match each term or concept to the correct description. Answers are in bold.

1. Precedent — C

2. Ratification — E

3. “Necessary and proper” — D

4. Cabinet — B

5. Political party / Faction — A

A. When groups of like-minded people form to advocate for a set of government outcomes.

B. The group of presidential advisers selected by Washington.

C. Actions of the first officeholders that set examples for future officeholders.

D. A constitutional clause Hamilton said justified a national bank, though Jefferson disagreed.

E. The process by which the people of the states approved the Constitution.

Fill in the Blank

Complete each statement. Answers are in bold.

1. The Federalist Papers were authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.

2. When France and Britain were at war during Washington’s presidency, Washington decided to remain neutral.

3. The two main political parties to emerge were the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans.

4. President John Adams struggled to lead the young nation amid the XYZ Affair and conflict with France.

5. The first peaceful transfer of power between parties followed the election of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams.

Geography

Consult this map for the answers to the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix.

[ART REQUIRED — CH05 Geography, ANSWER KEY: labeled map based on Map 5.1, The Ratification of the Constitution, 1787–90, showing each state and its ratification date.]

Answers: (1) Delaware ratified first; New Hampshire was the ninth, on June 21, 1788. (2) Virginia and New York ratified after New Hampshire; their participation mattered because both were large, populous, economically important states whose absence would have weakened the new Union. (3) Accept any defensible pattern supported by the map; students may note comparatively earlier ratification among several smaller coastal states and later ratification in North Carolina and Rhode Island.

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. Why did the Federalists support the ratification of the Constitution? Why did the Anti-Federalists oppose it?

Model response: The Federalists believed that the Constitution was necessary because it would have sufficient power to maintain order and keep the United States together as a free and unified country. The Anti-Federalists thought the Constitution gave too much power to the national government; they thought the country was better off as a more decentralized system of independent states, as what was already in place before the Constitution was ratified.

2. What was the Bill of Rights and why was it added to the Constitution?

Model response: The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution because of the arguments by the Anti-Federalists. The Anti-Federalists did not want to support the Constitution. The Federalists agreed to add the Bill of Rights to the Constitution to gain more support for ratification. The Bill of Rights is a list of individual freedoms that cannot be violated by the national government.

3. The author describes the Constitution as an architectural blueprint rather than a finished building. It was to be an experiment in self-governing. Given this reality, why was it important that George Washington was the first president? In your answer, reference at least one important precedent set by Washington.

Model response: George Washington was a trusted, unifying leader who was cautious in making decisions that he believed were in the best interests of the republic. The knowledge that Washington would be the first president gave people confidence in the Constitution during the ratification debates. Washington set many important precedents, such as stepping down after two terms and picking a cabinet of advisors to help him make better decisions.

4. Describe at least two of the three main components of Hamilton’s financial plan, including the reasons why Hamilton thought they were important.

Model response: First, Hamilton wanted the national government to take up the debts of the individual states. This was meant to establish the country’s financial credit on a solid footing and to unify the states under the leadership of the national government. Second, Hamilton’s plan would establish tariffs on foreign goods to raise revenue for the national government and boost industrial production here at home. Third, Hamilton wanted to establish a National Bank to stabilize U.S. currency and to create a place to store the nation’s money.

5. How did Jefferson’s political views differ from Hamilton’s when it came to domestic matters such as the power of the national government and the interpretation of the Constitution?

Model response: Hamilton believed that the central government should be strong and energetic and this is what would lead to a stronger country. Hamilton believed that there should be a loose interpretation of the Constitution, especially by allowing Congress to do what is “necessary and proper” for the well-being of the country. Jefferson was more wary of the power of the national government, and worried it would become too large and corrupt and infringe on the freedoms of the people. Jefferson argued for a more strict interpretation of the Constitution, especially in arguing that it was unconstitutional for the Congress to establish a national bank, since the Constitution does not explicitly give Congress this power. Another difference is that Jefferson envisioned a country of self-reliant farmers, while Hamilton envisioned a thriving economic powerhouse driven by manufacturing.

6. How did the wars between Britain and France become a dividing factor between the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians?

Model response: Hamilton looked more favorably upon the British system and tended to support Britain in the disputes with France. Jefferson looked more favorably upon the French and the French Revolution. Jefferson thought the United States should do more to favor France, especially after so recently fighting a Revolution against Britain with the support of France. This disagreement added to the other points of division between these two leaders and their followers, creating the equivalent of two major political parties.

7. What did George Washington think about the formation of political parties?

Model response: Washington did not like the idea of political parties. He thought they would cause damage to the country because people would be more attached to parties and less attached to national unity. In his Farewell Address, Washington advised Americans to avoid partisan attachments.

8. Why did John Adams sign the Alien and Sedition Acts? Why did Jefferson think they were unconstitutional?

Model response: The Federalists during the Adams administration were worried that the Republicans were more loyal to France than they were to the United States. To try to suppress opposition to the government in a time of near-war, Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws made it illegal to criticize the government. Jefferson believed that this violated the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech.

9. Why was the election of 1800 such an important event in the early history of the United States?

Model response: The Election of 1800 was the first time there was a transfer of power from one party to another. This happened peacefully, and the opposing side accepted the outcome. The book calls the importance of this achievement hard to exaggerate: almost every kind of political regime stumbles at the threshold of a major transition.

10. The Federalists feared that Jefferson was going to bring radical changes to the country. According to the author, what kind of president did Jefferson end up becoming?

Model response: The author says that Jefferson was a unifying president who led in a pragmatic way. He was not so radical as many Federalists feared. After he won the presidency, Jefferson’s first action was to try to bring the country together in an Inaugural Address that affirmed the principles of the Constitution.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

During the early years of the Constitution, how did the leaders of the United States try to balance the concepts of unity and competition? In your essay, reference at least two of the following primary sources from the text.

Model response: Strong essays take a position on how leaders balanced unity and competition and support it with at least two of the specified primary sources. Credit responses that distinguish legitimate political disagreement from factionalism and that use the sources accurately—for example, Madison on controlling faction, Washington on unity and the dangers of party spirit, and Jefferson on reconciliation after the election of 1800. The strongest essays explain both the risks of competition and the constitutional or civic practices that allowed competition to occur without destroying the Union.

CHAPTER SIX

From Jefferson to Jackson:

The Rise of the Common Man

1803–1832 · pp. 165–207

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

Despite the conciliatory tone with which it began, the presidency of Thomas Jefferson proved to be more openly partisan than that of his predecessors. He consolidated power by appointing men who shared his political views and ushered the Federalist Party down the road toward dissolution. Yet the federal judiciary persistently eluded Jefferson’s control.

As one of his last acts as president, John Adams had hastily passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, creating six new federal circuit courts staffed entirely by Federalists. He also appointed as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court the Federalist John Marshall, who authored many Supreme Court decisions that set important legal precedents expanding the federal government’s power. Perhaps most notable among these was Marbury v. Madison (1803), the landmark case that established the Court’s power of judicial review.

The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was one of Jefferson’s most spectacular achievements as president. Acquiring the Louisiana Territory meant adding more than eight hundred thousand square miles of land west of the Mississippi River, doubling the size of the country and preventing a dangerous foreign power from interfering with further western expansion.

In 1807, Jefferson persuaded Congress to pass the Embargo Act, prohibiting American merchant ships from entering foreign ports in an effort to help America remain neutral amid the ongoing struggle between France and Britain. Unfortunately, the Act caused great hardship to Americans. As one of his last acts as president, Jefferson called for its repeal.

In 1808, James Madison was elected to succeed his friend Jefferson as president. Ongoing challenges with Great Britain dominated his presidency and led to the nearly disastrous War of 1812. The war ended in December 1814 with the Treaty of Ghent, which restored the territorial status quo ante without resolving the original questions that had been at issue. Perhaps the greatest casualty of the War of 1812 was the Federalist Party’s ability to contend as a national party. By this time, the Republicans and Federalists had switched roles from the 1790s, with the Republicans now the party of vigorous nationalism and the Federalists advocating for states’ rights and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. Their support was increasingly confined to New England, before their dissolution in the 1820s. The greatest victory of the war, on the other hand, was Andrew Jackson’s triumph against the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Even though it occurred after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed and thus did not affect the settlement of the war, the victory established Jackson as a great military hero and contributed to his eventual political rise.

The young nation exhibited unprecedented confidence in the postwar era. Madison’s successor, James Monroe, delivered a message to Congress in December 1823 that articulated what would become known as the Monroe Doctrine. Monroe warned that the Western Hemisphere should be considered off-limits to further European colonization and that any effort to the contrary would be regarded as “manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States” and “dangerous to our peace and safety.” The Monroe Doctrine was an important assertion of American interests on the international stage. It would become a cornerstone of American foreign policy and helped define American efforts to establish neutral relations with European powers.

Meanwhile, the postwar era also saw roads, canals and railroads begin to knit regional economies together, facilitated by innovations in machine technology and transportation. To foster economic growth, Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed what would become known as the American System. He called for raising tariffs, rechartering the national bank, and creating internal improvements to establish an ever more efficient system of national transportation through enhanced infrastructure. A boom in the construction of inland waterways resulted, such as New York’s Erie Canal (completed in 1825), which connected the Great Lakes to New York City, linking the raw materials of the western frontier to eastern port cities via waterway. In the 1820s, the first railroads were built. By the 1830s, the expansion of rail networks was transforming western towns into major centers of commerce. The country’s population soared, increasing from four million in 1790 to almost thirteen million in 1830.

Slavery continued to be an inescapable part of the national debate, occasionally receding for a time, only to be thrust back into view. When the Missouri Territory applied to be admitted to the Union as a slave state, it threatened to disturb the existing balance of slave and free states. The issue gave rise to fiery debates over whether restrictions on slavery could be imposed by Congress as a condition of Missouri’s admission to the Union. The issue was addressed in the Missouri Compromise by the admission of Maine as a free counterpart to Missouri, but it was far from resolved.

Andrew Jackson’s inauguration as president on March 4, 1829 constituted a moment of symbolic significance, as Jackson’s dramatic political rise came to be seen as a new aspect of the American story, a representation of the emerging Age of the Common Man. Jackson’s presidency was turbulent, controversial for his frequent use of veto power, his handling of the Nullification Crisis of 1832–33, and his Indian removal policy. But his popularity was bolstered by America’s populist fervor. As the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville observed, the American republic had taken a decidedly democratic turn.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter's end:

The central political developments in the United States between the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, and the explosive growth of the young country amid the first phase of the industrial revolution.

• Despite its dubious constitutionality, the Jefferson administration purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, doubling the size of the country and removing France as an obstacle to further westward expansion.

• Contrary to Jefferson’s wishes, Adams-appointee John Marshall established the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison, and over his 34 years as chief justice he dramatically expanded the power of the federal government.

• Jefferson’s presidency was marked by increasing sectional tension, particularly after the Embargo Act of 1807 damaged New England shipping interests, and the Essex Junto agitated for the secession of Northeastern states amid the Federalist Party’s terminal decline.

• Jefferson was succeeded by his secretary of state and fellow Virginian James Madison, whose presidency was dominated by tension with Great Britain. Long-standing disputes about British interference with American overseas trade led to the War of 1812 (1812–1815), from which the badly outmatched Americans were fortunate to emerge relatively unscathed.

• Nonetheless, the war generated an outburst of patriotism that strengthened fellow feeling among Americans and contributed to the ascendancy of the Democratic-Republicans in the “Era of Good Feelings;” the war was also notable for the emergence of Andrew Jackson as a national figure after his leadership in the American victory at New Orleans.

• The war’s aftermath also featured important internal improvements funded by the federal government under Henry Clay’s American System, which facilitated trade and began to knit regional economies together. The post-war years were also notable for dramatic increases in tariffs and the chartering of the second national bank.

• Madison was in turn succeeded by his secretary of state and fellow Virginian James Monroe. (The three successive two-term presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, together with that of Washington, are collectively referred to as “the Virginia dynasty.”) His presidency featured the articulation of the “Monroe Doctrine,” an enduring pillar of American foreign policy that opposed the further intervention of European powers in the Western Hemisphere.

• Monroe’s presidency was also characterized by renewed tensions over slavery, as the admission of Missouri to the Union threatened to upset the balance of slave states and free states. In the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Missouri’s entry was offset in the Senate by that of Maine, and slavery was banned in the territories to the North and West of Missouri’s state lines.

• The 1820s witnessed a dramatic expansion in the franchise and the rise to power of Andrew Jackson. After his defeat by John Quincy Adams in the initially inconclusive election of 1824, Jackson achieved a decisive victory in 1828. His inauguration heralded the increasing democratization of the country, as captured in the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville.

• During his presidency, Jackson bitterly feuded with proponents of the second national bank (leading to its eventual dissolution), clashed with his own vice president over South Carolina’s nullification efforts, and supported the highly controversial passage of the Indian Removal Act.

Key Persons

John Marshall (1755–1835)

James Monroe (1758–1831)

Napoleon I (1769–1821)

Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809)

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848)

Henry Clay (1777–1852)

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850)

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862)

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

Key Concepts and Terms

Judicial review

Marbury v. Madison

Northwest Passage

Embargo Act of 1807

Monroe Doctrine

National Bank

Cotton gin

Missouri Compromise (1820)

Populism

Nullification

Indian Removal Act (1830)

Trail of Tears

Civic virtue

Individualism

Timeline

Match the event to the correct year(s).

1803 Marbury v. Madison establishes the Supreme Court’s right of judicial review (February 24)

1803 The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France (April 30)

1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out to explore the Louisiana Territory (May 14)

1807 Congress passes the Embargo Act (December 22)

1812 Congress declares war on Great Britain (June 18)

1814 British invasion of Washington, D.C. (August 24)

1814 Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812 (December 24)

1815 Andrew Jackson defeats the British at New Orleans (January 8)

1820 The Missouri Compromise is passed (March 6)

1821 Spain cedes Florida to the United States (February 22)

1823 President James Monroe declares the Monroe Doctrine (December 2)

1825 John Quincy Adams is elected president by the House of Representatives after deadlocked election (February 9)

1825 The Erie Canal opens, connecting New York City to the Great Lakes (October 26)

1829 Andrew Jackson is inaugurated as president (March 4)

1830 Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act (May 28)

1831 Alexis de Tocqueville arrives in America, embarking on a nine-month tour of the country (May)

1832 South Carolina passes an ordinance of nullification against two federal tariffs (November 24)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students' progress warrants.

Chapter Six · From Jefferson to Jackson (6 to 12 class periods)

6.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 167–171 (1 to 2 classes)

• Jefferson’s stylistic changes to the office of president vis-à-vis his predecessors

• The Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison

• The importance of legal precedent, the independence of the Court under Marshall’s leadership, and how legal decisions contributed to the formation of greater unity within the United States

6.2 Jefferson Expands the Nation – pp. 171–176 (.5 to 1 class)

• The Louisiana Purchase and Jefferson’s compromise of principle

• The Lewis and Clark expedition

6.3 Jefferson and Foreign Affairs – pp. 176–178 (.5 to 1 class)

• Ongoing conflicts with the British

• Increased sectional tension with the formation of the Essex Junto

• Jefferson’s retirement and post-presidential activities

6.4 The War of 1812 – pp. 178–182 (.5 to 1 class)

• The many causes of the war’s outbreak

• The defense of Fort McHenry

• The advantages of America’s geographic isolation

• The beginning of the end of the Federalist party

6.5 The Monroe Doctrine – pp. 182–184 (.5 to 1 class)

• The acquisition of Florida

• The rise of America as a rival to European powers

• The politics and legacy of the Monroe Doctrine

6.6 A National Economy – pp. 184–189 (.5 to 1 class)

• The growing sense of national identity during the Era of Good Feelings

• Representative Henry Clay’s American System

• Internal improvements: roads, railroads, and canals

• Early industrial technological advancements, such as the cotton gin

• Booms in population and economic growth

6.7 The Missouri Dilemma – pp. 189–192 (.5 to 1 class)

• The unavoidable conflict over slavery

• The terms of the Missouri Compromise

6.8 Enter Andrew Jackson – pp. 192–199 (1 to 2 classes)

• The election of John Quincy Adams and the decline of national unity

• The election of Andrew Jackson: America’s first populist

• The Nullification Crisis

6.9 The Fate of the Natives – pp. 199–203 (.5 to 1 class)

• The Indian Removal Act

• The Trail of Tears

6.10 Tocqueville’s Observations – pp. 204–207 (.5 to 1 class)

• Alexis de Tocqueville’s travels through the United States

• His analysis of American society in Democracy in America, particularly with regard to the emergence of and threat posed by individualism

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter's epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

This selection comes from Book 1, Part 1, Chapter 4, “Of the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America.” Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris, France in 1805. He worked in a relatively low-level job in the French government before coming to the United States with his friend Gustave de Beaumont in 1831, ostensibly to study its prison system. They traveled widely in the United States and Canada before returning to France, where they published a report on American prisons. Beaumont published a book on slavery in Jacksonian America, and Tocqueville published the first volume of Democracy in America. In this chapter, Tocqueville writes that while, “the principle of the sovereignty of the people, which is more or less always found at the base of nearly all human institutions, ordinarily remains there as if buried,” in the United States, “it is a legal and omnipotent fact that rules the entire society.” He describes the movement toward universal suffrage, the right of all men to vote, as an example of this movement toward more complete popular sovereignty, writing that “Sometimes the people as a body make the laws as at Athens; sometimes the deputies created by universal suffrage represent the people and act in their name under their almost immediate supervision.”

Primary Sources

Primary Source 6.1. William Pinkney, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on the Missouri Question, February 1820 (p. 190)

William Pinkney (1764–1822) was a Maryland lawyer, diplomat, attorney general, and U.S. senator who also argued major cases before the Supreme Court, including McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819. He delivered this speech during the congressional debate over Missouri statehood in February 1820. The selected passage addresses whether Congress could condition Missouri’s admission to the Union by restricting slavery and argues from the constitutional equality of newly admitted and existing states.

Primary Source 6.2. John Quincy Adams, Diary Entry on the Missouri Question, March 3, 1820 (p. 191)

John Quincy Adams was serving as secretary of state when he recorded this private diary entry on March 3, 1820, during the Missouri crisis. The entry describes his reaction to the congressional dispute over Missouri statehood and slavery and includes his prediction that the controversy was “a title page to a great tragic volume.” Unlike Pinkney’s congressional speech, the passage was written as a private diary entry rather than for a public audience.

Primary Source 6.3. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835 (p. 206)

This selection comes from “Of Individualism in Democratic Countries” in the second volume of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, published in 1840. Tocqueville distinguishes “individualism” from selfishness and uses the term to describe the tendency of people in democratic societies to withdraw from wider public life into a smaller circle of family and friends. The passage forms part of his broader analysis of the social effects of democratic equality.

Figures

Figure 6.2. Thomas Jefferson: A Philosepher a Patriote [sic] and a Friend, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, 1798–1799 (p. 168)

This image is an aquatint print made by Michał Sokolnicki based on a no-longer-extant portrait of Thomas Jefferson painted by Polish nobleman and Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kościuszko in Philadelphia in 1797. At the time, Jefferson was serving as vice president of the United States, and Kościuszko had returned to the United States after being released from a St. Petersburg prison. He had been imprisoned following his failed uprising against the Russian Empire, which led to the Third Partition of Poland and its removal from the map of Europe until 1918. Kościuszko had come to Philadelphia 21 years earlier, in 1776, and fought in the Continental Army. Working as an engineer, he fortified West Point and bases in South Carolina. Michał Sokolnicki fought under Kościuszko in the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising. Kościuszko and Jefferson saw each other frequently in Philadelphia, and when the former wished to return to Europe to continue defending the Polish people, the latter helped him obtain a passport. The aquatint shows Jefferson from the side, looking confidently ahead, with a wreath of olive branches on his head, like an ancient Greek victor or philosopher-statesman. In the background, lightning flashes through dark clouds. In the full print, beneath the image of Jefferson are the words, “Thomas Jefferson, A Philosepher a patriote and a Friend, Dessiné par son Ami Tadée Kosciuszko, Et Grave par Mł. Sokolnicki.” This print was hung at Monticello.

Figure 6.10. The Erie Canal at Lockport, New York, William Henry Bartlett, 1852 (p. 185)

Lockport, New York took its name from the five locks built there on the Erie Canal to help boats traverse the 60-foot drop of the Niagara Escarpment, which is the 650-mile geographic feature over which the Niagara River runs, where it becomes Niagara Falls. Canal locks are sections of a canal that have been segmented such that the water level can be manually lowered or raised, and thus used as an elevator to carry ships between higher and lower areas of a river or canal. The city of Lockport was incorporated in 1865, 40 years after the completion of the Erie Canal. This scene was sketched by William Henry Bartlett, a British artist, and was included as an illustration in the first volume of American author Nathaniel Parker Willis’s American Scenery, first published in London in 1840. An illustrator from London, Bartlett’s formal training had focused on architectural sketches of notable ruins in England; his career as an illustrator took off after he made 108 illustrations drawn from life for a book titled Switzerland Illustrated. He went on to travel extensively through Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the United States, and Canada, drawing scenes from life to illustrate others’ books and his own. The image of Lockport included in the textbook is from a later version of the American Scenery illustration that was updated to show the economic advancements that had taken place in the town in a little over a decade and published as a print in 1852.

Figure 6.15. King Andrew the First, anonymous, circa 1832 (p. 196)

This satirical political cartoon was printed as a broadside (a large sheet of paper with printing on one side). In 1832, President Andrew Jackson had vetoed a congressional bill to recharter the Bank of the United States, and in 1833, he had removed federal deposits from it, prompting censure from Congress for violating the Constitution. The satirical portrait shows Jackson in the style of seventeenth-century portraits of medieval English monarchs (e.g., Richard the Lionheart and King John). Jackson’s right foot is on the remains of the Constitution of the United States, and his left foot is on a shredded document with the Pennsylvania coat of arms and the words “Internal Improvements” and “U.S. Bank.” In his left hand, he holds a rolled up paper with the words “Veto.” Text on the four sides of the portrait reads, “Born to Command. Had I been consulted. King Andrew the First. Of Veto Memory.”

Figure 6.16. Nullification ... Despotism, Endicott & Swett, 1833 (p. 197)

In this cartoon, John C. Calhoun is shown standing at the top of the steps, standing on tips of his toes and reaching toward a crown in the sky above his head, which is in turn crowned by a cloud with the words “despotism.” At the base of the steps, two men wearing sashes reading “Constitution” and “E. Pluribus Unum” lay dead, with sabers still in their upper bodies. The steps themselves read, consecutively, “nullification,” “ordinance,” “treason,” “civil war,” “deception,” and “disunion.” Above and behind the first step, the word “anarchy” stretches. The crouching men on the left side of the steps are shown as saying “I tell you what, Neighbor, I won’t stand it, they are [unclear]tting too much on us,” and “We must bear the Burthen, whether we are exalted or suspended.” The man wearing spurs on his feet and stepping on the back of one of the other men has a scarf in his pocket reading “S.C. Ordinance” and is shown as saying “a glorious prize, how bright it looks, keep steady my Friends, you shall be exalted.” Calhoun is shown as saying, “one step more and it will be within my grasp.” The man reaching toward him on the right, with a scarf reading “S.C. Proclamation,” says “a little farther CAL, and we are safe,” and the man holding onto his coattails says, “Stop you have gone too far, or by the Eternal, ill hang you all.”

Figure 6.17. The Trail of Tears, Robert Lindneux, 1942 (p. 201)

Robert Lindneux was born in New York City in 1871. At the age of seventeen, he moved to Europe and studied art in Germany and Paris. Ten years later, he returned to the United States with the intention of enlisting in order to participate in the Spanish-American War, but arrived too late. He traveled west with the intention of painting American Indians, and gained experience working with a trapper and with horses, and photographed the Western scenes he witnessed. During the 1930s and 1940s, Lindneux participated in the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. This painting was commissioned by Frank Phillips, the founder of the Phillips Petroleum Company, and now hangs in the Woolaroc Museum in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which is owned by a foundation established by the Phillips family. He spent six months doing research at a variety of museums and libraries, and three months painting the scene. One of the written sources Lindneux relied on for this painting was James Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee. Mooney worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology, and lived with the Cherokee in North Carolina between 1887 and 1889. Below is the passage of that book which most directly pertains to the painting:

...nearly all of the 13,000, went overland. Crossing to the north side of the Hiwassee at a ferry above Gunstocker creek, they proceeded down along the river, the sick, the old people, and the smaller children, with the blankets, cooking pots, and other belongings in wagons, the rest on foot or on horses. The number of wagons was 145.

It was like the march of an army, regiment after regiment, the wagons in the center, the officers along the line and the horsemen on the flanks and at the rear.

Mooney’s account describes the mortality that occurred during the march and notes that enslaved African Americans accompanied the Cherokee. Lindneux’s painting also depicts African American figures among the people being removed.

Figure 6.18. Andrew Jackson as the Great Father, anonymous, circa 1835 (p. 202)

This cartoon shows President Andrew Jackson with eight miniature-sized Native Americans in a variety of forms of dress. Two sit at his feet, four stand before him, and two are cradled on his lap. Its title and conception likely draw on Jackson’s June 1829 letter to the Creek Indians, published in the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate in New Echota, Georgia. In the letter, Jackson urged removal west of the Mississippi in paternalistic language. In part, he wrote:

By permission of the Great Spirit above, and the voice of the people. I have been made a President of the United States, and now speak to you as your father and friend, and request you to listen.....Friends & Brothers, listen: Where you now are, you and my white children are too near to each other to live in harmony and peace. Your game is destroyed and many of your people will not work and till the Earth. Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it.... your father, the President, will deal fairly and justly with you, and while he feels a father’s love for you, he advises your whole nation to go to the place where he can protect and foster you.

Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830. The “Indian Territory” was formally designated by Congress in 1834, and the Creek Indians were forcibly moved there in 1836. This cartoon was published the year before the forced march of the Cherokee Indians, which became known as the Trail of Tears, began.

Maps

Map 6.1. The Louisiana Purchase, 1803 (p. 172)

This map was created in 1903, on the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, by Ithamar Parsons Berthrong and Charles J. Helm, cartographers in the General Land Office of the U.S. Department of the Interior. It shows the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase overlaid on the boundaries of the United States as they existed in 1903. The purchase included all or part of the present-day states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming.

Map 6.2. The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804–6 (p. 175)

This map shows North America in the early 1800s, shortly after the Louisiana Purchase. The political borders included in the maps are the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. states then existing, British Territory, Spanish Territory, Spanish Florida, and disputed territory. It also shows the locations of the Sioux, Blackfeet, Nez Perce and Shoshone tribes encountered by Lewis and Clark on their expedition. Geographical features identified include the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf, as well as the Mississippi, Missouri, Yellowstone, Marias, Snake, and Columbia Rivers. The primary feature of the map, however, is its demonstration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s path, from St. Louis to Fort Clatsop on the Pacific coast and back again.

Map 6.3. Roads, Railroads, and Canals, circa 1840 (p. 186)

This map shows the variety, and limits, of long-distance transportation options in 1840. The map shows roads (brown), railroads (red), and canals (dark blue) as well as rivers. The railroads (particularly the ones that connect to each other) are concentrated on the eastern seaboard, where industrialization was centered as well. The farthest reaches of these transportation systems are roads reaching St. Louis, Missouri and Natchez, Mississippi. Most roads and many railroads intersected or ended at waterways or bodies of water. The map shows the beginning of the railroad boom, and the development of regional railroad networks.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter's subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• Adams, Henry. “The History of the United States in the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson” and “History of the United States of America in the Administrations of James Madison.” New York: Library of America, 1986. First published in nine volumes between 1889 and 1891, The History of the United States is a classic work by the grandson and great-grandson of two presidents—both political opponents to Jefferson and Madison. Adams’s work is detailed and of high literary quality.

• Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. This is the standard secondary account of the expedition and a lively read.

• Buel, Richard, Jr. America on the Brink: How the Political Struggle over the War of 1812 Almost Destroyed the Young Republic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Two prominent struggles regarding the War of 1812 are profiled here, first within the Jeffersonian party and then between the Madison administration and New England, which opposed the war almost to the point of secession.

• Freehling, William W. Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Crisis in South Carolina, 1816–1836. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. The nullification almost launched a civil war, and slavery notably was not a prominent issue.

• Gordon, Sarah H. Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829–1929. Chicago: Dee, 1998.

• Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award upon its publication in 1957; it characterizes Jackson as an ignorant frontiersman with an irrational hatred for banks who is easily manipulated by Martin Van Buren, who advanced the interests of the New York banking community (Wall Street) against that of Philadelphia in the Bank War.

• Howe, Daniel Walker. The Political Culture of the American Whigs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

• Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

• Johnson, Paul E. A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York 1815–1837. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004.

• Martin, Albro. Railroads Triumphant: The Growth, Rejection, and Rebirth of a Vital American Force. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

• Meyers, Marvin. The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957. This work characterizes the Bank War as the resolution to a deep disconnect between the Jeffersonian principles and economic realities of the Jacksonian Era.

• Peterson, Merrill D. The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

• Peterson, Merrill D. Thomas Jefferson and The New Nation. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1970. This is possibly the best single-volume biography of Jefferson.

• Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy 1833–1845. London: Harper and Row, 1984. Remini is probably the leading Jacksonian scholar. This is the third volume of a series; he also did a single volume biography and some other Jacksonian studies.

• Schlesinger Jr., Arthur S. The Age of Jackson. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1945. This work, which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for History, portrays Jackson as a champion of the national interest against the evils of big business.

• Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Translated by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. This is an essential book for American history. Every teacher of the subject should read it with care.

• Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 167–171)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 167–171, the chapter opening.

Exercise: Figure 6.2, the Jefferson portrait, and the Jefferson–Marshall quarrel.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on judicial review and on what Marshall made of the Court.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Jefferson Expands the Nation (pp. 171–176).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The tensions between Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, the long-serving chief justice of the Supreme Court; the basics of Marshall’s legal views; a survey of some of the important cases decided during Marshall’s time on the Court.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Explain the role of the judicial branch in the American system of government.

• Analyze the possible ways that judges might be selected.

• Evaluate the court decisions of John Marshall in terms of how they increased the power of the federal government.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1803 Marbury v. Madison establishes the Supreme Court’s right of judicial review (February 24)

Key Concepts

The federal judiciary was deliberately insulated from political majorities and passing public opinion, which the Founders understood could be shaped by temporary passions and circumstances. Its independence gave the courts a distinctive place within the constitutional system.

In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle of judicial review, confirming the Supreme Court’s authority to invalidate acts of Congress that violated the Constitution. The decision strengthened the Court while also demonstrating the operation of checks and balances among the branches.

Over his long tenure, Marshall used a series of landmark decisions to strengthen both the judiciary and the national government, even as Jefferson’s party dominated the elected branches.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Judicial Branch of Government: The role of the judiciary is to settle legal disputes; the work of the judiciary centers around the authority of legal precedents, especially in courts of appeal, where previously determined cases are subject to potential reversal.

Judicial review: Judicial review is the power of the judiciary to invalidate actions of other branches of government; in the context of the United States, it often refers specifically to the power of federal courts (and especially the Supreme Court) to invalidate executive, administrative, and legislative acts as unconstitutional.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Assign students to read the opening section of Chapter Six (pp. 167–171).

Assign several of the following questions:

How did Jefferson foster dialogue with congressional allies and opponents?

Only men of which political party held cabinet positions in the Jefferson administration?

Which of the federal branches of government was dominated by Federalists during Jefferson’s presidency?

Did Jefferson consider the judiciary democratic?

What did the Judiciary Act of 1801 accomplish?

Who was John Marshall?

How did Cohens v. Virginia impact federal judicial power?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, and intended purpose of the Epigraph. Have students discuss the following questions:

How does Tocqueville describe popular sovereignty?

What is popular sovereignty?

Insight: Tocqueville compares the American people to God, and describes popular sovereignty (as opposed to aristocracy or monarchy) as totalizing and complete. Popular sovereignty is a political system that develops from the understanding that the right to govern is conferred on those in government by the people as a whole.

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the aquatint, Thomas Jefferson: A Philosepher a Patriote [sic] and a Friend (Figure 6.2). Ask students the following questions:

What does the painting depict? What stands out?

Who are the artists? When and where was it made? How does their worldview influence the work?

Further: In 1798, Kościuszko wrote to Jefferson, “you are True American Patriot, and so desinteresd man who chuse only the hapines of your own Contry.” (He was much more fluent in French than English.) Does Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (Primary Source 5.4) illustrate this willingness to put his country before his personal preferences? If so, how?

Speaking Skills: One of Jefferson’s objections to the judiciary was that it is anti-democratic, especially since federal judges receive lifetime appointments. Start this exercise by asking students to brainstorm what they know about the role of the judicial branch. What is the job of judges? How does this compare to the executive and legislative roles? After leading an introductory discussion to clarify the role of the judiciary (to settle disputes and make decisions on how laws should be interpreted), ask students to consider four possible selection methods for judges: via election, 10-year appointment, lifetime appointment, or appointment until the age of 75. First, have students write down, in two or three complete sentences, which method they think is best, and why. Second, separate students into small groups and have them share their opinions and brainstorm the pros and cons of each method. Third, invite students to make a short speech to the class defending their favored method. Finally, have the students reflect on a) whether their opinion changed during the lesson, and b) why the Framers of the Constitution decided to give federal judges lifetime appointment.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: The last paragraph of this section describes six court cases in addition to Marbury v. Madison. Instruct students to make a chart (6 rows, 3 columns) to take notes on the name of the court case, the decision, and how this decision granted power to the federal government. After students complete their notetaking, have them discuss in pairs: Which court case granted the most power to the federal government? Which was the most consequential? Finally, lead students in a full-class discussion. What would be the practical significance of these decisions, compared to if they had been decided the other way? Do you think a judge appointed by Jefferson would have made a different decision? Why or why not?

Insight: Marshall’s decision in Gibbons v. Ogden (the steamboat case) established that only Congress could regulate interstate commerce, limiting the power of individual states to restrict trade across their borders.

Insight: McCulloch v. Maryland confirmed that the U.S. government is immune from state taxation, because “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

How did Thomas Jefferson’s presidency differ from the presidencies of George Washington and John Adams?

Insight: Jefferson adopted a more informal, more “republican” style than his Federalist predecessors. For example, instead of riding to the Capitol for his inauguration, Jefferson walked. He was also more partisan than his predecessors. He maintained unity within his Republican Party, and he appointed only Republicans to cabinet positions.

Why were Jefferson and his Republican allies skeptical of judicial power?

Insight: Judges usually made decisions based on legal precedents rather than the desires of the people. Furthermore, under the Constitution, federal judges (including justices of the Supreme Court) were appointed for life, unlike members of Congress who were elected for set terms. These aspects of the judiciary meant that it was much less democratic than the legislative and executive branches. Jefferson also criticized the tendency for judges to craft decisions that expanded their own power at the expense of the other branches of government.

Why was Chief Justice John Marshall’s decision in Marbury v. Madison significant?

Insight: Prior to Jefferson’s inauguration, President John Adams had appointed several Federalists to federal judgeships. Marbury v. Madison arose from Jefferson’s refusal to deliver a commission for one of these judgeships to the person appointed, William Marbury. Marshall ruled that Congress could not give the Supreme Court the power to order the executive branch to deliver the commission. Thus, the law granting the Supreme Court this power was unconstitutional, or void. In this way, Marshall established the precedent that the judiciary could declare laws unconstitutional, a principle known as judicial review. This case is also significant because although Jefferson’s Republicans controlled the executive and legislative branches for many years, the judicial branch remained a thorn in the Republicans’ side. Marshall’s other decisions during this period buttressed federal power, checking the Republican program of opposing the concentration of power in the federal government.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

What power did Marbury v. Madison establish for the Supreme Court?

Why would Jefferson object to a Court that could strike down an act of Congress?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) judicial review—the power to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional; (2) Marshall was a Federalist and Jefferson believed an unelected branch should not overrule the people’s representatives.

Explain

Marshall served as chief justice for thirty-four years. Why does the length of his tenure matter to the Court’s authority?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer notes that a lifetime appointment let Marshall outlast four presidents and build a body of precedent no single election could undo.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson's threads together.

Tensions between the appointed judicial branch and the elected executive branch have been present from the earliest years of the nation’s history. They are present in fact by constitutional design. It was the Framers’ intention that these two branches would limit and frustrate each other’s power. The earliest example of such tensions between Jefferson and Marshall illustrates the system operating as intended. Furthermore, the Constitution did not–as it could not–address every conceivable question regarding how the government was to function. During the early nineteenth century, some of these questions began to be answered by the Marshall Court.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

Jefferson arrived in office intending to limit federal power. The chapter now turns to the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nation’s territory and forced Jefferson to act beyond the strict constitutional principles he had long defended.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Judicial review, judiciary, precedent, unconstitutional. Gloss “judicial review” plainly—the Court can say a law breaks the Constitution, and then it does not count.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “The Supreme Court decided ___.” “Jefferson objected because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, one student states what Marshall claimed the Court could do and the other says why Jefferson disliked it; then each writes the sentence they spoke.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may draw three boxes—Congress, President, Court—and an arrow showing who can check whom, instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.2 Jefferson Expands the Nation (pp. 171–176)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 171–176.

Exercise: Map 6.1, the Louisiana Purchase, and Map 6.2, the Lewis and Clark route.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why the Purchase troubled Jefferson’s own principles and on what the expedition was for.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Jefferson and Foreign Affairs (pp. 176–178).

Essential Understanding

The Louisiana Purchase; how the acquisition contravened Jefferson’s political principles; and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Lesson Objectives

• Identify the geographic reach of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

• Analyze the legal question of whether Jefferson was allowed to purchase the Louisiana Territory.

Key Dates

1803 The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France (April 30)

1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out to explore the Louisiana Territory (May 14)

Key Concepts

The single greatest achievement of Jefferson’s first administration, and quite possibly of his presidency, was the American acquisition in 1803 of the Louisiana Territory, which transformed the U.S. from being a primarily coastal nation to a sprawling continental one.

Just as Jefferson had consolidated the Hamiltonian economic program rather than reversing it, so too he reinforced the Hamiltonian interpretation of the Constitution by purchasing Louisiana, for which, as the book puts it, there was no provision in the Constitution — Jefferson, a strict constitutionalist, had to bend his own principles.

The national celebration attending the triumphant return of Lewis and Clark underscored the extent to which the exploration and settlement of the vast and ever-growing American interior would become an important focus of the nation’s energies in the nineteenth century.

Key Terms

The Louisiana Territory: Comprising more than eight hundred thousand square miles of land west of the Mississippi River, this territory more than doubled the size of the country upon its acquisition from France. Its purchase also crucially removed a dangerous foreign power from the mouth of the Mississippi River by transferring ownership of New Orleans to the United States.

The Corps of Discovery Expedition: Led by Jefferson’s private secretary Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark, this expedition was sent by Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly purchased Louisiana Territory. It studied the area’s topography and habitats, established relations with its indigenous peoples, and surveyed its natural resources, delivering comprehensive reports of such findings through maps, sketches, and journals.

Northwest Passage: Finding the Northwest Passage, a hypothesized (but nonexistent) sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, was one of the chief aims of Lewis and Clark’s expedition.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Two, “Jefferson Expands the Nation” (pp. 171–176).

Assign several of the following questions:

When did the Louisiana Purchase take place, and from whom was the land acquired?

How large was the area within the Louisiana Purchase?

Who was the governor of Virginia, sent by Jefferson, to negotiate with France?

What was the original purpose of the negotiation? What sum did Jefferson originally authorize? How much was ultimately spent on the entire land purchase?

Which army officers were tasked with leading the Corps of Discovery?

What were the primary aims of the exploratory expedition that Jefferson helped assemble?

Where and when did the expedition begin?

How long was the Lewis and Clark Expedition? Was it considered successful?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Geography: Provide students with a map of the modern United States. Ask students to shade the entire area that consisted of the United States through 1803 in one color. Encourage them to shade the entire area that would be encompassed by the Louisiana Purchase in a different color. Sketch the path of the Corps of Discovery. Trace or highlight the Missouri River and the Mississippi River. Have students identify one physical characteristic and one human characteristic of the original United States as it stood before 1803 and do the same for the Louisiana Purchase territory.

Writing Skills: Ask students to write a letter from the perspective of President Jefferson with the goals of persuading Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark to consider leading the expedition and of detailing its aims.

Debate: Ask the class to consider the constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase, specifically whether it might be authorized as an implied power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. Assign students to write an argument for or against the decision to purchase Louisiana. Instruct students to come up with two or three specific reasons to back up their argument. While students take turns sharing their reasons with the class, invite a debate by allowing other students to respond or ask questions. During the debate, write all the reasons (for and against) on the board for students to see.

Geography: Display the Louisiana Purchase, 1803 map (Map 6.1). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

How many whole states are found in the land obtained by the Louisiana Purchase [3], and how many partial [13]?

Further: What geographical feature was the eastern border of the Louisiana Purchase [the Mississippi River]? (This may be a little easier to see on the next map, Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804–6 [Map 6.2.])

Geography: Display the Lewis and Clark Expedition map (Map 6.2). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

What geographic features did the Expedition follow closely [rivers: the Mississippi, Missouri and Columbia, in particular, though they also explored others].

Further: Have students choose different locations on Lewis & Clark’s expedition, and using their journals and other resources, describe what they found there, in terms of geography and wildlife, the peoples they encountered, and any significant events that took place there.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did the Louisiana Purchase conflict with Jefferson’s view of the Constitution?

Insight: Jefferson had a “strict-constructionist” view of the Constitution, meaning that the federal government should not exercise powers beyond those specifically granted in the Constitution. The Constitution did not specifically empower the president to purchase territory from a foreign government. But when given the opportunity to double the size of the country, Jefferson could not turn the offer from France down. The Louisiana Purchase demonstrated how the practical realities of governance conflicted with Jefferson’s ideological commitments.

How did the Louisiana Purchase support Jefferson’s agrarian agenda?

Insight: The Louisiana Purchase opened millions of acres of farmland for Americans to settle on. The availability of this land supported Jefferson’s agrarian vision for the country. He preferred that the United States remain a country of small independent farmers rather than concentrating the population in large cities.

What were some of the important activities of the Lewis and Clark expedition?

Insight: Answers could include: charting the geography of the West; establishing relations with indigenous peoples; and surveying the West’s natural resources.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What did the United States buy in 1803, and from whom?

Why did the Louisiana Purchase trouble Jefferson’s own constitutional principles?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) the Louisiana Territory, from France under Napoleon; (2) Jefferson held that the federal government had only the powers the Constitution named, and it named no power to acquire territory.

Explain

Jefferson made the purchase anyway. What does that tell you about how constitutional principle works in practice?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer holds both: he acted against his stated principle because the opportunity was closing, and the precedent enlarged executive power in a way he had spent his career resisting.

Daily Recap

The Louisiana Purchase exposed a tension between Jefferson’s constitutional principles and the practical demands of governing. Although he had long argued for a strict construction of federal power, he accepted an opportunity the Constitution did not expressly contemplate and doubled the nation’s territory. The Lewis and Clark Expedition that followed extended American exploration westward while greatly expanding knowledge of the continent’s geography, peoples, and natural world.

Looking Ahead

The Louisiana Purchase expanded the nation westward, but events across the Atlantic soon placed new pressure on American neutrality. The chapter next turns to Jefferson’s foreign-policy difficulties and the Embargo Act.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Territory, expedition, purchase, boundary. Pair each with the map before the abstraction: show the Louisiana Territory on Map 6.1 first, then name it.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Jefferson bought ___ from ___.” “The problem was that the Constitution ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students trace the Lewis and Clark route on Map 6.2 aloud, naming two landmarks, then write one sentence about what the expedition was looking for.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may label a blank outline map with the original states, the Louisiana Territory, and the Mississippi River.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.3 Jefferson and Foreign Affairs (pp. 176–178)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 176–178.

Exercise: The Embargo Act and its consequences.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the pressures Britain and France placed on American shipping and on why the embargo failed.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The War of 1812 (pp. 178–182).

Essential Understanding

The foreign policy challenges that confronted Jefferson while in office; his proposed solutions (the Embargo Act) and their results; Jefferson’s retirement, his post-presidential activities, and his legacy.

Lesson Objectives

• Assess the Jefferson presidency with the criteria established by Washington’s Farewell Address.

• Assess the foreign policy decisions of Jefferson in terms of effectiveness and adherence to the Constitution.

Key Dates

1807 Congress passes the Embargo Act (December 22)

Key Concepts

The Jefferson administration’s approach to foreign relations aimed to protect America’s neutral status and to promote free trade.

The United States still found itself caught in the middle of the titanic struggle between the British and the French, at a time when British control of the seas and French control of the landmass of continental Europe were near-complete and each nation was trying to use economic warfare to weaken the other.

Jefferson believed in the importance of following Washington’s example of retiring from office after two terms, as a practice befitting a genuinely republican form of government.

If there was a central feature of Jeffersonian democracy, it was Jefferson’s belief in education as the great equalizer, the force that could potentially raise any man to the level of any other and the essential factor in forming citizens capable of self-rule.

Key Terms

Embargo: An embargo is a legal prohibition against trade with foreign nations, particularly through a government’s order to prohibit the departure of commercial ships from its own ports.

Impressment: Impressment is the forcible recruitment of captives into military service.

The Embargo Act (1807): This congressional legislation prohibited American merchant ships from sailing into foreign ports.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Three, “Jefferson and Foreign Affairs” (pp. 176–178).

Assign several of the following questions:

What did American foreign policy under Jefferson and Madison focus on protecting?

Which countries controlled the seas and the European landmass?

Both France and Britain interfered with American shipping, but which British practice constituted a far greater and insulting grievance?

How did Jefferson describe leaving the Presidency in his letter to the French Economist?

Where did Jefferson retire?

What university did the former president help found?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Lead students through an activity to create a “report card” for Jefferson’s presidency. Start by establishing the criteria. Review Washington’s Farewell Address and write the key takeaways on the board: Avoiding foreign entanglements, avoiding factional loyalties, acting in the best interests of the country as a whole. Instruct students to assign Jefferson a letter grade for each of these categories and explain why they gave him that grade. The class might come up with additional criteria by which to assess the effectiveness of a presidential term; for example, adherence to the Constitution, effective policy decisions, etc.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did Jefferson respond to the pirates of the Barbary States of North Africa?

Insight: Jefferson ended the practice of paying tribute (bribes) to the pirates and sent the U.S. Navy to protect American shipping in the Mediterranean.

Why did Jefferson push Congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807?

Insight: During ongoing hostilities between Britain and France, the United States attempted to maintain neutrality, claiming that it had the right to trade with both sides. The British did not respect this claim of neutrality, and continually engaged in impressing American sailors into service in the British Navy. In response, Jefferson advocated for the Embargo Act, which prohibited American ships from docking at foreign ports. By cutting off trade, Jefferson hoped to demonstrate Britain’s reliance on American goods. This policy was a disaster, hurting the United States much more than Britain. Jefferson called for repealing the Embargo Act shortly before he left office.

What were some of Jefferson’s notable achievements following his retirement from political office?

Insight: Scientific research; establishing the University of Virginia.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What did the Embargo Act of 1807 forbid?

Which country was it aimed at, and who was hurt most?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) it barred American ships from foreign ports, halting export trade; (2) aimed at Britain and France, it fell hardest on American merchants and New England ports.

Explain

Why might a policy of economic pressure fail against a nation at war?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer notes that a country fighting for survival will absorb commercial loss, and that Britain found other suppliers while American shippers had no other market.

Daily Recap

Jefferson entered office determined to preserve American neutrality while protecting the nation’s commerce. British impressment and interference with American shipping made that increasingly difficult. His Embargo Act attempted to use economic pressure instead of war, but it damaged American trade—especially in New England—far more than it changed British policy, and Jefferson called for its repeal before leaving office.

Looking Ahead

The Embargo Act failed to resolve the pressures created by the European conflict. Under Jefferson’s successor, James Madison, those tensions would culminate in the War of 1812.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Embargo, impressment, neutrality, blockade. “Impressment” needs a plain instance first—sailors taken off American ships by force and made to serve.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “An embargo means ___.” “The embargo was supposed to ___, but instead ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students say one reason Britain seized American sailors and one reason Jefferson chose an embargo rather than war, then write the second.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may complete a two-column chart—What Jefferson wanted / What actually happened—instead of a paragraph.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.4 The War of 1812 (pp. 178–182)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 178–182.

Exercise: Figures 6.6, 6.7 and 6.8—the burning of Washington, Fort McHenry, and New Orleans.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the outcome of the War of 1812 and on its effect on the Federalist Party.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Monroe Doctrine (pp. 182–184).

Essential Understanding

The context, course, and aftermath of the War of 1812, especially James Madison’s role as president and Andrew Jackson’s emergence as a national hero.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze the song “The Battle of New Orleans.”

• Evaluate the arguments of the War Hawks leading up to the War of 1812.

• Draw conclusions about whether the War of 1812 had a net positive or negative effect on the young nation.

Key Dates

1812 Congress declares war on Great Britain (June 18)

1814 British invasion of Washington, D.C. (August 24)

1814 Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812 (December 24)

1815 Andrew Jackson defeats the British at New Orleans (January 8)

Key Concepts

James Madison’s presidency was dominated by war with Britain. The primary source of the conflict was the violation of American neutrality at sea, which involved some French interference as well, and conflicts with the British on the western American frontier.

Britain fought the War of 1812 while also engaged against Napoleon in Europe, which limited the forces it could commit in North America.

The Federalist Party was perhaps the greatest casualty of the war of 1812. Its collapse during the Madison administration brought an end to the first party system of the United States and a period of complete Jeffersonian Republican Party dominance.

Key Terms

“War Hawks”: This group of young and intensely nationalistic Jeffersonian Republican congressmen advocated an aggressive foreign policy against Great Britain, even agitating for an invasion of Canada.

“The Star Spangled Banner”: The lyrics to what later became (in 1931) the official national anthem were written by Francis Scott Key, inspired by the enduring sight of an American flag over Fort McHenry during the defense of Baltimore in 1814 against British bombardment.

Battle of New Orleans: General Andrew Jackson led a motley force to defeat the British decisively at this conflict. Though it was fought after the war’s settlement at Ghent, the battle demonstrated American military prowess, fostered patriotism, and contributed to Jackson’s political rise in the postwar era.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Four, “The War of 1812” (pp. 178–182).

Assign several of the following questions:

What issue confronted James Madison as president just as it had Jefferson?

Who were the ‘War Hawks’? What did they want from Madison?

When did Congress declare war against the British?

Who wrote the “Star Spangled Banner”? What inspired him to do so?

What was the Treaty of Ghent?

Who was Andrew Jackson?

What was the “Virginia dynasty”?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Analytical Skills: Ahead of class, or during, have students listen to “The Battle of New Orleans.” Encourage discussion about what stands out to them from the song’s lyrics. How are the respective countries depicted in the song? Does the song capture the spirit of the time in America? Note: the song was composed by a history teacher in the 1930s and became a number-one hit in 1959.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Lead students in an evaluation of the causes and effects of the war of 1812. Start by inviting a warm-up discussion: When is it necessary for a country to go to war against another country? What factors should leaders consider before going to war? Next, instruct students to describe the position of the War Hawks before the War of 1812, including a bullet point list of reasons why they wanted to go to war. It might help to review the reading by having students highlight actions by both respective countries leading up to the war. Next, encourage a discussion or debate about whether these were good enough reasons or not. Finally, instruct students to write a paragraph reflecting on the war as a whole. Was the War of 1812 a net positive or net negative for the young nation?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What were the causes of the War of 1812?

Insight: The two main causes are continuing British harassment of American shipping and conflicts with the British on the American frontier. As Americans pushed westward, the British were blamed for supporting the Indians who opposed American encroachment on what they saw as their lands. An example of Indian resistance to American expansion was the Shawnee leader Tecumseh’s formation of a great confederacy of the eastern Indian tribes.

What was the outcome of the War of 1812?

Insight: The British were simultaneously engaged against Napoleon’s France in Europe, which limited what they could commit against the United States. Andrew Jackson did win an important symbolic victory against the British in New Orleans, despite the battle occurring after the war had officially ended. The end of the war largely restored the status quo; neither side gave up any land.

How did the end of the war affect the Federalist Party?

Insight: Federalists opposed the war because they disagreed with antagonizing Britain, and the decline in shipping during the war hurt New England the most. After the war’s end and Jackson’s victory at New Orleans, Federalist opposition to the war appeared unpatriotic and disloyal, which sped its collapse. By 1824, the Federalist Party had ceased to exist, bringing an end to the first party system.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name one cause of the War of 1812.

What happened at New Orleans, and when?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) any of: impressment of American sailors, trade restrictions, British support for Indian resistance, expansionist ambition; (2) Jackson defeated the British in January 1815, after the peace treaty had been signed but before news of it arrived.

Explain

The war ended with no territory changing hands. Why did Americans treat it as a victory?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer connects the survival of the republic against the strongest navy in the world, the collapse of Federalist opposition, and Jackson’s emergence as a national figure.

Daily Recap

In 1812, only twenty-four years after the Constitution was ratified, the United States remained militarily weak, with a small army and navy. Britain’s simultaneous struggle against Napoleon limited the forces it could commit in North America, helping the United States survive a difficult war with its territory intact. The nation nevertheless emerged from the War of 1812 with greater confidence and a strengthened sense of national identity.

Looking Ahead

The War of 1812 ended without territorial change but strengthened American national confidence. The chapter next turns to the Monroe Doctrine and the nation’s more assertive posture in the Western Hemisphere.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. War Hawks, militia, treaty, nationalism. Gloss “War Hawks” as a nickname, not a title—young congressmen who wanted the war.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “The War of 1812 began because ___.” “Americans felt ___ afterward because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students name one cause of the war and one result, then write the result as a full sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may build a four-event timeline—declaration, Washington burned, Fort McHenry, New Orleans—with a phrase under each.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.5 The Monroe Doctrine (pp. 182–184)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 182–184.

Exercise: The Monroe Doctrine—its text, its occasion, and the changed circumstances that made it possible.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what the Doctrine claimed and on what made the claim credible.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign A National Economy (pp. 184–189).

Essential Understanding

The Monroe Doctrine: its content, justification, and eventual influence on American foreign policy.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the key provisions of the Monroe Doctrine.

• Evaluate the significance of the Monroe Doctrine from multiple perspectives.

Key Dates

1821 Spain cedes Florida to the United States (February 22)

1823 President James Monroe declares the Monroe Doctrine (December 2)

Key Concepts

With the acquisition of all of Florida from Spain in 1821, the United States was at last moving into a position where it could exert control over its own part of the world.

The Monroe Doctrine, the drafting of which was John Quincy Adams’s handiwork as Monroe’s secretary of state, was in one sense merely a codification of the American doctrine of neutrality toward the European powers. As the Napoleonic Era had shown, one of the greatest threats to American neutrality was great-power conflict among European nations. One of the best ways to avoid American involvement in such conflicts was to safeguard the Americas from European political influence.

Like Marbury v. Madison, the success of the Monroe Doctrine had much to do with its timing. It established a vital and enduring principle at just the moment when it was least likely to be successfully challenged and so became a cornerstone of American foreign policy.

Key Terms

The Monroe Doctrine: As originally articulated by President Monroe in 1823, this foreign policy doctrine warned European powers against further colonization within the Western Hemisphere. Any effort to the contrary, including European meddling or subversion in the newly independent former Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America, would be regarded as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States” and “dangerous to our peace and safety.”

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Five, “The Monroe Doctrine” (pp. 182–184).

Assign several of the following questions:

Was America closer to or farther from avoiding foreign entanglements after the War of 1812?

Which country controlled Florida before the United States purchased it in 1821?

What completes John Quincy Adams’ notable quotation: The United States “goes not _____ in search of _____ to destroy”? (abroad… monsters)

What were the implications of the Monroe Doctrine for European colonization?

Why could the Monroe Doctrine be considered a bluff?

What did it codify regarding America’s existing approach to foreign policy?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Instruct students to summarize, in their own words, the foreign policy stance presented by the Monroe Doctrine. Make sure the students also consider the assurance that the U.S. would not seek to meddle in European affairs. After checking to see that students understand the provisions of the Monroe Doctrine, assign the following questions for written reflection or a class discussion:

Was the Monroe Doctrine fair? Why or why not?

If the War Hawks were in charge, what would their foreign policy stance look like? Would it be similar to the Monroe Doctrine?

Why was the Monroe Doctrine asserted after the War of 1812? Could something similar have been asserted before the war? Why or why not?

Speaking Skills: Have students prepare remarks in support of the Monroe Doctrine and present them before the class, practicing the art of persuasion to convince “Congress” (the rest of class) of its merits.

Writing Skills: Ask students to write a letter reporting the content and consequences of the Monroe Doctrine from the perspective of a European foreign minister (say, that of Spain).

Guiding Classroom Questions

What was the Monroe Doctrine?

Insight: The Monroe Doctrine stated that the United States would regard any attempt by European powers to establish colonies in the Western Hemisphere as an act of aggression. Furthermore, the United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of European countries. The Doctrine thus attempted to establish the independence from Europe of the United States and other New World countries.

Why was the Monroe Doctrine significant for the foreign policy of the United States?

Insight: The Doctrine declared the Western Hemisphere off limits to further European colonization, and any European meddling in the newly independent former Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America a threat to American peace and safety. It became a cornerstone of American foreign policy, establishing that the New World stood independently from the Old World.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What did the Monroe Doctrine declare?

Which newly independent states did the Doctrine warn Europe against meddling with?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) that the Western Hemisphere was closed to further European colonization and that the United States would not interfere in European affairs; (2) the newly independent former Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America.

Explain

The book says the Doctrine’s success had much to do with its timing. What had changed by 1823 that made such a declaration possible?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer draws on the chapter: Spain had ceded Florida in 1821, the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America had become independent, and the United States was at last in a position to exert influence in its part of the world.

Daily Recap

The declaration of the Monroe Doctrine illustrates the growth of the United States to the point that it was becoming a significant player on the global stage, declaring the Western Hemisphere off limits to further European colonization, and any European meddling in the newly independent former Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America a threat to American peace and safety. Prior to the Monroe administration, the United States had only a marginal presence in international affairs. It would still not become one of the most significant powers until the late nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine is a significant milestone in the history of the United States’ rise to global prominence.

Looking Ahead

The Monroe Doctrine asserted a new American position in the Western Hemisphere. Attention now turns inward to the roads, canals, railroads, and other developments that increasingly connected the nation’s regional economies.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Doctrine, hemisphere, colonization, intervention. “Doctrine” is a stated policy, not a law—worth saying plainly before the term is used.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “The Monroe Doctrine declared ___.” “Its timing mattered because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students state what the Doctrine warned European powers against doing and explain why its timing mattered, then write the second sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may draw the Western Hemisphere and mark it with a short caption stating the rule Monroe announced.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.6 A National Economy (pp. 184–189)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 184–189.

Exercise: Figure 6.10, the Erie Canal at Lockport, and Map 6.3, the roads, railroads and canals of 1840.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on how the economy changed and on the inventions and innovations that drove that change.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Missouri Dilemma (pp. 189–192).

Essential Understanding

The economic and technological developments of the early nineteenth century, particularly the building of railroads and canals, the social effects of the government’s infrastructure program, and how the corresponding societal changes comported with the differing visions of the various Founders, particularly Hamilton and Jefferson.

Lesson Objectives

• Identify the key components that led to economic growth in the early nineteenth century.

• Create an argument for why Henry Clay’s American System would strengthen the economy.

• Draw conclusions about the role of the federal government in helping with local infrastructure projects.

Key Dates

1825 The Erie Canal opens, connecting New York City to the Great Lakes (October 26)

Key Concepts

A strong sense of national identity was beginning to permeate American economic life as roads, canals, manufacturing, and new technologies connected communities that had once been comparatively isolated. These changes helped transform a collection of regional economies into an increasingly national market.

The building of turnpikes and other internal improvements was chiefly the responsibility of states and private concerns, though Henry Clay’s American System championed federal support for tariffs, banking, and infrastructure as measures promoting the national interest. Transportation improvements developed alongside inventions and other innovations associated with the First Industrial Revolution.

Together with rapid population growth and western settlement, these developments encouraged a national self-image of an independent people united by mobility, enterprise, and democratic energy.

Key Terms

American System: The “American System” was the name of the economic program proposed by Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky to foster growth through various actions by the federal government, including the implementation of protective tariffs, rechartering the national bank, and the execution of wide-ranging internal improvements.

Infrastructure: Infrastructure signifies the facilities that are necessary for the organization and operation of a complex system, such as the roads, canals, and bridges that contributed to the emergence of a national economy within the early nineteenth-century United States.

Cotton gin: Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, this device mechanically separates cotton fibers from seeds. Its widespread adoption encouraged the expansive cultivation of cotton across the American South as a highly profitable commercial export commodity, further entrenching slavery in the United States.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Six, “A National Economy” (pp. 184–189).

Assign several of the following questions:

Who was Henry Clay?

What is a national, as opposed to a merely regional, economy?

Which invention began to compete with roads and canals in America’s growing transportation industry during the early nineteenth century?

Who invented the cotton gin? What did it do?

How did population growth and economic development reshape America after the War of 1812?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Instruct students to make a graphic organizer to take notes on the key components of economic growth during this era. Have them rank the top 4 features of the national economy during this time in order of importance. For each one, students should do a short summary, a drawing that represents this component, and an explanation for why they think it was important. Possible components include railroads, toll roads, the Erie Canal, the factory system, the laws that allowed stock sales, and population growth.

Writing Skills: From the perspective of Henry Clay, or another representative, write to President Madison regarding your hopes for the country’s identity and why he ought to support federally funded infrastructure.

Debate: Organize a class debate over whether the federal government should be able to fund infrastructure projects that are entirely contained within a single state. Students should address the constitutionality of such efforts, particularly in the context of the Tenth Amendment.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the engraving, The Erie Canal at Lockport, New York (Figure 6.10). Ask students the following questions:

What does the engraving depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made?

Further: Compare the image in the textbook with the original version published in American Scenery. What differences stand out to you?

Insight: The rickety three-story building on the left has become a fancy hotel with well-dressed women and men socializing, the log building on the right has become fancier, the workers on the right have been replaced by a more nicely dressed man and woman, the clouds have become more elegant, etc.

Geography: Display the Roads, Railroads, and Canals, circa 1840 map (Map 6.3). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Compare the number and relative distances of the roads and railroads shown in this map. Which cities were reachable primarily by road? Which were reachable primarily by railroad? Which were reachable primarily by canal? Which were reachable by multiple methods?

Insight: Many of the western cities were reachable by road. Many of the Southern coastal cities and those on the southern coast of Lake Erie were reachable by railroad. Cleveland and Chicago were reachable by canal. Buffalo, Albany, Pittsburgh, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Richmond were reachable by road.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did the economy change in the early nineteenth century?

Insight: The United States was becoming a national economy, with different regions of the country becoming more integrated through internal improvements like canals, roads, and railroads. The rise of an interconnected market economy challenged the Jeffersonian vision of a nation of small, self-sufficient farmers. Economically, Americans were becoming more interdependent.

What are some examples of important inventions and innovations in the early nineteenth century?

Insight: Possible answers include: Samuel Slater’s factory system for textiles; Eli Whitney’s cotton gin; John Fitch’s and Robert Fulton’s steamboat technologies; Oliver Evans’s mechanization of flour milling.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name one transport improvement of the early nineteenth century.

What did the Erie Canal connect, and who played the leading role in building most early internal improvements?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) any of: canals, turnpikes, steamboats, railroads; (2) the Erie Canal connected the Hudson River—and thus New York City—with the Great Lakes and the interior; states and private companies, rather than the federal government, built most early internal improvements.

Explain

How does cheaper transport change what a farmer grows?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer sees that a farmer far from market grows for subsistence, and one near cheap transport grows a surplus for sale—which is how a national market forms.

Daily Recap

In the early nineteenth century, roads, canals, railroads, manufacturing, and finance began to transform a predominantly rural economy. Cheaper and faster transportation connected farmers and manufacturers to distant markets, knitting regional economies together into an increasingly national market.

Looking Ahead

A growing national market connected the sections commercially even as slavery continued to divide them politically. The chapter now turns to the Missouri crisis and the attempt to preserve sectional balance.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Infrastructure, canal, tariff, manufacture. Pair “infrastructure” with what students can see—roads, bridges, canals—before the word.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Before the canal, moving goods was ___.” “The American System was meant to ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students describe what the Erie Canal connected, then write one sentence about why cheaper transport changed what farmers grew.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may annotate Map 6.3, marking one canal, one road and one railroad, instead of writing.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.7 The Missouri Dilemma (pp. 189–192)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 189–192.

Exercise: Primary Sources 6.1 and 6.2—Pinkney’s speech and Adams’s diary entry, read against each other.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why Missouri statehood caused a crisis and on how Congress resolved it.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Enter Andrew Jackson (pp. 192–199).

Essential Understanding

The significance of the admittance of the state of Missouri to the Union: what it meant for the balance of slave versus non-slave states; and how the problems it raised regarding slavery were ultimately deferred.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze the Missouri Compromise in terms of how it responded to the problems regarding slavery.

• Cite evidence for how the Declaration of Independence could be used rhetorically in arguments opposing slavery.

Key Dates

1820 The Missouri Compromise is passed (March 6)

Key Concepts

The expansion of the nation raised the problem of slavery anew by forcing a decision about whether slavery would be permitted in newly created states.

By 1819, there were eleven free and eleven slave states, so that membership in the Senate was evenly balanced, with each section having the power to check the other.

As Missouri would upset the equality of slave and free states, the prospect of its statehood prompted a series of fiery debates in Congress over whether restrictions on slavery could be imposed by Congress as a condition of statehood.

Key Terms

Missouri Compromise: This congressional agreement entailed statehood for Maine, which had been the northern part of Massachusetts, to counter Missouri’s admission as a slave state. It also held that slavery would be excluded from the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of the 36°30̕ line, which was Missouri’s southern boundary extended westward.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Seven, “The Missouri Dilemma” (pp. 189–192).

Assign several of the following questions:

With the nation’s expansion, which problem resurfaced regarding human dignity?

By 1819, how many slave and free states were there?

Roughly what percentage of Missouri’s population did slaves constitute?

Of which territory was Missouri originally a part?

What was the Missouri Compromise?

How did former President Jefferson respond to its terms?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Speaking Skills: Encourage students to analyze the Missouri Compromise. Ask them to consider its merits and shortcomings, before presenting their views of the agreement before the class.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Instruct students to analyze the Missouri Compromise in their notes using the following structure:

Problem: What problem did the Missouri Compromise seek to address?

Response: How did the Missouri Compromise address the problem? Include all provisions of the Compromise here.

Analysis: Why was Jefferson so worried about the “momentous question” posed by Western expansion? In what way was the Missouri Compromise delaying, rather than solving, the real problem?

Argumentation: Using the Declaration of Independence, have students consider the merits of Senator Rufus King and Representative John Randolph’s arguments. Have the students cite the specific words of the Declaration that King might use to support his assertions. Which understanding of the document is more true to the Founding?

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of William Pinkney’s speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on February 15, 1820 and John Quincy Adams’ diary entry from March 3, 1820. (Primary Sources 6.1 & 6.2). Have students discuss the following questions:

How do Pinkney and Adams describe the institution of slavery?

Ask the class to consider whether the Missouri Compromise upheld the Constitution’s principles or postponed them.

Further: Require both sides to name the principle they are appealing to: equality among the states, the consent of the governed, the authority of Congress over the territories. A student who cannot name the principle is not yet making a constitutional argument.

Contrast Pinkney’s and Adams’ views on the role that slavery played in the Constitution, the legitimacy of that document, and the legitimacy of the Declaration of Independence as an authoritative document in guiding the United States’ self-understanding and national action. On what do they agree? On what do they disagree?

Pinkney was speaking to a chamber of Congress; Adams was writing only to himself. Have students discuss how the intended audience of each source might affect what the author chose to say.

Further: Compare Pinkney’s and Adams’s statements with the arguments over slavery during the Constitutional Convention (Primary Source 4.2) in Chapter 4. What are the similarities between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments?

Insight: Both men were reasoning from the Constitution and reaching opposite conclusions. The document upheld principles that pulled against each other, and the Compromise held the Union by declining to say which principle governed. A compromise could therefore be constitutional and still remain unstable.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did Missouri’s application for statehood cause a profound crisis?

Insight: Missouri applied for admission to the union as a slave state. Admitting Missouri would disturb the balance between free states and slave states, giving slave states an advantage in the Senate. The admission of Missouri raised anew the question of whether slavery was compatible with American ideals.

How did Congress resolve the Missouri crisis?

Insight: In the Missouri Compromise, (1) Missouri was admitted as a slave state, (2) Maine was admitted as a free state, and (3) the 36 degree, 30 minute line was established. Slavery would be excluded from the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of this line, which was Missouri’s southern boundary extended westward, providing a rule by which the rest of the Territory could be organized. This compromise attempted to maintain a rough balance of free and slave states. The compromise demonstrated that slavery was not dying out naturally, as many of the founders hoped it would.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What did the Missouri Compromise of 1820 provide?

Where did it draw the line, and what did that line mean?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) Missouri entered as a slave state and Maine as a free state, keeping the Senate balance; (2) at 36°30′, north of which slavery was barred in the Louisiana Territory.

Explain

Adams called the crisis “a title page to a great tragic volume.” What did he mean?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer reads it as a prediction: the compromise settled the immediate question and left the underlying one untouched, and Adams expected it to return.

Daily Recap

Missouri’s application for statehood reopened the unresolved question of slavery’s expansion and threatened the existing balance between free and slave states in the Senate. The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while barring slavery from the remaining Louisiana Territory north of 36°30′. The agreement settled the immediate crisis without resolving the underlying conflict.

Looking Ahead

The Missouri Compromise temporarily preserved sectional balance without resolving the conflict over slavery. The chapter now turns to Andrew Jackson and the changing democratic politics of the 1820s.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Compromise, sectional, balance, admission. “Sectional” needs its plain sense first—belonging to one part of the country rather than the whole.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “The Missouri Compromise allowed ___ and ___.” “The line at 36°30′ meant ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students say which state entered free and which entered as a slave state, then write what the line on the map decided.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may shade a blank map above and below the compromise line and label each side in two words.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.8 Enter Andrew Jackson (pp. 192–199)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 192–199.

Exercise: Figures 6.15 and 6.16—“King Andrew the First” and the nullification cartoon—as partisan argument in visual form.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on how Jackson differed from his predecessors and on the Nullification Crisis.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Fate of the Natives (pp. 199–203).

Essential Understanding

The central events of Andrew Jackson’s presidency and John Calhoun’s role as Jackson’s vice-president during the Nullification Crisis.

Lesson Objectives

• Create an argument about Jackson’s assertion that the president is the only person who represents all the American people.

• Compare and contrast the Nullification Crisis with other disputes over the relationship between the states and the federal government.

Key Dates

1825 John Quincy Adams is elected president by the House of Representatives after deadlocked election (February 9)

1829 Andrew Jackson is inaugurated as president (March 4)

1832 South Carolina passes an ordinance of nullification against two federal tariffs (November 24)

Key Concepts

The bitterly contested election of 1824 marked the beginning of a new party system. John Quincy Adams won the presidency in the House of Representatives, but Andrew Jackson’s supporters denounced the result as a “corrupt bargain” and organized the political coalition that carried Jackson to victory in 1828.

Jackson’s victory coincided with the Age of the Common Man, as many states dropped property qualifications and the electorate broadened to include more workers, artisans, and tenant farmers. Jacksonian democracy rested on confidence in the ordinary citizen’s capacity for political judgment and gave the presidency a more explicitly popular character.

Jackson interpreted the president as the one national official who could claim to represent the people as a whole, and he used that understanding to justify a vigorous exercise of executive power against institutions he believed favored entrenched elites.

Yet Jackson was also a forceful defender of federal supremacy during the Nullification Crisis. He rejected South Carolina’s claim that a state could set aside a federal law it considered unconstitutional, even as his own vice president, John C. Calhoun, became nullification’s leading advocate.

Key Terms

Era of Good Feelings: The dominance of Jefferson’s Republican Party for twenty-four years ended in the “Era of Good Feelings,” a time of political unity during which James Monroe was reelected without organized opposition.

Democratic Party: This was the name given by Jackson to his party, from which today’s Democratic Party derives.

Populist: Populists are leaders who appeal to popular discontent against elites to attain political power and influence. Andrew Jackson was the first major populist in U.S. history.

Nullification Crisis of 1832–33: This controversy was sparked by the federal use of protective tariffs, specifically the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832, that many Southerners perceived to be unconstitutional in promoting the sectional interests of northern manufacturers. South Carolina’s attempt to prevent enforcement of such tariffs within its borders led to a stand-off with the Jackson administration, culminating in Jackson’s eventual vindication of federal authority.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Eight, “Enter Andrew Jackson” (pp. 192–199).

Assign several of the following questions:

What was the “Era of Good Feelings”?

Why was the 1824 Presidential Election controversial?

Which party and candidate won the 1828 Presidential Election?

What was the “Age of the Common Man”?

What is populism?

How did Jackson deal with the Nullification Crisis?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Argumentation: According to President Jackson, the president is the only person in the entire U.S. system of constitutional government who is a representative of all the people. Encourage students to take a side regarding whether this is an accurate understanding of the U.S. constitutional government. Have them write their argument in a well-structured, substantive paragraph. Encourage them to reference documents from the founding through the Era of Good Feelings to support their position. After students finish their paragraphs, encourage them to exchange papers with a partner in order to receive peer feedback on the quality of their arguments. On a scale of 1–5, how persuasive is the argument, and why do they assign that number?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to create a t-chart to identify the core arguments of the Nullification Crisis. Make a bullet point list of the arguments for nullification, and the arguments against it. After giving students time to use their textbooks to create the chart, invite responses in front of the full class and write the list on the board for everyone to see. Next, lead students in a discussion using the following questions:

How was the Nullification Crisis a new iteration of a previous argument? In what ways was it unique?

Further: Decades earlier, the Great Compromise had already established the federal system the Nullification Crisis was now testing: a system of states that were formally equal, each holding the same number of votes in the Senate regardless of population (see Lesson 4.7). Have students explain how the Great Compromise's structure of equal states set up the very question South Carolina later raised—if states are equal partners in the federal system, how much power does any one of them retain to reject a law the system produces? Have students look to the Constitution itself for an answer. (Circle back to Lesson 6.6's Debate exercise, where this same amendment is at the center of a dispute over federal infrastructure funding). What other specific rights does the Constitution, or its amendments, grant to the states?

What was Jackson preparing to do if the Southern states refused to comply with federal law?

How was the crisis finally averted? What do you think Jackson meant when he said the tariff was only a “pretext” to the real goal?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the engraving, King Andrew the First (Figure 6.15). Ask students the following questions:

What does the cartoon depict? What stands out?

When and where was it made? How was it distributed or seen?

What worldview is expressed in this cartoon?

Compare this satirical portrait with the provided portraits of medieval kings. What elements are similar, and which are different? How does the artist use these details to reinforce the message of this piece?

Further: Compare the list of complaints in this cartoon with the list of complaints against George III. How similar are they?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the cartoon, Nullification ... Despotism (Figure 6.16). This cartoon explicitly presents the possibility of the dissolution of the United States. Have students identify the other concerns about the longevity of the Union expressed in Chapter 6, and compare their sources [John Quincy Adams, p. 191 (slavery); Thomas Jefferson, p. 192 (slavery); Andrew Jackson, p. 199 (slavery)].

Ask students the following questions:

How might America’s founding principles have made this cartoon especially impactful? What fears in the American people would the artist be targeting to make his point land?

What view of the nullification question is expressed in this work?

Further: The cartoon presents nullification’s threat to the Union in the language of despotism—a government no longer answerable to the people it rules. As a later comparison, ask students to consider twentieth-century authoritarian regimes discussed elsewhere in the course: Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and Castro’s Cuba. Have students identify at least one constitutional principle or institutional safeguard absent or suppressed in each case and explain the consequences. Conclude by asking students to distinguish a constitutional republic from an authoritarian or totalitarian state. Return to this exercise when the class reaches the later treatment of these regimes, when students will have additional historical context.

Civic Discourse: Between 1824 and 1828 the number of votes cast for president vastly increased, as states dropped property qualifications and moved to popular selection of electors. Give students the two vote totals and have them work out the multiple themselves and state it in a sentence. Before they check their answer, have them estimate what multiple they would expect, given the chapter's account of an electorate "broadening year by year to include more and more eligible voters – not just landholders but workers, artisans, tenant farmers, and others who had previously been excluded." Ask students what changes when political participation increases as far more people vote. Have them consider it from two sides:

What a candidate must now do to win, and what a government must now attend to that it could previously ignore.

Insight: For a calculation students can check against the book's own figures, send them back to lesson 6.6, where the chapter gives the country's population growth "from four million in 1790 to almost thirteen million in 1830, at a steady rate of around 35 percent per decade." Have students compute the 1830 population from the 1790 figure and that rate, compare their result with the book's "almost thirteen million," and say whether the two agree closely enough to trust the stated rate. Ask what it would mean if a calculation and a printed figure diverged sharply.

Then push on the second half. If a government must now answer to a far larger electorate, what does it have to start doing that it could previously leave undone? Have students use Jackson’s own presidency as a case study: the veto used as a popular instrument rather than a constitutional last resort, the Bank fought as a public argument rather than a matter for Congress alone, the appeal made over the heads of officeholders to the voters directly.

Insight: Jackson’s election is an early example of a widened franchise changing how political power was exercised. He lost in 1824 despite winning a plurality of the popular vote and won in 1828 by mobilizing a much larger electorate. Expanding participation did not merely add voters; it also changed what a president could plausibly claim to represent.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did President Andrew Jackson differ from his predecessors?

Insight: Jackson was a decidedly populist figure, meaning that he opposed those that he saw as corrupt elites who did not serve the interests of the common people. He used his veto power more than all previous presidents combined to stop bills that he thought favored the elites. He strongly opposed the rechartering of the Bank of the United States, which he characterized as a corrupt alliance between business elites and the government.

What was the nullification crisis and how did Jackson respond?

Insight: In response to tariffs passed in 1828 and 1832, South Carolina asserted the right of states to nullify federal laws that the states deemed unconstitutional, meaning that those laws would have no force in the states practicing nullification. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Jackson’s vice president, was the primary advocate for nullification. Jackson came out strongly against nullification, holding that nullification would lead directly to disunion (secession of states). When South Carolina attempted to nullify the 1832 tariff, Jackson was prepared to use military force to prevent nullification. Only Henry Clay’s skill at compromise in Congress prevented a secession crisis by lowering the tariff.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What was the Nullification Crisis about?

How did Jackson respond to South Carolina?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) South Carolina claimed a state could nullify a federal tariff it held unconstitutional; (2) Jackson denied the claim, sought the Force Bill, and threatened to use the army while a compromise tariff was negotiated.

Explain

Jackson’s critics drew him as “King Andrew the First.” What were they accusing him of?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer connects the vetoes, the removal of deposits and the defiance of the Court to a charge of executive power exercised without check.

Daily Recap

Jackson’s election marked a new stage in the democratization of American politics as the electorate broadened and presidential campaigning became more popular in character. Yet Jackson also asserted a vigorous conception of executive and federal power. During the Nullification Crisis, he rejected South Carolina’s claim that a state could set aside federal law and threatened enforcement while Congress negotiated a lower tariff.

Looking Ahead

Jackson rejected South Carolina’s challenge to federal authority during the Nullification Crisis. His administration’s use of federal power takes a different form in the controversy over Indian removal.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Populist, nullification, veto, suffrage. Gloss “nullification” with the claim itself—a state saying a federal law does not apply inside its borders.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Jackson was called a populist because ___.” “South Carolina claimed it could ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students state one thing Jackson’s supporters admired and one thing his critics feared, then write the criticism.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may caption Figure 6.15, “King Andrew the First,” in one sentence saying what the artist is accusing Jackson of.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.9 The Fate of the Natives (pp. 199–203)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 199–203.

Exercise: Figures 6.17 and 6.18—the Trail of Tears and “Andrew Jackson as the Great Father”—with attention to when each was made and by whom.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Jackson’s removal policy and on why removal was favored over alternatives.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Tocqueville’s Observations (pp. 204–207).

Essential Understanding

The contested status of the Native American peoples still present in the Southeast at the time of Jackson’s presidency; the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears.

Lesson Objectives

• Critique the Indian Removal Act.

• Assess the overall performance of Andrew Jackson during his presidency.

Key Dates

1830 Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act (May 28)

Key Concepts

Jackson’s inclusive democratic spirit did not encompass America’s indigenous peoples, whom he, like many other western settlers, regarded with a mixture of fear and condescension.

From the very beginning of the United States, its leaders could not decide whether the American Indians should be treated officially as individual citizens or as members of distinct nations, and whether federal policy should be directed toward their assimilation or their displacement.

It was never clear how the indigenous population could be either incorporated into the American experiment or humanely left out of it, and there can be no doubt that entrenched anti-Native racism played a key role in their mistreatment. Yet what makes the story all the more exasperating is that there were also good intentions in the mix, which proved equally deadly in their effects. For instance, Jackson himself argued that removing Natives from their ancestral lands was the only way to guarantee their safety and to preserve their cultures.

The Indian Removal Act was intensely controversial, encountering significant opposition even in the South, notably from Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett. It passed by only a narrow margin after bitter debate in Congress.

Key Terms

Indian Removal Act: Signed by Andrew Jackson in 1830, this congressional legislation provided for the removal of the eastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi. By 1837 most eastern tribes had relocated — some forty-six thousand individuals. In 1838, after Jackson had left office, the U.S. Army forced fifteen thousand Cherokees from Georgia along the Trail of Tears, on which some four thousand died.

Trail of Tears: This term applies to the westward path of relocated natives, particularly the U.S. Army’s expulsion of southeastern Cherokees in 1838 and 1839 to the Oklahoma Territory, which resulted in approximately four thousand deaths.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Nine, “The Fate of the Natives” (pp. 199–203).

Assign several of the following questions:

What was the Indian Removal Act?

When was it signed into law?

Who was affected by the “Trail of Tears”?

Within five years of the Indian Removal Law passing, how many people were relocated?

Who developed the idea of a western Indian territory?

Who were some of the main opponents of Indian Removal?

What was the ruling of Worcester v. Georgia?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Writing Skills: Ask students to write a letter to President Jackson, attempting to persuade him to veto the Indian Removal Act. In the letter, students should respond to specific viewpoints or arguments that led to the Indian Removal Act. Afterward, have students meet in small groups and take turns reading the letters out loud.

Reading Comprehension: Invite students to read Davy Crockett’s “Letter to Charles Schultz on Indian Removal,” from 1834. What does he criticize in the letter? How and why does he demonstrate pessimism regarding the republic?

Civic Discourse: Consider the varying ways that President Jackson applied his interpretation of the Constitution during his presidency. Review with students the various actions that Jackson took as president. Make a list of those actions on the board. Afterward, lead students in a discussion about Jackson’s presidency and legacy. What did he stand for? How did he change American politics? What decisions did he make that were laudable? Which were mistakes? Was his non-enforcement of John Marshall’s ruling in Worcester v. Georgia justified?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the painting, The Trail of Tears by Robert Lindneux (Figure 6.17). Ask students the following questions:

What does the painting depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made?

What is the mood of the painting, and what does that suggest about the perspective of the artist?

Compare the painting with Mooney’s description of the march, and note similarities and differences.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the cartoon, Andrew Jackson as the Great Father (Figure 6.18). Ask students the following questions:

What does the cartoon depict? What stands out?

When and where was it made? How sympathetic to Andrew Jackson was the creator of this cartoon?

Have students read Jackson’s letter to the Creek Indians. How does the cartoon illustrate the points he makes in the letter?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What was Jackson’s policy regarding the Indians?

Insight: Jackson insisted that the Indians should be resettled west of the Mississippi. The 1830 Indian Removal Act provided for the relocation of most eastern Indians. In 1838 (after Jackson’s term ended), the U.S. Army forced the Cherokees of Georgia to leave for the West, resulting in the infamous Trail of Tears in which 4,000 Cherokees perished.

Why did Jackson and his predecessors favor Indian removal rather than an alternative policy, such as integration of Indians into the American republic?

Insight: Washington and Jefferson thought that Indians could only be fully integrated into American society if they became “civilized” and adopted European culture. This seemed unrealistic and made removal to western lands a more tenable option. Also, the remaining eastern Indian tribes were located mostly in the South, and there was great demand to open up these lands for cotton farming.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What did the Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorize?

What did the Supreme Court hold in Worcester v. Georgia?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) the president to negotiate the exchange of eastern tribal lands for territory west of the Mississippi; (2) that Georgia’s laws had no force in Cherokee territory, which was a distinct community under federal, not state, authority.

Explain

The Court ruled for the Cherokee and removal proceeded anyway. What does that reveal about how the Constitution works?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer sees that a court can declare a right without being able to enforce it, and that enforcement depends on an executive willing to act.

Daily Recap

Jackson’s Indian policy sought to remove eastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi rather than incorporate them into the expanding states. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized negotiations for such exchanges, while Worcester v. Georgia held that Georgia’s laws had no force within Cherokee territory. Removal nevertheless continued, culminating after Jackson left office in the forced Cherokee migration remembered as the Trail of Tears.

Looking Ahead

Jacksonian democracy expanded political participation for many white men while Indian removal exposed the limits of that democratic expansion. The chapter concludes with Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of American democracy and society.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Removal, treaty, sovereignty, relocation. “Sovereignty” is best introduced through the case—the Court held the Cherokee governed their own territory.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “The Indian Removal Act allowed the president to ___.” “The Supreme Court ruled ___, but ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students say what the Court decided in Worcester v. Georgia and what happened anyway, then write the second half.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may mark on a map where the Cherokee lived and where they were forced to go, with a one-line caption.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

6.10 Tocqueville’s Observations (pp. 204–207)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 204–207.

Exercise: Primary Source 6.3, Tocqueville on individualism, with the authorship and purpose questions.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Tocqueville’s importance and on the central ideas of Democracy in America.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter 7.

Essential Understanding

The nature and circumstances of Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of and reflections on Jacksonian America.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe how Tocqueville viewed America during the nineteenth century.

• Relate Tocqueville’s observations to American society today.

Key Dates

1831 Alexis de Tocqueville arrives in America, embarking on a nine-month tour of the country (May)

Key Concepts

De Tocqueville observed that in America, the only example the world then afforded of an expansive and expanding republic, one could gaze upon “the image of democracy itself, of its penchants, its character, its prejudices, its passions.” He viewed the United States as an exemplary case study from which lessons could be drawn to manage the looming democratic changes that would confront Europe.

de Tocqueville’s America was a strikingly middle-class society: feverishly commercial and obsessively acquisitive, practically minded, hostile to social pretensions, and restlessly mobile; it was a constant beehive of enterprise and activity.

America was also a surprisingly religious society, in which the spirit of liberty and the spirit of religion were understood to be complementary to each other, so that religious belief reinforced democratic practice. This was a very different state of affairs from what de Tocqueville had found at home in France, where Catholicism was closely associated with monarchy.

de Tocqueville observed that in a modern commercial democracy, individualism was bound to constitute a particularly strong force, because self-interest was the chief motivation of daily life. But what, then, could sustain the civic virtues that a decent society requires?

Key Terms

Democracy in America: Published in two volumes between 1835 and 1840, this work represents perhaps the richest and most enduring study of American society and culture. de Tocqueville’s writing vividly captures the era’s ebullient and enterprising spirit and anticipates the energies that the democratic revolution in America propagated worldwide.

Civic virtues: These personal qualities directly contribute to the promotion of a healthy political order, requiring the subordination of personal interest to the common welfare.

Individualism: In de Tocqueville’s work, individualism is the tendency he observed among Americans to cease identifying with the social order and the demands of citizenship as they instead opted to live as isolated actors motivated primarily by material well-being.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read Chapter Six, Section Ten, “Tocqueville’s Observations” (pp. 204–207).

Assign several of the following questions:

What was one of the first things de Tocqueville witnessed in America?

What work did he publish after his visit to America?

What was de Tocqueville’s social background?

What is individualism according to de Tocqueville?

How old was the Frenchman when he arrived in America?

Did he travel alone? If not, who accompanied him?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Reading Comprehension: Encourage students to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Why the Americans are so Restless in the Midst of their Prosperity.” Lead students in a seminar discussion of the text. How does de Tocqueville characterize the Old World as different from America? How does he relate these differences to American democracy? Is his characterization of America in the 1800s applicable to America today?

Further: Have students engage in a research project on economic systems and modes of government: Ask students whether the restlessness de Tocqueville describes could exist in an unbalanced opportunistic system. Have students name the economic systems that exist along a spectrum from open to closed—capitalism, mixed market, socialism, communism—and the government systems on a similar spectrum—autocracy, monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, republic. Which of these systems concentrate control in the fewest hands, and why would that make broad-based prosperity harder to achieve?

Speaking Skills: Ask students to imagine that they are de Tocqueville upon returning to France. How would they describe their travels? What would they praise? What would they critique? Where in America would they recommend other Europeans visit? Instruct students to prepare a speech that they might give to an audience that requested to hear from Tocqueville. Have several students share their thoughts at length in class.

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of the selection from “Of Individualism in Democratic Countries,” in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (Primary Source 6.3). Have students discuss the following questions:

How does Tocqueville describe individualism?

Contrast this selection from Democracy in America with James Madison’s argument that large republics are more conducive to the election of “proper guardians of the public weal” in Federalist 10 (Primary Source 5.2, p. 142)—particularly, this selection: “Extend the sphere, and you will take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.” Are Tocqueville and Madison talking about similar characteristics of American society?

Further: In his later The Old Regime and the French Revolution (1856), Tocqueville describes “the form of tyranny which we call democratic despotism” sought after by French “economists or physiocrats”: “No more social hierarchies, no distinctions of class or rank; a people consisting of individuals entirely equal, and as nearly alike as possible; this body acknowledged as the only legitimate sovereign, but carefully deprived of the means of directing or even superintending the government; over it a single agent, commissioned to perform all acts without consulting his principals: to control him, a public sense of right and wrong, destitute of organs for its expression; to check him, revolutions, not laws.” How similar is this picture to the description of American individualism and its effects in the selection from Democracy in America in the text?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Who was Alexis de Tocqueville and why was he important?

Insight: Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who visited the United States in the early 1830s and published his analysis of American culture in Democracy in America, which remains one of the most important books about America.

What were some important ideas in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America?

Insight: Tocqueville saw the United States as the foremost example of a democratic spirit that was sweeping through European countries as well. The United States thus offered a preview of an egalitarian culture that was coming to Europe, and European leaders could learn how to deal with these cultural changes by observing America. Tocqueville observed that America was defined by a middle-class attitude that emphasized hard work, the pursuit of wealth, and practicality. He noted the danger of excessive individualism in this society—Americans could potentially become interested only in their own private affairs and have no impetus to pursue the public good of their society.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Who was Alexis de Tocqueville, and why did he come to America?

What did he mean by “individualism”?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) a young French aristocrat who arrived in 1831, officially to study American prisons; (2) a new disposition to withdraw from public life into a small circle of family and friends, leaving the wider society to itself.

Explain

Tocqueville admired American democracy and feared something in it. What did he fear?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer names the tyranny of the majority, or the isolation of individuals who no longer act together—and connects it to what he thought associations and local government existed to prevent.

Daily Recap

Tocqueville encountered a remarkably democratic, mobile, commercial, and religious society. He admired Americans’ energy and habits of self-government but worried that equality could encourage individuals to withdraw from public life into private concerns. He therefore treated civic virtue, voluntary association, local government, and religion as important counterweights to democratic individualism.

Looking Ahead

Tocqueville described a democratic society still working out the implications of equality. The following chapter turns to the religious movements, reform efforts, and literature that developed within that culture.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Individualism, civic virtue, association, equality. “Individualism” carries Tocqueville’s specific sense—withdrawing into a small circle, not selfishness.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Tocqueville admired ___ about America.” “He worried that ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students name one thing Tocqueville praised and one thing he feared, then write the fear as a full sentence.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may complete a two-column chart—What he admired / What he feared—instead of a paragraph.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Place the following into chronological order from earliest to latest.

A. Andrew Jackson is elected president

B. The War of 1812 is ended

C. The Louisiana Purchase is made

D. The Monroe Doctrine is declared

E. The Missouri Compromise is passed

Answer: C · B · E · D · A

Key Persons and Concepts

Fill in the blank. Answers are in bold.

1. John Marshall served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for 34 years. During his tenure, he became a thorn in the Jeffersonian Republicans’ side by crafting decisions that strengthened the power of the Supreme Court and the federal government.

2. In the case Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court established that the Court could declare laws passed by Congress unconstitutional and thus void. This principle is called judicial review.

3. South Carolina politician John C. Calhoun was the primary advocate of nullification, the idea that a state government could declare that federal laws that the state deemed unconstitutional were void within the state.

4. The Monroe Doctrine, a crucial statement of American foreign policy, declared that the Western Hemisphere was off limits to future European colonization.

5. President Andrew Jackson was a fierce enemy of the National Bank and opposed its rechartering because he thought that it created a corrupt alliance between the federal government and business interests.

Geography

Consult this map for the answers to the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix.

[ART REQUIRED — Chapter 6_AssessmentAnswerKeyMap.jpg]

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. How did the Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Marshall frustrate the ambitions of Thomas Jefferson and his Republican allies?

Model response: Chief Justice Marshall, a Federalist, crafted several decisions that bolstered federal power and strengthened the role of the judiciary in the federal government. These decisions include Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review, and Gibbons v. Ogden, which established the federal government’s power over regulating interstate commerce (students could cite several other cases). Such decisions frustrated Republicans who were skeptical of judicial power and opposed concentrating power in the federal government over concerns about violating the sovereignty of the states.

2. Why did the opportunity to purchase the Louisiana Territory from France pose a challenge to Jefferson’s ideals, and why did he decide to make the purchase anyway?

Model response: Jefferson had a “strict-constructionist” view of the Constitution, meaning that the federal government should not exercise powers beyond those specifically granted in the Constitution. The Constitution did not specifically empower the president to purchase territory from a foreign government. But when given the opportunity to double the size of the country, Jefferson could not turn the offer down because this territory would provide ample land for Americans to establish homesteads on. This reflected Jefferson’s agrarian vision that favored a republic of independent farmers rather than concentrations of wealth and population in cities.

3. Why was the Embargo Act of 1807 unsuccessful?

Model response: The Embargo Act prohibited American vessels from docking at foreign ports in an attempt to cut off trade with Britain and France during the Napoleonic Wars. The United States had attempted to claim neutrality between Britain and France, asserting the right to trade with both sides. But Britain refused to recognize American neutrality, seizing American ships and impressing American sailors. By cutting off trade, Jefferson attempted to demonstrate Britain’s reliance on American goods, but this policy was an utter failure because Britain easily found other sources for these goods. The policy hurt the United States, especially New England’s shipping industry, much more than Britain.

4. How did the War of 1812 lead to the collapse of the Federalist Party?

Model response: Federalists opposed the war because they disagreed with antagonizing Britain, and the decline in shipping during the war hurt New England the most. After the war’s end and Jackson’s victory at New Orleans, Federalist opposition to the war appeared unpatriotic and disloyal, which sped its collapse. By 1824, the Federalist Party had ceased to exist, bringing an end to the first party system.

5. Why does the author say that the Monroe Doctrine was “rather daring, even presumptuous, akin to a poker-player’s bluff”?

Model response: The Monroe Doctrine stated that the United States would regard any European attempt to establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere as an act of aggression, and that the United States would not interfere with the internal affairs of European countries. It warned in particular that European meddling in the newly independent former Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America would be regarded as dangerous to American peace and safety. It became a cornerstone of American foreign policy.

6. Discuss the Erie Canal as an example of the significance of internal improvements in the early nineteenth century.

Model response: The Erie Canal was a massive project that connected the Great Lakes to New York City and the rest of the eastern United States. Through this project, Americans were able to move goods much more quickly than before, and the canal helped to make New York City an economic powerhouse. Projects like the Erie Canal helped to connect distant parts of the country and create regional economies knit together.

7. What were the main elements of the Missouri Compromise of 1820?

Model response: (1) Missouri was admitted to the union as a slave state. (2) Maine was admitted as a free state. (3) Congress declared that future states above the 36 degree, 30 minute line would be prohibited from having slavery in their territories.

8. In what ways could Andrew Jackson be considered a populist figure?

Model response: Populism asserts that the rights and interests of the common people are threatened by elites with undue influence over government and other institutions. Jackson reflected this populist view in several ways. He had a vendetta against the Bank of the United States, believing that it represented a corrupt alliance between the government and business interests, and he vetoed the re-chartering of the Bank. He also projected a populist image as a self-made man who achieved great things (such as winning the Battle of New Orleans) without the benefit of an elite education.

9. What factors led to the Indian Removal Act of 1830?

Model response: American leaders, including Washington and Jefferson, did not believe that Indians could be a part of the American republic unless they assimilated fully into Euro-American society, becoming “civilized” in the process. Jackson had a similar view, and in addition there was great demand to open up Indian lands in the Southeast for cotton farming. These factors led to the Indian Removal Act, which forcibly relocated Indian tribes to western lands beyond the Mississippi.

10. According to Alexis de Tocqueville, what danger did individualism pose to democratic society?

Model response: Tocqueville argued that as people became more equal in democratic societies like America, they would come to care only about themselves and their close family and friends. In contrast to aristocratic societies, in which people had a clear sense of their own social class and their place in the hierarchy, in democratic societies people come to mistakenly believe that they are completely self-reliant and owe nothing to anyone else. This tendency has the danger of destroying the civic virtue—devotion to the public good—that is necessary for the survival of democratic government and society.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

Discuss how conflicts over federal power and state sovereignty affected political developments between 1800 and 1838. You should discuss at least three of the following:

• John Marshall’s Supreme Court decisions

• The Missouri Compromise

• William Pinkney’s Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (Primary Source 6.1)

• John Quincy Adams’s Diary Entry (Primary Source 6.2)

• The Nullification Crisis

• Worcester v. Georgia and Indian Removal

Strong essays take a position and argue it from the chapter’s own evidence. The prompt rewards students who can hold the period’s two faces together: the same decades that widened the vote, built the canals and produced Jackson’s democracy of the common man also produced the Missouri crisis and the Trail of Tears, and neither cancels the other. Credit answers that reach for specifics—Jefferson buying Louisiana on constitutional grounds he rejected, the embargo hurting Americans most, Adams writing privately that Missouri was “a title page to a great tragic volume,” Jackson defying the Court in Worcester v. Georgia while defying nullifiers in the name of the Union. Do not require a particular verdict on Jackson. Require that the verdict rest on what the chapter shows. The strongest essays notice that expanding democracy for some and removing others were not separate stories but the same one.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Culture of Democracy:

Something New Under the Sun

1801–1855 · pp. 209–239

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

In his classic account of democracy in America, de Tocqueville considered democracy to be more than a mere political arrangement. He argued that democracy’s effects would manifest in every facet of human life: not only in public institutions but also in family life, literature, philosophy, manners, language, marriage, mores, ambition, friendship, love, and in attitudes toward war and peace, among other areas. He grasped the fact that a society’s political organization, far from being an exclusively institutional matter, in fact profoundly influences its inhabitants. Democracy is not just about politics; it is also a matter of culture, of a people’s sensibilities and way of life: their habits, convictions, morals, tastes, and spiritual lives.

What then was this emerging culture of democracy in America? Because religion lies at the very roots of culture, it offers a suitable start-place for understanding contemporary American life. One of the most noticeable trends was that both elite and popular religious practices were increasingly divergent from orthodox Calvinism. Their practices differed: elites were drawn to Deism and Unitarianism, the broad populace toward evangelicalism and revivalism. But both groups shared a robust belief in human capabilities. In 1821, the young lawyer Charles Grandison Finney underwent a conversion experience and became the greatest revivalist of his day, espousing an evangelism that rejected Calvin’s doctrine of total human depravity. His approach paralleled the expansive individualism of the coming Jacksonian Era in American culture.

This time also featured much social experimentation, with the emergence of numerous utopian experiments that aimed to reshape society and to elevate the human soul through hard work, discipline, and moral probity. Some such communities were short-lived, like Brook Farm in Massachusetts and New Harmony in Indiana. Others proved more durable, such as the Shakers and the Oneida Community.

The Temperance Movement also developed from the same impulse toward moral perfection, seeking to address the negative effects of alcohol consumption on workers, families, and children. Many other humanitarian causes captured America’s attention during the 1830s, including: women’s rights; public education; dietary reform; and humane treatment of the mentally ill, the blind, and the deaf.

But the most important cause of all was opposition to slavery. Abolitionism had been growing since the 1780s, but it increased after the controversy over Missouri’s statehood. By the 1830s, the movement began to coalesce around criticism of slavery on primarily religious grounds. Revivalists of the Second Great Awakening such as Finney encouraged antislavery reform, while William Lloyd Garrison, a leading abolitionist and fervent Christian, began publishing his influential newspaper The Liberator. The most notable abolitionist work was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. Published in 1852, the best-selling novel shifted northern antebellum opinion against slavery.

Even with such important developments, it remained a lingering question whether the United States was capable of producing a distinctive literary and artistic culture that was fully and unapologetically American, reflecting the nation’s distinctive ethos. Much of the literary and artistic production of the early Republic had been highly imitative and derivative in character, taking its bearings from European examples and showing precious little originality. De Tocqueville predicted that it would always be thus. But he was proven wrong. By the 1850s, there was a thriving literary community in the country, producing an American literature of high quality, epitomized by the works of authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Margaret Fuller.

Many of these writers championed a cluster of ideas and ideals called Transcendentalism, a variant of Romanticism that stressed the glories of the vast, the mysterious, and the intuitive. Perhaps the most striking portrayal of American culture at the time came from the poet Walt Whitman, whose verses sang with unbridled enthusiasm of the open road, human freedom, and the infinite worth of the individual soul.

Essential Understanding

The central cultural, literary, and intellectual developments in American life from the turn of the nineteenth century until the 1850s.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter's end:

The Second Great Awakening swept through the United States in the early nineteenth century; its many charismatic preachers departed from Calvinist theology, championing man’s spiritual capabilities in a reflection of the period’s optimism and individualism.

• The nationwide religious revival was particularly notable for the explosive growth of Methodism, which became the country’s largest Protestant denomination by 1850, as well as the emergence of many new spiritual and reform movements, particularly in the Burned-Over District of western and central New York State.

• A number of utopian communities were founded during this time, and the appeal of their communitarian orientation was likely augmented by the social dislocations wrought by the Industrial Revolution.

• The early nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of the temperance movement and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Joseph Smith, which eventually became established in the Utah Territory.

• The most politically significant trend was the rise of the anti-slavery movement, led by the uncompromising abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and galvanized by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bestselling 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

• Despite skepticism of the country’s artistic potential from prominent Europeans, America’s national culture likewise began to coalesce during this period, giving rise to a unique literary tradition in works such as The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, and Walden.

• Transcendentalism, a distinctively American variant of Romanticism that celebrated individuality, the human spirit, and the grandeur of nature, proved particularly influential among many of America’s foremost literary figures, led by the movement’s exemplar and unofficial spokesman, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Key Persons

Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875)

Fox sisters

Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805–1844)

Brigham Young (1801–1877)

Charles Fourier (1772–1837)

Robert Owen (1771–1858)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

Dorothea Dix (1802–1887)

Thomas Gallaudet (1787–1851)

Samuel Gridley Howe (1801–1876)

Frederick Douglass (1817–1895)

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879)

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

Horace Mann (1796–1859)

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)

Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850)

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

Herman Melville (1819–1891)

Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

Key Concepts and Terms

Circuit riders

Methodism

Second Great Awakening

Unitarianism

Burned-Over District

Presbyterianism

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Millerites

Brook Farm

Shakers

Oneida Community

Temperance movement

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

Romanticism

Transcendentalism

Congregationalism

Timeline

1801 The Cane Ridge Revival begins in Kentucky (August 6)

1825 Charles Finney begins preaching in New York’s Burned-Over District

1830 Joseph Smith forms the Church of Christ, later renamed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (April 6)

1831 The Liberator begins circulation (January 1)

1837 Horace Mann is appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education

1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers his speech “The American Scholar” at Harvard (August 31)

1841 Brook Farm is founded in West Roxbury, Massachusetts (April)

1844 An anti-Mormon mob kills Joseph Smith (June 27)

1845 Frederick Douglass publishes his Narrative (May 1)

1847 Mormon pioneers found Salt Lake City (July 24)

1848 John Humphrey Noyes founds the Oneida Community

1848 The Seneca Falls Convention adopts the Declaration of Sentiments (July 19–20)

1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes The Scarlet Letter (March 16)

1851 Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick (October 18)

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin (March 20)

1854 William Lloyd Garrison burns a copy of the U.S. Constitution at an anti-slavery rally (July 4)

1854 Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden (August 9)

1855 Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass (July 4)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students' progress warrants.

Chapter Seven · The Culture of Democracy: Something New Under the Sun (5.5 to 10 class periods)

7.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 211–214 (.5 to 1 class)

• Developments in American religious practices

• The Second Great Awakening

7.2 Millennial Visions, Utopian Communities & 7.3 Experiments in Living – pp. 215–219 (2 to 3 classes)

• The origins, growth, and central beliefs of Mormonism

• A survey of utopian communities and their ideas

7.4 The Rise of the Antislavery Movement – pp. 220–224 (.5 to 1 class)

• The religious roots of abolitionism

• William Lloyd Garrison and his newspaper The Liberator

• The spectrum of opinion within the antislavery movement

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

7.5 Who Reads an American Book? – pp. 224–226 (.5 to 1 class)

• The absence of a distinctive American literature in the nation’s first decades

• The skepticism of Europeans regarding the artistic potential of America’s democratic culture

7.6 American Literature Comes of Age – pp. 226–234 (1 to 2 classes)

• The emergence of Transcendentalism in relation to Romanticism and Unitarianism

• The life, work, and legacy of Ralph Waldo Emerson

7.7 Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman – pp. 234–239 (1 to 2 classes)

• Thoreau and Walden: Transcendentalism in action

• Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter: the first great American novel

• Melville and Moby-Dick: the spirit of adventure

• Whitman and Leaves of Grass: democracy in verse

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter's epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836

Emerson published Nature anonymously in 1836, after leaving the Unitarian ministry and settling in Concord, Massachusetts. The essay became a foundational statement of Transcendentalism, arguing for an immediate relation between the individual, nature, and spiritual truth. The chapter epigraph comes from its opening pages, where Emerson urges his generation to seek an original relation to the universe rather than live through inherited forms.

Primary Source(s)

Primary Source 7.1. Frederick Douglass, Speech in Glasgow before a Scottish Anti-Slavery Society, March 26, 1860 (p. 222)

Frederick Douglass delivered this speech in Glasgow in March 1860, after he had broken with William Lloyd Garrison over the Constitution. Garrison treated the Constitution as compromised by slavery; Douglass increasingly argued that its text could be read as antislavery and used as an instrument against the institution. Speaking abroad on the eve of the Civil War, Douglass defended union with a constitutional argument for abolition rather than Garrisonian disunion.

Primary Source 7.2. Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Earth’s Holocaust,” May 1844 (p. 235)

Hawthorne published “Earth’s Holocaust” in 1844, amid the reform movements and utopian experiments of antebellum America. The story imagines reformers feeding the inherited institutions, customs, and objects of civilization into a great bonfire in order to begin the world anew. Its conclusion turns the satire inward: unless the human heart itself changes, old evils will simply return in new forms. The story therefore offers a dark counterpoint to the period’s confidence in social perfectibility.

Primary Source 7.3. Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road,” Leaves of Grass (second edition), September 11, 1856 (p. 238)

“Song of the Open Road” appeared in the expanded second edition of Leaves of Grass in 1856. Written in free verse, the poem turns the American road into an image of movement, freedom, fellowship, and self-making. Its open form and direct address are part of Whitman’s attempt to create a democratic poetic voice suited to a nation that understood itself as mobile, expansive, and resistant to inherited hierarchies.

Figure(s)

Figure 7.2. Camp-Meeting, Hugh Bridport from an original work by Alexander Rider, circa 1829 (p. 212)

Alexander Rider was a German artist who lived in Philadelphia. A skilled artist known for portraits and miniatures, he developed a career working with engravers to provide illustrations for books, including one on natural history. Hugh Bridport was an English artist who immigrated to the U.S. at the suggestion of Thomas Sully. He traveled to Philadelphia around 1816 with his brother to start a drawing academy, where he taught drawing, and developed a career as a portraitist, miniaturist and lithographer. The image, drawn by the first and finessed and reproduced by the second, shows a camp meeting during the Second Great Awakening. In the elevated stand, one man preaches with his arms raised while four other men sit behind him. In the foreground, two women dance ecstatically with their arms raised in the air, while a large circle of people around them watch. One woman, overcome by emotion or other factors, faints, and two women and one man kneel. The participants are men, women, and children (the baby on the woman’s lap, and a child on the right side). In the background, many tents are pitched among the trees, signaling that this is a multi-day event.

Figure 7.4. The Drunkard’s Progress. From the First Glass to the Grave, N. Currier, circa 1846 (p. 219)

Nathaniel Currier was born in Massachusetts in 1813, and founded a printmaking business in New York in 1834. (Eleven years after this print was published, the firm would become known as Currier & Ives, after James Merritt Ives, who had joined the business as its bookkeeper.) Prints were priced affordably so that they were within ordinary people’s ability to purchase, and became an important part of American visual culture. This print shows a man’s nine-step process “from the first glass to the grave” as a bridge, beneath which can be seen his grieving wife and small child, standing before a large field and a farmhouse.

Figure 7.6. Uncle Tom and Little Eva, E. C. Kellogg and Company, circa 1853 (p. 224)

E. C. Kellogg and Company was a New England lithograph company similar to Currier & Ives. The image illustrates a scene from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Chapter 22. Eva talks with Uncle Tom, enslaved by her father, about the Bible—and in particular, the Book of Revelation, Ch. 15, which reads in part “And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name.” Eva tells Uncle Tom that Lake Pontchartrain resembles that sea of glass, and Uncle Tom sings a hymn, and they talk about the location of the New Jerusalem (the sky). Then, Eva tells him, “I’m going there,” pointing to the same. At this point, Uncle Tom realizes that she has tuberculosis, and has been in declining health for some time.

Figure 7.8. The Transparent Eyeball, Christopher Pearse Cranch, circa 1837 (p. 231)

Christopher Pearse Cranch was born in Virginia in 1813. He attended college in Washington, D.C., and then traveled to Massachusetts to attend divinity school at Harvard. There, he became acquainted with Unitarianism, the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Transcendentalist movement. Initially a traveling Unitarian minister, after his marriage in 1843, Cranch focused on writing and painting, publishing many poems and a translation of the Aeneid, and painted many landscape paintings. However, he is now best known for a series of sketches he drew based on the figurative language in Emerson’s 1836 Nature—particularly this illustration of this line from its first chapter: “Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, — and uplifted into infinite space — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

Map(s)

Map 7.1. The Mormon Route to Utah, 1827–47 (p. 217)

This map shows the route members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took, from New York through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, and from Illinois through the territories to Salt Lake City, then part of Mexico. That latter trek, taken by the Mormons as they fled from intense persecution that had culminated in a mob’s murder of founder Joseph Smith and his brother in Carthage, Illinois, became known as the Mormon Trail.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter's subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Essays. Cambridge, MA.: Belknap Press, 1987.

• Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Penguin Classics, 2015.

• Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.

• Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. New York: Dover Publications, 2005.

• Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: Penguin Classics, 1983.

• Whitman, Walt. The Complete Poems. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

7.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 211–214)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 211–214.

Exercise: Analyzing Figures: the Camp-Meeting lithograph (Figure 7.2).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what the Second Great Awakening was and how it reshaped American culture, and on how Unitarianism and Deism differed from orthodox Christianity.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Millennial Visions, Utopian Communities and Experiments in Living (pp. 215–219).

Essential Understanding

The Second Great Awakening—particularly how it differed from the First, its defining features, and its major figures.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Explain how the compatibility between Protestantism and Enlightenment rationalism broke down in the early nineteenth century.

• Identify the causes and major figures of the Second Great Awakening, including Charles Grandison Finney and the revivals of the Burned-Over District.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1801 The Cane Ridge Revival begins in Kentucky (August 6)

1825 Charles Finney begins preaching in New York’s Burned-Over District

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

Democracy is not just about politics. It is also a matter of culture, of a people’s sensibilities and way of life: their habits, convictions, morals, tastes, and religious practices.

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the remarkable compatibility of Protestantism and Enlightenment rationalism began to fray, as American elites were increasingly drawn to rational offshoots of Christianity like Unitarianism and Deism, while the general public embraced a greater evangelical fervor.

A Second Great Awakening began around 1800, initially led by men like Yale’s president Timothy Dwight, who attempted to return that campus, which had declined into a “hotbed of infidelity,” to its Puritan roots.

Eventually, ministers who traveled along the frontier adapted their message to the circumstances of their audiences. They preached, rather than sophisticated Calvinism, a simple and direct message of personal salvation.

This time of religious revival de-emphasized the importance of institutional churches and an authoritative clergy in Christian life. Such changes represented accommodations not only to the frontier but to a new democratic age. Tocqueville, observing them, referred to the Americans’ penchant for “an exalted and almost fierce spiritualism.”

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

The Second Great Awakening: This Protestant revival movement swept the United States in the early nineteenth century, emphasizing the universal accessibility of salvation and resulting in the growth of numerous religious and social reform movements.

Unitarianism: Like Deism, this belief system declined to affirm the divinity of Christ and other supernatural elements of Christian orthodoxy, instead stressing the unity of God, the intelligibility of the universe, and the innate goodness of human beings, together with their ability to ameliorate society through ethical living, rational thought, and improved education.

Circuit riders: Strongly associated with Methodism, these preachers traveled throughout the country, prioritizing ministry to underserved areas on the American frontier while leading simple, itinerant lives.

Methodism: Emerging from the teachings of the eighteenth-century English cleric John Wesley, this Christian movement became the largest Protestant denomination in mid-nineteenth century America due to the broad appeal of its emphasis on personal faith, moral transformation, and communal worship.

Burned-Over District: Traversed by the Erie Canal, this area of central and western New York State was so named due to the frequent “flames” of religious revival that swept through the region, producing the noted preacher Charles Grandison Finney as well as new religious movements such as those of the Millerites and Mormons.

Presbyterianism: A Protestant tradition governed by elders rather than bishops; Charles Grandison Finney studied to become a Presbyterian minister and was licensed to preach by 1823.

Congregationalism: The old-line New England church, Calvinist in doctrine and governed by each congregation itself; Unitarianism arose as a liberal rebellion against it.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Assign students to read the introductory section of Chapter Seven.

Assign several of the following questions: According to de Tocqueville, how does democracy manifest itself in society?

Which two terms fill in this excerpt from the text: “The first thing to notice is that the remarkable partnership of _____ and _____ rationalism, that easy harmony of potential antagonists . . . was beginning to fray”? (Protestantism, Enlightenment)

Which religious denomination began to predominate among the upper class and the educational institutions of New England in the early 1800s?

Which religious reformer served as a prototype for modern mass preachers like Billy Graham?

Which specific revival catalyzed the Second Great Awakening?

What were the events and institutions, and who were the key figures, of the revivalist movement?

What important belief did Deists and the followers of Charles Grandison Finney have in common?

Where was the “Burned-Over District”?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Guide students in an evaluation of the merits of Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of democracy as described in the text. Start by asking students a warm-up reflection question: What would be different, for an ordinary person, between living in a democracy and a monarchy? In what ways might it affect the culture? Next, guide students through a discussion of the various institutions mentioned in the first paragraph: Literature, marriage, ambition, friendships, attitudes toward war and peace. In small groups or in a full class discussion, encourage students to reflect on each of these components of the culture and brainstorm how they might be different in a democracy vs. an authoritarian country, and why.

Reading Comprehension: Instruct students to create a graphic organizer to better understand the Second Great Awakening. Divide the organizer into two categories: “Characteristics” and “Motivating Factors”. For the Characteristics section, students should note all the defining features of the Second Great Awakening. They should note how it was different from the old Calvinist theologies, who were the religious leaders, and where it took place. For the Motivating Factors section, students should take notes on why this happened. The text describes several historical developments that can be put in this section, including the growing optimism of an expanding democracy and the disorienting economic changes that were taking place in some regions. Give students enough time, perhaps working in pairs, to complete the organizer. Finally, review with the full class and discuss the connections between democracy and religion. Do the motivating factors differ among social class? Was the Second Great Awakening a unifying or divisive cultural event?

Argumentation: Ask students to debate whether the effects of democracy on religion were a net positive or negative for the burgeoning country. Why or why not?

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, and intended purpose of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature (Epigraph). Have students discuss the following questions: a. How does Emerson describe philosophy and history? Are both necessary? What attitude does he recommend to both?

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Further: Contrast the introduction to Emerson’s Nature with John Adams’ fourth “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law” published 71 years earlier (link above), and in particular the paragraph beginning “This spirit however without knowledge…” What advantage does Adams see in studying “the histories of ancient ages” and how does this contrast with the vision presented by Emerson?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the Camp-Meeting lithograph, (Figure 7.2). Ask students the following questions: a. What does the lithograph depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made?

Have students read the selection from Moses Hoge’s September 10, 1801 letter to Dr. Ashbel Green on p. 213 in Land of Hope. What aspects of this passage are illustrated in the lithograph?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

What was the Second Great Awakening? How did it impact American culture?

Insight: The Second Great Awakening began around 1800. It tended to produce wildly enthusiastic revival meetings that involved ecstatic and emotional outpourings offering personal salvation, easily grasped by anyone. Unlike Unitarianism and Deism, the Second Great Awakening appealed more to the poor and those who were isolated.

Insight: The Second Great Awakening blossomed in the Burned-Over District in upper New York state, an area that experienced revival numerous times, as well as on the western frontier. Evangelists traveled westward, resulting in churches cropping up throughout the west that became the center of a town’s social life.

Insight: Charles Finney, the greatest revivalist of his day, and the Second Great Awakening drew what Tocqueville called the Americans’ penchant for “an exalted and almost fierce spiritualism.” The practice that everyone could choose (“whosoever will”) to participate in Christianity was a change from the Calvinist belief of having to be chosen. It was a clear departure from the historic church and the authoritative clergy within the life of the Christian.

How did Unitarianism and Deism differ from orthodox Christianity?

Insight: Both Deism and Unitarianism denied the divinity of Christ as well as the supernatural elements of Christian orthodoxy. Each stressed instead the unity of God as opposed to a Trinitarian view, the intelligibility of the universe, and the innate goodness of human beings, as compared to orthodox Christianity’s belief in humanity’s sin nature. These were beliefs in self-improvement, as compared to Christianity’s belief that improvement comes from turning to Christ.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

Around what year did the Second Great Awakening begin, and what area of New York State became so associated with it that it acquired a nickname?

What did Charles Grandison Finney mean by “new methods,” and name one of them.

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) around 1800; the Burned-Over District of central and western New York State. (2) techniques designed to elicit an emotional state receptive to conversion—for example the “anxious bench,” where those called forward confessed publicly.

Explain

Finney held that conversion could be induced by method rather than awaited as a miraculous infusion of grace. Why would that conviction be especially at home in early nineteenth-century America?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer connects Finney’s position to the era’s simple and direct message of personal salvation, easily grasped by anyone — if souls can be won by effort and technique, then authority passes from an educated clergy to whoever can move an audience.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson's threads together.

The rise of the Second Great Awakening reflected Americans’ tendency toward self-reinvention and rejuvenation, toward reinterpreting ideas in order to meet the practical and spiritual needs of their age. It foreshadowed the great influence that a revived Christianity ultimately had on the major social and political issues of the subsequent century, including abolitionism, women’s rights, and temperance.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The era’s religious revival coincided with a widespread confidence that individuals and societies could be improved. The next lesson turns to communities — religious and secular — that attempted to put such hopes into practice.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Revival, conversion, denomination, frontier. Pair each with the Camp-Meeting lithograph before the abstraction: show the crowd and the preacher first, then name what is happening.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “The Second Great Awakening was different from the First because ___.” “Circuit riders traveled in order to ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students describe one thing they can see in Figure 7.2, then write one sentence on why a meeting like this drew people who lived far from any church.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may draw a simple timeline with 1801 and the Cane Ridge Revival marked on it, instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

7.2 Millennial Visions, Utopian Communities & 7.3 Experiments in Living (pp. 215–219)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 215–219.

Exercise: Geography: the Mormon Route to Utah, 1827–47 (Map 7.1).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on how Joseph Smith’s Mormonism differed from orthodox Christianity and what drove its rise, and on the humanitarian movements of the early 1800s.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign The Rise of the Antislavery Movement (pp. 220–224).

Essential Understanding

The various religious, reform, and utopian movements that arose in the wake of the Second Great Awakening, especially Mormonism, and the general optimism regarding the possibility of social and spiritual improvement.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the origins and central beliefs of Mormonism and explain the reasons for its rapid growth and persecution.

• Compare the aims and practices of the era’s other utopian and reform movements.

• Evaluate the characteristics of various utopian communities in the nineteenth century.

• Explain why religious movements were so appealing at this particular time in history.

Key Dates

1830 Joseph Smith forms the Church of Christ, later renamed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (April 6)

1847 Mormon pioneers found Salt Lake City (July 24)

1848 John Humphrey Noyes founds the Oneida Community as a millennialist, utopian commune

Key Concepts

As the Second Great Awakening unfolded, many novel religious communities formed, reflecting the ferment and dynamism of Jacksonian America as well as reacting against its sometimes chaotic individualism.

The most enduring and significant of these proved to be the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormonism. Founded in the Burned-Over District by Joseph Smith, who claimed to receive direct revelation from God about the existence of ancient Hebrews in the New World, this sect rapidly grew, appealing to many contemporaries for the remarkable cohesiveness of its community life.

Many of these communities featured a strong belief in the promise of social reform, in a period that also saw movements to promote temperance, compulsory schooling, and women’s rights.

Key Terms

Mormonism: Arising within the wider world of Protestant Christianity but differing strikingly from its mainstream, this religious group is characterized by personal discipline, the recognition of additional scriptures besides the Bible, and the conviction that human beings can become like God through a process of exaltation and eternal progression. Believing themselves called to restore the purity of the original Apostolic Church, early Mormons were persecuted for their theological differences, strong group solidarity, and practice of polygamy. After its founder Joseph Smith was killed by an Illinois mob in 1844, Brigham Young led a group of Mormon pioneers to Utah, from which Mormonism has since grown to include more than 15 million members.

Millerites: A millennial group who preached that the world would end in 1844 and God’s Kingdom be established. The spiritualism of the Fox sisters, who claimed to communicate with the dead, belonged to the same fertile and heretical ground.

Brook Farm: A short-lived experimental community in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, founded in 1841 and promoted by the Unitarian minister George Ripley. New Harmony, Indiana, was started by the British industrialist Robert Owen, and the “phalanxes” by the French socialist Charles Fourier, which sought and quickly failed to overcome the force of competition in society.

Shakers: A community who believed God to be a dual personality and their leader, Mother Ann Lee, to be the second coming of Christ. They lived in communal simplicity and kept celibate, as did the Rappites, German Lutherans who fled persecution and settled in Butler County, Pennsylvania.

Oneida Community: A communal settlement founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848, among the more durable of the era’s experiments.

Temperance movement: The most visible and popular of the era’s reform causes, growing out of a belief in moral perfectionism while addressing a real problem—the effects of alcohol consumption on workers, families, and children.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read the second and third sections of Chapter Seven, “Millennial Visions, Utopian Communities” and “Experiments in Living.”

Assign several of the following questions: Who is credited as the founder of Mormonism? What is the official name of the group?

According to the text, what accounts for the widespread appeal of the early temperance movement?

What was the average annual consumption of alcohol around the year 1830? How does that compare to today?

What practice in particular made the early Mormons reviled?

What was the Oneida Community? In what sense does it still exist?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Writing Skills: Ask students to write a 250-word essay on the following question: Why have the Mormons proven to be an enduring part of American society? Essays should answer the question with an original thesis and include evidence from the textbook about the origin and history of the Mormons. When finished, invite a few students to share their work in class.

Speaking Skills: Divide the class into several groups and assign them a religious group or utopian community, such as the Rappites, the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the Brook Farm experiment. Ask the small groups to summarize the central beliefs of each group and to consider their potential appeal, using both the text as well as their own research. Then have members from each group present to the entire class, making a case for why their neighbors should consider joining the group.

Civic Discourse: For each of the religious groups described in this section, have students compare four things: its central beliefs, how it was organized, its relationship to established Christianity, and the reasons contemporaries regarded it as heterodox. Ask what those comparisons reveal about the range of religious innovation in the period.

Geography: Display the Mormon Route to Utah, 1827–47 map (Map 7.1). Ask students the following questions:

What does the map depict?

Compare the first part of the Mormons’ journey with the Mormon Trail. What geographic features and obstacles did emigrants encounter?

Have students discuss what set the Mormon trail in motion (see background for Map 7.1), and what might have pulled them specifically toward Salt Lake City.

Further: Have students examine one or more of the Mormon Trail diaries, locating the events described in the diaries on the maps.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the print, The Drunkard’s Progress. From the First Glass to the Grave (Figure 7.4). Ask students the following questions: a. What does the print depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How do the social reform movements of this time period influence this print?

How many people (or types of people) are shown suffering the effects of alcohol [main character, friends, person robbed, wife, child]? Who is portrayed as suffering most [debatable]?

Guiding Classroom Questions

How was Joseph Smith’s Mormonism different from orthodox Christianity? What led to its rise?

Insight: Mormonism reflected a desire to recover the purity of the early church, much like many Protestant denominations. Its theological differences from mainstream Protestantism were striking. It understood God as a personal being and Jesus as his literal son. The church was headed by a prophet and, like Protestants, used both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, but also included the Book of Mormon as equally sacred scripture.

Insight: Mormonism appealed to many because it emphasized a strong dedication to family, hard work, and personal discipline. It promoted abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. It also created a tight, cohesive community and a feeling of being part of a “chosen” people.

What social reforms did each of the following figures promote: Horace Mann, Dorothea Dix, Thomas Gallaudet, Samuel Gridley Howe?

Insight: Horace Mann, as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, worked for education for all with a strong leaning toward moral instruction.

Insight: Dorothea Dix, a former schoolteacher, mounted a national campaign to publicize the cruel and careless treatment of the mentally ill and pressed for more humane treatment and facilities.

Insight: Thomas Gallaudet opened a school for the deaf in Connecticut.

Insight: Samuel Gridley Howe opened a school for the blind in Massachusetts.

What did Ralph Waldo Emerson mean by “Not a reading man but has a draft of a new Community in his waistcoat pocket”? What led to this being true?

Insight: Experimental communities were rising across the west during America’s antebellum years. More than 100 Utopian communities had been created in the United States during the nineteenth century.

Insight: The early 1800s were a time of prosperity, optimism, and religious renewal. Civilization and government had not yet spread fully westward, leaving open space available. These conditions gave groups the opportunity to build communities across the nation that they believed could become Utopian and perfect. Religiously, many joined communities that believed the turn of the century would bring the return of Christ to earth, as predicted in the Bible. These communities offered an alternative to the rootless materialism and self-seeking that the era’s dramatic economic changes seemed to be bringing along with them.

The 1800s gave rise to many types of humanitarian efforts. What kinds of humanitarian movements arose and what was behind them?

Insight: Humanitarian efforts of the early 1800s included concerns for the forgotten or unrepresented such as blacks, Native Americans, the laboring classes, women, children, and the disabled. Extremely popular was the promotion of free public education, and the temperance movement with alcohol having caused severe societal problems.

Insight: Behind this momentum to provide humanitarian aid was the belief that humans could be perfected and that the time had arrived to be able to accomplish it.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Name two of the utopian communities founded in this period and the person associated with each.

What did the temperance movement address, and what belief did it grow out of?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) any two of: Brook Farm, promoted by the Unitarian minister George Ripley; New Harmony, Indiana, started by the British industrialist Robert Owen; the phalanxes of the French socialist Charles Fourier; the Rappites; the Shakers under Mother Ann Lee; the Oneida Community under John Humphrey Noyes. (2) the effects of alcohol on workers, families, and children; it grew out of a belief in moral perfectionism.

Explain

The communities with a strong religious dimension generally lasted longer than the secular ones. Why might that have been so?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer reaches past “faith is strong” to something structural—shared belief supplies a reason to accept hardship, common property, and even celibacy that a social theory alone did not; Brook Farm, New Harmony, and the phalanxes had to persuade members with argument, while the Mormons, Rappites, and Shakers could appeal to obligation.

Daily Recap

While the first Great Awakening and the Second both reshaped American religious life, the Second offered, as the book puts it, an alternative to the rootless materialism and self-seeking that dramatic economic change was bringing with it. The many communities and religious revivals that arose out of the Second Great Awakening lent a moral urgency to social and political matters, resulting in many sociocultural upheavals over the coming century.

Looking Ahead

Reform in these years ran in many directions at once. The next lesson turns to the one that came to overshadow all the others, and that could not be settled by founding a community apart from the world.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Utopian, communal, celibate, persecution, migration. Pair each with Map 7.1 before the abstraction: trace the route from New York to Utah first, then name what drove it.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “___ founded ___ in order to ___.” “The Mormons moved west because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students trace the Mormon route on Map 7.1 aloud, naming two places along it, then write one sentence about why the group kept moving.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may complete a two-column chart—community and founder—rather than writing a paragraph.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

7.4 The Rise of the Antislavery Movement (pp. 220–224)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 220–224.

Exercise: Analytical Skills: Frederick Douglass’s Glasgow speech (Primary Source 7.1).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on whether abolitionism was primarily a secular or a religious cause, and on Max Weber’s distinction between the ethic of moral conviction and the ethic of responsibility.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Who Reads an American Book? (pp. 224–226).

Essential Understanding

The emergence of the abolitionist movement, with particular emphasis on the figures of William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Lesson Objectives

• Trace the religious roots of the antislavery movement and the roles of William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

• Distinguish Max Weber’s “ethic of moral conviction” from the “ethic of responsibility” as applied to Garrison and Lincoln.

Key Dates

1831 The Liberator begins circulation (January 1)

1845 Frederick Douglass publishes his Narrative (May 1)

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin (March 20)

Key Concepts

One of the key trends in the early nineteenth-century United States was a rising humanitarian sensibility that featured particular concern for society’s ill-treated and forgotten segments. Unsurprisingly, the period witnessed a rise in antislavery sentiment, which eventually coalesced into the abolitionist movement.

There were wide-ranging motivations behind opposition to slavery, though by the 1830s much of the antislavery movement centered on a religious critique of the institution as incompatible with human dignity.

There were also differences among slavery’s opponents regarding their practical approach to the institution. Some, like the writers William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe, were adamantly opposed to compromising with what they regarded as an inherently wicked practice, while others favored a more pragmatic, gradual, “meliorist” approach.

Key Terms

Antebellum: From Latin for “before the war,” this term in the context of American history refers to the period prior to the Civil War, particularly with reference to the American South.

Ethic of Moral Conviction: Formulated by the German sociologist Max Weber, this term describes an uncompromising approach to moral problems in politics, according to which ethical principles should be consistently applied to social practices irrespective of the resultant costs.

Ethic of Responsibility: Formulated by the German sociologist Max Weber, this term connotes the belief that leaders are responsible for the totality of the effects arising from their actions, such that they should prioritize achieving the best practicable results even at the cost of compromising with immoral practices.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852): Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, published March 20, 1852, which moved readers by telling a story rather than making an argument, and showed that slavery deformed the lives of those who owned slaves as well as those held in bondage.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read the fourth section of Chapter Seven, “The Rise of the Antislavery Movement.”

Assign several of the following questions: Who published the Liberator newspaper? For what purpose?

What was the alternative title for Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

When was it published?

Which process resulted in the admission of Missouri to the Union, and when did it occur?

Who was Frederick Douglass?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Writing Skills: Invite students to consider the ethical stance of William Lloyd Garrison and write a 150–200 word article for submission to his newspaper. In the article, include a description of slavery (from his perspective) and a call to action that is consistent with Garrison’s point of view. Invite students to share their work in small groups. As a full classroom exercise, read a couple of the articles and invite students to come up with their own headlines for the articles.

Civic Discourse: Lead students through an analysis of the two concepts formulated by Max Weber that are described in this chapter. First, start by reviewing with students the merits and disadvantages of each concept in general. The ethic of moral conviction is more pure, but it might not be the best in terms of practical politics. The ethic of responsibility deals with practical reality, but risks becoming too comfortable with the status quo and losing an opportunity to enact change. Next, instruct students to move to the specifics of the growing abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century. Have students write a short paragraph for each concept, explaining why it would be beneficial for the ultimate goal of abolishing slavery.

Argumentation: Lead students in a debate about tactics of the antislavery movement during this stage of history. Have students name the lawful methods available to citizens seeking change—voting, petitioning, peaceful assembly and demonstration, publishing, and appeals to elected officials—and judge which of them Garrison and Douglass actually used. Was it inevitable that it would take a civil war to end slavery? Was Garrison correct when he said that only a revolutionary change could rectify the problem? Who had a better argument on the Constitution, Douglass or Garrison? Allow students half the class time to prepare their thoughts and questions, and then lead the class in a Socratic discussion, inviting opinions and respectful arguments.

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, and intended purpose of Frederick Douglass’s March 1860 speech before a Scottish anti-slavery society (Primary Source 7.1). Have students discuss the following questions: a. How does Frederick Douglass describe the Constitution?

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Further: How important is the question of whether the Constitution itself is pro-slavery? Why does Douglass argue that it is important to understand the Constitution as a benign, or morally good document, rather than a morally compromised one?

Further: In the full text does Douglass describe the responsibilities of the non-southern American public, with respect to the South? What are the responsibilities of free Northerners with respect to slaves in the South?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the engraving, Uncle Tom and Little Eva (Figure 7.6). Ask students the following questions: a. What does the engraving depict? What stands out?

When and where was it made? How does the publisher’s worldview influence the work?

What does this engraving demonstrate about slavery and the dignity of enslaved persons?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Was abolitionism primarily a secular or a religious cause?

Insight: By the 1830s the antislavery movement was being driven largely as a religious cause rather than a secular one. It was seen as a grave and soul-imperiling national sin instead of a mere withholding of rights.

Insight: The great revivals of the Second Great Awakening, while encouraging the reform of slavery in the South, had awakened in the North an uncompromising desire to eliminate it as soon as possible.

Insight: The leading abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the newspaper called The Liberator, and a fervent Christian, were nearly all evangelical Protestants of some sort.

What was Max Weber’s distinction between the ethic of moral conviction and the ethic of responsibility? Which did William Lloyd Garrison espouse? Which did Lincoln?

Insight: The ethic of conviction means acting on your principles regardless of consequences, while the ethic of responsibility means weighing the actual outcomes of your actions and being willing to compromise to prevent worse harm.

Insight: William Lloyd Garrison publicly burned a copy of the Constitution, calling it “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell” for tolerating slavery—an ethic-of-conviction gesture from a man who refused to vote, refused to join a political party, and did not much care whether his absolutism made abolition politically achievable.

Insight: Lincoln, by contrast, told a critic he would free all the slaves, some of the slaves, or none of the slaves if it saved the Union. He was willing to delay the Emancipation Proclamation until a battlefield victory made it look like strength rather than desperation—the classic move of someone practicing the ethic of responsibility.

Why did Uncle Tom’s Cabin have such an impact?

Insight: The book appealed to Americans emotionally, creating vivid pictures through storytelling rather than simply sharing facts. It drew readers into the brutal mistreatment of slaves, which incensed Northerners and let them identify with the suffering and injustice of slavery, so that they could no longer defend the practice or allow it to continue.

Insight: The book showed that slavery affected not only those in bondage but also those who owned them, revealing its degrading effects on families and its awful consequences for everyone involved.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Who published The Liberator, and in what year did it begin circulation?

What did William Lloyd Garrison do to a copy of the U.S. Constitution, and what did he call it?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) William Lloyd Garrison; 1831. (2) he publicly burned it, calling it “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.”

Explain

Garrison burned the Constitution; Lincoln said he would free all, some, or none of the slaves depending on what saved the Union. Using Weber’s two ethics, explain what each man was doing—and why a movement might need both.

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer identifies Garrison with the ethic of moral conviction, acting on principle regardless of consequence, and Lincoln with the ethic of responsibility, judging by results; and then holds both—conviction supplies the moral clarity that makes a wrong visible, responsibility supplies the means of actually ending it. An answer that simply declares one man right and the other wrong has not used the distinction.

Daily Recap

The question of what to do about slavery wracked the American conscience from Constitutional Convention onward. In the early nineteenth century, the Christian revivalism of the Second Great Awakening catalyzed the emergence of an organized antislavery movement, with religious writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison galvanizing abolitionist sentiment in the North.

Looking Ahead

Uncle Tom’s Cabin changed minds because it was a novel, not a pamphlet. That raises a question the next lesson takes up directly: whether a democratic and commercial society could produce a literature worth reading at all.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Abolition, antislavery, conviction, responsibility, consequence. Pair conviction and responsibility with the two men before the abstraction: Garrison first, then Lincoln, then the terms.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Garrison acted on ___ even though ___.” “Lincoln judged an action by ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students state aloud one thing Douglass wanted his Glasgow audience to believe, then write one sentence on why he was speaking in Scotland rather than at home.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may sort a list of statements into two columns—conviction and responsibility—instead of writing prose.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

7.5 Who Reads an American Book? (pp. 224–226)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 224–226.

Exercise: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: how America’s youth was both an advantage and a challenge for its writers.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what Tocqueville predicted about America’s artistic culture, and on why writing might be a particularly Protestant art form.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign American Literature Comes of Age (pp. 226–234).

Essential Understanding

The condition of American art—particularly American literature—by the early nineteenth century.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain why European critics, including de Tocqueville, doubted America’s capacity to produce a distinctive literary culture.

• Identify the early American writers whose work began to challenge that skepticism.

Key Dates

1820 Sydney Smith poses his question in the Edinburgh Review

1830 By this year, only James Fenimore Cooper had found a literary vein of his own

Key Concepts

Many observers of American culture in the early nineteenth century doubted the country’s ability to generate artwork that could rival the quality and profundity of Europeans’ achievements.

De Tocqueville questioned whether the United States, given its inhabitants’ commercial orientation and sparse patronage of the arts, could ever produce a flowering of artistic activity so long as the country’s culture remained so egalitarian and pragmatic.

While the writings of Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe have endured, there was little indication over the first half of the nineteenth century that de Tocqueville would be proven wrong.

Key Terms

Romanticism: the cultural and artistic movement the book introduces here as a starting point for understanding American writing of the period — and which it is careful to call a complex term, very hard to define, containing contrary and even contradictory impulses within it.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the fifth section of Chapter Seven, “Who Reads an American Book?”

Assign several of the following questions: According to contemporary critics, what fell short in Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

What problem did Sydney Smith’s critical evaluation reveal?

What challenges did an American writer face according to Nathaniel Hawthorne?

What was distinctive about Edgar Allan Poe’s literary style?

Who was James Fenimore Cooper?

Fill in the following blanks from the text: “America can be hard to ______, especially when one ______ only what one has been ______ _____.” (see, sees, looking for)

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Discuss with the class how America’s youth constituted both an advantage and a challenge to the country’s authors. Is a unified sense of national identity an important prerequisite for literary achievement? Why or why not?

Speaking Skills: Though long, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” has a rhythmic quality that makes the poem famously easy to memorize. Consider assigning each student in the class to memorize one of its stanzas (looking up any unfamiliar words) and then stage a group recitation in class.

Writing Skills: Ask students to imagine that they are an American diplomat in the mid-1800s explaining to residents of a foreign country why they ought to visit. Have them write a 150-word essay addressing what has the country accomplished in the realm of the arts since independence from England. What does it hope to do next? Discuss students’ work in class.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What did de Tocqueville predict about America’s artistic culture?

Insight: Tocqueville predicted that a democratic, commercial society like America would produce plenty of art, but not much great art. With everyone equal and none of Europe’s leisured aristocracy to patronize painters and sculptors, the conditions for art in America differed sharply from those in aristocratic Europe.

Insight: Looking at the literary culture of the country, he speculated that the longer-run effect of democracy on literature would foster mediocrity—a great many small-scale works, hastily written with the marketplace in mind.

Insight: The book notes that American writing had long been burdened by a wrong set of expectations and was too preoccupied with the imitation and emulation of others. By the 1830s that was beginning to change, as American writers started to find their voice.

Insight: The book frames American literature of this period through the influence of European Romanticism, and asks whether American writers could produce work worthy of comparison with Europe while standing as something distinctively American. By the 1850s, it says, an incontestable breakthrough had taken place.

Why, in light of the country’s predominantly Protestant background, might writing be a particularly important art form for Americans? How did its contemporary importance compare to that of the other arts?

Insight: Protestantism’s core act of worship was reading the Bible for oneself rather than having a priest mediate it, so a culture built on that habit produced a population unusually comfortable with, and dependent on, the written word for both salvation and daily life.

Insight: The book’s frame here is the influence of European Romanticism on American writing, and the question of whether American writers could produce something worthy of comparison with Europe while standing as something distinctively American. Disregard for graven images or a democratic distaste for art only the rich could afford to commission.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Who asked “In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?”, and where and when was the question posed?

Name the one American writer the book says had found a literary vein of his own before 1830.

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) the British literary critic Sydney Smith, writing in the Edinburgh Review in 1820. (2) James Fenimore Cooper.

Explain

How did American writers begin to answer Tocqueville’s skepticism about democratic culture by the middle of the nineteenth century?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer explains that writers such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe had begun to establish distinctively American literary voices by the 1830s, and that by the 1850s the book describes an incontestable breakthrough in American literature.

Daily Recap

All societies—whether great or small—have engendered forms of creative expression, but some have made particularly remarkable achievements in music, literature, architecture, and the fine arts. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, America was centuries behind the great empires of Europe in terms of cultural achievement. Yet, as the country’s national culture began to coalesce and emerge, there were early indications that a valuable and distinctive literary tradition was taking root in American soil.

Looking Ahead

Smith’s question was fair when he asked it. Within a generation it was not. The next lesson begins the answer, with the movement that gave American writing a subject of its own.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Critic, refined, sentimental, oratory, distinctive. Pair each with the Sydney Smith question before the abstraction: read the question aloud first, then name what he assumed.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Sydney Smith asked ___ because he assumed ___.” “Tocqueville predicted that American art would ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students say aloud one reason a new country might struggle to produce great literature, then write one sentence answering Smith.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may list two predictions Tocqueville made and mark each true or false as later events settled it.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

7.6 American Literature Comes of Age (pp. 226–234)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 226–234.

Exercise: Analyzing Figures: the Transparent Eyeball sketch (Figure 7.8).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the defining characteristics of Transcendentalism, and on the sense in which “The American Scholar” was an intellectual declaration of independence.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman (pp. 234–239).

Essential Understanding

The development of Transcendentalism, particularly in the context of Romanticism and Unitarianism, as well as the life and work of its leading exemplar, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the relationship between Romanticism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism.

• Analyze Ralph Waldo Emerson’s argument for American intellectual independence in “The American Scholar.”

Key Dates

1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers his speech “The American Scholar,” articulating the need for a distinctively American intellectual tradition (August 31)

Key Concepts

As the Industrial Revolution took hold in Western Europe, an artistic and cultural movement known as Romanticism rose to prominence, celebrating nature and human individuality in contrast to the intellectualism of the Enlightenment and the degradation wrought by increasingly widespread mechanization.

Early nineteenth-century America, especially New England, witnessed the development of Transcendentalism, a variant of Romanticism that sought to replace the tidy rationality of Unitarianism popular among contemporary elites with an eclectic form of natural piety that bordered on pantheism.

The leading transcendentalist, the former Unitarian minister, Ralph Waldo Emerson, championed the need to establish a distinctively American intellectual and literary tradition that would embrace the country’s democratic identity.

Key Terms

Romanticism: This intellectual and artistic movement emerged in late eighteenth-century Europe, emphasizing the value of emotion, imagination, and individuality. Against the rationalism of the Enlightenment, Romantics like the poet William Wordsworth, the novelist Walter Scott, and the painter Caspar David Friedrich celebrated nature, myth, and human freedom.

Transcendentalism: Rooted in American Romanticism, this nineteenth-century literary and philosophical movement promoted the belief that spiritual truths can be accessed through interior reflection and connection to the natural world. It emphasized the value of intuition and self-reliance, and its paradigmatic text is generally considered to be Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 work Walden; or, Life in the Woods.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read the sixth section of Chapter Seven, “American Literature Comes of Age.”

Assign several of the following questions: What ideas does the text associate with Romanticism?

What was the geographical epicenter of Transcendentalism?

How did Transcendentalists view nature and subjective experience?

Fill in the following blanks from the text: “In Transcendentalism, the mysticism of _____ was turned loose . . . . Nature took the place of _____ and the sense of sin itself had begun to evaporate. This sounds very much like a highbrow version of Finney’s theology.” (Jonathan Edwards, God)

What is the name of the famous address that Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered at Harvard in 1837?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Writing Skills: Ask students to write short summaries, based on the text, of Romanticism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism. These are abstract concepts, so it might help the students to model how to approach these summaries by starting with a summary of the Enlightenment. Brainstorm on the board the various descriptors of the Enlightenment: intellectual movement, used logic and reason to arrive at conclusions, etc., and then write a summary for the students and tell them this is the approach they should take to summarizing these movements. Another way to approach these summaries is to conduct a jigsaw activity: Start with students in small groups focusing on writing summaries for just one of the movements. Then, mix and match the students so that they are explaining their topics to each other. Discuss their work and address how Romanticism and Unitarianism affected the development of Transcendentalism.

Close Reading: Read aloud in class the two lengthy excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson quoted in the text and discuss the following questions: what are their similarities? In what sense does “The American Scholar” advocate for self-reliance on a national level? What does Emerson’s tone suggest about the American spirit?

Civic Discourse: The text describes Emerson’s vision for a distinctive American culture. What was it, and to what extent has it since come to fruition? What about Emerson’s views on American cultural independence?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the Transparent Eyeball sketch, (Figure 7.8). Ask students the following questions: a. What does the sketch depict? What stands out?

Who is the artist? When and where was it made? How does his worldview influence the work?

Reading the full paragraph (or chapter) of Nature in which the illustrated sentence appears, what do you think Emerson is trying to say?

Further: Have students draw their own illustrations of a figurative phrase from Emerson’s Nature.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What were the defining characteristics of Transcendentalism?

Insight: Transcendentalism promotes a theory of self-trust that could affect how society works as well as personal ethics. As the book describes it, Transcendentalism sought to replace the sin-soaked supernaturalist dogma of orthodox Christianity and the tidy rationality of Unitarianism with a sprawling Romantic and eclectic form of natural piety that bordered on pantheism, placing the ideal of the majestic, isolated, and inviolable Self at the center of its thought, and at the center of Nature itself.

Insight: While Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about the value of Transcendentalism, promoting the idea that spiritual truths can be accessed through interior reflection and connection to the natural world, Henry David Thoreau lived it and wrote about it in Walden; or, Life in the Woods.

In what sense can Emerson’s “The American Scholar” be considered America’s intellectual Declaration of Independence?

Insight: Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was in the audience at Harvard in 1837 when Emerson delivered the speech and later called it America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence”—a label that stuck because Emerson was declaring independence, not from a king, but from Europe’s libraries. Emerson was telling American thinkers to stop “listening to the courtly muses of Europe.”

Insight: Concord, where the Revolution had begun in earnest, was a hub of the American literary and cultural universe. Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Margaret Fuller all knew one another and lived in or near Concord at roughly the same time. Emerson had resolved to set himself up as an independent writer after reading Carlyle, Wordsworth, and other intellectual idols.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Against what established New England religious body was Transcendentalism rebelling, and what had that body itself rebelled against?

What is the name of the address Emerson delivered at Harvard in 1837?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) Unitarianism, which was itself a liberal rebellion against the old-line Calvinism of the Congregational church. (2) “The American Scholar.”

Explain

Cranch drew the Transparent Eyeball to make fun of Emerson’s image. Why might a joke be a useful way into a serious idea here?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer recognizes that the caricature works only because Emerson’s claim is genuinely extravagant—becoming nothing and seeing all—and that seeing why the sentence is absurd when taken literally is the fastest way to grasp what he meant figuratively about the individual’s unmediated relation to the universe.

Daily Recap

Emerging from Romanticism, Transcendentalism constitutes yet another example of an American culture admixture, as concepts borrowed from Europe fused with the optimism and dynamism of the American spirit. The book calls Transcendentalism a Romantic variant that stressed the glories of the vast, the mysterious, and the intuitive.

Looking Ahead

Emerson supplied the argument for an American literature. The next lesson takes up the four writers who supplied the literature itself.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Romanticism, Transcendentalism, mysticism, self-reliance, unmediated. Pair each with Figure 7.8 before the abstraction: look at the drawing first, then read Emerson’s sentence.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Transcendentalism grew out of ___ and rebelled against ___.” “Emerson believed that each person could ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students read the transparent-eyeball passage aloud, then write one sentence saying what Emerson claims a person can do.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may draw an arrow diagram—Calvinism to Unitarianism to Transcendentalism—labelling what each rejected.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

7.7 Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman (pp. 234–239)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 234–239.

Exercise: Analytical Skills: Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” (Primary Source 7.3).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what Melville’s protagonist means by his remark about his education, and on what made Whitman’s poetry distinctively democratic.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign Chapter Eight, The Old South and Slavery: A World Apart (pp. 243–248).

Essential Understanding

The emergence and particular achievements of the early giants of American literature: Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman.

Lesson Objectives

• Compare the literary achievements and central themes of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman.

• Evaluate how each author’s work reflected or challenged Transcendentalist ideas.

Key Dates

1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes The Scarlet Letter (March 16)

1851 Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick (October 18)

1854 Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden (August 9)

Key Concepts

The American literary renaissance of the mid-nineteenth century answered earlier doubts that a democratic and commercial society could produce major literature. Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman drew on European Romanticism while giving it subjects, settings, and voices rooted in American experience.

Transcendentalist self-reliance found its most deliberate practical expression in Thoreau, who treated direct experience and simplicity as ways of testing Emerson’s claims. Hawthorne and Melville, by contrast, explored darker limits to the age’s confidence in human perfectibility.

Whitman’s free verse made democratic individuality a matter of literary form as well as subject. His expansive voice, ordinary diction, and rejection of inherited poetic conventions embodied the cultural independence Emerson had called for.

Key Terms

Self-reliance: Emerson’s idea, which the book records his neighbor and protégé Henry David

Thoreau set out to test by living alone for over two years in a cabin at Walden.

Free verse: the form the book credits Whitman's Leaves of Grass with introducing, exploring themes of democracy and individuality with a candor never before seen in American literature.

Romantic rebellion: the questioning of the scientific worldview and the delight in the supernatural and uncanny that the book identifies as shared enthusiasms among these writers.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read the seventh section of Chapter Seven, “Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman.”

Assign the following questions: What was Henry David Thoreau’s relationship to Emerson?

What, according to the text, was the first truly great American novel?

Insight: Set in the 1640s-era Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter featured a uniquely American setting, and its dialogue reflected contemporary conventions.

Which work does the text mention as being perhaps the greatest of any American novel?

How was Moby-Dick initially received?

What were some of the distinctive features of Whitman’s poetry?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Read aloud in class the excerpt from Walden that is quoted in the text. Ask students to share immediate reactions. What stands out to them? What is interesting? What is their opinion? Next, ask them to make connections to Transcendentalist ideas. Is this an example of those ideas? How? Which ones?

Writing Skills: Ask students to choose one of the four writers analyzed in the text and have them conduct their own research to write brief essays detailing their biographies and addressing how their experiences reflected the spirit and cultural trends of their time. Consider having several students present their work in class.

Close Reading: Ask students to read the chapter’s final excerpt, which quotes the British writer D.H. Lawrence. How does Lawrence’s praise of Whitman compare to de Tocqueville’s initial predictions regarding America’s artistic promise? What does that contrast reveal about America’s cultural development in the mid-nineteenth century?

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, list of events, and intended purpose of the selection from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Earth’s Holocaust,” (Primary Source 7.2). Have students discuss the following questions: a. What sorts of things does Hawthorne’s narrator describe as “worn-out trumpery,” and evidence of “human error,” which were fit only for incineration?

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview? What does the story suggest about Hawthorne’s opinion about the possibility of reaching perfection on earth?

Contrast this description of “human progress” with the suggestions for improving human experience in Emerson’s Nature (particularly the quote in the Epilogue).

Analytical Skills: Have students identify the author, setting, and intended purpose of Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road,” (Primary Source 7.3). Have students discuss the following questions: a. How does Whitman describe “the open road”—what does that image represent?

What does the primary source excerpt tell us about the author’s motivations and worldview?

Further: Contrast this selection with the selection of Emerson’s Nature illustrated by Christopher Pearse Cranch’s “Transparent Eyeball.” How are the authorial voices similar? What perspective do they adopt?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What does Melville’s protagonist mean by saying “a whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard”?

Insight: Melville had gone to sea as a young man. He demonstrates that real education came from direct experience of nature and hard-won firsthand knowledge. On one voyage he jumped ship, had many adventures, was captured by cannibals, and participated in a mutiny. His own experience shaped what he wrote. He wrote many novels, including Moby-Dick, that embodied Transcendentalist thinking.

How was Whitman’s poetry distinctively democratic in tone and content? What did he mean when he wrote, “I too am untranslatable”?

Insight: Walt Whitman was a man of the city, writing about the common man and common sights in the big cities of Brooklyn and Manhattan. He could talk with anyone and enjoyed mingling with all kinds of people. He represented and believed in human dignity and the worth of each individual—a very American and democratic tone.

Insight: Whitman wrote the line “I too am untranslatable” to mean that he could not be defined. Some thought his writing a mess, and it was mocked by European readers because he broke from traditional poetic form, using long, sprawling “free verse” that mimicked ordinary speech. He broke from traditional poetic form to write in a way that matched his subject.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Which novel does the book identify as arguably the first truly American novel, and who wrote it?

How was Moby-Dick received when it appeared?

Acceptable responses: Determinate. (1) The Scarlet Letter, 1850, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (2) it was not recognized as great in its own time; Melville’s earlier seafaring tales had been the popular ones.

Explain

Thoreau wrote that he went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately, and did not wish, when he came to die, to discover that he had not lived. How does that sentence carry the Transcendentalist argument of the previous lesson into practice?

Acceptable responses: Defensible range. A strong answer connects the sentence to Emerson’s claim about an original relation to the universe—Thoreau is testing the idea by living it rather than arguing it, and treating direct experience, not inherited authority or received opinion, as the source of what is worth knowing.

Daily Recap

During the mid-nineteenth century, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman provided a resounding answer to the question of whether American literature would ever be worth reading. Their work helped give the United States a distinctive national culture even as profound sectional differences remained beneath that growing sense of cultural independence.

Looking Ahead

This chapter has followed a culture confident that people and societies could be perfected. The next chapter turns to the part of the country where that confidence met its limit, and examines the Old South and the institution of slavery on its own terms.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

• Establish first. Deliberately, epic, free verse, democratic, untranslatable. Pair each with a line from the writer in question before the abstraction.

• Frames that carry the reasoning. “Thoreau went to the woods in order to ___.” “Whitman’s poetry was democratic because ___.”

• Rehearse aloud, then write. In pairs, students read four lines of “Song of the Open Road” aloud, then write one sentence on who Whitman seems to be speaking to.

• Show understanding without a paragraph. A student may match each of the four writers to one work and one theme in a table.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises, when assigned, are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Match each year to the event. Answers are shown below.

A. Frederick Douglass publishes his Narrative

B. The Cane Ridge Revival begins in Kentucky

C. Charles Finney begins preaching in New York’s Burned-Over District

D. Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin

E. Joseph Smith forms the Church of Christ

Answer: 1801 — B · 1825 — C · 1830 — E · 1845 — A · 1852 — D

Key Persons and Concepts

Fill in the blank. Answers are in bold.

1. The greatest of the revivalists who spread Christianity throughout the western frontier during the Second Great Awakening was Charles Finney.

2. Known as a second Pentecost, or evangelical Woodstock, the Cane Ridge Revival drew massive crowds.

3. Stretching across upper New York state, the Burned-Over District became a religious hotbed for Christian revival and other religious movements.

4. After experiencing supernatural visions, Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon and founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

5. Peter Cartwright, a Methodist preacher, helped make Methodism the largest Protestant denomination in the nation by riding horseback through territories as a circuit rider.

6. Popular among the elites and universities, Unitarianism taught the goodness of humanity while opposing the deity of Christ.

7. Delivering a Harvard speech later noted as “America’s intellectual Declaration of Independence,” Ralph Waldo Emerson authored The American Scholar.

8. Spending two years living in the woods, Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden; or, Life in the Woods.

9. Writing poetry, wit, and wisdom enjoyed by the common man, Walt Whitman crafted a unique style as a man of the people.

10. With The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne arguably achieved the first great American novel.

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. How did the unique conditions of the American frontier influence the development of its democratic culture and religious development?

Model response: Westward expansion often outpaced the reach of formal government, leaving many frontier communities without courts, schools, or established civic institutions. Into that gap came the Second Great Awakening, spread by circuit-riding preachers who brought religious and social structure to isolated settlements. Methodist “circuit riders” such as Francis Asbury and Peter Cartwright provided what the book calls a movable evangelism, in which the church came to the people themselves — efforts that soon built Methodism into the largest Protestant denomination in America. This shaped a religious culture that was participatory, decentralized, and grounded in religious moral language.

2. Explain the differences in how religious development differed between elites and university circles as compared with how religion developed in upstate New York and the West.

Model response: Among educated elites and university circles, religion moved toward Unitarianism and rationalism, emphasizing reason, human goodness, and self-improvement rather than reliance on divine grace. In contrast, upstate New York (especially the “Burned-Over District”) and the western frontier experienced the Second Great Awakening, a passionate, emotional revival movement featuring dramatic camp meetings and popular preaching that appealed to ordinary people rather than intellectual elites.

3. What social reforms did each of the following figures promote: Horace Mann, Dorothea Dix, Thomas Gallaudet, Samuel Gridley Howe?

Model response: Horace Mann championed the common school movement and free, publicly funded education. Dorothea Dix campaigned for humane treatment of the mentally ill. Thomas Gallaudet pioneered education for the deaf. Samuel Gridley Howe advanced education for the blind, founding the Perkins Institution.

4. Explain the distinction between Max Weber’s ethic of moral conviction and the ethic of responsibility when comparing Abraham Lincoln and William Lloyd Garrison.

Model response: The ethic of moral conviction sticks firmly to what’s right no matter the consequences; the ethic of responsibility focuses on real-world results and is willing to compromise for the greater good. Garrison followed the ethic of moral conviction, demanding immediate, uncompromising abolition. Lincoln followed the ethic of responsibility, prioritizing the preservation of the Union and moving gradually within political constraints.

5. What were the defining characteristics of Transcendentalism as compared to Romanticism and Unitarianism?

Model response: Transcendentalism, led by Emerson and Thoreau, taught that people should trust their own intuition and find truth and God through nature, not just logic or institutions. Romanticism shared this focus on emotion, imagination, and nature but showed up mainly in art and literature. Unitarianism stayed more rational, rejecting harsh Calvinist ideas while keeping a structured, church-based approach to faith.

6. Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Beecher Stowe each used different methods to advance the abolition movement. Identify one method used by each person, and explain how their combined efforts helped shape public opinion and contribute to the outcome of the movement.

Model response: Douglass used his personal narrative and powerful oratory to argue for immediate abolition and civil rights. Garrison used the press, publishing The Liberator, to demand immediate emancipation through moral persuasion. Stowe used fiction, particularly Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to portray the human suffering caused by slavery and stir Northern sympathy against it.

7. The reform movements of the early 1800s—including temperance, education, women’s rights, and abolition—were deeply influenced by the religious revivalism of the Second Great Awakening. Explain how the Second Great Awakening shaped the reform movements of this era, using one specific movement as an example.

Model response: The Second Great Awakening emphasized personal salvation and individual responsibility, convincing many Americans that they had a duty to reform society and eliminate sin wherever it existed. For example, the women’s rights movement grew out of this revivalist spirit, as women active in religion and reform work began to question their exclusion from full participation in society and politics.

8. Many European critics and observers in the early-to-mid 1800s doubted that America’s democratic culture could produce great art or literature. What was the main basis for this skepticism?

Model response: European critics argued that democracy’s emphasis on equality and the “common man” would work against the pursuit of excellence and refinement. They believed great art had traditionally depended on an aristocratic, cultured elite with the leisure and taste to cultivate and support it, and that without such patrons, American culture would cater to popular tastes and produce mediocrity.

9. Describe the range of views within the antislavery movement in the decades before the Civil War.

Model response: Antislavery sentiment spanned a wide range: some advocated gradual emancipation combined with colonization, while abolitionists demanded immediate emancipation pursued through moral persuasion or political and direct action. This range reflected deep disagreements over how quickly slavery should end.

10. Explain how the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau gave rise to Transcendentalism as a new American philosophical and literary movement.

Model response: Emerson helped launch the movement with essays like “Nature” and “Self-Reliance,” arguing that individuals could access spiritual truth directly through intuition and connection to nature. Thoreau extended these ideas into practice in Walden, describing a life of simplicity and deliberate living. Together, their writings established Transcendentalism as a distinctly American movement centered on individualism, nature, and self-trust.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

The book says the most durable of the era’s experimental communities “generally had a strong religious dimension.” Assess that claim, discussing three of the following: Brook Farm, the Phalanxes, New Harmony, the Rappites, the Shakers, or the Oneida Community. What did a religious foundation supply that a secular one did not?

Model response: A strong response identifies three communities accurately and distinguishes their religious or secular foundations. It should assess the book’s observation that communities with a strong religious dimension generally proved more durable, using specific evidence about the communities’ beliefs, practices, and histories. Students may argue for or qualify the claim, but should explain what religious commitment could supply — such as shared obligations or a basis for accepting demanding communal practices — and should also recognize that durability depended on circumstances particular to each community.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Old South and Slavery

A World Apart

1791–1858 · pp. 241–265

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

WHEN DID “THE SOUTH” crystallize as a distinct region within the new nation? The South may not have emerged as an organized political faction until Jefferson’s “fire bell in the night,” the political dispute that arose in 1819 over the admission of Missouri to the Union. But the South had a certain unifying distinctiveness from the beginning of English colonization. Despite its many regional differences, the South was unified on account of its long growing season by a predominantly agrarian ethos. The rich soil of its plainlands in particular made it ideal territory for the profitable cultivation of cash crops, such as cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, and indigo, which could in turn be exported as a source of income.

Relative to the rest of the United States, the South was more insular and self-contained, an area highly conscious of its own identity and increasingly aware of its minority status within the nation. Unlike the North, it did not experience great waves of immigration from Europe, such as the influx of Irish and German refugees who streamed into northern cities during the 1840s, fleeing poverty, famine, and political instability in their native lands. While certainly drawn to the economic opportunities presented by the North’s rapidly industrializing society, immigrants also avoided the South because of its insularity, because there was so little nonagricultural work, and because they did not want to compete with slave labor. And so the South became ever more committed to slavery, in what became a self-reinforcing cycle. As a consequence, the region’s population growth failed to match that of the North, resulting in the decline of its electoral power.

The South remained an overwhelmingly agricultural society, in which the production and sale of cotton constituted the central form of economic activity and in which cities were few and far between. There was so little nonagricultural work in the South. In a sense, the South was a very wealthy region, but its wealth was highly concentrated, among individuals perched atop a precarious social and economic structure who were ultimately dependent on the price of cotton and the use of forced labor for their lofty standing.

Cotton planters enjoyed phenomenal success as their product became a commodity avidly sought around the world, especially in Great Britain, where southern cotton powered the British textile industry. Such success made the planter class overconfident about their standing and their prospects. As global demand for cotton continued to rise inexorably with continued industrialization, the South’s future prosperity seemed assured, so long as it was firmly wedded to cotton. The South’s dominance of the global cotton supply also seemed to guarantee lasting geopolitical influence for the region. As the South Carolina planter James Henry Hammond boasted, if the South were to deprive England of a steady supply of southern cotton, “England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her.... No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king.”

Such words smacked of hubris, the excessive pride that often leads to a dramatic fall. This mistakenly exaggerated vision of the South’s own importance would ultimately lead to cruel and tragic consequences for the region. Lulled into a false sense of economic security by the illusion that cotton was invincible and that its price would never fall, the South became fatally committed to a brutal social and economic system that was designed for the lucrative production of cotton on an enormous scale. Such productivity was achieved, however, at an incalculable cost in human and moral terms, while also placing the region on a collision course with fundamental American ideals.

The historical practice of slavery in the American South resists easy generalizations, as it varied greatly depending on time and place. Slavery in British North America developed gradually alongside indentured servitude, but colonial legislatures increasingly defined racial slavery in law during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. By 1705, for example, Virginia had consolidated earlier statutes into an extensive slave code. Slavery was practiced in every British mainland colony, though its scale and economic importance varied greatly by region. After the Revolution, slavery became increasingly concentrated in the South as northern states adopted immediate or gradual abolition measures, a process that unfolded over decades.

Religion was at the center of slaves’ communal life. It was a crucial resource that made it possible for them to sustain their communities and families under such trying circumstances, which included the continuous threat of family separation. The slaves’ religion taught them the same lesson that many previous generations of Christians, as well as Stoics like the Roman slave Epictetus, had learned: the soul can remain free even when the body is bound. It is vital to remember the resiliency that slaves showed, guarding their hearts and keeping hope alive through generations of bondage.

Organized slave rebellions in the South were rare, and never successful. The most consequential was the Nat Turner Rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. That one rebellion, the bloodiest in American history, had enormous consequences on southern attitudes regarding their “peculiar institution.”

The ferocity of the Nat Turner Rebellion stoked southern anxiety, as rumors traveled far and wide about other rebellions under way or in the making. Such fears led to stricter regulations of slavery and to the growing prominence of pro-slavery arguments, which maintained that slavery, far from being a necessary evil, was a “positive good” – a view that underscored the extent to which the South was becoming hopelessly dependent on slavery for its economic well-being. In the view of the Virginian George Fitzhugh, perhaps the most influential of the pro-slavery apologists, the paternalism of slavery was far preferable to the “wage slavery” of northern industrial society, in which, he maintained, greedy, profit-oriented capitalists took no responsibility for the holistic well-being of their workers but instead exploited them freely and then cast them aside when their labor was no longer useful.

It is hard to estimate the extent of such ideas’ acceptance. But their appearance was an ominous portent for the cohesiveness of the American nation. They were a sign that the South was in the process of cutting itself off from the rest of the country, and from the nation’s shared political heritage, in order to defend and protect its “peculiar institution.”

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter's end:

The central features of antebellum Southern society, particularly the region’s practice of and attitudes regarding slavery.

• The antebellum South’s resolutely agrarian nature shaped its culture and lay at the foundation of its distinctive status within the nation.

• The southern social order featured a hierarchy that evoked medieval feudalism, with an emphasis on gallantry, refinement, and relationships of reciprocal obligation, even between masters and slaves.

• Southern ideals must always be understood in the context of the pervasive and often brutal institution of slavery, which led to the South’s biracial cultural and legal order.

• Southern slaves organized their communal lives around Protestant Christianity, showing a particular affinity for the biblical Book of Exodus and for spiritual songs on themes of liberation; their longing for liberty also found expression in escape, aided in some cases by the Underground Railroad, an informal network of people, routes, and safe places that helped freedom seekers reach free states and Canada.

• In 1831, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia that caused a hardening of Southern attitudes regarding slavery; over the following decade, numerous regulations were passed to tighten oversight of slaves’ lives, while even the topic of gradual emancipation became taboo among Southerners who had grown fearful of the social and economic effects of abolitionist proposals.

• The growing prominence of pro-slavery arguments, which favorably contrasted slaves’ living conditions with those of northern industrial workers, marked the increasingly stark divide between southern political attitudes and Americans’ traditional values of liberty and equality; such a development, together with Southerners’ exaggerated sense of cotton’s global economic importance, proved ominous for prospects of continued national cohesion.

Key Persons

Walter Scott (1771–1832)

Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Levi and Catherine Coffin (1798–1877, 1803–1881)

Epictetus (~50-~135)

Harriet Tubman (~1822–1913)

Abraham (biblical)

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881)

Key Concepts and Terms

myth

chivalry

great chain of being

Exodus (biblical)

abolitionism

Stoicism

Underground Railroad

colonization movement

Baptist and Methodist churches

Timeline

1791–1804 The Haitian Revolution inspires fear among American slave owners

1793 The cotton gin is invented by Eli Whitney, increasing the demand for slave labor

1808 The Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves is implemented (January 1)

1831 The Nat Turner Rebellion results in the death of about fifty-five white people in Southampton County, Virginia (August 21–23)

1831–33 Southern states tighten control over the slave system, passing anti-literacy laws and restricting slave assemblies

1831–32 A session of the Virginia General Assembly debates the future of slavery in the state but fails to act

1832–33 South Carolina’s attempts to nullify federal tariffs cause the Nullification Crisis

1836 The U.S. House adopts the “gag rule” to suppress antislavery petitions (May 26)

1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and helps lead the Underground Railroad (September 17)

1850–61 Southern exportation of cotton to Europe reaches its height

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin (March 20)

1854 George Fitzhugh publishes Sociology for the South

1858 James Henry Hammond delivers his “Mud Sill” speech (March 4)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students' progress warrants.

Chapter Eight · The Old South and Slavery: A World Apart (3 to 6 class periods)

8.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 243–248 (1 to 2 classes)

• The South’s emergence as a distinct subregion

• The economic prevalence of cotton

• The paradoxes of the biracial society of the South

• The dehumanizing brutality of slavery

8.2 The Shape of the Old South – pp. 248–254 (.5 to 1 class)

• Echoes of feudalism

• The inextricable link between southern society and slavery

8.3 The World of Slaves – pp. 254–262 (1 to 2 classes)

• The history of slavery in America

• Religion in the lives of slaves

• Music as an early expression of African American culture

• Harriet Tubman and The Underground Railroad

• The Nat Turner Rebellion and its consequences

8.4 The Proslavery Argument – pp. 262–265 (.5 to 1 class)

• How and why proslavery apologists rose to prominence

• The nature of their argument

• The country’s increasing polarization

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter's epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Epigraph: Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States: With Remarks on Their Economy, 1856 (p. 241). The chapter opens on a northern observer’s judgment that a society built upon the enslavement of one race must inevitably lead to the degradation of the other. Olmsted traveled the South through the mid-1850s as a working correspondent, sending back dispatches that were later collected into three volumes; he is better remembered now as the designer of Central Park, but his southern dispatches reached a wide northern readership before the war. His method was observational rather than polemical—he described what plantations produced, what laborers were fed, what land sold for—and that restraint is what gave the conclusion its force. The epigraph states the chapter’s governing claim before the narrative begins: that slavery shaped not only the people it held but the entire society that maintained it, including those who owned no slaves at all.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 8.1. James Henry Hammond, “Mud Sill” Speech to the U.S. Senate, March 4, 1858 (p. 250)

Hammond was a South Carolina planter, governor, and senator, and one of the most articulate defenders of slavery in the antebellum Senate. His argument, delivered here in his own words, is that every civilization rests on a class performing its menial labor—the “mud sill” on which the structure stands—and that the South had merely been candid about a necessity other societies disguised. The excerpt the book prints opens on southern extent and wealth: eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles, as large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Spain together, with the finest soil and the most delightful climate. The rhetorical strategy is worth naming for students. Hammond does not deny that slavery is harsh; he argues that the alternative is worse and that the North practices the same thing under another name. This is the positive-good argument the chapter’s fourth subsection examines, and it is more useful in Hammond’s phrasing than in any summary, because a summary makes it sound easier to answer than it was.

Primary Source 8.2. Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 1861 (p. 259)

Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, escaped in 1835, and spent nearly seven years hidden in a crawlspace in her grandmother’s house before reaching the North. She published her account in 1861 under the name Linda Brent; its authenticity was long doubted, until Jean Fagan Yellin’s archival work established Jacobs’s authorship, published in the standard 1987 Harvard edition. The passage the book prints describes New Year’s Day as it came to a slave mother—sitting on a cold cabin floor watching children who might all be sold away by morning, wishing they might die before the day dawned. The source is the necessary counterweight to Hammond: the same institution described from inside it, by someone it held. Its power comes from its restraint rather than from denunciation.

Figures

Figure 8.1. American Slave Market, Taylor 1852 (p. 242)

The chapter-opening plate, an oil painting held by the Chicago History Museum, showing a slave market conducted as ordinary commerce. Buyers examine merchandise; sellers wait; clerks record. Almost nothing in the composition signals atrocity—which is what makes it worth pausing on with students. After Congress banned the importation of slaves in 1808, the internal trade supplied the expanding cotton frontier of the Southwest, moving up to a million people from the Upper South to the Deep South over the following half-century — a forced migration larger than the transatlantic trade to North America. Placed opposite the Olmsted epigraph, the painting sets the chapter’s subject before a word of the text is read: not slavery as an abstraction, but slavery as a market.

Figure 8.3. A Stereo Card of an African American Worker Beside a Cotton Gin, circa 1850s–1930s (p. 245)

The book’s own caption states the historical argument plainly and is worth reading aloud: the cotton gin was the technological engine of the antebellum South, combing the sticky seeds out of raw cotton bolls, a task previously done laboriously by hand. It turned the South into an economic powerhouse—and led to a massive increase in the enslaved population to keep up with the yields the gin could now process. This is the chapter’s central causal claim, and it cuts against a common student assumption. Eli Whitney’s 1793 invention did not make slavery less necessary by mechanizing the work; it made cotton so profitable that far more field labor was needed to plant and pick it. Technology here intensified bondage rather than relieving it.

Figure 8.6. Cincinnati from Covington, Kentucky, Robert S. Duncanson, 1850 (p. 253)

Duncanson (1821–1872) was the first African American artist to achieve international recognition, and by 1861 the Daily Cincinnati Gazette called him the greatest landscape painter in the West. Born in Fayette, New York, he arrived in Cincinnati by 1841 and worked first as a house painter before teaching himself fine art by copying prints. The city was then known as the Athens of the West and held a substantial free Black population and an active abolitionist community; Duncanson worked as principal artist in James Presley Ball’s daguerreotype studio, donated paintings to antislavery fundraising, and in 1853 became the first of them to make the Grand Tour of Europe. This painting is held by the Cincinnati Museum Center. The view looks north across the Ohio River from the Kentucky shore toward Cincinnati. Duncanson rarely addressed race directly in his landscapes.

Figure 8.7. Gordon, A Runaway Mississippi Slave, or “The Scourged Back,” McPherson & Oliver, 1863 (p. 255)

An albumen silver print held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, made at a Union camp in Baton Rouge in 1863 by the photographers McPherson and Oliver. The man, known as Gordon, had escaped from a Louisiana plantation and reached Union lines; when he was examined during enlistment, army surgeons photographed the scarring left by a whipping. Reproduced as a carte de visite and engraved for Harper’s Weekly, the image circulated widely in the North. Abolitionists had been accused for decades of exaggeration; here was photographic evidence of the institution’s physical violence. The book places it near its account of the distinctive religion the enslaved made for themselves, blending Christianity with enthusiastic music and ecstatic African elements.

Figure 8.9. Harriet Tubman, Benjamin F. Powelson, 1868/69 (p. 257)

An albumen print on card mount, held by the Library of Congress and made in Auburn, New York, where Tubman settled after the war. The book’s caption gives the essentials: the photograph shows her as a free woman just after the Civil War, and after escaping slavery in 1849 she returned to Maryland about thirteen times and directly led roughly seventy people to freedom. What the portrait adds is the ordinariness of her appearance—a woman in her forties, seated, in a plain dress—against what students are usually told about her. She was also a Union scout and spy, and led the Combahee River Raid of 1863, which freed more than seven hundred people in a single operation. The image appears beside the book’s discussion of resistance, which begins with its quieter forms: the day-to-day acts of passive or indirect resistance, work slowdowns, malingering, feigned illness. Tubman stands at the far end of that spectrum, and the juxtaposition is deliberate—escape was rare, and the book is careful to say so.

Figure 8.11. Horrid Massacre in Virginia, Samuel Warner, circa 1831 (p. 260)

A pamphlet illustration, published within weeks of the Nat Turner Rebellion of August 1831 in Warner’s Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene Which Was Witnessed in Southampton County. The woodcut shows white families under attack and armed men in pursuit. It is essential that students read this as a document of white southern fear rather than as a record of what happened, and the distinction is the whole exercise. Warner was writing for a northern commercial audience within weeks of the event, and the pamphlet sold on alarm. The book uses the image with its account of how the rebellion and its suppression dramatically altered the mental and moral climate of the South, sending a chill of terror down the spines of white Southerners as rumors traveled far and wide. The consequences were concrete: states tightened slave codes, restricted literacy and assembly, and the open debate over gradual emancipation that had continued in Virginia into the 1830s effectively ended.

Figure 8.12. Black and White Slavery: America, Edward William Clay, 1841 (p. 263)

A hand-colored lithograph held by the Library of Congress. Clay was among the most prolific American caricaturists of the 1830s and 1840s and a consistent opponent of abolition; his prints circulated widely in northern cities. The cartoon sets the supposed security of the southern slave—fed, housed, cared for in old age—against the condition of the northern or British industrial worker, free to starve. The book prints it at the point where the proslavery argument intensifies into a radical critique of modern capitalism, one startlingly similar in many respects to the critique then being offered by radical leftists like Karl Marx. That parallel is the chapter’s most surprising claim and this image is the evidence for it. Students should be required to state the argument the cartoon makes, accurately and in their own words, before they evaluate it—partly because it is harder to answer than it first appears, and partly because learning to restate a position one rejects is the skill the exercise is for.

Maps

Map 8.1. The Distribution of the Slave Population of the Southern States of the United States, Compiled from the Census of 1860 (p. 249)

Drawn by Edwin Hergesheimer of the U.S. Coast Survey and published in September 1861, this is one of the first American maps to display social data geographically—a choropleth map, in which shading carries the statistic. The book’s caption explains it precisely: it displays the percentage of enslaved people in each Southern county based on the 1860 census, with darker shading indicating a higher concentration, particularly along the Mississippi River and the Black Belt of the Deep South, a region defined by its rich soil. The 1860 census counted 3,952,838 people as enslaved out of a national population of 31,429,891, and it was the last federal count ever taken of them. The book adds that President Lincoln was observed frequently studying it. That detail is well documented: the painter Francis Bicknell Carpenter, who spent six months in the White House in 1864, noticed Lincoln consulting the map so often that he included it in First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln read it as a guide to the cultural, economic, and political fault lines the Union could exploit—evidence that the Confederacy was not uniform and might be fractured from within. The map makes the chapter’s central geographic claim visible: slavery was not spread evenly across the South, and where it concentrated, the soil explains why.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter's subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• Chesnut, Mary Boykin. A Diary from Dixie. 1905. This diary is essential reading for students of southern culture and of the Civil War. C. Vann Woodward’s annotated edition of the diary, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982. James Chesnut Jr. was a U.S. Senator from South Carolina and then a Confederate general. His wife Mary was one of the wealthiest women in the South, owning multiple plantations and hundreds of slaves. Both husband and wife hated slavery while nonetheless being fervent Confederate patriots. In her diary, Chesnut wrote that if anything could reconcile her to a Confederate defeat and a failure to secure the South’s independence, it would be Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The writings of the Chesnuts provide evidence that at least some planters felt themselves to be trapped by slavery, whose evils they recognized but from which they saw no feasible escape.

• Fogel, Robert and Stanley Engerman. Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Co., 1974. This work analyzes southern plantations as businesses. Fogel and Engerman argue that slavery was an economically rational institution and that planters attended to the material well-being of their slaves because it was good business to do so: physical conditions such as shelter and food and clothing were indeed (as the planters insisted) better than among northern factory workers of the same time. The authors used quantitative analysis and based their study on extensive data (such as census records, plantation record books, and the records of slave markets) that had hitherto been largely ignored by historians, who before the invention of the computer lacked the tools to evaluate them. Their findings were, and remain, highly controversial and have inspired several refutations from outraged historians.

• Genovese, Eugene. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage, 1976. This work challenged Stampp’s interpretation of plantation life (see below) from a radically different perspective, portraying the plantation as an extended Victorian family, with the privileged and their servants living closely together and united by various forms of cooperation. At the time of its writing, Genovese was a Marxist (but later became a Roman Catholic) and relied heavily on the thousands of “slave narratives” collected during the 1930s by the Federal Writers Project. Genovese also authored a number of other books on slavery, including a comparison of American slavery with the institution in Latin America, where slave revolts were almost constant and most slaves died before they could reproduce. In Roll, Jordan, Roll, Genovese argued that slaves basically accepted their status as slaves but remained active, and generally successful, in improving their own conditions. Genovese emphasized the role of the black “mammy,” who typically raised the planter children (and so the next generation of masters). Slaves had strong views of their rights and had ways of punishing bad behavior by their owners (such as sexual exploitation of slave women), including work slow-downs at harvest time. Roll, Jordan, Roll remains a major and influential study of slavery, though many of its interpretations have been debated and revised by later scholarship.

• Jordan, Winthrop. White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1968. This work received the National Book Award in History and Biography. Its focus is the transformation of early Virginia’s agricultural labor supply from white indentured servants to African chattel slaves. At the time, staple crop agriculture required a large dependent working class that could be moved regularly (because tobacco and cotton exhausted the soil after five or six crops). It was well understood that someone had to do the heavy lifting, and if it had not been Africans it would have been poor Englishman or Irish. The book’s central thesis is that black slavery allowed white freedom.

• Phillips, Ulrich. American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1918. Demonstrating pronounced racial prejudice, Phillips saw slavery as benefiting both whites and blacks and regarded the plantation as a school for teaching civilization and Christianity. (Phillips admitted, however, that no one ever graduated from this school. Teachers may suggest that students imagine themselves as freshmen in a giant high school, subject to constant regimentation and mistreatment, and condemned to the setting for the rest of their lives!) Phillips’ book was viewed as the seminal work on plantation society until after World War II.

• Stampp, Kenneth. The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. New York: Knopf, 1956. Stampp’s book rebuts Phillips and has come to supplant his work. Writing just after the Holocaust, Stampp characterized the plantation as a sort of concentration camp, emphasizing both slave resistance and the psychological consequences of keeping slaves in a condition of childlike dependency and docility. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted extensively from Stampp in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967) while addressing the psychological effects of slavery and of Jim Crow.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

8.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 243–248)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 243–248, the chapter opening.

Exercise: The Chapter Epigraph and Figure 8.1, the slave market rendered as ordinary commerce.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what made the South a world apart and on Olmsted’s claim about a society built on enslavement.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Eight, Section Two, “The Shape of the Old South” (pp. 248–254).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The paradoxical nature of the American South: how Southerners aspired toward the lofty ideals of chivalry and gentility while nevertheless passionately defending the institution of human slavery.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Distinguish between mythology and objective facts regarding the American South.

• Describe the reasons why Southern culture remained insular compared to the North.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1793 The cotton gin is invented by Eli Whitney, increasing the demand for slave labor

1850–61 Southern exportation of cotton to Europe reaches its height

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin (March 20)

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

The agrarian ethos of the South reinforced its own cultural distinctiveness as a subregion within the United States. The absence of factory jobs and the prospect of competing with slave labor deterred large-scale immigration, resulting in social stasis and insularity.

The antebellum South was defined by a highly structured social order; the predominance of Protestant Christianity; a pronounced economic reliance on cotton exports; and tension between the refined ideals of its elite planter class and the brutal realities of slavery upon which much of the region’s prosperity depended.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Chattel slavery: In this form of slavery, such as that formerly practiced in the American South, individuals are considered to be the personal property of others, who have total control over their chattels’ activity with the same permanence and hereditary rights as they would have over any other form of property.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Encourage students to read the introductory section of Chapter Eight.

Assign several of the following reading questions: Did the Missouri Compromise expedite cultural tensions? How so or why not?

What factors of climate and geography caused the South to focus on commercial or staple crop agriculture?

How important to the U.S. and world economies was cotton? What were the requirements for successful mass production of this cash crop?

What is chattel slavery?

Which was the dominant type of Christianity in the South?

What did South Carolina Planter, James Henry Hammond, boast of the South?

How many of the first seven presidents were Southerners? Which two were not?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Reading Comprehension: The text claims that various stories about the South influenced cultural reality in their very telling, irrespective of their factual basis. Ask the class to analyze these narratives and distinguish them from the objective facts about the South. The text describes the mythological portraits and then describes the “indisputable” generalizations about the South. Instruct your students to summarize the mythological narrative and explain a) why they think the myth developed, and b) how the myth affected the way the South understood itself. Next, instruct students to summarize the indisputable facts about the Southern states during this time. Once these distinctions have been made, lead students in a discussion to help them view this as a paradox that was about to be challenged by the sharpening moral sensibilities in the other parts of the country.

Civic Discourse: Ask the class to consider how a supposedly civilized people could, as The Mind of the Master Class asks, also have chosen to embrace a cruel social system that inflicted such horrors as slavery did. What does the Mark Twain quote reveal about how the paradox was able to continue? Discuss as a class.

Writing Skills: Ask the class to imagine that they are Irish immigrants living in Philadelphia around 1850. Have them write a letter to cousins back in Ireland, explaining to them why it would be better to immigrate to a northern city than to the South. Have a few students present their work before the entire class as prompts for discussion.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

Unlike the North, the South attracted little immigration from Europe. Why? What was the effect of this relative lack of immigration on southern demographics, society, and culture?

Insight: Industrialization was booming in the North while agriculture was the strength of the Southern states. As immigrants arrived, they sought employment which was readily available in factories within the large cities. In contrast, enslaved people were “competition” to the immigrant who wanted to work for pay. Immigrants often perceived enslaved labor as limiting opportunities for free wage labor.

Insight: The relative lack of immigration reinforced existing Southern social hierarchies, with Southern aristocrats being in control of politics, society, and culture. The large planters continued to set the tone for the whole, exercising a disproportionate influence on their societies and the legislatures of their states.

Olmsted wrote that a society built upon the enslavement of one race must lead to the degradation of the other. What did he mean, and what in this chapter would count as evidence for or against it?

Insight: Olmsted’s claim is about the enslavers, not only the enslaved—that holding people as property corrupts the society that permits it. Students can test it against the chapter’s own evidence: the South’s insularity, its resistance to immigration and to nonagricultural work, and a defense of slavery that grew more absolute as the institution came under pressure.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

Name the invention of 1793 that increased the demand for enslaved labor, and its inventor.

Acceptable responses: The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney. Acceptable responses name both.

Explain

Why does the chapter call the Old South “a world apart”?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the South was more insular and agricultural than the rest of the nation, its labor system shaped its whole social order, and European immigrants avoided it because there was little nonagricultural work and the status of agricultural labor was tainted by slavery.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson's threads together.

The antebellum South is best approached as a whole society whose economy, politics, culture, and social hierarchy were profoundly shaped by slavery. It is easy to imagine that evil practices arise only in backwards societies that are thoroughly immoral and corrupt. But the truth is much more complex, and that complexity can be understood only by studying the South, including its economic and cultural practices, as a whole.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The next lesson moves from the South’s broad regional identity to its social structure. Students will examine how cotton wealth, slavery, planter influence, and the ideal of hierarchy shaped relations among great planters, smaller farmers, non-slaveholding whites, and enslaved people—and why a social order modeled in part on inherited notions of rank sat uneasily beside the Declaration’s language of equality.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: chattel slavery, antebellum, insular

Frames that carry the reasoning: “The South was different from the North because __.” “Olmsted argued that __, and his evidence was __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

8.2 The Shape of the Old South (pp. 248–254)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 248–254.

Exercise: Analyzing Figures on the cotton gin (Figure 8.3) and on Map 8.1 as proportional data.

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the South’s social hierarchy and on why non-slaveholding whites supported the planter order.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Eight, Section Three, “The World of Slaves” (pp. 254–262).

Essential Understanding

The hierarchical structure of Southern society; the roles of the planter class, slaves, and non-slave-owning whites therein; and the compatibility (or lack thereof) of this quasi-feudal social system with American ideals.

Lesson Objectives

• Critique the hierarchical structure of Southern society from the perspective of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

• Explain why poor, non-slave-owning whites in the South supported a hierarchical social structure.

• Describe the broad cultural differences that existed between the North and South.

Key Dates

1832–33 South Carolina’s attempts to nullify federal tariffs cause the Nullification Crisis

1858 James Henry Hammond delivers his “Mud Sill” speech (March 4)

Key Concepts

Within Southern society, slave-owners constituted a minority of the population, but the influence of the institution was nonetheless pervasive throughout society. This was especially the case since plantation owners were the wealthiest and most prominent members of Southern society, such that state and local laws were often tailored to their interests.

The strictly defined hierarchies—racial, economic, and cultural—of the South’s agrarian society were in conflict with the entrepreneurial and egalitarian tendencies of the rest of the country.

While the North’s cultural ethos became increasingly pragmatic as industrialization progressed, the South’s became ever more romantic as its inhabitants understood their way of life as perpetuating traditions and mores that were becoming extinct elsewhere.

Key Terms

Chivalric code: Originally referring to the ethical system that guided medieval knights’ conduct, this set of principles was widely championed among antebellum Southerners and emphasized the value of courage, honor, and courtesy, particularly toward women, the weak, and the defenseless.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the second section of Chapter Eight, “The Shape of the Old South.”

Assign several of the following questions: Why was the planter class so confident that cotton was king, even though dependence on cotton, according to the text, “placed the region on a collision course with changing moral sensibilities in the world, and with fundamental American ideals”?

What percentage of the Southern population did slave owners who owned at least 100 slaves constitute?

What were some chivalric practices that were esteemed in the South?

What is Mark Twain known for writing?

According to the text, what group in the South exerted a “disproportionate influence on their societies and the legislatures of their states”?

According to the author, whose story must also be told to understand antebellum southern society?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the stereo card of a worker beside a cotton gin (Figure 8.3). Ask students the following questions:

What is the machine doing, and what work is the person doing?

Who made this image, and for whom? What does the stereo-card format suggest about its audience?

The gin removed seeds from cotton, work previously done by hand. Predict what should have happened to the demand for enslaved labor. Then read the caption.

Insight: Students almost always predict that a labor-saving machine reduces the demand for labor. The opposite happened here. The gin removed the bottleneck at processing, not at planting or picking, so the limit on profit moved to how much land could be worked and how many hands could work it.

Further: In 1790 the South produced about 1.5 million pounds of cotton a year; by 1860, over two billion. Ask students to account for that increase.

Analyzing Figures: Have students study Map 8.1, the Coast Survey’s 1861 map of the enslaved population. Ask students the following questions:

Does the shading represent a count of people or a proportion of the population? How do you know?

Trace the darkest bands. What physical features do they follow?

Some counties with large cities appear lighter than their neighbors. The map’s own note explains why. What does that tell you about reading such a map carefully?

Insight: This is among the first American maps to show social data geographically, a technique now so ordinary its novelty is invisible. Lincoln read it as intelligence rather than description: uneven concentration meant uneven commitment, and a Confederacy that was not uniform might be divided from within.

Further: Francis Bicknell Carpenter noticed Lincoln consulting this map so often that he painted it into his depiction of the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Reading Comprehension: The text claims that the hierarchical nature of the South’s social order was in tension with America’s founding ideals. Ask the class to identify this conflict and lead a discussion that addresses to what extent Southern mores were (in)compatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Why might poor Southern whites have supported planter elites, despite the planters’ disproportionate dominance of Southern politics? While addressing this question, students should remember that many areas of the South (such as the mountainous regions of East Tennessee and western Virginia) lacked plantations altogether. These areas notably tended to remain loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

Speaking Skills: Ask the class to imagine that they are Alexis de Tocqueville, lecturing a European audience in the 1830s on the primary differences between the North and the South. Have students write a few paragraphs on this theme and present their work in small groups. Then ask a few students to share their work before the entire class.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What was the “chain of being” theory of society? How did it manifest in the South?

Insight: “Chain of being” links all things from high to low in a society. It is believed that society works best when everyone and everything is in its proper place within the chain. It was similar to European feudalism.

Most white Southerners owned no slaves at all. Why did they support a social order built on slavery?

Insight: The chapter offers several answers and does not settle on one: the hope of rising into the planter class, the racial floor that slavery placed beneath even the poorest white household, and the simple absence of an alternative economy. Students should notice that a system can be sustained by people who gain little from it.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

What region of the Deep South does Map 8.1 show with the heaviest concentration of enslaved people, and why?

Acceptable responses: The Black Belt, along with the Mississippi River valley—a region defined by its rich soil.

Explain

Most slaveholders were not great planters. What did the majority own, and why does that matter?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the majority were ordinary farmers who owned few; only a relative handful—around twenty-three hundred—owned a hundred or more. It matters because the planter ideal shaped a society most of whose members did not live it.

Daily Recap

Only a small minority of southern men were slave owners, and an even smaller minority of that group owned most of the slaves. Nonetheless, the institution of slavery set the tone for the entire social order of the South, prompting the question of how long Southern practices could continue to exist while remaining at odds with the explicitly stated founding ideals of the United States.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson turns from the structure of Southern society to the lives of the people held in slavery. It examines the variety of enslaved experience, the central role of family and religion, forms of day-to-day resistance and escape, and the shock of Nat Turner’s Rebellion, which helped harden Southern defenses of slavery.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: planter class, yeoman, Black Belt, proportion

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Map 8.1 shows that __ percent of the population in __ was enslaved.” “Non-slaveholding whites supported the system because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

8.3 The World of Slaves (pp. 254–262)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 254–262.

Exercise: The Close Reading of Jacobs (Primary Source 8.2) with Figure 8.10, and Analyzing Figures on the Warner woodcut (Figure 8.11).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the forms resistance took and on what the Nat Turner Rebellion changed.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Eight, Section Four, “The Proslavery Argument” (pp. 262–265).

Essential Understanding

The nature of enslaved life, cultural developments among slave populations, the Underground Railroad, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, and how the moderate center in the slavery debate gave way to increasing polarization.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze spiritual songs and explain their significance for enslaved people in the South.

• Categorize the various strategies for resisting slavery within the South.

Key Dates

1791–1804 The Haitian Revolution inspires fear among American slave owners

1808 The Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves is implemented (January 1)

1831 The Nat Turner Rebellion results in the death of about fifty-five white people in Southampton County, Virginia (August 21–23)

1831–33 Southern states tighten control over the slave system, passing anti-literacy laws and restricting slave assemblies

1831–32 A session of the Virginia General Assembly debates the future of slavery in the state but fails to act

1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and helps lead the Underground Railroad (September 17)

Key Concepts

It is difficult to generalize regarding the social realities of southern slavery, due to the diverse circumstances in which slaves lived, which depended on factors such as their region, their household, their occupational skills, and the benevolence (or lack thereof) of their owners.

Conditions varied greatly. On the giant sugar and cotton plantations of the Deep South, hundreds lived and laboured together under strict and often oppressive discipline, in complex mini-societies where household servants and skilled workers generally enjoyed better treatment than field hands, who bore the brunt of farm labor.

Religion was the focal point of slaves’ communal life: from their practice of “low church” evangelical Protestantism, many derived the strength and consolation needed to endure their trials, showing particular devotion to the singing of spirituals and to liberation-themed Scripture such as the Book of Exodus.

While a significant portion of Southern “moderates” favored eventual emancipation, regional attitudes regarding slavery hardened in the aftermath of Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831. This event, together with increasing abolitionist activity in the North, stoked fears of additional slave revolts, leading to the imposition of strict regulations on slavery and the rise of pro-slavery apologists.

Key Terms

Underground Railroad: This informal network of secret routes and safe houses throughout the South helped many thousands of slaves escape to freedom in Canada and the northern states. Harriet Tubman, who herself escaped to freedom using the Railroad in 1849, was its most prominent figure, as she returned to Maryland about thirteen times and directly led roughly seventy people to freedom.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read the third section of Chapter Eight, “The World of Slaves.”

Assign several of the following questions: In what respect is it difficult to tell the story of black Southerners under slavery?

When and where did slavery originate in America?

What was the analogy that Thomas Jefferson used to describe slavery in America?

Who was Harriet Tubman? How did she inspire others to continue her work?

In what sense were plantations “mini-societies”, as the text calls them?

What was at the center of slaves’ communal life?

What were the aims of Nat Turner’s Rebellion?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Close Reading: Have students read the excerpt from Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Primary Source 8.2), alongside Eyre Crowe’s Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia (Figure 8.10). Ask students the following questions:

What does Jacobs describe that the painting does not, and could not, show?

Crowe was an English visitor sketching what he saw; Jacobs writes from inside the institution. How does each one’s position shape what the source records?

Jacobs writes with marked restraint. Why might she have chosen it, writing in 1861 for a northern audience?

Insight: The authenticity of Jacobs’s account was long doubted, until Jean Fagan Yellin’s archival work established her authorship. Ask students why a first-person account by an enslaved woman might have been met with such doubt, and what that tells them about how testimony is weighed.

Further: The passage turns on New Year’s Day. What does the choice of that date add to the scene Jacobs describes?

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine the woodcut Horrid Massacre in Virginia (Figure 8.11), published within weeks of the Nat Turner Rebellion of August 1831. Ask students the following questions:

What does the image show? Who is depicted as acting, and who as suffering?

Warner wrote at speed for a northern commercial audience, within weeks of the event. What would he have needed to know to make an accurate image, and did he have time to know it?

Is this better evidence of what happened in Southampton County, or of how white Americans reacted to it? Defend your answer.

Insight: A source unreliable about its ostensible subject can be excellent evidence of something else. Warner’s pamphlet is a poor record of the rebellion and a very good record of the panic that followed—a panic with consequences: tightened slave codes, restricted literacy and assembly, and the end of Virginia’s open debate over gradual emancipation.

Further: Ask students to name one question they would need answered before using this image as evidence of the rebellion, and one it answers well as it stands.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Provide students with a copy of The Songs of African American Slavery. Ask students to read “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Go Down Moses,” and another song of their choice. After playing a recording of the first two, ask the students to consider their appeal. How do the songs borrow from the Bible? What sort of imagery do they evoke? Why would they prove especially meaningful to people held in slavery?

Writing Skills: Ask students to categorize the different methods that slavery was resisted within the South. They include the Underground Railroad, violent resistance, passive resistance, and the short-lived legislative effort in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832. After reviewing the differences with the full class, instruct students to write summaries, in their own words, of each method. The summaries should include key details and proper names where appropriate. As a further writing prompt, ask students to evaluate in closer consideration the debate in the Virginia House of Delegates. Why were there not more open debates in the South about the problems of slavery? Why was the vote close at that particular moment, and why did public opinion harden afterwards?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What’s commonly misunderstood about the ‘typical’ experience of American slavery, and how does the reality differ between small farms and large plantations?

Insight: Statistics are tricky. Only a relative handful of planters — around twenty-three hundred — owned a hundred or more slaves. Most slaveholders owned relatively few enslaved people; many were farmers who worked alongside them. Small farmers who in the North might employ a hired hand were, in the South, likely to own a slave or two.

Insight: On smaller farms in the Upper South, enslaved people were more likely to work alongside enslavers and to have frequent direct contact with them — very different from the Deep South plantations, where hundreds lived and laboured together under strict and often oppressive discipline. Slavery was still a pernicious system, but the conditions and relationships under such conditions would be quite different from large plantations, where field hands might never, or rarely, have any contact with their owners.

How did Christianity shape, and how was it shaped by, the slave experience?

Insight: Enslaved people took comfort from Bible stories that spoke to their difficulties and circumstances brought about by slavery. Specifically, the story of Moses leading the children out of Egypt became a regular theme as they awaited God to deliver them from slavery as well.

Insight: Distinctive African American Christian musical traditions developed under slavery and continued to shape Black church worship after emancipation. It has also become welcome in many other Christian churches as well.

Why was the Underground Railroad successful in freeing many thousands of slaves, while slave revolts were rare and uniformly unsuccessful?

Insight: Southerners feared revolts after hearing of the Haitian slave revolt that resulted in the murder of many. Local militia would rise up to suppress rebellions, such as Nat Turner’s, whenever they arose. The Underground Railroad was more difficult to stop. Because escape usually involved individuals or small groups moving secretly through dispersed networks, it was harder to detect and suppress in advance than an organized uprising. White Southerners feared both escape networks and armed revolt, but the two forms of resistance posed different kinds of threats and demanded different responses.

What did Nat Turner’s Rebellion change in Southern attitudes and policy toward slavery?

Insight: The rebellion intensified white Southern fears of further uprisings. In its aftermath, states tightened restrictions on enslaved people’s literacy, assembly, and movement, while Virginia’s brief open debate over gradual emancipation gave way to a harder defensive posture toward slavery.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

Name two forms of day-to-day resistance the chapter describes.

Acceptable responses: Work slowdowns, malingering, feigned illness. Any two.

Explain

Why was religion central to communal life among the enslaved?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: it was a crucial resource in the closed circumstances of the large plantations, where marriages had no legal validity and families could be divided by the slave market at any moment. Its distinctive form blended Christianity with enthusiastic music and ecstatic African elements.

Daily Recap

Many cultural developments, especially those of a musical or spiritual nature, which emerged from enslaved life testify to the tenacity of the human spirit. Additionally, various forms of rebellion took place throughout the South, from escape, as in the case of Harriet Tubman, to armed uprising, as with Nat Turner — the most consequential of them. In its aftermath Southern states tightened control over the slave system, passing anti-literacy laws and restricting slave assemblies, and a session of the Virginia General Assembly debated the future of slavery in the state but failed to act.

Looking Ahead

The final lesson asks how Southerners responded when slavery came under mounting moral and political attack. Students will encounter the “positive good” argument of Calhoun, Fitzhugh, and Hammond and consider how a defense once framed as necessity became an aggressive critique of free labor and modern liberal society.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: resistance, manumission, Underground Railroad, gang labor

Frames that carry the reasoning: “One form of day-to-day resistance was __.” “Religion mattered to enslaved communities because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

8.4 The Proslavery Argument (pp. 262–265)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 262–265.

Exercise: The Argumentation exercise on Hammond (Primary Source 8.1) and Clay (Figure 8.12).

Discuss: The two Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on how the proslavery case changed after 1830 and on what it shared with critiques of industrial capitalism.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter Nine.

Essential Understanding

How the South doubled down on its commitment to slavery when put under moral pressure by the abolition movement.

Lesson Objectives

• Draw conclusions about why the South doubled down on its commitment to slavery.

• Critique the radical Southern arguments from the perspective of the abolition movement.

Key Dates

1836 The U.S. House adopts the “gag rule” to suppress antislavery petitions (May 26)

1854 George Fitzhugh publishes Sociology for the South

Key Concepts

In the years following Nat Turner’s Rebellion, pro-slavery arguments rose to prominence in the South. While even many defenders of slavery had viewed the institution as a necessary evil, a critical mass of influential thinkers emerged after 1831 who maintained that slavery was in fact a positive good, beneficial to both blacks and whites.

Led by the statesman John Calhoun and the writer George Fitzhugh, these apologists for slavery characterized slaves’ living conditions as superior to those of northern factory workers, arguing that slavery enabled the persistence of strong communal life, which otherwise was threatened by dissolution amid the individualism and rapid changes of an industrializing age. Their intransigence boded ill for national cohesion, as the simultaneous rise of the abolition movement in the North led to greater polarization and hostility on the issue of slavery.

Key Terms

Mud sill: Hammond’s term for the class performing a society’s menial labor—the sill laid in the mud on which the rest of the structure stands. His claim was that every civilization has one and the South was merely candid about it.

Paternalism: The planters’ self-understanding as guardians rather than owners, responsible for those they held. The chapter treats it as a genuine belief and as a justification, and asks students to see it as both.

Positive good: The argument, replacing the earlier claim that slavery was a necessary evil, that it benefited both races and was superior to free labor.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Assign students to read the fourth section of Chapter Eight, “The Proslavery Argument.”

Assign several of the following questions: What form of slavery did the South claim northern industrial society practiced?

Who was John C. Calhoun?

How did George Fitzhugh define socialism? Was he accurate?

What was the paternalistic justification for slavery?

Which state was George Fitzhugh from?

Which two churches split over the issue of slavery?

Which biblical patriarch did slaveholders champion in support of their position?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Argumentation: Have students read Senator James Henry Hammond’s “Mud Sill” speech (Primary Source 8.1) with Edward Clay’s cartoon Black and White Slavery: America (Figure 8.12). Ask students to do the following:

State Hammond’s argument in your own words, in three sentences, as fairly as you can. Do not evaluate it yet.

Identify the premise Clay’s cartoon shares with Hammond, and the one it adds.

Now answer the argument, using Jacobs (Primary Source 8.2). Which of Hammond’s premises does your answer reject, and which does it accept?

Insight: The proslavery argument of the 1850s was not an embarrassed defense but an aggressive critique of free labor, overlapping strikingly with the critique radicals like Marx were making of industrial capitalism at the same moment. Students who cannot state it accurately cannot answer it.

Further: Hammond asked whether southern territory “as large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Spain” was not enough to make an empire that should rule the world. What is the appeal to size doing in an argument about justice?

Argumentation: Ask students to imagine they are abolitionists during this time and have just read these new arguments in the newspaper. How would they respond to these arguments? Start by giving students time to conduct some research using only the textbook. Looking back, what kind of evidence and arguments might help to formulate a response? Tell students to jot down two or three specific pieces of evidence or points of argumentation. Then, instruct students to use their background research to write 1 - 2 paragraph counter-arguments. Have them discuss their responses in small groups and then lead a conversation on the topic in class. A few questions for class discussion: Who would be the audience for these counterarguments? During this moment in history, who are the people who still need to be persuaded? Strategically, is it necessary for advocates to respond to every argument of their opposition, or can some arguments be ignored?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: The text suggests that the growth of the abolitionist movement contributed to the hardening of southern attitudes regarding slavery. Ask students to consider why the appeal of gradual emancipation might have diminished for Southerners when confronted by abolitionist arguments. Does their response mean that abolitionism was counter-productive or rather all the more necessary?

Debate: Ask students, given all they have learned in this chapter, to debate whether it was morally permissible for slaves in the American South to violently rebel against their masters. How should the question be viewed in light of the Declaration of Independence, which appeals to the existence of a right to fight against tyrannical government? Even if violent revolts were justified, are there limits on what violence could be considered permissible? Did Nat Turner transgress them?

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did Southerners like George Fitzhugh and John C. Calhoun defend slavery? How did their reasoning make a civil war increasingly likely?

Insight: George Fitzhugh was a very influential apologist for slavery who taught that Southern paternalism was something that helped the slave. Slaveholders were like fathers taking care of children who couldn’t care for themselves. He also criticized, as a comparison, the North’s factories, which made “wage slaves” out of their workers by paying them little and demanding that they work long hours in unsafe environments.

Insight: The book frames the post-1831 shift as a move away from calling slavery a necessary evil toward the claim that it was a positive good — asking whether Southerners would not defend the institution more effectively if they held that it “was actually a positive good and not merely a necessary evil.” Calhoun was among the foremost advocates of that harder position.

In what sense were Fitzhugh’s arguments, as the text claims, “against the entire liberal tradition”?

Insight: The author critiques Fitzhugh’s arguments for slavery as opposed to the American tradition from its founding. America has been a nation that has thrived because of the belief in natural individual rights, personal liberty, and human equality.

What is Capitalism? How was it invoked in the pro-slavery arguments?

Insight: Capitalism is an economic system where businesses are privately owned and prices, production, and distribution of goods are determined by supply and demand. In capitalism, people are free to sell both goods and labor; workers sell their labor for wages. Fitzhugh argued that factory workers were not paid a fair wage, thus making them “wage slaves.”

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

Name two figures the chapter identifies with the proslavery argument.

Acceptable responses: James Henry Hammond, George Fitzhugh, John C. Calhoun. Any two.

Explain

What did the proslavery argument of the 1850s claim about free labor?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: that wage labor left workers free only to starve, that the South cared for its laborers in age and sickness as the North did not, and that this amounted to a critique of industrial capitalism startlingly similar to the one radicals like Marx were then making.

Daily Recap

The proslavery arguments of mid-nineteenth century Southerners represented a stark and explicit departure from the principles enshrined in the Declaration and the Constitution. At the same time they were being formulated, Karl Marx argued that the factory workers of Europe, alienated from the products of their labor, were leading an enslaved sort of existence. To a certain extent, Marx’s contentions were echoed in the writings of Fitzhugh, which ran alongside the deepening antagonism that characterized America’s sectional dispute regarding the morality of slavery.

Looking Ahead

Chapter Nine carries this hardened sectional argument into national politics. The question is no longer only how slavery shaped Southern society, but whether slavery would expand into the western territories—and whether a Union increasingly divided over the institution could continue to hold together.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: proslavery, paternalism, mud sill, wage labor

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Hammond argued that __. He supported this by saying __.” “One answer to Hammond’s argument is __, because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Place the following into chronological order from earliest to latest. Number one is the earliest; number five is the latest.

1. 1793

2. 1808

3. 1831

4. 1836

5. 1849

A. The Nat Turner Rebellion kills about fifty-five white people in Southampton County, Virginia.

B. Federal legislation prohibiting the importation of enslaved people takes effect.

C. The U.S. House adopts the gag rule restricting antislavery petitions.

D. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin is invented, helping make short-staple cotton far more profitable.

E. Harriet Tubman escapes slavery.

Answer: 1–D · 2–B · 3–A · 4–C · 5–E

Resistance and Response

Match each description to the correct term.

A. Day-to-day resistance

B. The Underground Railroad

C. The Haitian Revolution

D. The Nat Turner Rebellion

E. Anti-literacy laws

1. Work slowdowns, malingering, feigned illness, and deliberate sabotage—the commonest forms of resistance because they generally carried less risk than open revolt.

2. A revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831 that killed about fifty-five white people and was suppressed within days.

3. A successful revolution by enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, 1791–1804, that deeply alarmed slaveholders in the United States.

4. A secret network of people, routes, and safe places that helped freedom seekers escape slavery.

5. Restrictions imposed by Southern states that prohibited or limited teaching enslaved people to read and write.

Answer: 1–A · 2–D · 3–C · 4–B · 5–E

Key Persons and Concepts

Complete each statement with the appropriate term or concept.

1. Southern writers defending slavery sometimes compared their social order to medieval Europe’s feudalism, a hierarchical system in which peasants worked land controlled by lords.

2. Long before slavery dominated colonial labor, many early Virginia settlers arrived as an indentured servant, someone bound by contract to work for a set number of years.

3. Proslavery writer George Fitzhugh attacked Northern industrial society as wage slavery, arguing that free laborers could be exploited without guarantees of support.

4. Historians use the term antebellum South for the Southern states in the decades before the Civil War.

5. Well into the nineteenth century, the South remained a largely agrarian society, its economy centered on agriculture.

6. The system that dominated the South was chattel slavery, in which enslaved people were legally treated as property and status was hereditary.

7. Defenders of slavery described Southern society as a naturally hierarchical order.

8. Southern planters often styled themselves according to a chivalric code, an ideal emphasizing honor, courage, and gentlemanly conduct.

9. Large plantations could function as mini-societies, with their own internal economies and hierarchies.

10. George Fitzhugh justified slavery through a paternalistic argument, portraying enslavers as guardians responsible for those they held.

Geography

Consult the answer map for the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix. The student exercise asks students to identify Virginia as the Southern state with the largest free population, Delaware as the Southern state with the lowest enslaved population, and South Carolina as the state with the highest percentage of enslaved people, using the census data represented on Map 8.1.

[ART REQUIRED — Chapter 8_AssessmentAnswerKeyMap.jpg]

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. Describe the Nat Turner Rebellion of 1831, and explain how it changed the treatment and regulation of enslaved people in the South afterward.

Model response: Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher in Southampton County, Virginia, led an uprising in August 1831 in which his followers killed about fifty-five white men, women, and children. The revolt was quickly suppressed, but it intensified white Southern fears of further uprisings. Southern states tightened restrictions on enslaved people’s movement, assembly, literacy, and religious gatherings, while open discussion of gradual emancipation diminished.

2. In the decades before the Civil War, the North and South developed into increasingly different societies. Describe differences in economy, immigration, and social structure.

Model response: The North developed a more diversified economy with rapidly growing cities, industry, and wage labor, attracting large numbers of European immigrants. The South remained more heavily agricultural and dependent on enslaved labor, especially in cotton production, and attracted fewer immigrants. Southern society was also more explicitly hierarchical, with planter elites exercising disproportionate political and cultural influence.

3. What generalizations can we make about antebellum Southern culture?

Model response: Useful generalizations include the South’s predominantly agricultural economy, dependence on slavery, strong planter influence, Protestant religious culture, and increasingly self-conscious regional identity. Strong answers should also note important differences between the Upper and Deep South, large plantations and small farms, and slaveholding and non-slaveholding communities.

4. When did the South’s culture become distinct from the North’s?

Model response: There was no single moment. Regional differences had roots in the colonial period, but they became more politically consequential after independence. The Missouri Crisis of 1819–21 made the sectional division over slavery especially visible, while later disputes over tariffs, abolition, and slavery’s expansion deepened the divide.

5. How did Southern writers typically portray the relationship between slaveholders and enslaved people, and how did this portrayal compare to the depiction of slavery in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin? How did the novel affect the abolition movement?

Model response: Proslavery writers often presented slavery as paternalistic, claiming that enslavers cared for those they held and provided lifelong security. Stowe challenged that image by dramatizing family separation, violence, sale, and the denial of freedom. Her enormously popular novel strengthened antislavery sentiment among many Northern readers.

6. What were the main crops grown in the South, and why did cotton become so prominent?

Model response: Southern commercial agriculture included tobacco, rice, sugar, indigo, and especially cotton. The cotton gin made short-staple cotton much easier to process, while British and Northern textile manufacturing created enormous demand. Cotton consequently became the leading Southern export crop and intensified demand for enslaved field labor.

7. As antislavery criticism increased, what proslavery argument was promoted to the nation?

Model response: Influential defenders such as John C. Calhoun and George Fitzhugh increasingly described slavery not as a necessary evil but as a positive good. Fitzhugh and others also attacked Northern wage labor, claiming that Southern paternalism provided greater security than industrial capitalism.

8. Describe the distribution of slaveholding in the South, distinguishing the planter elite, smaller slaveholders, and non-slaveholding farmers.

Model response: Slaveholders were a minority of white Southern households, and the great planters who held very large numbers of enslaved people formed a much smaller elite. Most slaveholders held relatively few people, while many white Southerners held none at all. Nevertheless, the planter class exercised disproportionate political, economic, and cultural influence.

9. Explain how the Old South resembled a feudal society.

Model response: The comparison rests on hierarchy, landed wealth, ideals of chivalry and deference, and the planter elite’s claim to reciprocal obligations between social ranks. The analogy has limits: Southern chattel slavery was a racial, hereditary property system, not medieval serfdom, and the South existed within a modern commercial republic.

10. Compare the working conditions of enslaved people on small farms with those on large plantations.

Model response: Conditions varied greatly. On smaller farms, enslaved people might work directly alongside enslavers and have more frequent contact with them. Large plantations could contain complex labor hierarchies in which field hands, skilled workers, and domestic servants had different tasks and conditions, but all remained subject to coercion, sale, family separation, and punishment.

11. Describe the religious practices of many enslaved people.

Model response: Christianity became central to many enslaved communities, especially through Baptist and Methodist traditions, preaching, prayer meetings, and spirituals. Enslaved Christians often drew particular meaning from biblical narratives of deliverance, especially Exodus. Their religious culture also incorporated distinctive musical and communal practices shaped by African and African American traditions.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

In his “Mud Sill” speech, explain how James Henry Hammond argued for Southern superiority with reference to the South’s territorial extent, its position on the Mississippi, its population, and the importance of cotton.

Model response: Strong essays work from Hammond’s own words and address all four elements named in the prompt. Students should explain how Hammond turns geographic extent, access to the Mississippi, population, and the world’s dependence on cotton into an argument for Southern power and security. Stronger essays will distinguish those economic and geopolitical claims from the moral question of slavery and may note the confidence—and hubris—of an argument delivered in 1858, only three years before secession.

CHAPTER NINE

The Gathering Storm:

A Reckoning Approaches

1821–1861 · pp. 267–303

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

MEXICO WON ITS INDEPENDENCE from Spain in the 1820s, and its government welcomed immigrants from the American South to settle and farm its sparsely settled northeastern province of Texas. But the invitation proved too successful. By 1836, the predominantly Anglo-American settler population of Texas had rebelled against the centralizing government of Antonio López de Santa Anna and won independence from Mexico. Texas then appealed to the U.S. government to be admitted as a state. After nearly a decade of indecision, Congress annexed Texas, resulting in a war with Mexico that concluded in a decisive American victory. With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, Mexico abandoned its claims to Texas above the Rio Grande River and ceded its territories of Alta California and New Mexico to the United States, which had resolved its competing claims with Great Britain to the Oregon territory two years earlier. Only sixty years after the Constitution’s ratification, the United States had become a sprawling transcontinental nation.

The addition of this new land in the Southwest, however, returned the question of slavery to national prominence. Specifically, Congress had to address the status of slavery in the newly acquired territories. In 1846, Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot, while endorsing annexation of Texas as a slave state, proposed that Congress forbid the introduction of slavery to any of the territories acquired in the Mexican War. The Wilmot Proviso passed the House but was rejected by the Senate. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina responded to the Wilmot Proviso with disdain, arguing that slaveholders had a constitutional right to take their slaves into territories if they wished.

Then, as occurs so often in history, the unexpected happened. In 1848, gold was discovered in California, luring some three hundred thousand people to California over a seven-year period – one of the greatest mass migrations in American history. The resulting chaos created a desperate need for organized government to bring law and order, fast-tracking California toward statehood. But the admission of California as a free state would undermine the delicate balance between slave and free states in the Senate and promised to consign the slave South to a permanently shrinking minority.

To allay Southern fears, Henry Clay of Kentucky fashioned a complex, multifaceted package of eight different resolutions, five of which ultimately passed Congress in what is known collectively as the Compromise of 1850. California was admitted as a free state, but the status of slavery in the other territories acquired after the Mexican War was left to their respective electorates, a process known as popular sovereignty. The Compromise crucially included a strengthened Fugitive Slave Law, to compensate the South for its loss of numerical parity with the free states. Northern opponents of slavery were outraged by the Fugitive Slave Law, however, because it compelled their active and direct support of slavery by requiring their cooperation in tracking, capturing, and extraditing runaways. The Wisconsin Supreme Court challenged the federal law and declared it unconstitutional in a state case later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court; several Northern states also enacted personal-liberty laws designed to obstruct or regulate its enforcement.

The push for a transcontinental railroad linking the two coasts also complicated matters. To make his own north-central route more palatable to Southerners, Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed that the land west of Missouri be organized into two territories, the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory, each of which would settle the legality of slavery within its own borders by popular sovereignty. In effect, Douglas proposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise (see chapter 6). The passage of his Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 prompted the rise of the explicitly anti-slavery Republican Party, whose membership coalesced against the extension of slavery in the territories. By 1856, the Republican Party was the second largest party in the country.

Two days after James Buchanan’s inauguration as president, the U.S. Supreme Court published Dred Scott v. Sandford. The incendiary decision ruled that Scott had no standing to sue because he was not a citizen — Taney asserting that the Framers had not intended to extend citizenship rights to Black Americans, that Congress lacked the power to prohibit slavery in territories, and that the Missouri Compromise had accordingly been unconstitutional from the very moment of its passage in 1820. The ruling proved immensely controversial, particularly because it seemed to imply that the territories themselves lacked the constitutional authority to ban slavery, which sharply undermined popular sovereignty as a solution to the territorial slavery question.

Following Dred Scott, the eyes of the nation turned to Stephen Douglas, who was the last remaining Democrat with national appeal. Running for reelection to the Senate in 1858, Douglas faced a formidable challenge from a rising star of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln lost the Senate election to Douglas, but his strong showing in the campaign’s debates made him a national figure, resulting in his eventual success in a rematch with Douglas for the presidency in 1860. While Lincoln won a decisive majority in the Electoral College, however, he gained less than 40 percent of the popular vote in a split election and ominously failed to attract a single Electoral College vote from the South.

In response to Lincoln’s election, South Carolina seceded from the Union. By February 1, 1861, six other southern states had followed suit: Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama. On February 7, the seven states formed the Confederate States of America, adopting a Constitution nearly identical to the U.S. Constitution, but with added limits on government’s power to impose tariffs and with additional protections for slavery. One last congressional attempt at compromise failed, and by the spring of 1861 the stage was set for civil war.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter's end:

How territory acquired in a single decade forced the nation to answer a question it had deferred for forty years, and why each attempt to settle it left the Union nearer to war.

• Why the events of the 1850s must be studied from the vantage point of those who lived through them, setting aside the knowledge that war followed, since contemporaries faced open choices at every stage.

• The origins and course of the Mexican War, from Stephen Austin’s arrival in Texas and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny through the fighting of 1846 to 1848, and the scale of the territory acquired under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

• How Wilmot, Cass, Calhoun, Clay and Webster proposed to settle slavery in the new territories, what the Compromise of 1850 conceded to each side, and why its Fugitive Slave Law made the question unavoidable in states that had never held slaves.

• How the Kansas–Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and reopened a question settled for thirty-four years, and how the violence that followed—Bleeding Kansas, the caning of Charles Sumner, and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry—made further compromise steadily harder to reach.

• The background, reasoning and consequences of the Dred Scott decision, and why a constitutional question answered by the Court proved harder to contain than one settled politically.

• How Lincoln rose from the Lincoln–Douglas debates to the presidency in 1860, and why the Corwin Amendment failed to hold the Union together.

Key Persons

Stephen F. Austin (1793–1836)

Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794–1876)

Samuel Houston (1793–1863)

Winfield Scott (1786–1866)

Zachary Taylor (1784–1850)

John C. Frémont (1813–1890)

Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861)

Millard Fillmore (1800–1874)

William Seward (1801–1872)

John Brown (1800–1859)

Franklin Pierce (1804–1869)

Charles Sumner (1811–1874)

James Buchanan (1791–1868)

Roger B. Taney (1777–1864)

Alexander Stephens (1812–1883)

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889)

Key Concepts and Terms

Republic of Texas

Jacksonian democracy

Young America movement

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Whig Party

Wilmot Proviso

Compromise of 1850

Fugitive Slave Law

Transcontinental railroad

Bleeding Kansas

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Republican Party

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Pottawatomie Massacre

Confederate States of America

Timeline

1821 Stephen F. Austin arrives in Texas with three hundred American settlers (August–December)

1835 The Texas Revolution breaks out after Santa Anna’s rise to power (October 2)

1836 The Republic of Texas declares its independence from Mexico (March 2)

1836 The Texian Army wins the Battle of San Jacinto (April 21)

1836 Sam Houston is elected president of the new Republic of Texas (September 5)

1845 Texas is admitted as the twenty-eighth state (December 29)

1846 The United States declares war on Mexico (May 13)

1847 General Winfield Scott captures Veracruz, Mexico, after a twenty-day siege (March 29)

1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo concludes the Mexican War (February 2)

1850 Congress passes the Compromise of 1850 (September 18)

1854–59 “Bleeding Kansas”: proslavery and antislavery settlers clash violently over the territory’s future

1854 The Republican Party is founded in opposition to expansion of slavery to new territories (March 20)

1854 Congress passes the Kansas–Nebraska Act (May 30)

1856 Congressman Preston Brooks canes Senator Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber (May 22)

1857 The Supreme Court rules against Dred Scott in Dred Scott v. Sandford (March 6)

1858 The Lincoln–Douglas debates (August–October)

1859 John Brown raids Harpers Ferry (October 16)

1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president (November 6)

1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union (December 20)

1861 Delegates from six southern states agree to form the Confederate States of America (February 4–9)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students' progress warrants.

Chapter Nine · The Gathering Storm: A Reckoning Approaches (3 to 6 class periods)

9.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 269–270 (.5 to 1 class)

• The contingency and unpredictability of historical events

• The Mexican War of 1846 as one of the causes of eventual disunion

9.2 The Mexican War – pp. 270–276 (1 to 2 classes)

• American emigration to Mexican territory and the resultant conflict

• The rise to power of Santa Anna and the Texas Revolution

• Hesitation over the admittance of Texas as a state

• The idea of Manifest Destiny

• Annexation and the Mexican War

• The huge addition of territory to the U.S. as a result of Mexico’s defeat

9.3 The Bittersweet Fruits of Victory – pp. 276–282 (.5 to 1 class)

• The intensification of the debate over slavery

• The California Gold Rush and the emergence of California as a free state

• The Compromise of 1850 and the continued deferral of addressing slavery

9.4 Problems with the Compromise of 1850 – pp. 282–288 (.5 to 1 class)

• The nation continues to fray over slavery

• Northerners react negatively to the new fugitive slave law

• The fight over the transcontinental railroad’s location

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and its aftermath

• Violence in the chambers of Congress

9.5 The Dred Scott Decision – pp. 288–292 (.5 to 1 class)

• The Republican Party comes into being

• President Buchanan and Dred Scott v. Sandford

• How the Dred Scott decision further inflamed tensions

9.6 The Rise of Lincoln and the Republicans – pp. 292–301 (1 to 2 classes)

• Senator Stephen Douglas as the last hope for the Democratic Party

• The early life of Abraham Lincoln

• The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858

• John Brown’s Raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia

• Lincoln wins the election of 1860

• Southern Secession

• The Corwin Amendment

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter's epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Epigraph: Samuel Houston, Speech Against Secession, September 22, 1860 (p. 267). Houston asks whether the Union’s progress—power, wealth, expansion, victory, all encompassed within it—is not worth perpetuating, and whether his listeners would exchange it for the anarchy and carnage of civil war. He was governor of Texas when he said it, and he was removed from office five months later for refusing to swear allegiance to the Confederacy. That fact is the epigraph’s teaching value: the man who won Texas its independence and brought it into the Union was turned out by the state he founded for declining to take it back out. Houston appears again as Figure 9.2 and in the chapter’s account of the Texas revolution, so teachers can return to him at the chapter’s end and ask what his warning asked his listeners to weigh.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 9.1. Henry Clay, Senate Speech on Taking up His Compromise Resolutions on the Subject of Slavery, February 5–6, 1850 (p. 280)

Clay was seventy-two and in his last years when he rose to introduce the resolutions that became the Compromise of 1850; he had brokered the Missouri Compromise thirty years earlier and would be dead within two. The passage the book prints is a warning, and what Clay foresaw is the reason to teach it. Clay tells the Senate that dissolution and war are convertible terms—not a risk but the same event under two names—and that the war would be neither short nor containable but interminable and exterminating, ending with some Caesar or Napoleon cutting the Gordian knot and crushing the liberties of both severed portions. He closes by imploring gentlemen from South and North alike to pause at the edge of the precipice. Eleven years later the war came. Students should notice that Clay is not arguing here that slavery is right or wrong; he is arguing about consequences, and that narrowing is itself a fact about how the crisis was debated.

Primary Source 9.2. Abraham Lincoln, Peoria Speech, October 16, 1854 (p. 289)

Lincoln spoke for three hours at Peoria in answer to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and this is the moment his public argument takes the shape it would keep. The passage turns on a single movement: near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal, and now we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a sacred right of self-government. Lincoln notes that Senator Pettit had called the Declaration of Independence a self-evident lie, and treats that as the honest version of what the Nebraska bill implied. The argument is not that slavery is cruel—though he believed it—but that the nation had reversed its founding premise while telling itself it had not. Pair this with Primary Sources 9.3 and 9.4 from the Ottawa debate: the same principle, argued four years later against a named opponent.

Primary Source 9.3. Stephen Douglas, Ottawa Debate, August 21, 1858 (p. 296)

Douglas opens the first of the seven debates by defending popular sovereignty as the principle that guarantees every state and territory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and domestic. His case, as he puts it, is not that slavery is good but that uniformity is the innovation — that the fathers intended institutions to differ, since different climates and interests require different arrangements, and Lincoln’s doctrine of uniformity was never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the framers. He then points to seventy years of growth under that principle—three or four millions become thirty, the Alleghenies crossed, the prairie turned into a garden—and warns that Lincoln’s new doctrine will dissolve the Union by arraying the free states against the slave states. Two things to give students. Douglas is claiming the founders’ authority for himself, which is exactly the ground Lincoln contests at Peoria (Primary Source 9.2). And the stenographic transcript preserves the crowd, applause and heckling included, which is why this reads like a performance rather than an essay. The book is candid that Douglas was caricaturing Lincoln as an abolitionist, something he was not.

Primary Source 9.4. Abraham Lincoln, Ottawa Debate, August 21, 1858 (p. 297)

Lincoln’s reply is a piece of legislative history, and that is what makes it worth teaching beside the Peoria speech. He asks what popular sovereignty actually amounts to after Dred Scott and answers that it lets a territory have slavery if it wants it but does not let it refuse slavery if it does not—because if one man wants slaves, the rest have no way to stop him. His evidence is a vote. When Senator Chase moved an amendment to the Nebraska bill expressly authorizing a territory’s people to prohibit slavery, Douglas and those acting with him voted it down, and Lincoln argues the opening was left for the Dred Scott decision to occupy. Where Primary Source 9.2 argues from the Declaration, this argues from a roll call. Students can be asked which is the stronger move before an Illinois crowd, and why a politician might need both. The book records the cost of the day honestly: Lincoln was caricaturing Douglas as a proslavery Southern sympathizer, which he was not, and neither man rose above the crowd’s assumptions about racial equality.

Figures

Figure 9.1. Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap, George Caleb Bingham, 1851–52 (p. 266)

The chapter-opening plate, facing the Houston epigraph. Bingham depicts Boone leading an exodus through the limestone pass of the Cumberland Gap into the Kentucky frontier, and the book notes it was painted at the height of nineteenth-century westward expansion. The composition argues rather than reports: Boone advances out of shadow into light at the head of a column arranged like a procession, a woman on a white horse at its center. Bingham was a Missouri painter and a Whig politician who served in the state legislature, and he made the picture more than sixty years after the events it shows. Opening the chapter with an image of confident westward movement is deliberate: what follows is about what that movement cost, and about the question the new territory forced the nation to answer.

Figure 9.4. American Progress, John Gast, 1872 (p. 273)

The most reproduced image of Manifest Destiny, and the book’s caption explains it precisely: commissioned by the publisher George Crofutt, it serves as an allegory, showing Columbia—a personification of America—with a school book in her right hand and telegraph wire in her left, representing the movement of civilization from east to west. The details repay a minute’s attention. Light follows Columbia and darkness precedes her; settlers, stagecoaches and three railroads advance behind her while Native peoples and bison flee before her. Crofutt reproduced the image in his western travel guides, so the painting was advertising as much as allegory. Ask students what the school book and the telegraph wire are meant to prove, and what the picture must leave out to prove it.

Figure 9.9. Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law, Theodor Kaufmann, 1850 (p. 285)

The book’s caption states the case: the illustration condemns the Fugitive Slave Act, which enraged Northerners by forcing them to assist slave catchers under threat of fines and jail, and it depicts four slaves pursued by an armed posse. This is the provision that made the Compromise hardest to sustain in the North. Earlier sectional bargains had drawn lines on a map and asked each side to stay behind them; this one reached into the free states and conscripted their citizens. A northerner who had never seen slavery could now be fined for declining to help capture someone fleeing it. The chapter’s argument is that the Compromise failed not because it was unfair but because it made the question unavoidable everywhere, and this image is the evidence for it.

Figure 9.11. Southern Chivalry – Argument Versus Club’s [sic], John L. Magee, 1856 (p. 291)

The book’s caption gives the facts: Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacking Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate chamber with a cane on May 22, 1856, and the badly injured senator unable to resume his full-time duties for three years. Brooks was censured, resigned, and was returned by his district almost unanimously; admirers sent him replacement canes. Magee’s title carries the charge: chivalry answering speech with a club. The event belongs in the chapter for what it demonstrated rather than what it changed: the attack took place on the floor of the Senate, the place designed for argument. The caning and Bleeding Kansas fell in the same week.

Figure 9.13. Debate Between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, unknown artist, 1858 (p. 296)

An engraving of the 1858 Illinois senatorial race. The book calls it a pivotal moment in American oratory, setting Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty against Lincoln’s moral critique of slavery’s expansion, and notes that reports of the debates circulated nationally. The seven debates ran three hours each, in the open air, before crowds of thousands, with newspaper stenographers taking down every word—which is why Primary Sources 9.3 and 9.4 exist at all. Douglas won the Senate seat. Lincoln gained a national reputation two years later, and the record of what each man actually said, printed in full and read across the country, is the closest thing the period offers to a national argument conducted in public.

Figure 9.15. John Brown, John Steuart Curry, 1939 (p. 299)

Curry paints Brown in evangelical fervor, arms outstretched, a tornado behind him—the book notes the storm captures the intense conflict that turned Kansas Territory into a Civil War battleground. The date matters more than anything in the composition: 1939, eighty years after Harpers Ferry, painted as a mural for the Kansas statehouse. Curry was rendering Kansas’s memory of Brown rather than Brown himself, and the mural was contentious enough in Kansas that he left it unsigned. Students who have learned to ask when a source was made, and for whom, have everything they need here: this is evidence about how the twentieth century chose to remember a man the nineteenth could not agree about.

Maps

Map 9.1. The Historical Expansion of the United States, 1783–1853 (p. 279)

The book’s caption is brief—the map illustrates the major land acquisitions that redefined the borders of the United States over nearly 150 years—Use it to trace the territorial acquisitions against which the free/slave crisis unfolded. The chapter’s crises turn repeatedly on territory: the Louisiana Purchase, the annexation of Texas, the Oregon settlement and the Mexican Cession each added land that had to be classified free or slave. Have students trace the acquisitions in order and note how quickly they came after 1845. The sectional crisis was not a slow drift but the consequence of adding an empire’s worth of land in a single decade to a country with no agreed rule for what to do with it.

Map 9.2. The Compromise of 1850 (p. 283)

The book’s caption explains the bargain: the Great Compromise Henry Clay created to address the question of slavery in the territories added after the Mexican War. California was admitted as a free state, and to offset that loss the free states agreed to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. Read the map beside Figure 9.9 and Primary Source 9.1—Clay warning the Senate what dissolution would mean, the bargain he built to prevent it, and the provision that made the bargain intolerable. Students should be able to say what each side received and what each gave up, then judge whether a settlement that satisfied nobody held for a decade.

Map 9.3. Kansas–Nebraska Act, 1854 (p. 286)

Douglas proposed organizing the land between the Mississippi and the Rockies into two territories that would decide the question of slavery by popular sovereignty. The book states the consequence plainly: this repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. That is the hinge of the chapter. For thirty-four years the line at 36°30′ had settled the question geographically; Kansas–Nebraska reopened it and made every new territory contestable. Lincoln returned to public life because of this act, and Primary Source 9.2 is his answer to it. Compare this map with Map 9.4 to see what the repeal opened.

Map 9.4. The Comparative Area of the Free and Slave States, and the Territory Open to Slavery or Freedom by the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, circa 1865 (p. 292)

A free-soil argument in cartographic form. The book explains that it shows the slave, free and undecided territories after the repeal, and that before it slavery would not have been permitted above the 36°30′ line. The map exists to make a political case—look how much has been opened—and should be read as advocacy rather than neutral description, which makes it a natural companion to the reliability work in the Figure 9.15 exercise. Ask students who would make a map like this, and who was meant to see it.

Map 9.5. The Election of 1860 (p. 300)

The book’s caption states the result: the slavery-driven fault lines of the national political situation seen vividly, a four-way split from a fractured Democratic Party allowing Lincoln to secure a decisive Electoral College victory with only 40 percent of the popular vote. The map is the chapter’s conclusion in one image. Lincoln carried no southern state—in most he was not on the ballot—and won anyway, which is what convinced secessionists that the ordinary workings of the constitutional system could now produce a president the South had no voice in choosing. Have students set this map beside Map 9.1: the same country seventy-seven years apart, the acquisitions of the first become the fault lines of the second.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter's subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

• Alter, Judy and Debra Winegarten. The Second Battle of the Alamo: How Two Women Saved Texas’ Most Famous Landmark. Helena, MT: TwoDot Books, 2020. • This book credits Adina Emilia De Zavala and Clara Driscoll, two strong-willed Texans, with preserving the San Antonio site of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo.

• Benet, Stephen Vincent. John Brown’s Body. New York: Rinehart & Company, 1954. • The first part of this book-length epic poem narrates the story of the Harpers Ferry raid in detail and includes a penetrating psychological analysis of “weird John Brown.” The book as a whole remains one of the best single works on the Civil War.

• Blight, David W. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018.

• Craven, Avery. The Coming of the Civil War. New York: Charles Scribner, 1942.

• Delbanco, Andrew. The Abolitionist Imagination. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012.

• Delbanco, Andrew. The War before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War. New York: Penguin Press, 2018.

• Douglass, Frederick. Autobiographies. New York: Library of America, 1994. • This collection includes Douglass’s three major autobiographical works, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892).

• Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion, vol. 1, Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

• Huffines, Alan and Gary S. Zaboly. Blood of Noble Men: The Alamo Siege & Battle. Eakin Press: Austin, TX, 2006. • This is the best single work on the Alamo. Well-illustrated, it describes events day-by-day (the siege lasted thirteen days) and gathers primary source accounts, so that their discrepancies can be discerned, if not entirely resolved.

• Jaffa, Harry V. Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln–Douglas Debate. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959.

• Johanssen, Robert W. To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

• Roberts, Randy and James S. Olson. A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory. Washington, DC: The Free Press, 2002. • The first third of this book gives a succinct account of the Texas Revolution and the Alamo; the middle third examines the Disney and John Wayne films; and the last third deals with the place of the Alamo in both history and cultural memory.

• Smith, Ted A. Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.

• Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Three Novels: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly”; “The Minister’s Wooing”; “Oldtown Folks.” New York: Library of America, 1982.

• Walther, Eric H. The Fire-Eaters. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

9.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 269–270)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 269–270, the chapter opening.

Exercise: The Chapter Epigraph and Figure 9.1, Bingham’s Cumberland Gap.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why historians resist calling the war inevitable.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Nine, Section Two, “The Mexican War” (pp. 270–276).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The need for entering into historical study from the perspective of the time under investigation, setting aside knowledge of subsequent events, and adopting the vantage point of contemporary figures.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Review the landmark events prior to the Mexican War of 1846 that contributed to the eventual Civil War.

• Reflect on the importance of viewing history as a story of possibilities rather than inevitabilities.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1820 The Missouri Compromise draws its line at 36°30′

1845 Texas is annexed

1846–48 The Mexican War

1850 The Compromise of 1850

1854 The Kansas–Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise

1857 The Dred Scott decision

1860 Lincoln is elected

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

As students of history, we are always tempted to see past eras as inevitably culminating in events of which we are already aware. This bias makes our default perspectives very different from those of history’s actual participants. We must always strive to remember that history is a story of contingencies and possibilities.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Contingency: The principle that events had open outcomes at the time, whatever they look like in retrospect. The chapter opens on it because the war’s having come makes every prior step look like a march toward it.

Sectionalism: Loyalty to the interests of one region over the nation as a whole. The chapter traces its hardening from a difference of interest into a difference of principle.

Manifest Destiny: The belief that American expansion across the continent was both justified and inevitable. Figure 9.4 is its clearest visual statement.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Encourage students to read the introductory section of Chapter Nine.

Assign the following questions: Which other war tends to color modern study of the Mexican War?

What is a “terminus”? How does it relate to the central message of the introduction?

What was the original purpose of the Missouri Compromise? What were its terms?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Civic Discourse: Encourage students to review and discuss the landmark events prior to the Mexican War that ultimately contributed to the Civil War’s outbreak. Start by having students brainstorm individually to see how many events they can think of on their own. These may include the beginning of the slave trade, the 3/5 Compromise in the Constitution, the invention of the Cotton Gin, the Missouri Compromise, the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or many other possible events. After giving students time to think, lead a full class discussion, writing examples on the board and inviting students to explain the significance of each in the context of the later outbreak of Civil War. Was the country on the trajectory to such conflict before the Mexican War? Why did a civil war not break out earlier than it did? What could have happened differently if one of these landmark events had played out differently?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: The author asserts that “History is only very rarely the story of inevitabilities, and it almost never appears in that form to its participants.” Ask students to reflect on the following questions, either in their notes or together in a class discussion: a. Why do you think the author includes this segment in the text?

What habit of mind is the author saying should be resisted?

Why is it important to try to think about events from the perspective of the people who lived them?

Further: Choose a historical event previously discussed in class and consider two possible characterizations of it. This type of historical reflection can help students think about history using the habits of mind suggested by the author. Another mental exercise would be to think about the present moment of history. In terms of politics, policy, or international relations, what sorts of possibilities are there? We don’t know how events will play out in the future, and neither did the people who lived in these eras we are studying.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

Why should historians resist the urge to claim that the Civil War was inevitable?

Insight: Because the Civil War came, it is tempting to think that every event leading up to it caused or foreshadowed disunion. But this kind of thinking prevents us from considering the role of contingency and chance in history – i.e., moments when developments could have gone multiple ways. Also, the historical actors at the time (and we in the present) did not believe that there was a foreordained outcome.

Why is it important to consider the Mexican War as one of the most important events that led up to the Civil War?

Insight: The Mexican War was one of the contingent events that made the later crisis harder to avoid. Although it was short and decisive in favor of the Americans, the territory gained from the victory reintroduced the problem of the expansion of slavery to the western territories that seemed to have been temporarily solved with the Missouri Compromise. The Mexican War is a demonstration of the proverb “Be careful what you wish for.”

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

In what year did the Missouri Compromise draw its line, and at what latitude?

Acceptable responses: 1820, at 36°30′.

Explain

Why does the chapter warn against treating the Civil War as inevitable?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: hindsight makes every prior event look like a step toward the war, but contemporaries faced open choices at each point—the Mexican War, the Compromise, Kansas–Nebraska—and different decisions were genuinely available.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson's threads together.

It is easy to make the mistake of viewing historical events exclusively within the context of everything we know about subsequent developments. It is easy to forget, for instance, that those living at the time of the Mexican War were unaware that the Civil War would commence only fifteen years later. In order to gain a true understanding of past events while studying history, we must learn to adopt the perspective of the people under study.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The next lesson examines the Mexican War itself—how Texas, Manifest Destiny, and disputed borders produced conflict, and how victory added the vast western territories that would reopen the slavery question.

Language Support

For students still building academic English—words for what they can already grasp, drawn from the lesson’s central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: inevitable, contingent, sectional, compromise

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Historians resist calling the war inevitable because __.” “One choice that could have gone differently was __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

9.2 The Mexican War (pp. 270–276)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 270–276.

Exercise: Analyzing Figures on Gast’s American Progress (Figure 9.4).

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the Mexican War as a contingent event.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Nine, Section Three, “The Bittersweet Fruits of Victory” (pp. 276–282).

Essential Understanding

The background of the Mexican War from the arrival of Stephen Austin in Texas, the concept of Manifest Destiny, the course of the war from 1846 to 1848, and the scale of the annexation that resulted from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze the causes and effects of the Mexican War.

• Describe the concept of Manifest Destiny.

Key Dates

1821 Stephen F. Austin arrives in Texas with three hundred American settlers (August–December)

1835 The Texas Revolution breaks out after Santa Anna’s rise to power (October 2)

1836 The Republic of Texas declares its independence from Mexico (March 2)

1836 The Texian Army wins the Battle of San Jacinto (April 21)

1836 Sam Houston is elected president of the new Republic of Texas (September 5)

1845 Texas is admitted as the twenty-eighth state (December 29)

1846 The United States declares war on Mexico (May 13)

1847 General Winfield Scott captures Veracruz, Mexico, after a twenty-day siege (March 29)

1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo concludes the Mexican War (February 2)

Key Concepts

At the Battle of the San Jacinto River, a largely untrained but fiercely motivated force of American expatriates under Sam Houston’s command surprised a much larger Mexican Army, defeated it in a matter of minutes, and took its leader Santa Anna prisoner, securing Texas’s independence.

A month after the establishment of the Republic of Texas, a plebiscite was held that indicated an overwhelming majority of Texans wanted their newly independent nation to become part of the United States. As such, Houston appealed to the U.S. government to consider annexation.

Jackson quickly extended diplomatic recognition to the new Republic of Texas but quietly deferred on the question of annexation, as did his successor, Martin van Buren. The matter drifted into the 1840s, still unresolved.

A proponent of annexation coined the term “Manifest Destiny,” championing a vision of U.S. expansion across the great North American landmass, stretching “from sea to shining sea,” from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. The phrase supplied the language in which expansion was justified.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred more than half a million square miles of Mexican territory to the United States, in addition to Mexico’s recognition of the Rio Grande as the Texas boundary. Having also acquired the Oregon Territory two years before by treaty with Great Britain, the United States had suddenly and dramatically become transcontinental.

Key Terms

Republic of Texas: This short-lived sovereign republic lasted from the Texas Revolution in 1836 until U.S. annexation in 1845.

Alamo: This old Spanish mission at San Antonio was famously occupied by Texas rebels until the Mexican army under Santa Anna slaughtered its small but valiant garrison.

Manifest Destiny: Coined by the journalist John L. O’Sullivan in his advocacy for Texas annexation, this term refers to the idea that American westward expansion was divinely ordained, promising to result in “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence.”

Young America movement: This group, of which O’Sullivan was a leading voice, applied the spirit of Jacksonian democracy to westward expansion, arguing that it was legitimated by America’s high political ideals.

Whig Party: Formed in the 1830s around opposition to Andrew Jackson, this political party generally opposed the Mexican War as an unjust attempt to increase the number of slave states in the Union.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the second section of Chapter Nine, “The Mexican War.”

Assign several of the following questions: What were the consequences of the Mexican War?

Who were Stephen F. Austin, Antonio López de Santa Anna, and Sam Houston?

What happened at the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto?

Why was the Republic of Texas not immediately annexed by the United States?

What and where are the “halls of Montezuma”?

Which treaty ceded Mexico’s claim to Texas above the Rio Grande? What other territories were transferred?

Which president succeeded President Jackson?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

• Analyzing Figures: Have students analyze and reflect on John Gast’s painting, American Progress (Figure 9.4) using the following questions:

• What does the painting depict? What stands out?

• When was it made?

• What direction are people traveling? Why?

• How does the left side of the painting compare to the right? What does this represent?

• What is the meaning of the painting? What does it say about this time period of American history?

• Define, in your own words, the idea of Manifest Destiny, and summarize how it is being depicted in this painting.

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Have students analyze the Mexican War in terms of Causes and Effects. On a chart or a graphic organizer, instruct students to make a bullet point list of all the factors that led to the cause of the war, these will include the Anglo migration into Texas, the Revolution and annexation, the belief in Manifest Destiny, and the Southern fears about the influence of the British. On the effects side of the chart, students should include the expansion of territory, the realization of Manifest Destiny including the coast of California. Additional effects that will be described in the next section of reading: The increasingly hostile disputes about whether new western territories would be free territories or slave territories. Teachers might ask students, here, to predict what the additional effects will be, before moving on to the next section of the reading.

• Further: Additional questions that can be used as a written response or class discussion: Why did Jackson resist armed conflict with Mexico, but Polk embraced it? What did the northern Whigs think about the war, and why? Is there anything Mexico could have done that would have avoided this war?

• Argumentation: Mexico still refused to recognize Texan independence in 1845. Could war with the United States, following annexation, have been avoided? Ask students to consider this question and then discuss in class.

• Civic Discourse: Have students identify the genesis for the Whig Party. What were their concerns regarding the Polk administration? Were they well founded?

• Debate: Ask students to decide whether the U.S. annexation of Texas and its acquisition of the rest of the Southwest was justified. They should also assess the rationale of the Texas Revolution. How do students think this revolution compares to the rationale for the American Revolution? Stage a debate in class and then vote on the matter to see if any opinions changed.

Civic Discourse: The Mexican War was contested in Congress while it was being fought. Divide the class and have each side prepare from the chapter. Ask students to do the following:

State the strongest case for the war as its supporters made it, in three sentences, before you evaluate it.

State the strongest case against it as its opponents made it, in three sentences.

Identify the one factual claim both sides accepted, and the one they could not settle.

Insight: Opposition to the Mexican War was not marginal—it cost the Whigs and made careers for its critics. Requiring students to state a position before answering it is the civic skill this chapter rewards most, because the whole period is a record of Americans who stopped being able to do it.

Further: Ask which of the two cases would have been harder to make in 1846, and which is harder to make now.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did the Texas Revolution come about?

Insight: Following its independence from Spain, Mexico invited Americans to immigrate to Texas to populate this northern region. American immigrants soon overwhelmed the Mexicans, and after Santa Anna took over the Mexican government and abolished the Mexican state legislatures, Texas rebelled, eventually defeating Mexico and becoming an independent republic. Texas then applied for admission to the United States.

What was “Manifest Destiny” and why was it important for understanding western expansion?

Insight: Coined by the journalist John O’Sullivan, the phrase “Manifest Destiny” referred to the apparently divinely ordained calling of the United States to populate the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The phrase captured the optimistic attitude of many Americans who believed in spreading liberty and democracy across the continent. This belief made it difficult to resist attempts to expand the country, such as Texas’s application for admission to the Union.

What were the important outcomes of the Mexican War?

Insight: In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war after an American victory, Mexico ceded the territory of present-day Utah, New Mexico, California, and several other western states to the United States. This treaty, combined with the acquisition of Oregon from Britain, meant that the United States now controlled territory that spanned the continent. To top it all off, gold was soon discovered in California, triggering the famous gold rush.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

Which territory did the United States gain from Mexico, and under what treaty?

Acceptable responses: The Mexican Cession, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848).

Explain

Why did victory in the Mexican War create a political crisis rather than settle one?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the new territory had to be classified free or slave, and no agreed rule existed for doing so. The war added the land that made the sectional question unavoidable.

Daily Recap

The Mexican War relates to several of the overarching themes of American history, particularly that of westward expansion. Manifest Destiny supplied the language in which expansion was justified. Mexico had itself recently declared its independence from a European colonial empire (that of Spain, in 1821). Moreover, the war had important implications for the pernicious issue of slavery, which shaped much of the action (and inaction) of Congress regarding the Republic of Texas.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson follows the political consequences of victory: California’s rapid growth, the Wilmot Proviso, and competing proposals for deciding slavery’s status in the newly acquired West.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: annexation, cession, Manifest Destiny, treaty

Frames that carry the reasoning: “The United States gained __ from Mexico under the Treaty of __.” “This mattered because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

9.3 The Bittersweet Fruits of Victory (pp. 276–282)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 276–282.

Exercise: Map 9.1, the historical expansion of the United States; Primary Source 9.1, Clay before the Senate.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why victory created a crisis.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Nine, Section Four, “Problems with the Compromise of 1850” (pp. 282–288).

Essential Understanding

The political aftermath of the Mexican War, particularly the debate between various storied representatives (such as Wilmot, Cass, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster) over the question of how to address the issue of slavery.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain why California wanted to be admitted to the Union as a free state.

• Describe the motivations of the representatives who negotiated the Compromise of 1850.

Key Dates

1850 Congress passes the Compromise of 1850 (September 18)

Key Concepts

Many Americans exulted over their defeat of Mexico as an event of world-historical importance, an affirmation of republicanism and democracy over the lingering authoritarianism of the Old World, resulting in an outburst of patriotic sentiment.

Yet the war’s concluding terms soon aggravated domestic tension over slavery. The admission of California as a free state threatened to undermine the Senate’s balance and to consign the slave South to being a permanent and shrinking minority, a mere corner of the newly continental country.

At the heart of the Compromise of 1850 was an attempt to entice the South to accept the minority status it feared, by having the North agree to measures that would protect, affirm, and entrench the “peculiar institution” deemed essential to the southern way of life.

Key Terms

Wilmot Proviso: This congressional proposal, named after its author David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, advocated the prohibition of slavery to any of the territories acquired in the Mexican War; it proved highly controversial and was ultimately defeated in the Senate.

Popular sovereignty: This term refers to the practice of deferring to local territorial plebiscites in determining the legality of slavery in the American West. It was described by its chief proponent, Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan, as a system that would allow the territories to “regulate their own internal concerns in their own way.”

Compromise of 1850: Championed by an aging Henry Clay, this set of several different resolutions passed Congress in September, 1850, enabling the entry of California as a free state in exchange for various concessions to supporters of slavery.

Fugitive Slave Law: Part of the Compromise of 1850, this much-strengthened law was the central compensation for the unequal standing in the Senate that the admission of California imposed upon the South. It required active cooperation by citizens and officials to return runaway slaves and was deeply unpopular in the North.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the third section of Chapter Nine, “The Bittersweet Fruits of Victory.”

Assign several of the following questions: How did the growth of the United States in 1846–48 upset the delicate political balance of the nation?

What antithetical positions regarding slavery were advocated by David Wilmot and John C. Calhoun?

What was popular sovereignty?

Who was the main architect of the Compromise of 1850? What were its elements? What did it settle? What did it not settle?

What was the Fugitive Slave Act?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

• Writing Skills: California has just made an inquiry to the federal government about gaining statehood. Have students imagine that they are the President’s chief advisor on the issue and ask them to write a brief letter detailing the advantages and disadvantages of granting statehood, together with a recommendation.

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Lead students through an analysis of the Compromise of 1850, using the characters involved and the motivations for agreeing to make this deal. Start with the Northern States and California. What did they want? What did they get out of the final compromise? Then move to the South. What did they want? What arguments did they make? What did they ultimately get? Finally, review the roles of the people involved, asking students to identify who they were and how they were involved in the Compromise of 1850: John Calhoun, Zachary Taylor, Henry Clay, and William Seward.

Geography

Have students study Map 9.1, the historical expansion of the United States, 1783–1853. Ask students the following questions:

Put the acquisitions in order and note the year of each. How many years separate the first from the last? How many separate the Texas annexation from the Mexican Cession?

The chapter states that with Texas included, the Mexican Cession added nearly one million square miles. Roughly what share of the country in 1845 was that?

Which acquisitions lay wholly north of 36°30′, which wholly south, and which straddled it?

Insight: The sectional crisis was not a slow drift. Nearly half the continental United States was acquired in the single decade after 1845, by a country whose only rule for classifying new land—the Missouri Compromise line—had been drawn for territory acquired twenty-five years earlier and did not reach the Pacific.

Further: Ask students what rule they would have proposed in 1848, and what objection the other section would have raised.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What was the Wilmot Proviso and why was it controversial?

Insight: The Wilmot Proviso was a rider to a military appropriations bill in Congress that would have outlawed slavery in the entirety of the territory ceded by Mexico after the Mexican War (Mexican Cession). It did not pass. The Proviso was bitterly opposed by southerners such as John C. Calhoun, who argued that slaveholders had the constitutional right to bring slaves – their property – into any territory of the United States.

Why did California’s application for statehood cause a national crisis?

Insight: California applied for admission as a free state. If California was admitted without admitting further slave states, then the slave states would be overwhelmed by both the larger number of free states and the larger, and growing, population within the free states. Many southerners began to argue that secession was the only way to protect slavery.

What were the important elements of the Compromise of 1850?

Insight: (1) California was admitted as a free state. (2) Future states in the Mexican Cession would determine the status of slavery for themselves, known as popular sovereignty. (3) Congress passed a stronger version of the Fugitive Slave Law that required runaway slaves to be returned to their owners, even if those slaves went to free states.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

What did Henry Clay warn the Senate that dissolution and war were?

Acceptable responses: Convertible terms—dissolution and war as the same event under two names.

Explain

Why does the chapter call the fruits of victory bittersweet?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the Mexican Cession fulfilled a generation’s expansionist ambition and simultaneously forced the question the Union had been deferring since 1820.

Daily Recap

The events of 1850 further highlight the importance of compromise, while also foreshadowing how the failure of that spirit can lead to violent conflict. As the Union was transformed by additional annexations, its political leaders had to devise agreements that promised to maintain the existing balance of power. As the book puts it, problems in politics are often not solved so much as managed, and it is in the unromantic work of preventing the worst from happening that statesmanship shows itself to best effect. The Compromise created breathing room, though Clay and Webster would soon pass from the scene.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson tests whether the Compromise of 1850 actually settled the sectional crisis, focusing on the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas–Nebraska Act—measures that carried the slavery controversy into free states and reopened territory once closed to slavery.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: dissolution, secession, free state, slave state

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Clay warned the Senate that __.” “The victory was bittersweet because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

9.4 Problems with the Compromise of 1850 (pp. 282–288)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 282–288.

Exercise: Maps 9.2 and 9.3 with Figure 9.9, the Fugitive Slave Law.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why the Compromise did not hold.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Nine, Section Five, “The Dred Scott Decision” (pp. 288–292).

Essential Understanding

The beginnings of the descent toward violent conflict in the 1850s, stemming from the Compromise of 1850 and worsening with the Kansas-Nebraska Act; the breakdown of civility in the territories and in Congress.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe how Northerners reacted to the Fugitive Slave Act.

• Explain why the policy of “popular sovereignty” ended up causing a violent conflict.

Key Dates

1854–59 “Bleeding Kansas”: proslavery and antislavery settlers clash violently over the territory’s future

1854 Congress passes the Kansas–Nebraska Act (May 30)

1856 Congressman Preston Brooks canes Senator Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber (May 22)

Key Concepts

The Compromise of 1850 did not achieve any ultimate solutions, but it did mitigate the country’s divisions. It reduced political tension, quieted secession talk, and allowed perspective and breathing room for the emergence of other, better solutions.

For many Northerners, though, the Fugitive Slave Law ultimately proved unbearable. It required them to support an institution with which many vehemently disagreed, demanding their cooperation in the capture and extradition of men and women who were merely seeking the conditions under which they could enjoy the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to which the Declaration said they were entitled.

Violent conflict first broke out in the Kansas Territory following the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The spectacle of “Bleeding Kansas” soon became a national disgrace, as the embattled would-be state soon found itself pulled between the claims of two competing state governments with rival constitutions. The episode showed how badly popular sovereignty could fail in practice, exacerbating the country’s growing discord over slavery.

Key Terms

Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 and set in the American South, this bestselling novel had a profound effect on the abolitionist movements of Great Britain and the United States.

Transcontinental railroad: Construction of a railroad that spanned the continent was ultimately completed with significant congressional support in 1869; its proposed path was significant to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Kansas-Nebraska Act: Championed by Stephen Douglas, this legislation created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise by enabling the potential legalization of slavery in the territories through popular sovereignty.

Bleeding Kansas: This term refers to the civil conflict waged by competing settlement communities in the Kansas Territory from approximately 1854 to 1859.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the fourth section of Chapter Nine, “Problems with the Compromise of 1850.”

Assign several of the following questions: How did northern states react to the new Fugitive Slave Law?

What was the social impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

Who drafted the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

What notable event involved Charles Sumner and Preston Brooks?

What was the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre? Why did John Brown and his sons attack the settlement?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

• Civic Discourse: Ask students to explain why the Fugitive Slave Act provoked strong reactions in the North. What new requirement was being placed on regular Northerners that had not existed before? Why was this new requirement especially outrageous to Northerners? Invite students to share their explanations with the class. Clarify for the class that Northerners were now in a position where they would need to actively participate in the institution of slavery. They could no longer simply co-exist with the fact that it was happening in the South.

• Further questions for discussion: How did the Northern states legally respond to this law? What does this reveal about the condition of the Union at this point in time?

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to analyze the reasons why the policy of popular sovereignty backfired. Start by reviewing the definition with the class to ensure that everyone understands that it would allow a territory to decide for itself, by voting, whether the territory would allow slavery or not. Next, instruct students to divide their notes into two sections: 1) Why lawmakers supported popular sovereignty, and 2) Why popular sovereignty backfired. Allow students to work in pairs or small groups to write two or three reasons for each section. Afterward, in a full class discussion, ask students to share answers and review as a class.

• Insight: This can be a good place to incorporate Lincoln’s “Peoria Speech” (Primary Source 9.2), where Lincoln explains his fundamental disagreement with popular sovereignty: The principle of natural rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence is in conflict with the idea that territories should be given the power to legalize slavery. Additional and more detailed arguments regarding popular sovereignty can be found in the Lincoln-Douglas debates using the Ottawa Debate (Primary Sources 9.3 and 9.4).

Geography

Have students compare Map 9.3, the Kansas–Nebraska Act, with Map 9.4, the comparative area of the free and slave states. Ask students the following questions:

On Map 9.3, locate Kansas and Nebraska. Under the Missouri Compromise, which of them would have been closed to slavery, and why?

On Map 9.4, find the territory shaded as open to slavery after the repeal. Roughly how much larger is it than the territory that was open before?

Map 9.4 was made to alarm people. Does that make it inaccurate?

Insight: The Kansas–Nebraska Act did not extend slavery anywhere by itself; it removed the rule that had kept the question closed north of 36°30′ for thirty-four years. Map 9.4 shows what that removal made possible rather than what happened, which is why it persuaded so many northerners who had accepted the earlier compromises.

Further: The map measures area. Ask students what the same comparison would look like measured by population instead, and why a free-soil mapmaker chose area.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What was the reaction to the new Fugitive Slave Law in the North?

Insight: Opposition was bitter and widespread because the law required northern states to actively assist in returning slaves to their owners. With this law, northerners now not only had to tolerate the existence of slavery in the South, they had to actively support the “peculiar institution” by returning runaway slaves.

How did the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 reignite sectional conflict over slavery in the territories?

Insight: To secure the building of the transcontinental railroad, Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed to organize part of the western lands into two territories – Kansas and Nebraska – and to allow both territories to determine the status of slavery for themselves. This immediately created sectional conflict because Kansas and Nebraska were north of the Missouri Compromise line. The Act thus effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise that had previously prohibited slavery above the 36°30′ line. This led to “Bleeding Kansas” when proslavery and antislavery settlers attacked each other as they attempted to either allow or prohibit slavery in that territory.

How did the reaction to Preston Brooks’s attack on Senator Charles Sumner demonstrate the growing sectional divide?

Insight: Brooks beat Sumner with a cane and nearly killed him for making a speech attacking Brooks’s cousin, Andrew Butler, for supporting slavery. The North denounced this seemingly barbaric attack, while the South praised Brooks and sent him additional canes as presents.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

Name two provisions of the Compromise of 1850.

Acceptable responses: California admitted as a free state; the Fugitive Slave Law strengthened and enforced in the free states. Any two from the chapter.

Explain

Why did the Fugitive Slave Law make the Compromise harder to sustain?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: it reached into the free states and compelled their citizens to assist slave catchers under threat of fines and jail, so a northerner who had never seen slavery was now implicated in it.

Daily Recap

One of the notable patterns in the early history of the United States was Congress’s tendency to defer on the slavery question whenever the issue became prominent. This process began to become untenable in the 1850s, as the nation settled into two distinct camps who viewed each other’s position as incompatible with the principles of the Constitution. Such a situation made compromise far harder, leading to the outbreak of violence. Bleeding Kansas attests to the German general Carl von Clausewitz’s observation that, “war is merely a continuation of politics by other means.”

Looking Ahead

The next lesson moves the unresolved territorial question from Congress and Kansas to the Supreme Court, where Dred Scott attempted a constitutional settlement and instead intensified the sectional conflict.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: fugitive, compromise, enforcement, popular sovereignty

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Under the Compromise of 1850, the North received __ and the South received __.” “The Fugitive Slave Law angered Northerners because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

9.5 The Dred Scott Decision (pp. 288–292)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 288–292.

Exercise: Analyzing Figures on Magee’s Southern Chivalry (Figure 9.11); Primary Source 9.2, Lincoln at Peoria.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what the Court decided and what followed.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Nine, Section Six, “The Rise of Lincoln and the Republicans” (pp. 292–301).

Essential Understanding

The background, details, and consequences of the Dred Scott decision.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the legal reasoning of the Dred Scott decision.

• Analyze the effects of the Dred Scott decision.

Key Dates

1854 The Republican Party is founded in opposition to expansion of slavery to new territories (March 20)

1857 The Supreme Court rules against Dred Scott in Dred Scott v. Sandford (March 6)

Key Concepts

By 1856, the Republican Party had become the second largest party in the country; the largest, the Democratic Party, was struggling to avoid disintegrating into its northern and southern elements, just as the Whig Party had done after the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

The Republicans campaigned on a platform that combined classic Whig issues, such as the promotion of internal improvements and protective tariffs, with firm opposition to the expansion of slavery in the territories. It unified around opposition to the extension of slavery into the territories, drawing antislavery members from the Democratic, Whig, and Free-Soil parties.

Before Dred Scott, Congress had repeatedly treated slavery as subject to territorial restriction, most notably under the Missouri Compromise. The ruling threatened to reverse that state of affairs, however, particularly because the Court’s reasoning denied Congress the power to prohibit slavery in the territories and raised alarming questions for antislavery Northerners about how far constitutional protection for slave property might extend.

Key Terms

Republican Party: Founded in 1854 by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, this political party originally coalesced around opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories.

Dred Scott v. Sandford: This Supreme Court ruling held that slaves cannot be considered U.S. citizens and that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to ban slavery from the territories. Highly controversial and now considered notorious, the opinion seemed to undermine the doctrine of popular sovereignty and escalated tensions between pro- and anti-slavery forces in the run-up to the Civil War.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the fifth section of Chapter Nine, “The Dred Scott Decision.”

Assign the following questions: When and why did the Republican Party emerge? How was it unique in American history up to that point?

How can the following sentence from the text be completed: “President Buchanan was ineffective in dealing with the crisis in Kansas, but the Supreme Court made things far worse with the _____ decision”? (Dred Scott)

Who was Mr. Scott? What did he want?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

• Close Reading: Ask students to analyze the Dred Scott case by dividing their notes into three sections: 1) Dred Scott’s story, 2) Taney’s decision, and 3) Effects of the case. Instruct students to include bullet point descriptions for each section in their own words to understand each element better.

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to imagine how the Dred Scott opinion would eventually affect the Democratic Party. Note the parallels between its effect on the Democrats with the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act for the Whigs.

Close Reading: Have students read the excerpt from Lincoln’s Peoria speech (Primary Source 9.2). Ask students the following questions:

Lincoln says the nation began by declaring that all men are created equal and has now run down to the declaration that for some men to enslave others is a sacred right of self-government. Whose words is that second declaration, and where in the chapter do you find them?

Senator Pettit called the Declaration of Independence a self-evident lie. Why does Lincoln quote an opponent’s most extreme statement rather than his most moderate?

Lincoln does not argue here that slavery is cruel. What does he argue instead, and why might that argument reach listeners the other would not?

Insight: Lincoln’s case at Peoria is about consistency rather than compassion—that the country had reversed its founding premise while telling itself it had not. That framing let him oppose slavery’s extension without claiming the authority to abolish it where it stood, which is the position he carried to the presidency.

Further: Compare this with Primary Sources 9.3 and 9.4 from the Ottawa debate four years later. What has changed in how Lincoln makes the argument, and what has not?

Guiding Classroom Questions

What issues did the newly formed Republican Party run on?

Insight: The Republicans campaigned on several issues that had previously been core agenda items of the Whig Party, such as internal improvements and protective tariffs. But they also declared firm opposition to slavery in the western territories. The Republican Party campaigned only in the North – almost no southerner would sign on to its clear opposition to the expansion of slavery.

Why was the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford significant?

Insight: The case arose from the claim of Dred Scott, a slave who had been taken to the free territory of Wisconsin, that he was free by virtue of living in a territory where slavery was outlawed. Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled (1) that Scott did not have standing to sue because Black Americans were not citizens under the Constitution as Taney read it, (2) that Congress could not outlaw slavery in any territory because depriving citizens of their property was unconstitutional, and (3) that the original Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because it prohibited slavery in certain western territories. This decision ratcheted up sectional conflict because it denied Congress the power to exclude slavery from federal territories and appeared to close off one of the principal political means of containing its expansion.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

What did the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 repeal?

Acceptable responses: The Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Explain

What was popular sovereignty, and why did it not settle the question?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: letting territorial settlers decide slavery by vote. It turned settlement into a contest to be won, which is what produced Bleeding Kansas.

Daily Recap

With the Dred Scott decision, the Court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional — only the second time in its history that it had done so. Yet its attempt to resolve the national debate over slavery proved a complete failure.

Looking Ahead

The final lesson follows the political realignment of the 1850s through the Lincoln–Douglas debates, John Brown’s raid, and the election of 1860, showing how the collapse of old compromises carried Lincoln to the presidency and the Deep South toward secession.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: repeal, sovereignty, territory, decision

Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Kansas–Nebraska Act repealed __, which meant __.” “The Court decided that __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

9.6 The Rise of Lincoln and the Republicans (pp. 292–301)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 292–301.

Exercise: Figure 9.13 with Map 9.5; the Analyzing Figures exercise on Curry’s John Brown (Figure 9.15).

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on how Lincoln won without the South.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter Ten.

Essential Understanding

The biography of Abraham Lincoln prior to 1858; the Lincoln-Douglas debates; John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry; the election of 1860; and the Corwin Amendment.

Lesson Objectives

• Create a political argument from the perspective of Abraham Lincoln in 1858.

• Describe the national circumstances at the time of Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861.

• Form an opinion about John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.

Key Dates

1858 The Lincoln–Douglas debates (August–October)

1859 John Brown raids Harpers Ferry (October 16)

1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president (November 6)

1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union (December 20)

1861 Delegates from six southern states agree to form the Confederate States of America (February 4–9)

Key Concepts

Abraham Lincoln championed the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, particularly its affirmation of the equal worth of all men and of their equal entitlement to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He interpreted this to mean that all men have an equal right to the fruits of their own labor, making slavery incompatible with the dictates of Nature and Nature’s God.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates became classics of their kind and are worth studying today, not only to gain a sense of the political discourse of the time but also to illuminate a perennial tension of modern democracy, namely the potential conflict of popular opinion with enduring principles. The book notes that the discourse was conducted at a very high level, though these were also political debates, with the rhetorical aggressiveness and trap-setting that fact implies. The process of democratic deliberation.

Many Southerners thought that because the Constitution was a “compact” between preexisting states, those states had a right to withdraw from the Union, just as any contract can be revoked or terminated given sufficient cause. They employed such reasoning to justify secession following Lincoln’s largely sectional victory in the election of 1860.

Lincoln himself had predicted, in his “House Divided” speech of June 16, 1858, that the nation could not endure “permanently half slave and half free” but that it would have to “become all one thing or all the other.” South Carolina seceded two and a half years later.

Key Terms

The Lincoln-Douglas debates: These seven debates between August and October 1858 featured extensive and eloquent discussion of pressing national issues, particularly regarding slavery; though Douglas won the subsequent election, publicity from the debates made Lincoln a national figure, contributing to his electoral victory in 1860.

Pottawatomie Massacre: John Brown and his followers committed this midnight raid of a proslavery settlement in the Kansas Territory on May 24–25, 1856, abducting six and ultimately killing five settlers.

John Brown’s Raid at Harpers Ferry: On October 16, 1859 John Brown and 21 of his followers attempted to seize a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, planning to use the captured weaponry to arm a regional slave uprising. Brown was ultimately captured and hanged for treason, though his action was eventually regarded as heroic by many abolitionists.

Confederate States of America: In February 1861, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama formed the Confederacy and adopted a constitution largely modeled on that of the U.S. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected as president and Alexander Stephens of Georgia as vice president, and the Confederacy’s first capital was Montgomery, Alabama.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the sixth section of Chapter Nine, “The Rise of Lincoln and the Republicans.”

Assign several of the following questions: Why were the Lincoln-Douglas debates important? Who won the election?

Were Lincoln’s objections to slavery as articulated in the debates moral or political? Was he an abolitionist?

What happened in the election of 1860? Who ran? Who won? Why?

How did the southern states respond to Lincoln’s election?

What was the “compact theory” of the constitution popular in the South?

What happened at Harpers Ferry? What did John Brown hope the raid would accomplish?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

• Speaking Skills: Ask students to create a campaign flyer or pamphlet supporting Lincoln in the 1858 campaign for U.S. Senate. Students should incorporate biographical information about Lincoln in addition to policy positions that distinguish Lincoln from Douglas. Why should the electorate support this obscure former congressman against arguably the leading member of the U.S. Senate? After students have finished, ask a few students to address the class and give a short speech using some of the information from their pamphlet.

• Writing Skills: Ask students to imagine they are an advisor to Lincoln. Ask them to write a report that summarizes the political situation that has occurred in the four months between the election and the inauguration. The report should include a description of what president Buchanan did and what the effects were. The purpose of the report is to help Lincoln draft his first inaugural address to the nation.

• Debate: Ask students to consider the justifiability of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Then stage a debate in class between defenders and critics of Brown.

Geography

Have students study Map 9.5, the election of 1860. Ask students the following questions:

Lincoln won about 40 percent of the popular vote and a decisive Electoral College majority. Explain how both can be true.

The chapter states that he won 180 electoral votes from the free states, and from only those states. What would have happened if the three other candidates’ votes had gone to a single opponent?

In most southern states Lincoln was not on the ballot at all. What does that tell you about how far the two sections had separated before the election?

Insight: The arithmetic is the argument. A four-way split let a candidate with a minority of votes win a majority of the Electoral College, . As the book puts it, Lincoln won 180 electoral votes from the free states — and from only those states, with not a single electoral vote from the South.

Further: The chapter notes that more than 80 percent of northern Democratic congressmen who voted for Kansas–Nebraska failed to win reelection. Ask students to connect that figure to the map.

Analyzing Figures: Have students examine John Steuart Curry’s John Brown (Figure 9.15), painted in 1939 as a mural for the Kansas statehouse. Ask students the following questions:

When was the painting made, and how long after the events it shows?

What is Curry able to know that a witness in 1859 could not, and what can a witness know that he cannot?

Is this better evidence of John Brown, or of how Kansas remembered him eighty years later? Defend your answer.

Insight: Curry was painting Kansas’s memory rather than Kansas’s history, and the mural was contentious enough at home that he left it unsigned. A source made long after its subject is not thereby worthless—it is evidence about a different question than the one it appears to answer.

Further: Ask students to name one thing they would want to read before using this image in an essay about Harpers Ferry, and one essay it would suit exactly as it stands.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did Lincoln revere the Declaration of Independence?

Insight: The Declaration’s assertion of the equality of all people and their right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was central to Lincoln’s case against slavery. The Declaration also provided support for Lincoln’s opposition to slavery as a kind of theft, with slaveholders stealing the labor of their slaves.

Even though Lincoln lost, what was the significance of his 1858 Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas?

Insight: Lincoln set his moral opposition to slavery against Douglas’s signature policy of popular sovereignty, which left the question of slavery to the people of the states applying for admission to the Union. The two engaged in a series of celebrated debates across Illinois that are still studied today. The campaign elevated Lincoln’s standing in the North and the Republican Party.

How did John Brown’s raid further the sectional crisis?

Insight: Brown attempted to steal weapons from the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and arm the slaves in the region, intending to fuel a general slave uprising. This raid was an utter failure, but Brown was captured, and he used his trial to rail against slavery and proclaim his own martyrdom for the cause of abolition. Again, North and South divided over Brown, with the South seeing him as a violent extremist and some northerners praising Brown’s devotion to antislavery.

What was the outcome of the election of 1860?

Insight: Lincoln won 180 electoral votes from the free states — and from only those states, receiving not a single electoral vote from the South. That Lincoln was elected with only northern votes demonstrated to southerners that they could not stop the rise of antislavery forces to power, fueling desire for secession. Shortly after Lincoln’s election, South Carolina seceded, followed closely by six other Deep South states.

What was the Corwin Amendment?

Insight: The Corwin Amendment was a last-ditch effort to save the Union, supported by Lincoln and other prominent Republicans. The amendment explicitly prohibited the federal government from interfering with slavery within a state where slavery already existed. It passed Congress, but because of secession it was never ratified by the states.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts are in place; Explain asks the student to do something with them.

Recall

With what share of the popular vote did Lincoln win in 1860?

Acceptable responses: About 40 percent, in a four-way race.

Explain

Why did Lincoln’s election convince secessionists they had no remaining recourse?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: he carried no southern state and in most was not on the ballot, yet won a decisive Electoral College majority—demonstrating that the ordinary constitutional process could now produce a president the South had no part in choosing.

Daily Recap

The final years leading up to the Civil War featured the dramatic rise of Lincoln, in a uniquely American personal trajectory; the retention, in the form of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, of the practice of civic discourse even until the eve of war; intensifying civil conflict, as acts of violence further stoked the flame of secessionist sentiment; and the Corwin Amendment, which ultimately proved to be the last attempt to settle the disagreement through peaceful compromise.

Looking Ahead

Chapter Ten begins where political compromise ends: with secession, Fort Sumter, and war. The crises traced here did not make civil war inevitable, but by 1861 they had narrowed the remaining choices and transformed the dispute over slavery’s expansion into a struggle over the Union itself.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: nomination, electoral college, plurality, secession

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Lincoln won with __ percent of the popular vote because __.” “Southern leaders concluded that __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled sketch, a sorted list, or three sentences.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Place the following events into chronological order from earliest to latest.

A. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican War

B. John Brown raids Harpers Ferry

C. South Carolina secedes from the Union

D. Congress passes the Kansas–Nebraska Act

E. Republic of Texas is established

Answer: 1–E · 2–A · 3–D · 4–B · 5–C

Key Persons and Concepts

Complete each statement with the appropriate person, party, or concept.

1. Journalist John O’Sullivan coined the term Manifest Destiny to describe the idea that Providence had destined Americans to expand across the continent.

2. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois became the leading advocate of popular sovereignty as a way for territories to decide the slavery question.

3. The term Bleeding Kansas described the violent struggle between proslavery and antislavery settlers over control of Kansas Territory.

4. John Brown was the antislavery radical who participated in the Pottawatomie killings and later raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

5. The Kansas–Nebraska Act helped destroy the Whig Party and accelerated the rise of the Republican Party in the North.

Geography

Consult the answer maps for the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix. Students should be able to locate Texas, California, the Mexican Cession, Oregon Territory, South Carolina, Illinois, Kansas Territory, and Nebraska Territory on the chapter maps.

[ART REQUIRED — Chapter 9_AssessmentAnswerKeyMap.jpg]

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. How did the annexation of Texas lead to the Mexican War?

Model response: Mexico had never recognized Texas independence and disputed the new state’s southern boundary. After U.S. annexation, President Polk sent troops into the contested area between the Nueces River and Rio Grande. A clash between Mexican and U.S. forces in April 1846 led Polk to ask Congress for a declaration of war.

2. Why did some Americans oppose the Mexican War?

Model response: Many Whigs and other critics believed the Polk administration had provoked an unnecessary war of expansion. Antislavery opponents also feared that territory taken from Mexico would become new slave territory and increase the political power of slaveholders.

3. What factors led to the Compromise of 1850?

Model response: The Mexican Cession reopened the question of slavery in western territories, while California’s rapid population growth led it to seek admission as a free state. Southern leaders feared a permanent loss of parity in the Senate and some threatened secession. The resulting compromise admitted California as free, organized Utah and New Mexico without a congressional slavery prohibition, settled the Texas boundary and debt, ended the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and enacted a stronger Fugitive Slave Law.

4. How did Northerners react to the Fugitive Slave Law?

Model response: Many Northerners bitterly opposed the law because it required federal and local cooperation in returning freedom seekers and imposed penalties for obstruction. Resistance took political, legal, and sometimes direct-action forms; several states enacted personal-liberty laws, and highly publicized fugitive-slave cases intensified antislavery sentiment.

5. How did the Kansas–Nebraska Act reignite sectional tensions?

Model response: The act organized Kansas and Nebraska under popular sovereignty and effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise restriction north of 36°30′. Proslavery and antislavery settlers rushed into Kansas to influence its future, producing rival governments and political violence. The act also shattered the Whig Party and helped give rise to the Republican Party.

6. What did the Supreme Court decide in Dred Scott v. Sandford, and why was it significant?

Model response: Chief Justice Roger Taney’s majority opinion held that Scott could not sue as a citizen in federal court and that Congress lacked constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories, making the Missouri Compromise restriction unconstitutional. The ruling inflamed sectional conflict by threatening the policy of containing slavery’s expansion and undermining popular sovereignty as a compromise.

7. What issues did the newly formed Republican Party advocate in the 1850s?

Model response: The party united above all around opposition to the extension of slavery into the western territories. It also inherited important elements of the old Whig economic program, including support for internal improvements and protective tariffs.

8. What was the main point of contention between Lincoln and Douglas in the 1858 debates?

Model response: The central dispute concerned slavery’s expansion and the principle of popular sovereignty. Douglas defended local decision-making and, in the Freeport Doctrine, argued that slavery could not survive without supportive local legislation. Lincoln opposed slavery’s extension and argued that the nation could not permanently endure half slave and half free.

9. What was the outcome of the presidential election of 1860?

Model response: Lincoln won a decisive Electoral College majority with less than 40 percent of the popular vote in a four-way race. He carried no slave state and received almost no Southern support. South Carolina seceded in December, followed by six other Deep South states before Lincoln took office.

10. Why does the chapter say the Corwin Amendment would have institutionalized the nation’s deepest moral wound?

Model response: The proposed amendment sought to bar federal interference with slavery inside states where it already existed. If ratified, it would have placed an explicit constitutional protection for state slavery beyond ordinary federal legislative action. Its failure showed that even a sweeping last-minute concession could not reverse secession once the Deep South had begun to leave the Union.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

There are several causes that led to disunion and the Civil War. Write an essay that makes a case for one particular event or development as the most important cause of the war.

Model response: Strong essays take a position and defend it from the chapter’s evidence rather than merely listing causes. Students may choose Texas annexation and the Mexican War, the territorial acquisitions, the Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Law, the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Dred Scott, John Brown’s raid, Lincoln’s election, or another development supported by the text. The strongest responses explain why the chosen cause mattered more than plausible alternatives while respecting the chapter’s opening warning against inevitability: the event should be shown to have made war more likely, not to have made every later choice predetermined.

CHAPTER TEN

The House Divides:

A War of Brothers

1860–1866 · pp. 303–337

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

LINCOLN’S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS on March 4, 1861, was conciliatory, promising the South that it had nothing to fear regarding the perpetuation of slavery where it already existed. In his address, Lincoln also pledged to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act as duly enacted law and said he had no objection to making explicit, through the proposed Corwin Amendment, what he believed the Constitution already implied about federal noninterference with slavery in the states, and to refrain from using force against the South unless it rose in violent insurrection against the federal government.

And yet war came. Crucially, Lincoln’s decision to notify South Carolina that he would attempt to resupply Fort Sumter left Confederate leaders with the choice of tolerating the resupply or initiating hostilities; Confederate forces fired first, a federal facility located on a small island in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The fall of Fort Sumter gave Lincoln due cause to call on the Northern states to supply seventy-five thousand militiamen for battle against the Confederacy. The preservation and restoration of the Union was originally the war’s chief aim for Lincoln.

At the start of hostilities in the Spring of 1861, Northern forces had many obvious advantages over the South: a larger population (twenty-two million to nine million); a larger economy; control of the nation’s banking and financial systems; most of the iron and coal production; advantages in transportation (twice as much rail and more ships, horses, and wagons); and almost complete naval supremacy. The South, on the other hand, had significant strategic advantages of its own. Its war aims were simple and concrete—to defend itself and to achieve independence—and required fighting only on familiar ground. In addition, some of the nation’s most brilliant military men, including Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, were Southerners who had joined the Confederate cause. One of Lincoln’s greatest challenges was the volatility of public opinion; without a series of conspicuous Northern victories, political considerations might force him to settle for a negotiated peace settlement.

General-in-Chief Winfield Scott was tasked with developing the Union strategy, and he devised the Anaconda Plan, which focused on denying trade and resources to the Confederacy while splitting it in two by capturing the Mississippi River. While tactically effective, the plan suffered from a considerable strategic flaw: it took too long for visible effect. By the time Scott was forced into retirement and General George B. McClellan replaced him, pressure had mounted for progress on the battlefield. And yet a decisive victory eluded the Union. On September 17, 1862, roughly twenty-two thousand men were killed, wounded, or missing at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. McClellan’s indecisive leadership led to Lincoln replacing him with General Ambrose Burnside. But Burnside proved a reckless leader and was replaced by General Joseph Hooker. Neither was able to neutralize Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and Lincoln’s search for a capable commanding general continued.

By July 1862, Lincoln had resolved that the national government would take a strong antislavery position justified on both military and diplomatic grounds. On September 22, 1862, he issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, announcing that slaves in the Confederate-held “States and parts of States” would be “then, thenceforward, and forever free” on January 1, 1863. The Emancipation was a war measure, legitimated by Lincoln’s authority as Commander-in-Chief, but it also had the effect of ennobling the war’s purpose.

In July 1863, the Confederacy suffered serious defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. To commemorate the Union victory at Gettysburg, Lincoln later delivered one of his greatest speeches, interpreting the U.S. Constitution through the lens of the Declaration of Independence. The Gettysburg Address gave the war a broader public meaning, linking preservation of the Union to democratic self-government and a “new birth of freedom.”

In 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant was given command of the Union army in Virginia and turned out to be the general Lincoln had been seeking. A series of military successes in 1864 ensured Lincoln’s reelection in that year, and on March 4, 1865 he was inaugurated for his second term.

On April 3, 1865, the Confederate capital of Richmond fell to Union forces, and on April 9, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House. America’s bloodiest conflict was nearing its conclusion. But then came the horror of Lincoln’s assassination by a pro-Confederate zealot on April 14. Like the biblical Moses, Lincoln never himself entered into the Promised Land of a restored Union. His death was in fact a major setback to national reconciliation as the United States began the long process of healing from the deadliest war in its history.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter's end:

The course and central events of the American Civil War, particularly the evolving nature of Lincoln’s war aims and his enduring commitment to national reconciliation.

• The opening months of 1861 were relatively tranquil, as Lincoln attempted to forestall open conflict while grappling with numerous political constraints. Ultimately, the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter, as Confederate forces moved to prevent a resupply of the besieged federal garrison.

• Despite many material advantages for the North, after the Union’s defeat at Bull Run it became evident that the war would become a prolonged and destructive conflict.

• While technically a draw, the Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the strategic victory he needed to declare the Emancipation Proclamation, which helped to transform the war’s purpose into being explicitly anti-slavery.

• The Union’s armies nonetheless suffered from weak leadership and were repeatedly bested by Robert E. Lee’s tactical ingenuity. The tide of the war irreversibly changed, however, at Gettysburg, a victory that Lincoln’s masterful commemoration has perpetually memorialized.

• Though challenged by the electorate’s war fatigue, Lincoln won reelection decisively in 1864, assisted by Ulysses S. Grant’s progress in Virginia and General Sherman’s capture of Atlanta.

• The closing months of the war proved increasingly devastating to the Confederacy, culminating in Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. While Lincoln had struck a decidedly charitable tone in his eloquent Second Inaugural Address, he was assassinated in Washington just five days after Lee’s surrender.

Key Persons

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson (1824–1863)

Joseph E. Johnston (1807–1891)

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870)

George B. McClellan (1826–1885)

Ambrose Burnside (1824–1881)

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885)

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891)

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884)

Key Concepts and Terms

Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

Gettysburg Address (1863)

Total war

Timeline

1860 South Carolina is the first state to secede from the Union (December 20)

1861 Confederate forces bombard Fort Sumter, igniting the Civil War (April 12–13)

1861 Confederate General Stonewall Jackson forces a Union retreat at the Battle of Bull Run (July 21)

1862 Union General George B. McClellan launches a campaign to capture Richmond (March 17)

1862 In a fierce battle at Shiloh, Union forces drive back the Confederate forces (April 6–7)

1862 At the Battle of Antietam, 22,000 soldiers are killed or wounded (September 17)

1863 Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1)

1863 General Stonewall Jackson, wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville (April 30–May 6), dies of his wounds (May 10)

1863 The Battle of Gettysburg marks a turning point in the Union’s favor (July 1–3)

1863 Union General Ulysses S. Grant captures the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi (July 4)

1863 Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address (November 19)

1864 Grant and Lee fight to a bloody standstill at the Battle of the Wilderness, but Grant presses south (May 5–7)

1864 General Sherman captures Savannah, completing his March to the Sea (December)

1864 Lincoln wins reelection (November 8)

1865 Richmond, the Confederate capital, falls to the Union (April 3)

1865 General Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House (April 9)

1865 Lincoln is shot by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, and dies the following day (April 14–15)

1866 The war formally concludes (August 20)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students' progress warrants.

The House Divides: A War of Brothers – pp. 303–337 (4 to 8 classes)

10.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 305–308 (.5 to 1 class)

• The challenges of Lincoln’s early presidency

• Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address

• The siege of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War

• The restoration of the Union as Lincoln’s chief goal

10.2 The Tide Begins to Turn – pp. 309–316 (1 to 2 classes)

• The North’s industrial advantage

• The Confederacy’s military leadership

• The possibility of European support for the Confederacy

• The initial strategy of both sides

• General McClellan v. General Lee

• The Battle of Antietam and McClellan’s replacement by General Burnside

10.3 The Emancipation Proclamation – pp. 316–320 (.5 to 1 class)

• The political challenge of confronting slavery during wartime

• The Emancipation Proclamation

• The Thirteenth Amendment

10.4 Vicksburg and Gettysburg – pp. 321–325 (.5 to 1 class)

• General Burnside is replaced with General Hooker

• General Lee’s tactical brilliance

• The death of General Stonewall Jackson

• An introduction to Ulysses S. Grant

• The major battles from Antietam to Gettysburg

• The Gettysburg Address

10.5 Grant and Sherman Come to the Fore – pp. 325–328 (.5 to 1 class)

• Total war in the South

• Grant’s unlikely rise

• Sherman’s March to the Sea

10.6 Winning the Election in Wartime – pp. 328–330 (.5 to 1 class)

• Lincoln’s electoral vulnerability in 1864

• Military victories contribute to Lincoln’s victory

10.7 Finishing the War – pp. 330–337 (.5 to 1 class)

• Sherman moves through the Carolinas

• Lincoln’s Second Inaugural

• The fall of Richmond

• Lee’s surrender at Appomattox

• The assassination of Lincoln

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter's epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

Epigraph: Whitman tells the reader that future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of the countless minor scenes and interiors of the Secession war—not the official surface-courteousness of the generals, not the few great battles—and that it is best they should not, because the real war will never get in the books. He had standing to say it. In December 1862 Whitman found his brother’s name on a casualty list from Fredericksburg and went south to look for him. He found him alive and then stayed on. For the rest of the war he lived in Washington and visited its military hospitals, which were the receiving point for the wounded coming back from the Virginia battlefields, sitting with the men and writing letters home for them. Specimen Days is the prose he eventually made out of those years, published in 1882, seventeen years after the war ended.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 10.1. Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 (p. 324)

The Address was delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, four and a half months after the three-day battle that ended Lee’s second invasion of the North. Lincoln read the Constitution through the lens of the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln dates the nation’s founding “four score and seven years” back—to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, not to 1787 and the Constitution—and draws directly on the Declaration’s language that “all men are created equal.” A war over whether a constitutional union could be dissolved is thereby reframed as a test of whether a nation founded on a proposition can endure.

In fewer than three hundred words Lincoln recast the war as fought not merely to preserve the Union but to preserve the democratic idea itself—government of the people, by the people, for the people—which America exemplified before the world. In doing so he reached back past the war to the nation’s beginnings and echoed Hamilton and other Founders, who had seen in American history a larger purpose being carried out on behalf of all humankind. He then described the war as a time of testing for that idea, with no end yet in sight, asked his listeners to be awed by the sacrifice already made and to resolve that it not be wasted, and closed by binding the war to the commitment he had already made in the Emancipation Proclamation: a new birth of freedom.

The reception is genuinely uncertain—some accounts hold that the address was overwhelmed by Edward Everett’s much longer and more learned oration, others that its concentrated power was recognized on the spot. We cannot know. Later, Churchill would call it the ultimate expression of the majesty of Shakespeare’s language. The text the book prints is the version the New York Times carried the following morning, and the Gardner portrait on the facing page (Figure 10.11) was taken days before Lincoln delivered it.

Primary Source 10.2. Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 (p. 332)

Delivered with Sherman marching north through the Carolinas and Grant pressing Lee at Petersburg—close enough to the end that Lincoln was already laying groundwork for the postwar settlement. Lincoln’s personal papers show he had grown preoccupied with the problem of God’s providential will, with discerning how God had steered these events and to what end, and had searched the Bible and various theological writings for answers. The speech is permeated with biblical themes and imagery as a result.

Its argument moves in three steps. Lincoln restates that slavery was somehow the cause of the war and then declines to assign precise or exclusive blame to either side, reminding his audience that the antagonists were brothers of one culture, that both read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, and that the prayers of both could not be answered. He then offers a stunning image: that the war may have been an atonement, given to North and South alike as the woe due to those by whom the offense of slavery came. Drawing on Psalm 19:9, he allows that if the war must continue until the wealth built by two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil is sunk, and every drop of blood drawn by the lash repaid by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are righteous still. Only then does he turn: malice toward none, charity for all, binding up the nation’s wounds, caring for the man who bore the battle and for his widow and orphan, a just and lasting peace.

Lincoln had never lost clarity about what the war was for: not to punish all wickedness or establish perfect justice, but first to restore the Union, because a postwar settlement built on score-settling could not succeed. Lincoln endorsed the manuscript on April 10, 1865, four days before he was shot.

Figures

Figure 10.1. Glorious Fighting, William Gilbert Gaul, 1885 (p. 302)

Gaul painted this twenty years after Appomattox, for an audience that had not fought it. Set it against the epigraph it faces: Whitman says the real war will never reach the books, and here a painter is attempting to put it on a canvas. Ask students whether a picture can do what Whitman said prose could not, and what a painter working two decades later has that a witness does not—and what he lacks.

Figure 10.13. General William Tecumseh Sherman, Mathew Brady Studio, circa 1864 (p. 327)

An albumen silver print, held by the J. Paul Getty Museum. This caption is where the book defines a term the chapter carries as a Key Concept: Sherman advocated a strategy of total war, aimed not only at winning victories in the field but at destroying the South’s will to fight. The surrounding pages show what that meant in practice—an army cutting a swath sixty miles wide across central Georgia, confiscating food and farm animals, freeing slaves, destroying railroads and mills. The book draws the distinction that matters: this resembled the scorched-earth campaigns of conquerors going back to Rome’s destruction of Carthage, but was carried out calmly and methodically by a man who understood its logic better than almost anyone. It is also where the chapter reaches past itself, calling the Civil War a first glimpse of what modern war would become in the twentieth century.

Figure 10.15. President Lincoln Delivers His Second Inaugural Address, Clarence Dodge, 1865 (p. 333)

A gelatin silver print, held by the J. Paul Getty Museum, which catalogs it as Lincoln’s Second Inauguration. The book’s caption places Lincoln before a weary nation at the U.S. Capitol in the final weeks of the war. Read it beside Primary Source 10.2: the text gives students the words, the photograph the occasion. What the image adds is the crowd. This was a public act, performed before an audience that had returned Lincoln to office four months earlier and was being told, by the man they had just re-elected, that the war was a judgment falling on both sides alike. Have students read the speech at its own pages rather than from the caption, then return to the photograph and ask what it would have been like to stand in that crowd and hear it.

Figure 10.16. The Veteran, Thomas Waterman Wood, 1866 (p. 334)

This is the last panel of a narrative triptych following an emancipated African American man who enlists in the U.S. Army: the first shows him eager to enlist, the second prepared to serve, and this one shows him at the end of his service, an amputee on crutches, standing at salute. No other image in this chapter carries Black military service, and none carries its cost. The triptych form is an argument in three parts, and the argument is in how it ends. Ask students why Wood chose to close on a salute rather than on a wound, and what a painting made in 1866 was asking of the Northern viewer standing in front of it. It sits beside the chapter’s account of what the war was finally for.

Figure 10.17. General Robert E. Lee’s Surrender, Thomas Nast, 1865 (p. 336)

A pencil sketch, held by the American Civil War Museum under the management of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond. The book’s caption shows a dejected Lee awaiting Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and then supplies the fact that makes this the most teachable object in the chapter: to get the scene right, Nast consulted the only Confederate officer who had accompanied Lee to the McLean house, his aide-de-camp Charles Marshall. An illustrator who was not present established accuracy by interviewing the one man who was, and the caption records that he did so. That is a method, and students can evaluate it. Read the sketch beside the surrender terms the chapter describes—Grant letting Lee’s officers keep their sidearms and the men their horses for the spring planting, with no one arrested or charged with treason.

Maps

Map 10.1. Secession Voting Results and Dates of Secession, 1860–61 (p. 307)

A modern map made for this volume, and worth distinguishing from the period maps in chapter 9, which were nineteenth-century documents with arguments of their own. This one reconstructs evidence rather than making a case. The book’s caption explains what it shows: the internal divisions within the South after Lincoln’s election, with most Deep South counties voting for secession but visible pockets of resistance in the Appalachian highlands and in parts of Texas, Georgia and Mississippi; the chronological order of secession, from South Carolina on December 20, 1860 to Tennessee on June 8, 1861; and the creation of West Virginia, which seceded from Virginia and entered the Union in 1863. Have students find the resistance before they find the majorities. Secession was contested inside the South, county by county, and this map is the evidence for it.

Map 10.2. Major Battles of the Civil War, 1861–65 (p. 314)

Also made for this volume. The book’s caption sets out the war’s two theaters: the Eastern, fixed on the struggle for Richmond and Washington, and the Western, running between the Appalachians and the Mississippi; and it names the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863 as the turning points that repelled Confederate invasion and split the South in two. Read it beside the Anaconda Plan the chapter describes—a strategy of blockade and river control meant to squeeze the Confederacy rather than beat it in the field. The map is what makes that strategy legible, and it shows why Vicksburg mattered out of proportion to its size: taking it completed Union control of the Mississippi. The chapter’s summative assessment already sends students to this map for a distance problem.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter's subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

Blight, David W. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Bunting, Josiah, III. Ulysses S. Grant. New York: Times Books, 2004.

Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011.

Guelzo, Allen C. Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003.

Guelzo, Allen C. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004.

Guelzo, Allen C. Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Lincoln, Abraham. Speeches and Writings. New York: Library of America, 1994.

McPherson, James M. The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Peterson, Merrill D. Lincoln in American Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

10.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 305–308)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 305–308, the chapter opening.

Exercise: The Chapter Epigraph and Figure 10.1, Gaul’s Glorious Fighting.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the border states and Fort Sumter.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Ten, Section Two, “The Tide Begins to Turn” (pp. 309–316).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The inciting events and circumstances of the American Civil War, especially the secession of the Deep South states, the shelling of Fort Sumter, and the reasons both sides thought that violent conflict was warranted.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Explain how Lincoln responded to the inciting events and circumstances of the American Civil War.

• Analyze Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1860 South Carolina is the first state to secede from the Union (December 20)

1861 Confederate forces bombard Fort Sumter, igniting the Civil War (April 12–13)

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

In the opening months of 1861, Lincoln remained cautious in his political maneuvering, even as an increasing number of Southern states seceded. He was conscious of his limited political support and eager to retain as many slave-holding states within the Union as he could.

Accordingly, the tone of Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address was remarkably conciliatory, as he acknowledged the enduring legality of slavery while nonetheless firmly rejecting unilateral secession. Rather than mobilize his forces immediately, he shrewdly waited until the Confederates’ firing on Fort Sumter galvanized pro-Union sentiments in the North.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

Border states: These states primarily supported the Union despite their enduring practice of slavery. Maintaining their support was an important political consideration for Lincoln, particularly in the early years of the war. They included Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and (eventually) West Virginia.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Encourage students to read the introductory section of Chapter Ten.

Assign the following questions:

How did President-Elect Lincoln spend the four months between his election and inauguration?

When did Lincoln deliver his First Inaugural Address? How many states had already seceded?

What were Lincoln’s goals for his speech? What was his tone?

Who initiated the attack on Fort Sumter?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Civic Discourse: Ask students to write a summary of Lincoln’s strategy from his first moments in office. What was his immediate goal? What did he do to achieve this goal? Then lead a discussion with students about these initial actions. How did he attempt to placate the national divide? What did he do to appease both sides?

Reading Comprehension: Provide students with an excerpt of Lincoln’s First Inaugural. Have them read it once individually and annotate it. Then, lead a discussion with the following questions: How does he begin the speech? How does he address the Fugitive Slave Act? How does Lincoln appeal to the Constitution? What does he say about changing it?

Geography

Have students study Map 10.1, the secession voting results and dates of secession, 1860–61. Ask students the following questions:

Which states seceded before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, and which seceded after? What does that split suggest about what triggered each group?

Find the pockets shaded against secession. Where are they concentrated, and what does their location suggest about who in the South was least persuaded? Was the war's cause uniform across the South, or tied to specific regional interests, such as slaveholding density and plantation economics? Compare to the distribution of the slave population of the Southern States (Map 8.1, p. 249) when considering your answer.

Further: The map marks West Virginia separately. What did West Virginia do, and what does it show about whether a state is a single indivisible thing?

Southerners argued that secession was decided by delegates in state conventions—the same bodies that had ratified the Constitution. Why would they think that made secession lawful?

Insight: The chapter gives both sides of a constitutional argument. Southerners held that refusing them the right to leave violated state sovereignty, since the same conventions that had ratified the Constitution had now voted to withdraw. Lincoln answered that no single state could leave on its own motion without the consent of the others, and that secession was anarchy—refusing the result of a legitimate election, and so discrediting democracy itself.

Further: West Virginia seceded from Virginia and joined the Union in 1863. If a state may leave the Union by convention, may a region leave a state the same way? Ask students which answer Lincoln’s argument commits him to, and whether that is consistent.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

What were the border states? How important were they to Lincoln?

Insight: Lincoln was concerned with the border states of Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, and Maryland who did not join in seceding from the Union. Throughout the war, Lincoln strategized and worked to keep these border states in the Union and out of the Confederacy.

How might Lincoln have approached the siege of Fort Sumter differently? Why was his approach ultimately wise?

Insight: Lincoln could have ordered a more forceful, military response to relieve Fort Sumter, sending armed reinforcements ready to fight. Instead, when the fort’s garrison ran low on supplies, Lincoln chose a different and more deliberate path: he attempted to resupply the fort, and left the Confederates to decide what to do about it. Before the supply ships arrived, South Carolina forces opened fire, and after more than thirty hours of shelling the fort was surrendered.

Insight: Militarily, this was a defeat. Politically and strategically, it was a triumph. By ensuring that the Union did not fire the first shot, Lincoln placed the burden of initiating armed conflict squarely on the Confederacy. It allowed Lincoln to frame the war as one of Southern aggression against the lawful government, rather than Northern aggression against the South. This strategy helped him hold together Northern public opinion, rally support in the border states that hadn’t yet seceded and strengthen the Union’s moral standing within the U.S. and with international leaders abroad.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check. Recall confirms the facts; Explain asks students to use them.

Recall

Which state seceded first, and on what date?

Acceptable responses: South Carolina, on December 20, 1860.

Explain

Why did it matter which side fired first at Fort Sumter?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: Major Robert Anderson reported that he and his sixty-nine men had only a few weeks’ supplies left, and Lincoln chose to resupply the fort rather than give it up. The Confederates, unwilling to permit that, opened fire. Because the Union did not begin the shooting, responsibility for starting the war fell on the Confederacy—a military loss that was a political gain, and one that helped unify Northern opinion behind a war many had hoped to avoid.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson's threads together.

The Civil War grew out of the sectional crisis over slavery and secession and became, for Lincoln, a test of the viability of democratic self-government itself. The book is clear that the war’s ultimate objective was not a conquest but a reconciliation of the warring factions. Lincoln and the North held that the states must act according to the Constitution, which made no provision for secession.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The next lesson tests the expectation of a quick Union victory against the realities of command, strategy, and battlefield performance, following the war from Bull Run through Antietam.

Language Support

For students still building academic English. Each support supplies the words for what students can already grasp, drawn from the lesson's central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: secession, inaugural, border state, garrison

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Lincoln’s First Inaugural was conciliatory about __ but firm about __.” “Lincoln chose to resupply Fort Sumter rather than abandon it because .”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled list of the seceding states in order, a two-column chart of what Lincoln promised and what he refused, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

10.2 The Tide Begins to Turn (pp. 309–316)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 309–316, the second section.

Exercise: The Critical Thinking chart comparing Union and Confederate strengths, with Map 10.2.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on who won Antietam.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Ten, Section Three, “The Emancipation Proclamation” (pp. 316–320).

Essential Understanding

The advantages and disadvantages of each side at the outset of the Civil War, the major figures, events, and strategies of its first year and a half: especially Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Winfield Scott, George McClellan, the Anaconda Plan, the Peninsula Campaign, the Battle of Bull Run, and the Battle of Antietam.

Lesson Objectives

• Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the Union and Confederate forces at the outset of the Civil War.

• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the military leaders involved in the Civil War.

Key Dates

1861 Confederate General Stonewall Jackson forces a Union retreat at the Battle of Bull Run (July 21)

1862 Union General George B. McClellan launches a campaign to capture Richmond (March 17)

1862 In a fierce battle at Shiloh, Union forces drive back the Confederate forces (April 6–7)

1862 At the Battle of Antietam, 22,000 soldiers are killed or wounded (September 17)

Key Concepts

At the war’s outset, the Union possessed considerable advantages over the Confederacy in men and material. Hoping to exploit its naval superiority, General Winfield Scott implemented the “Anaconda Plan,” placing a naval blockade on Southern ports and focusing Union forces in the War’s western theater on capturing the Mississippi River.

While the strategy proved generally effective, Union forces struggled initially in battle, particularly in the eastern theater. Scott was soon replaced as commanding general by George McClellan, who fared little better. He did, however, repulse Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North at Antietam Creek, though McClellan failed to pursue the Confederates in their retreat.

Key Terms

The Eastern and Western Theaters: The war’s two main arenas. The Eastern Theater centered on the struggle for Richmond and Washington; the Western Theater lay between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. Union forces struggled in the East for the war’s first two years while making steadier progress in the West.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the second section of Chapter Ten, “The Tide Begins to Turn.”

Assign several of the following questions:

What was the “Anaconda Plan”? Who developed it?

What were its initial objectives?

Who was George McClellan? Was Lincoln’s appointment of him as commanding general a success?

Who was Robert E. Lee? How did he thwart McClellan’s efforts?

Why was the Battle of Antietam particularly memorable?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to make a chart comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Union and Confederacy at the Civil War’s outset. What was the most important advantage each side had? What was the most important factor overall? Discuss as a class.

Argumentation: Ask students to imagine that they are Lincoln’s Secretary of War. He is considering relieving Winfield Scott and replacing him with George B. McClellan. What are the merits of each candidate? Which choice is best and why?

Writing Skills: Several thousand Union soldiers perished at Antietam. Ask students to write a brief letter from the perspective of President Lincoln to the family of a fallen soldier and to share their work in small groups.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How important were military victories to Lincoln politically?

Insight: Military victories were essential to Lincoln’s political survival. Lincoln was never an especially popular figure, in the North or the South, during his presidency. Public support for him rose and fell with the wins and losses of the Union army. Voters and legislators judged him by whether the war was being won. Battlefield success translated into political capital, while defeats or stalemates eroded it.

If victory had to be declared, which side won the Battle of Antietam?

Insight: If a side has to be named, the Union won Antietam. But it was a narrow, unsatisfying victory. McClellan knew Lee’s plans in advance and held a 2-to-1 troop advantage, yet after a single bloody day that left 22,000 killed or wounded, he only managed to stop Lee’s advance rather than destroy his army; Lee’s forces slipped away intact, and Lincoln later removed McClellan for failing to press the advantage by continuing to pursue.

Insight: The outcome mattered strategically. By halting Lee’s invasion of the North, the Union denied the Confederacy the decisive victory it needed to win European recognition and support. Lincoln also used the moment to issue the Emancipation Proclamation five days later, transforming the war’s purpose.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

What two things was the Anaconda Plan designed to do, and who devised it?

Acceptable responses: Blockade the Southern ports and take control of New Orleans and the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy in two. Devised by Winfield Scott.

Explain

Antietam settled nothing on the battlefield. Why does the chapter treat it as a turning point anyway?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: it stopped Lee’s invasion of the North, which denied the Confederacy the decisive victory it needed to attract European recognition and support; and it gave Lincoln the moment he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which he had been holding back until the Union could act from strength rather than desperation. A strong answer will notice that both consequences are political rather than military.

Daily Recap

Northern victory was not a foregone conclusion, despite the Union’s size and strength. Given the initial weakness of the Union’s military leadership, in some ways victory even seemed improbable. While the Battle of Antietam repelled Lee’s army, it did not expunge the morale-deflating losses to Confederates at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. In 1862, it very much remained unclear who would win the Civil War.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson follows Lincoln’s use of the strategic opening at Antietam to announce emancipation, asking how military necessity, constitutional limits, border-state politics, and antislavery purpose came together in the Proclamation.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: blockade, theater, casualties, standoff

Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Anaconda Plan aimed to __ rather than __.” “Antietam mattered because , even though .”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a two-column chart of Union and Confederate advantages, a marked-up copy of Map 10.2 showing the two theaters, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

10.3 The Emancipation Proclamation (pp. 316–320)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 316–320, the third section.

Exercise: The Reading Comprehension exercise on the Emancipation Proclamation, with Figure 10.8.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the border states and the Thirteenth Amendment.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Ten, Section Four, “Vicksburg and Gettysburg” (pp. 321–325).

Essential Understanding

The myriad considerations that contributed to Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the legal effects of the Emancipation Proclamation.

• Evaluate the timing and circumstances of Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Key Dates

1863 Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1)

Key Concepts

As the war progressed, Lincoln moved toward acting against slavery. Such efforts promised to weaken the Confederacy and to neutralize its potential support in Europe, as well as to give an additional moral impetus to the war effort.

However, Lincoln grounded the Proclamation in his wartime powers as commander in chief, which meant it applied to areas in rebellion rather than loyal slave states. He was also determined not to alienate the loyal border states. Accordingly, after Antietam gave the Union a strategic success and halted Lee’s invasion, he issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which became effective on January 1, 1863 and promised liberation to enslaved people in designated areas still in rebellion.

While limited in scope, the Proclamation held immense symbolic importance, as it marked the beginning of an explicitly anti-slavery transformation in the Union’s war aims. Moreover, as federal forces occupied more Confederate territory, its practical consequence increased correspondingly.

Key Terms

Anarchy: Anarchy is the social chaos that results from the absence of effective leadership.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the third section of Chapter Ten, “The Emancipation Proclamation.”

Assign the following questions:

What concerns were on Lincoln’s mind at the time of Antietam?

What was the constitutional status of slavery? How did Lincoln accommodate this in the Emancipation Proclamation?

How did the Emancipation Proclamation ennoble the war’s purpose? How did it contribute practically to the Union war effort?

What gave Lincoln confidence to take an explicitly anti-slavery position?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Reading Comprehension: Provide students with a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and discuss the following questions as a class: when did it occur? What important battles preceded it? What was the central focus of the document? What did it accomplish?

Writing Skills: Ask students to imagine that they are a presidential advisor and that, shortly after Lincoln’s First Inaugural, he is considering issuing an executive order similar to the Emancipation Proclamation. Assign students to write a short letter arguing that Lincoln should either proceed with the proclamation or wait for a more opportune time. Have them discuss their work in small groups before doing so as a class.

Civic Discourse: President Lincoln is often criticized now for not dismantling slavery sooner. After your students have finished learning about the Emancipation Proclamation, conduct a Socratic seminar discussion about Lincoln’s decision-making. Why did he wait? What constraints and obstacles were relevant?

Analytical Skills: Students have already compared the Emancipation Proclamation with the Thirteenth Amendment. Set a third document beside them—the Corwin Amendment, which Lincoln pledged in his First Inaugural to accept, and which would have given slavery constitutional protection where it already existed.

Corwin had passed both houses of Congress by 1861. Had the states ratified it, what would the Constitution have said about slavery?

Corwin and the Thirteenth Amendment ran through the same process four years apart and pointed in opposite directions. What does that process decide, and what does it not?

Why would a president who called slavery an unqualified evil pledge to accept Corwin?

The chapter says Lincoln held that a flawed law could be corrected only by the correct use of the law. Which of these three documents best fits that principle, and why?

Insight: The amendment process is a procedure, not a position. The same mechanism that nearly entrenched slavery permanently in 1861 abolished it in 1865, and the difference was not the Constitution but who commanded majorities and when. Corwin is what makes the point visible; students shown only the Thirteenth Amendment may conclude the Constitution was always headed toward abolition, which is precisely what this chapter shows was not true.

Further: Lincoln pledged to accept Corwin in March 1861 and pressed the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress before his death in April 1865. Ask students what changed in those four years: Lincoln himself, the country, or what the war had made politically possible.

Civic Discourse: Lincoln was not an abolitionist, and the chapter says so plainly—yet he called slavery an unqualified evil and hoped for its end. He was also, the chapter notes, under pressure from his own party and from abolitionist groups to act. Conduct a seminar on what that pressure accomplished:

What is the difference between a politician who wants an outcome and a movement that demands it? Which one moves first, and why?

Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist, called Lincoln a huckster in politics and a first-rate second-rate man. Was that a fair judgment of the man who issued the Proclamation?

Would Lincoln have moved when he did without that pressure? Would he have moved at all?

Abolitionists spent thirty years arguing for something almost no one in power would say aloud. What does that suggest about how institutions actually change?

Insight: The chapter is careful that Lincoln acted when Antietam gave him the standing to act, not when he was first asked. That is how the pressure worked—it did not convert him, it made emancipation politically survivable once a battlefield result arrived. Students should see movement and office doing different jobs: one makes a demand thinkable, the other waits for the moment it can be executed.

Further: Phillips judged Lincoln by the distance between what was done and what was right. Lincoln judged himself by what could be held together. Ask students which standard they would want applied to a leader in their own time, and whether the answer changes with the stakes.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How were the border states of great importance to the Proclamation?

Insight: Lincoln was determined to keep the loyal slave states in the Union. The Proclamation therefore did not apply to Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, or Missouri; its legal rationale was a wartime measure directed against areas in rebellion.

Insight: The Proclamation’s limited geographic scope reflected both constitutional strategy and military necessity. Permanent nationwide abolition ultimately required the Thirteenth Amendment.

What is the Thirteenth Amendment? What was its significance? How was it similar to the Emancipation Proclamation? How was it different?

Insight: The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified after the war in December of 1865, formally abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States. Its significance was immense: it permanently ended the institution of slavery nationwide by amending the Constitution itself.

Insight: The Thirteenth Amendment was a constitutional amendment passed by Congress and ratified by the states, giving it permanent, nationwide legal force that applied everywhere in the country. The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime executive order that could potentially be challenged or reversed once the war ended. The Thirteenth Amendment was similar to the Emancipation Proclamation in that both aimed to end slavery and were driven by Lincoln’s leadership. But the Emancipation Proclamation only freed enslaved people in Confederate states still in rebellion, leaving slavery untouched in border states loyal to the Union and in any Confederate areas already under Union control.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

On what date did the Emancipation Proclamation take effect?

Acceptable responses: January 1, 1863.

Explain

Why did the Proclamation not free everyone held in slavery in the United States?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: it reached only the areas then in rebellion. Slavery was protected under the Constitution, and Lincoln had no authority to end it in the loyal border states—which he also could not afford to alienate, since keeping them in the Union was a standing priority. The Proclamation’s legal force came from its character as a war measure directed at the rebelling states, which is also why permanent abolition required a constitutional amendment.

Daily Recap

To the chagrin of some, the Emancipation Proclamation did not contain high-flying rhetoric or bold moral assertions. In fact, for many today, Lincoln’s approach was insufficiently zealous, as he failed to eradicate what is now almost universally regarded as a great moral evil. Considering the whole context of Lincoln’s time, however, it seems probable that his course was prudent and justified, advancing the Union war effort while also putting American slavery on its course to eventual extinction.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson follows the paired Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg and then asks how Lincoln used Gettysburg to connect military sacrifice, the Declaration’s principle of equality, and the survival of democratic self-government.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: proclamation, emancipation, rebellion, amendment

Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Proclamation applied only to __ because __.” “The Thirteenth Amendment was different from the Proclamation because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a shaded map showing where the Proclamation applied and where it did not, a two-column comparison of the Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

10.4 Vicksburg and Gettysburg (pp. 321–325)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 321–325, the fourth section.

Exercise: The Critical Thinking exercise on the Gettysburg Address, with Primary Source 10.1.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Chancellorsville and on what cut the Confederacy in two.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Ten, Section Five, “Grant and Sherman Come to the Fore” (pp. 325–328).

Essential Understanding

The major battles of the middle years of the Civil War, 1862 and 1863, including the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg; the roles of leading generals such as Stonewall Jackson, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and Ulysses S. Grant; and the wartime significance of the Gettysburg Address, as well as the reasons that it is so highly regarded as a masterpiece of American oratory.

Lesson Objectives

• Explain the significance of the Battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg.

• Analyze the Gettysburg Address.

Key Dates

1863 General Stonewall Jackson, wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville (April 30–May 6), dies of his wounds (May 10)

1863 The Battle of Gettysburg marks a turning point in the Union’s favor (July 1–3)

1863 Union General Ulysses S. Grant captures the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi (July 4)

1863 Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address (November 19)

Key Concepts

Soon after Lincoln made the decision to publish the Proclamation, Union forces encountered more hardship. General Burnside was decisively defeated at Fredericksburg by Lee in one of the Union’s most costly and lopsided defeats. His replacement, Joseph Hooker fared little better and was himself defeated at Chancellorsville despite commanding a substantially larger army than Lee’s. Having seized the initiative, Lee decided to move north towards Pennsylvania.

In the western theater, the North made more progress. By May, soldiers under the command of Ulysses S. Grant besieged Vicksburg, the last Confederate fort on the Mississippi River. Then, in July, the tide of the war turned decisively—and irreversibly—with the major Union victory at Gettysburg, together with the fall of Vicksburg.

Several months later, an emboldened Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to commemorate the battle, delivering perhaps his most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address. A rhetorical masterpiece, it identifies the Union’s cause with the survival of democracy itself.

Key Terms

The Battle of Fredericksburg: Fought in December 1862, this battle was a disastrous defeat for the Union, featuring numerous failed charges under the command of Ambrose Burnside against fortified Confederate positions at Fredericksburg.

The Battle of Chancellorsville: Taking place in the first week of May 1863, this battle was notable for Lee’s audacious division of his own forces against a vastly numerically superior Union army, which was summarily routed. Lee then moved north, embarking on his ill-fated Gettysburg campaign.

The Siege of Vicksburg: The Siege of Vicksburg, ordered by General Grant after the failure of two assaults to seize the fortified city, lasted seven weeks before the Confederate force of 30,000 capitulated on July 4, 1863. As Vicksburg was the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi, the Union victory achieved a central aim of General Scott’s original Anaconda Plan by splitting the Confederacy in two for the rest of the war.

The Battle of Gettysburg: The largest battle of the Civil War and one of its bloodiest engagements, this engagement over the first three days of July 1863 resulted in a crucial victory for the Union, ending Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania and severely weakening his Army of Northern Virginia. Together with Vicksburg, it is widely regarded as a major turning point in the war.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the fourth section of Chapter Ten, “Vicksburg and Gettysburg.”

Assign several of the following questions:

What became of General Burnside and his army at Fredericksburg?

What was the outcome of the Battle of Chancellorsville?

Who was Stonewall Jackson?

What was the significance of the Battle of Vicksburg? Who led the Union’s forces?

What were Grant’s background, character, and methods as a commander?

What happened at Gettysburg?

What did Lincoln say in the Gettysburg Address?

What was the national reaction to the Address?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Provide a copy of the Gettysburg Address. Have a volunteer read the document aloud and encourage students to consider how it moves from the past to the present and the future. How have the aims of the war as articulated by Lincoln changed? How many times does the word “nation” appear? What is its significance?

Writing Skills: Ask students to imagine they are war reporters who have been given the assignment to write an engaging newspaper article about the Battle of Gettysburg. They will write an original story that includes the following elements:

Headline and sub-headline

A “lead” that captures reader attention

The most important information (who, what, when, where, and why it matters)

A creative conclusion.

Argumentation: Ask students to consider and discuss the following question: to what extent was Lincoln culpable for the failures of the Union’s various commanding generals?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Was Chancellorsville a southern or northern victory? How was it a mixed bag?

Insight: Chancellorsville was a victory for the South. Despite outnumbering the Confederates 2-to-1 with the largest number of Union forces assembled to date (130,000), General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker was badly defeated by Lee and his army. Yet, the Confederates lost a large amount of soldiers (13,000 casualties out of 60,000 soldiers). The South also lost one of their most gifted and well-loved leaders when General “Stonewall” Jackson was mortally wounded by friendly fire. He was a brilliant tactician and was considered irreplaceable by General Lee. It was also demoralizing and negatively affected the morale of the Confederate Army, its leaders, and the Southern people.

What event cut the Confederacy in two?

Insight: The Anaconda Plan called for a naval blockade of Southern ports and Union control of the Mississippi River in order to split the Confederacy in two. The Union’s victory in the Battle of Vicksburg in July of 1863 gave the Union complete control of the Mississippi River, resulting in Arkansas, much of Louisiana, and Texas being cut off from the rest of the Confederacy. The completion of this portion of the Anaconda Plan resulted in splitting the Confederacy and choking off vital supply and communication routes.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Who commanded the Union forces at Vicksburg, and on what date did the city fall?

Acceptable responses: Ulysses S. Grant; the Confederates surrendered on July 4, 1863, after a seven-week siege.

Explain

Why does the chapter treat the first week of July 1863 as the war’s turning point?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the Confederacy suffered two colossal defeats within days, one in each theater. Vicksburg completed Union control of the Mississippi and cut the Confederacy in two, leaving Texas and Arkansas isolated and in effect lost. At Gettysburg, Lee’s second invasion of the North failed decisively over three days, including Pickett’s charge on July 3. Together they put the Union well on the road to victory. A strong answer will note that Lee’s defeat also further diminished Confederate hopes for foreign recognition or intervention.

Daily Recap

While various important events occurred during the middle years of the Civil War, the Gettysburg Address is among the most significant. Its text repays close study alongside the military events it commemorates. The speech places the war in the context of the American project as a whole, in particular its founding principles. Lincoln even addresses the meaning of war itself, particularly one fought for a moral purpose, as the Union’s cause had become.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson follows Grant and Sherman as Union strategy became more relentless, asking how sustained pressure on Confederate armies and resources changed the character of the war and the prospects for victory.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: siege, invasion, turning point, address

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Vicksburg mattered because __.” “The Gettysburg Address described the war as being about rather than __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a marked copy of Map 10.2 showing both July 1863 defeats, a four-step sequence from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

10.5 Grant and Sherman Come to the Fore (pp. 325–328)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 325–328, the fifth section.

Exercise: The Debate on whether the Civil War was the first modern instance of total war, with Figure 10.13.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Grant’s promotion and Sherman’s March.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Ten, Section Six, “Winning the Election in Wartime” (pp. 328–330).

Essential Understanding

The transformation of the war as the Anaconda Plan was executed and Grant and Sherman came to the helm of the Union Army.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the path that Ulysses S. Grant took to become the Union general.

• Evaluate Sherman’s strategy of “total war”.

Key Dates

1864 Grant and Lee fight to a bloody standstill at the Battle of the Wilderness, but Grant presses south (May 5–7)

1864 General Sherman captures Savannah, completing his March to the Sea (December)

Key Concepts

The rise of Grant and Sherman within the U.S. Army finally provided the North with reliable military leadership. The year 1864 featured steady Union progress in both major theaters of the war, particularly once Sherman captured Atlanta in September.

As Sherman marched through Georgia, he advanced past his supply lines, raiding the countryside for provisions as he made his way to Savannah during his notorious March to the Sea. Similar tactics were practiced by Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The American Civil War was taking on aspects of what historians sometimes call hard war or total war: Union armies increasingly targeted transportation, supplies, infrastructure, and other resources that sustained Confederate armies, while also seeking to undermine civilian support for the war. In that respect, the war presaged the destructiveness of the great European wars of the early twentieth century (though on a far smaller scale).

Key Terms

The Siege of Petersburg: After Cold Harbor, Grant drove south to Petersburg, a vital railhead below Richmond, trapped Lee’s army there and laid siege for the next nine months. It is where Grant’s strategy of attrition stopped being a campaign and became a vise.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the fifth section of Chapter Ten, “Grant and Sherman Come to the Fore.”

Assign several of the following questions:

How many of Lincoln’s generals did Robert E. Lee defeat before Lincoln promoted Grant to be commanding general?

What was Grant’s background? What was his reputation prior to his promotion?

What were Grant’s tactics after he became Lincoln’s top general?

How did Grant’s tactics differ from those of his predecessors and what significance can be drawn from these differences with regard to the tenor of the war in general?

How did the American Civil War foreshadow future wars?

Who was General Sherman and what was “Sherman’s March”?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Speaking Skills: Ask students to formulate a brief introduction to General Ulysses S. Grant, to be delivered at a reception for congressmen at the Capitol in 1864. They should construct a short biography that details his career highlights to date. Have a few volunteers present their work in class.

Writing Skills: Ask the class to imagine that they are soldiers in Sherman’s army after his capture of Atlanta. General Sherman has just shared with you and your company his plan to “March to the Sea.” Describe in a brief letter to family back home what this might look like. How will it likely result? Ask students to consider whether they would agree with the orders. Why or why not?

Civic Discourse: The American Civil War is sometimes cited as the first modern instance of total war, in which all of an enemy society’s resources are considered legitimate military targets. Such a characterization is controversial; for instance, General Sherman ordered his men to spare civilian homes during his campaign through Georgia. Nonetheless, ask students to consider the morality of total war and stage a debate on whether it may have been justified in the American South. Was Lincoln’s aim of eventual reconciliation at all relevant to the matter?

Guiding Classroom Questions

By 1864, Lincoln had promoted Grant to head of the Army. Was this a wise decision? How did this choice impact the course of the war?

Insight: Promoting Grant was probably a wise decision. Throughout the war, Lincoln had struggled with a string of hesitant generals unwilling to commit their troops fully to battle. Grant was different: he had won three consecutive battles and performed brilliantly at Chattanooga, convincing Lincoln he had finally found the aggressive, fighting general he’d been searching for.

Insight: Grant’s strategy relied on sustained pressure and attrition: repeatedly engaging Confederate armies, threatening their supply lines, and continuing operations rather than withdrawing after costly battles. The approach depended on the North’s advantages in manpower and supplies. Grant understood that if he kept applying constant pressure, the Union could simply outlast the South, even at heavy cost to his own forces.

Insight: Whether this made him “wise” is more complicated. While Grant’s strategy won the war, the war was by then taking on aspects of total war, involving destruction that would have been unthinkable earlier in the conflict, before anyone grasped how long and devastating the war would become. This scale of destruction achieved victory, but it also left deep scars across the South, making the subsequent goal of reconciling the two halves of the nation considerably harder to achieve.

Describe Sherman’s March to the Sea. What was Sherman’s main goal? How successful was he?

Insight: Sherman’s March to the Sea carried his army from Atlanta to Savannah, which he captured in December 1864, completing the march. Employing a scorched-earth strategy similar to earlier total-war tactics, Sherman’s army cut a swath roughly sixty miles wide. Troops confiscated food and livestock, freed enslaved people, tore up railroads, wrecked mills, and burned the mansions of wealthy planters.

Insight: Sherman’s main goal went beyond military conquest. He aimed to break the South’s will to fight entirely. As he put it, “My aim was, to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their innermost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.” This was psychological warfare as much as physical destruction, designed to terrorize the civilian population into submission and demonstrate that the Confederacy could no longer protect its own people or property.

Insight: By that measure, Sherman largely succeeded. His campaign damaged railroads, mills, supplies, and other resources across its path and demonstrated that the Confederacy could no longer protect large parts of its interior. The cost of that success was a legacy of bitterness. Sherman became one of the most hated figures in the South for generations afterward.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Where did Sherman’s March to the Sea begin and end, and in what month did it finish?

Acceptable responses: It began at Atlanta, Georgia, in November 1864 and ended at Savannah in December.

Explain

The book says Grant’s tactics would have been unthinkable three years earlier. Why had they become thinkable by 1864?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: nobody at the outset had imagined how long, wasting, and destructive the war would become, so a strategy that spent lives on that scale was unimaginable in 1861. By 1864 the war had already transformed twice over—from a war for the Union into a war for freedom, and from armies clashing in fields into total war—and Grant’s attrition and Sherman’s destruction followed from that change rather than causing it. A strong answer will notice the book’s own reservation: these were hardly ideal tactics for a civil war whose aim was eventual reconciliation.

Daily Recap

The ascendency of Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman helped turn the tide of the Civil War decidedly in the Union’s favor. Their aggressive and unconventional tactics differed from those of their predecessors and proved far more effective. As Southern hope for victory dwindled over the course of 1864, the war became to some an opportunity to punish the whole South for its perceived intransigence and immorality.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson turns from battlefield strategy to democratic politics, showing how military news, party division, emancipation, and war weariness shaped the uncertain election of 1864.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: attrition, supply line, scorched earth, morale

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Grant’s approach differed from McClellan’s because __.” “Sherman aimed at rather than only at __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: Sherman’s route traced on Map 10.2, a two-column chart of Grant’s methods against his predecessors’, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

10.6 Winning the Election in Wartime (pp. 328–330)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 328–330, the sixth section.

Exercise: The Writing Skills letter home from a Union soldier with family in a border state.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Lincoln’s choice of running mate.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Ten, Section Seven, “Finishing the War” (pp. 330–337).

Essential Understanding

Lincoln’s political situation over the course of 1864; how and why it was not a foregone conclusion that he would win reelection.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the political circumstances facing Lincoln during the election of 1864.

• Draw conclusions about why Lincoln was underestimated during his presidency.

Key Dates

1864 Lincoln wins reelection (November 8)

Key Concepts

The Union’s battlefield struggles throughout the opening years of the war significantly damaged Lincoln’s popularity. Facing his youthful and brash former commanding general George McClellan, he was far from assured of victory in his reelection campaign of 1864.

Several factors contributed to Lincoln’s reelection. Firstly, he ran as a member of the newly formed National Union Party, together with a Southern Democrat (Andrew Johnson), which helped him to attract significant cross-party support. Secondly, the Democrats were riven by internal divisions regarding the War, as the official party platform advocated for peace negotiations while McClellan himself preferred to continue the fight. Lastly, the progress of federal armies, particularly Sherman’s through Georgia, suggested an imminent Union victory, which Lincoln’s decisive victory helped make a reality.

Key Terms

War Democrats: Northern Democrats who supported the war effort but wanted only a restoration of the Union as it had existed in 1860, without the wider aims the war had acquired. Lincoln chose one of them, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, as his 1864 running mate.

Copperheads: The faction of Northern Democrats who opposed the war and wanted an immediate end to it on terms acceptable to the South. Republicans gave them the name in 1862, likening them to the poisonous snake. They regarded Lincoln as a tyrant, and some verged on pro-Confederate sympathies.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the sixth section of Chapter Ten, “Winning the Election in Wartime.”

Assign the following questions:

Why was the outcome of the 1864 election uncertain for Lincoln?

What was the condition of the Democratic Party going into the 1864 election?

Why was public morale regarding the war so low in 1864?

What was the state of public opinion regarding Abraham Lincoln in 1864? Was he widely admired?

What events buoyed Lincoln’s campaign and increased the likelihood of his victory?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Writing Skills: Ask students to imagine that they are Union soldiers in the Civil War with family living in a border state. Have them write a short letter home persuading their relatives to vote for or against Lincoln. They should identify the considerations that make their recommendation the wisest choice for their family and touch on the stakes of the election results.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Grant and Lincoln were both notable for their sudden rise to prominence from humble and somewhat obscure backgrounds on the American frontier. How might their origins have contributed to their popularity? How might their modest circumstances have also undermined their authority? Discuss these questions in class.

Argumentation: In November 1864 the United States held a regularly scheduled presidential election in the middle of a civil war. The outcome was far from certain, and the president’s opponent was the general he had removed. Ask students to work through what that meant:

What would it have cost the Union to postpone the election until the war ended? What would it have cost to hold it?

Lincoln ran as the National Union Party with a Southern War Democrat on the ticket. Was that principle or maneuver, and does the distinction matter?

The Copperhead faction wanted an immediate end to the war on terms acceptable to the South. If McClellan had won, what would the Union’s war aims have become?

Lincoln won reelection after Atlanta and Mobile Bay. Does a result that turns on military news tell us the election worked, or that it nearly did not?

Insight: Holding a national election in the middle of a civil war carried real risk, and the chapter’s point is that the risk was real—Lincoln’s own party thought him insufficiently abolitionist while Copperheads called him a tyrant. Holding the election was itself an argument that the democratic idea was what the war was defending, which is exactly the claim the Gettysburg Address had made a year earlier.

Further: Ask students to name a later American election held under national strain, and to say what it would have taken for that election not to happen. The value is in discovering how few conditions have to fail.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Whom did Lincoln choose as his running mate? Why was this significant?

Insight: For his second term, Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, as his running mate. This was a deliberate political strategy. Lincoln’s coalition sought to appeal beyond the Republican Party, including to loyal War Democrats and Unionists, so Lincoln ran under the banner of the newly formed National Union Party rather than as a Republican, even though he remained a Republican at heart. Pairing himself with Johnson, a Democrat from a border state, was meant to broaden his appeal and draw votes from voters who would resist him.

Insight: The strategy worked. Lincoln won reelection. In the short term, the choice broadened his ticket’s appeal and accompanied a mandate to finish the war. In the longer run, however, the decision proved far more consequential and troublesome than Lincoln could have anticipated, as Johnson became president and soon clashed with congressional Republicans over Reconstruction.

The United States held a free presidential election in the middle of a civil war, at a moment when the outcome was far from certain. What would Lincoln’s defeat have meant for the war?

Insight: Nothing in the Constitution suspends an election for war, so the vote of November 1864 went ahead on schedule while the armies were still in the field, and the outcome was far from certain. Lincoln faced intense and persistent political opposition, the Union’s battlefield struggles had damaged him further, and he was attacked from both directions at once: the radical wing of his own party thought him insufficiently abolitionist, while the Copperheads called him a tyrant.

Insight: A Democratic victory would have created profound uncertainty about the prosecution of the war: the party platform called for negotiations, although McClellan himself rejected that peace plank and pledged to restore the Union. That would have left the Confederacy intact and emancipation unfinished, since the Emancipation Proclamation was a war measure and the Thirteenth Amendment had not yet been ratified. What changed the outcome was military news — the fall of Atlanta and Farragut’s victory at Mobile Bay in August 1864 left little doubt the war would be won.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Whom did the Democratic Party nominate against Lincoln in 1864, and whom did Lincoln choose as his running mate?

Acceptable responses: The Democrats nominated General George B. McClellan, Lincoln’s former commanding general. Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat from Tennessee.

Explain

Lincoln won reelection. Why was that outcome not expected?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: Lincoln faced intense and persistent political opposition, and the Union’s battlefield struggles had damaged him further; his own party’s radical wing thought him insufficiently abolitionist while Copperheads called him a tyrant. What changed was a run of military success—Atlanta, and Farragut’s naval victory at Mobile Bay in August 1864—which greatly strengthened confidence that the Union could win the war. A strong answer will add the political engineering: running as the National Union Party with a Southern War Democrat on the ticket, and a Democratic Party too divided to exploit his weakness, since McClellan did not fully endorse his own party’s platform.

Daily Recap

Although Lincoln is now generally remembered as one of the greatest presidents, he did not enjoy tremendous popular support in his own time. Indeed, he was frequently and harshly criticized, both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line. Had it not been for several decisive Union victories, he may not have won reelection at all, so great was public dissatisfaction with the war at the time.

Looking Ahead

The final lesson brings military victory and reconciliation together: Sherman’s advance, Lee’s surrender, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, and the assassination that removed the president just as the nation confronted the terms of reunion.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: incumbent, running mate, platform, mandate

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Lincoln was vulnerable in 1864 because __.” “Choosing Andrew Johnson helped because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a chart of the 1864 factions and what each wanted, a before-and-after timeline of Lincoln’s prospects around Atlanta and Mobile Bay, or three sentences.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

10.7 Finishing the War (pp. 330–337)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 330–337, the seventh section.

Exercise: The Reading Comprehension close read of the Second Inaugural, with Primary Source 10.2 and Figure 10.15.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on providence and on the conduct of the surrender.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Begin Chapter Eleven.

Essential Understanding

The events of the final months of the war up to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox; the tone, content, and aims of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address; the atmosphere at Appomattox and in the country more generally with regard to the future of the Union; Lincoln’s assassination and its consequences for postwar reconciliation.

Lesson Objectives

• Analyze Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.

• Review the course of the Civil War from Fort Sumter to Appomattox.

• Evaluate the prospects for reconciliation after Appomattox.

Key Dates

1865 Richmond, the Confederate capital, falls to the Union (April 3)

1865 General Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House (April 9)

1865 Lincoln is shot by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, and dies the following day (April 14–15)

1866 The war formally concludes (August 20)

Key Concepts

The final months of the war featured mounting devastation for the Confederacy.

Sherman captured Savannah in December, 1864, completing his March to the Sea before deciding to move north through the Carolinas. In February, his troops entered Columbia, South Carolina, where much of the city burned amid the Union occupation; responsibility for the fires remains disputed. By the early Spring, the Confederate government had abandoned Richmond to Grant’s armies, heralding the end of the war.

At his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln advocated charity towards and reconciliation with the soon-to-be defeated Confederacy. Yet, shortly after the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, Lincoln was assassinated in Washington, D.C., suggesting that rancor and resentment would far outlast the conclusion of formal hostilities.

Key Terms

The stacking of arms: The formal surrender ceremony four days after Appomattox, when Lee’s army of twenty-eight thousand marched in to surrender arms and colors. General Joshua L. Chamberlain of Maine, a hero of Gettysburg, was present and wrote the account the chapter’s Further note sends students to.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the seventh section of Chapter Ten, “Finishing the War.”

Assign several of the following questions:

What became of Columbia, South Carolina? Why was it symbolically significant?

What was the message of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address?

What might have some of Lincoln’s motives been in invoking its biblical imagery?

When and where did Robert E. Lee surrender?

When and where was Lincoln assassinated?

What did the loss of Lincoln mean for the peacemaking process?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Reading Comprehension: Conduct a close read of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural with students. Read one paragraph at a time and ask students: What stands out to them? What did Lincoln mean?

Further: After reading both the Second Inaugural Address and General Chamberlain’s observations at Appomattox, and considering the story of the Civil War up to this point, ask students to consider, and then to articulate, what the prospects of reconciliation looked like in this moment.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Review the course of the war from Fort Sumter through Appomattox. Instruct students to create a timeline to identify the dates of the major engagements, the commanders involved, and the significance of each. Before checking their dates, have students estimate as a group how much time separated each engagement from the next, then calculate the actual intervals and compare them with the estimates, marking the longest and shortest gaps on the finished timeline.

Civic Discourse: Conduct a Socratic seminar discussion to reflect on the significance of the Civil War. Ask students to consider the questions below. Before the discussion, allow students time to prepare their thoughts on the questions and to create questions of their own.

What was the most significant advantage or disadvantage that allowed the Union to win the Civil War?

Was the Civil War inevitable? Why did it happen in 1860 and not during previous years?

Did the purpose and meaning of the Civil War change over time? If so, how and why?

Between Lincoln’s presidential leadership and the abolition movement, how would you divide credit for the ultimate abolition of slavery?

Which mattered more in bringing on the war: a single triggering event (such as Fort Sumter), or decades of underlying economic and political division between North and South?

What were the war's most significant consequences by the time it ended in 1865 — for the Union as a political entity, and for the institution of slavery?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Considering his Second Inauguration Address, how did Lincoln see the hand of God in the war and its outcome?

Insight: In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln reflected on the role of divine providence in the war. He observed that both North and South prayed to the same God and sought His aid, yet he recognized that the Almighty had His own purposes, which might differ from what either side hoped for or expected.

Insight: Lincoln viewed slavery itself as a profound moral offense to the Almighty, one that fell under the biblical warning, “Woe unto the world because of offenses,” suggesting that slavery was the very offense for which divine judgment was now being rendered upon the nation. While he prayed, and asked others to pray, that the scourge of war would pass away quickly, he ultimately submitted the outcome to God’s will rather than presuming to know it. He suggested that if God willed the war to continue until all the wealth accumulated through all the years of slave labor was destroyed, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash was repaid by blood drawn by the sword, this too would affirm the justice of divine judgment. Even amid the war’s devastation, Lincoln held fast to the belief expressed in Scripture that “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,” accepting that whatever suffering the nation endured, it reflected a moral reckoning beyond human control.

How was the surrender at Appomattox Court House conducted? How was the dignity of the southern leaders maintained?

Insight: Robert E. Lee met Grant at the Appomattox Court House for an official surrender of the Confederate army. Lee had no power to truly surrender the Confederacy, but his actions would lead to that as well. Lee was dressed clean and proper in his dress uniform while Grant was in uniform as well but slovenly, with pants tucked into his muddy boots and mud splattered on his uniform. It was a solemn affair with both men treating each other kindly and with respect. Grant allowed officers to keep their sidearms and soldiers to keep their horses so that they could use them for planting season. Grant did not arrest or charge anyone with treason.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Give the dates of Richmond’s fall, Lee’s surrender, and Lincoln’s death.

Acceptable responses: Richmond fell on April 3, 1865; Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9; Lincoln was shot on April 14 and died the following day.

Explain

Grant’s surrender terms were generous. What was he trying to accomplish by them?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the terms served the war’s actual object, which the book is clear was reconciliation rather than conquest. Letting officers keep sidearms and men keep horses for the spring planting, with no arrests and no charges of treason, gave the defeated an intact path back into national life and denied any grievance around which resistance could re-form. A strong answer will connect this to the Second Inaugural, where Lincoln argued for the same thing a month earlier, and may note Chamberlain’s account of the surrender ceremony, where the question he raises is whether such men were to be welcomed back into the Union.

Daily Recap

Following Lincoln’s reelection, the Confederacy entered terminal decline, as its positions crumbled on every front. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox marked the de facto end of the secessionists’ cause, though hostilities continued for several more weeks. While Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address suggested that he would be a staunch advocate for magnanimity toward the defeated South, he did not live to see the war’s conclusion, as his life was tragically cut short by his assassination.

Looking Ahead

Chapter Eleven begins with the problem the war could not itself solve: how to reconstruct the Union, define freedom after slavery, and restore civil government without the president who had urged reunion “with malice toward none.”

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: surrender, providence, atonement, reconciliation

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Grant’s terms at Appomattox were generous because __.” “In the Second Inaugural Lincoln blamed rather than __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say the answer to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a timeline of April 1865 in order, a two-column chart of what Lincoln asked for and what the surrender terms delivered, or three sentences.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Timeline

Place the following events into chronological order from earliest to latest.

A. Union victory at Gettysburg

B. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House

C. Confederate forces attack Fort Sumter

D. Sherman completes his March to the Sea

E. Richmond falls to Union forces

Answer: 1–C · 2–A · 3–D · 4–E · 5–B

Key Persons and Concepts

Complete each statement with the appropriate person.

1. William Tecumseh Sherman commanded Union forces on the March to the Sea, destroying infrastructure and resources to weaken the Confederacy’s capacity and will to continue the war.

2. Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia and became the Confederacy’s most celebrated general; his surrender at Appomattox effectively ended the principal Confederate army in Virginia.

3. Ulysses S. Grant rose from relative obscurity to become general-in-chief of the Union armies, known for persistent campaigns that kept pressure on Confederate forces.

4. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson earned his famous nickname at First Bull Run and became one of Lee’s most important subordinates before his death in 1863.

5. Ambrose Burnside commanded Union forces in the disastrous assault at Fredericksburg.

6. George B. McClellan repeatedly overestimated Confederate strength and frustrated Lincoln with his caution and failure to exploit opportunities.

7. Joseph E. Johnston commanded Confederate forces in the Western Theater and later opposed Sherman in the Carolinas before surrendering in April 1865.

Geography

Consult the answer map for the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix. The student exercise asks students to locate the northernmost, southernmost, easternmost, and westernmost battles shown on Map 10.2 and estimate the distance between the two farthest-apart locations.

[ART REQUIRED — Chapter 10_AssessmentAnswerKeyMap.jpg]

Model response: Using the map as drawn, students should identify Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as the northernmost; Fort Pickens, Florida, as the southernmost; Fortress Monroe, Virginia, as the easternmost; and Pea Ridge, Arkansas, as the westernmost. Reasonable distance estimates will vary with the map scale. The larger point is that the war stretched across an enormous theater, making railroads, rivers, coastal shipping, roads, supply depots, and long marches strategically crucial.

Short Answer

The questions below may be used as written or selected and adapted for an assessment. Model responses are provided for the teacher.

1. What political pressures and risks was Lincoln weighing in the opening months of 1861, and how did they shape his cautious early approach to the secession crisis?

Model response: Lincoln sought to preserve federal authority without driving the loyal slave states into secession or appearing to initiate a war. He also faced the constitutional claim of secession, divided Northern opinion, and the practical problem of federal property in the seceded states. His cautious handling of Fort Sumter was designed to maintain the Union position while leaving Confederate leaders responsible for deciding whether to initiate hostilities.

2. Why did the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter mark the beginning of open war rather than the months of tension that preceded it?

Model response: Secession had already created a constitutional and political crisis, but the bombardment of a federal fort transformed that crisis into sustained armed conflict. After Confederate forces opened fire and forced the garrison’s surrender, Lincoln called for 75,000 militia, prompting additional Upper South states to secede and mobilizing both sides for war.

3. Outline the different advantages of the North and South. Why did First Bull Run show that the war would not be quick and decisive?

Model response: The Union possessed a much larger population, greater industrial and financial resources, more railroad mileage, and a powerful navy. The Confederacy fought largely on the defensive, had interior familiarity, and benefited from experienced officers and strong motivation for independence. First Bull Run shattered expectations of an easy Union victory and demonstrated that Confederate armies could organize and fight effectively.

4. In what sense was Antietam inconclusive on the battlefield, and why was it strategically important?

Model response: Neither army was destroyed, and Lee was able to withdraw to Virginia, while McClellan failed to pursue aggressively. Nevertheless, the battle halted Lee’s invasion of the North and denied the Confederacy the conspicuous victory it hoped might encourage foreign recognition. It also gave Lincoln the strategic opening to announce the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

5. How did the Emancipation Proclamation change the purpose of the war, and how was it legally designed?

Model response: The Union’s original official aim was restoration of the Union. The Proclamation made emancipation an explicit Union war aim and authorized Black military service, while also making foreign support for the Confederacy politically more difficult. Lincoln grounded it in his commander-in-chief powers as a wartime measure, so it applied to designated areas in rebellion rather than loyal slave states or exempted Union-controlled areas; nationwide abolition required the Thirteenth Amendment.

6. What weaknesses in early Union military leadership allowed Lee to exploit opportunities despite the Union’s material advantages?

Model response: Several Union commanders, especially McClellan, were excessively cautious, overestimated Confederate strength, and failed to exploit advantages after battle. Lee repeatedly seized the initiative, maneuvered aggressively, and accepted risks his opponents often would not. The Union’s superior resources therefore did not immediately translate into decisive victories.

7. What made Gettysburg, together with Vicksburg, a major turning point in the war?

Model response: Gettysburg ended Lee’s second invasion of the North and inflicted losses the Confederacy could ill afford, while Vicksburg gave the Union control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy geographically. Coming within days of one another, the victories shifted strategic momentum strongly toward the Union and further weakened Confederate hopes for foreign recognition.

8. How did the Gettysburg Address affirm and reinterpret the Declaration of Independence?

Model response: Lincoln dated the nation’s birth to 1776 and centered the Declaration’s proposition that all men are created equal. He presented the war as a test of whether a nation founded on equality and government by the people could endure. The promised “new birth of freedom” connected preservation of the Union to a broader realization of the nation’s founding ideals.

9. Explain the connection between Lincoln’s evolving war aims and his commitment to national reconciliation.

Model response: Lincoln’s commitment to restoring the Union remained constant even as emancipation became an explicit war aim. He did not treat reunion and freedom as mutually exclusive: by 1865 he sought a restored Union without slavery. His Second Inaugural and the generous surrender terms Grant offered at Appomattox reflected the belief that victory should secure the Union’s purposes without turning into indiscriminate vengeance against the defeated South.

10. Near the end of the Second Inaugural, what goals did Lincoln set for healing the nation?

Model response: Lincoln called for “malice toward none” and “charity for all,” for binding up the nation’s wounds, and for caring for those who had borne the battle and for their widows and orphans. He urged Americans to pursue a just and lasting peace rather than vengeance, while acknowledging slavery and the war through the language of shared national judgment.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

In what ways did the American Civil War simultaneously test the founding principles of America and give the nation a “new birth of freedom”?

Model response: Strong essays should identify at least two founding principles tested by the war—such as government by consent, constitutional union, and the proposition that all men are created equal—and use the Gettysburg Address and/or Second Inaugural as evidence. They should explain how preservation of republican government and emancipation became joined in Lincoln’s understanding of the conflict, and why permanent abolition required the Thirteenth Amendment rather than the Emancipation Proclamation alone. The strongest responses will hold preservation and transformation together: the Union survived a rebellion against the constitutional order, but the meaning of that survival changed as slavery was destroyed and equality became more explicitly connected to the nation’s political purpose.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Ordeal of Reconstruction

Repairing the Breach

1865–1877 · pp. 339–369

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Chapter Summary

The reunion and reconstruction of the nation after so devastating a war presented a monumental challenge, and there were opposing views on how to proceed with reconciling the fractured nation. Some wanted to reincorporate the South swiftly and without much recrimination. Others argued for severe punishment, accompanied by a complete social transformation overseen by the federal government. In 1864, the Wade–Davis Bill passed Congress, stipulating that only those who had never been loyal to the Confederacy would be able to vote for new state constitutions in the South. Lincoln, who favored a less punitive approach, pocket-vetoed the bill, infuriating many Republicans. After Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, the national mood toward the South grew harder and angrier. Moreover, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency upon Lincoln’s assassination. He turned out to be ill-equipped for the position, lacking the requisite political skills, temperament, and judgment. The road ahead proved very rocky indeed.

Johnson quickly found himself at odds with the Republican majority in Congress. In May 1865, he put forward a Reconstruction plan just slightly more demanding than Lincoln’s that offered a general pardon to all former Confederates except property owners with more than $20,000 in taxable assets. In early 1866, Johnson vetoed a bill to renew the Freedmen’s Bureau, arguing that it had been a wartime measure and that its extension would be unconstitutional. He also vetoed the Civil Rights Act, which had been designed to counter the blatant discrimination against freedmen that was being reinstitutionalized in the postwar South. Both of these actions proved inflammatory, and Johnson’s Civil Rights Act veto was overridden—the first time in American history that a significant piece of legislation was enacted into law over presidential veto. A new Freedmen’s Bureau bill also passed. With Johnson increasingly marginalized, Congress began to take the leading role in Reconstruction.

The Fourteenth Amendment was approved by Congress in June 1866 and was ratified by the states in July 1868. It was the first attempt to give greater constitutional definition and breadth to the concept of citizenship by declaring all persons born or naturalized in the United States and legally subject to its jurisdiction to be citizens. It also obligated the states to give equal protection of the law to all citizens.

In early 1867, Congress passed three Reconstruction Acts over Johnson’s vetoes, dividing the South into five military districts placed under the supervision of federally appointed generals. Congress also made the requirements for readmission to the Union more stringent: the ex-Confederate states had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and guarantee the franchise to all adult males, irrespective of race. Congress also passed the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited the president from removing federal officials from office without the Senate’s consent.

When Johnson challenged the act by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the House of Representatives impeached Johnson on February 24, 1868. The trial before the Senate lasted three months. The effort to remove Johnson failed by a single vote, that of Republican senator Edmund Ross of Kansas. But Johnson was nonetheless a lame duck president, and the way seemed clear for reform-minded Republicans.

The Republicans went on to win the presidency in 1868 with General Ulysses S. Grant as their nominee. With the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which ensured the ex-slaves’ right to vote, the reformers seemed to have gotten their way. Congress passed three Enforcement Acts in 1870–71 to combat the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan and to protect the rights of blacks in the South. However, the acts suffered from weak and inconsistent enforcement, and the insurgent groups continued to undermine the Reconstruction movement. Moreover, the North’s reforming zeal was waning as the nation grew weary and distracted. In 1873, a business panic triggered a deep economic depression, and many began to neglect the failing condition of Reconstruction in the South.

The final blow to Reconstruction came during the 1876 presidential election, extremely close and bitterly disputed. The Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, who faced Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Neither candidate supported the agenda of Radical Reconstruction, and both were lenient in their approach to the South. When the Electoral College vote was inconclusive, Congress appointed an electoral commission to determine the outcome. A compromise was then negotiated between the Republicans and a group of Southern Democrats who were willing to defect if the Republicans promised that Hayes would withdraw the last federal troops from the South, while also committing to the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad route. In return, the Democrats dropped their opposition to Hayes and accepted the three Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth). In the end, Hayes became president, and the Compromise of 1877 marked an inglorious end to the Reconstruction era—with much left undone and many gaping wounds left to fester.

Chapter Learning Objectives

What students should understand and be able to explain by the chapter's end:

The central events of the Reconstruction Era, from the related policies of the Lincoln administration to the Compromise of 1877; the three Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution; and the key reasons why Reconstruction ultimately failed to reform Southern politics.

• By the end of the Civil War, much of the South lay in ruins, while the rest of the country began to experience explosive economic growth and prosperity amid the Second Industrial Revolution. Such a gaping disparity made national reconciliation all the more difficult.

• Lincoln favored taking a lenient approach to the South in its reintegration to the Union, and he proposed that Southern states be readmitted once only ten percent of their electorates swore loyalty oaths. He was opposed by many congressional Republicans, who favored stricter measures.

• Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson was outmaneuvered by the “Radical Republican” faction in Congress, who imposed military rule over the South to implement its Reconstruction Acts, which were passed over Johnson’s veto.

• Johnson’s successor Ulysses S. Grant was generally sympathetic to the Republicans’ Reconstruction program, though his administration was troubled by corruption. Much of Southern society, meanwhile, came under a sharecropping economy in which the planter elite retained much of its landholding and influence.

• The Postwar Era did witness the ratification of three constitutional amendments, which outlawed slavery and promoted civil rights for African Americans. Observance of their letter and spirit faltered in the South, though, as Reconstruction-era state governments were overthrown by Southern Democrats known as “Redeemers.”

• The death knell for Reconstruction sounded with the Compromise of 1877, which enabled the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the removal of federal troops from Southern states. The country generally focused on economic affairs in the subsequent decades, allowing home-rule in the South, which increasingly disenfranchised Black and poor voters.

Key Persons

John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865)

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875)

Edwin Stanton (1814–1869)

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

Freedmen’s Bureau

Homestead Act

Morrill Tariff

National Banking Act

Reconstruction

Black codes

Incorporation (Bill of Rights)

Reconstruction Acts

Tenure of Office Act

Enforcement Acts (1870–71)

Sharecropping

Reconstruction Amendments

Timeline

1865 Congress creates the Freedmen’s Bureau (March 3)

1865 Vice President Andrew Johnson is inaugurated as president (April 15)

1865 Johnson introduces a plan for Reconstruction in the South (May 29)

1865 The Thirteenth Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery (December 6)

1865 The first chapter of the Ku Klux Klan forms in Tennessee (December 24)

1866 Johnson vetoes the first Civil Rights Act (March 27)

1866 Congress overrides Johnson’s veto to enact the Civil Rights Act (April 9)

1866 Johnson’s “swing around the circle” speaking tour (Summer–Fall)

1867 Congress passes the Reconstruction Acts over Johnson’s vetoes, dividing the South into five military districts (March 2)

1868 Congress impeaches Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act (February 24)

1868 The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, granting citizenship to former slaves (July 9)

1868 Ulysses S. Grant wins the presidential election (November 3)

1870 The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified, protecting black citizens’ right to vote (February 3)

1873 A financial panic triggers a severe depression, turning Northern attention away from Reconstruction (September)

1877 An electoral commission declares Rutherford B. Hayes president (March 2)

1877 The Compromise of 1877 marks the end of Reconstruction (March 2)

THE PLANNER

Suggested pacing for the chapter. The class-period estimates are recommendations; teach at the pace your students' progress warrants.

Chapter Eleven · The Ordeal of Reconstruction (3 to 6 class periods)

11.1 Chapter Opening – pp. 341–345 (.5 to 1 class)

• The challenge of reunification

• The devastation of the South

• Increasing prosperity in the North

11.2 How to Reunite a Nation? – pp. 346–350 (.5 to 1 class)

• The differing opinions regarding Reconstruction

• Lincoln’s plan and that of congressional Republicans

• The Wade–Davis Bill

• Lincoln’s assassination and its consequences

11.3 Johnson Takes Over – pp. 350–353 (.5 to 1 class)

• Andrew Johnson’s background

• The leniency of Johnson’s Reconstruction plan

• Radical Republicans seize the upper hand

• Johnson vetoes the first Civil Rights Act

11.4 Congress Takes Charge – pp. 354–364 (1 to 2 classes)

• The Fourteenth Amendment

• Johnson loses his composure on the campaign trail

• Congress overrides Johnson’s veto power

• The impeachment of Johnson fails

• General Grant becomes president

• The Fifteenth Amendment

• The South’s reaction to Reconstruction

11.5 Evaluating Reconstruction – pp. 365–369 (.5 to 1 class)

• The successes and failures of reconstruction

• The postwar life of freed slaves

• Grant acts to protect the rights of blacks against the nascent Ku Klux Klan

• The North’s enthusiasm for Reconstruction wanes

• The election of Rutherford B. Hayes and the Compromise of 1877

• Reconstruction considered as a whole

• The restoration of the antebellum order after Reconstruction

• The promise of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments

BACKGROUNDS

Context for the chapter's epigraph, primary sources, figures, and maps.

Chapter Epigraph

James Gillespie Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, 1886 (p. 339)

James G. Blaine served in the House throughout Reconstruction and became Speaker in 1869. In Twenty Years of Congress, he defended the central aims of congressional Reconstruction while acknowledging errors in its execution. The epigraph distinguishes temporary mistakes from the enduring aims of reunion, citizenship, and civil rights.

Primary Sources

Primary Source 11.1 · Edwin Stanton, Letter to Charles Francis Adams about Lincoln’s Assassination, April 15, 1865 (p. 348)

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sent this official dispatch to Charles Francis Adams, the American minister in London, within hours of Abraham Lincoln’s death. Its terse account records the assassination and marks the moment presidential authority passed to Andrew Johnson.

Primary Source 11.2 · Thaddeus Stevens, Speech in the House of Representatives Supporting the 1867 Reconstruction Acts, January 3, 1867 (p. 356)

Thaddeus Stevens, the leading Radical Republican in the House, delivered this speech while Congress debated the status of the former Confederate states and the rights of freedmen. He argues that emancipation alone did not constitute full liberty if freedmen remained excluded from political self-government.

Primary Source 11.3 · Andrew Johnson, Veto Message to the 1867 Reconstruction Acts, March 2, 1867 (p. 356)

President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, arguing that Congress was imposing governments on states without their consent and rejecting federal requirements for Black suffrage. Congress overrode the veto the same day.

Primary Source 11.4 · Henry Blake, From an Interview about Sharecropping, 1941 (p. 360)

Henry Blake was interviewed in Arkansas as part of the Federal Writers’ Project’s effort to record the memories of formerly enslaved Americans. His retrospective account describes how sharecropping and landowners’ control of accounting could produce persistent economic dependency.

Primary Source 11.5 · Frederick Douglass, “On Remembering the Civil War” Speech, May 30, 1878 (p. 366)

Frederick Douglass delivered this Decoration Day address in 1878, one year after the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the South. He rejects personal malice toward former slaveholders while insisting that reconciliation must not erase the moral distinction between the Union and Confederate causes.

Primary Source 11.6 · Henry W. Grady, “The South and Her Problems” Speech, 1887 (p. 367)

Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and a leading advocate of the “New South,” delivered this speech in 1887. He presented sectional reconciliation and economic modernization alongside a defense of racial separation and white political supremacy.

Figures

Figure 11.1 · Henry Mosler, The Lost Cause, 1869 (p. 338; the chapter-opening plate, facing the Blaine epigraph)

Oil on canvas, Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia. A Confederate veteran stands at the door of his ruined cabin, rifle still in hand, the field behind him gone to weeds. Mosler was a Cincinnati painter who had covered the war for Harper’s Weekly from the Union side, which makes the commission worth telling students about: the picture was paid for by Albert Seaton Berry, a former Confederate colonel. The title is doing work. The Lost Cause was becoming the name of an entire postwar memory—the war recast as a noble defense of home rather than a war over slavery—and this is one of the images that built it. What the painting shows is real: Southern devastation was total, and the economic collapse McClay describes in lesson 11.1 is on the canvas. What it leaves out is everyone who had been enslaved on land like this.

Figure 11.2 · George N. Barnard, Ruins in Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1865–66 (p. 342)

Photograph, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Barnard was the official photographer of Sherman’s Military Division of the Mississippi, and he made this image in the aftermath of campaigns he had followed from inside the army that conducted them. Published in 1866 in his Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign, it shows a city street reduced to standing walls and rubble. Two things make it more than illustration. First, the scale of destruction is the premise of the whole chapter: reunion was hard partly because one half of the country had been physically wrecked and the other had grown rich. Second, the photographer’s position is a genuine sourcing question a student can answer without any outside knowledge—the man documenting the ruin had ridden with the army that caused it, and he was selling the results to a Northern public. Ask what that does and does not change about the evidence.

Figure 11.8 · The Cruel Uncle and the Vetoed Babes in the Wood, unknown artist, 1866 (p. 353)

Wood engraving from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Johnson is the cruel uncle, leading two small children—labeled “The Civil Rights Act” and “The Freedmen’s Bureau”—into “Veto Wood” to die. The reference is to a sixteenth-century English ballad in which an uncle abandons his orphaned nephews in the forest so he can take their inheritance, and the cartoonist expects every reader to catch it instantly. That expectation is itself the lesson: a mass-circulation paper in 1866 could assume its audience knew a three-hundred-year-old ballad. The politics are equally direct. Johnson vetoed both measures; Congress overrode him on the Civil Rights Act in April 1866, the first time a major law was enacted over a presidential veto. The image captures Northern opinion at exactly the moment it turned against him. Use it with lesson 11.3, and ask students to name the two children before they are told—the labels are legible, and finding them is the first act of reading a cartoon.

Figure 11.9 · Thomas Nast, Andy’s Trip, October 27, 1866 (p. 355)

Wood engraving, Harper’s Weekly, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Nast was the most influential American political cartoonist of the century, and this multi-panel spread destroyed Johnson’s “swing around the circle,” the speaking tour he undertook that summer to build support before the midterms. At the center Johnson appears wearing a halo, beneath the words Who has suffered more for you and for this Union than Andrew Johnson?—a line drawn close enough to his actual speeches to work as quotation. The satire targets self-pity, not policy, and it worked: the tour alienated Northern audiences and helped deliver Republicans the veto-proof majority that made the Reconstruction Acts possible. The chapter’s Key Dates already carry the tour; this is what made it consequential. Students can be asked why ridicule proved more damaging to Johnson than argument, and what it costs a politician to be answered with a drawing rather than a speech. Nast would use the same weapon against Grant eight years later in Figure 11.13.

Figure 11.11 · Launey & Goebel Photographers, Picking Cotton, Savannah, Ga., Early Negro Life, ca. 1867–90 (p. 360)

Photograph, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Black laborers work a cotton field outside Savannah at some point in the quarter century after emancipation. The wide date range is not a flaw in the record; it is the point. Nothing in the image would let a viewer say whether these people are enslaved or free, and that is what students should sit with. Cotton remained the center of the Southern economy after the war, and, as the book notes, the freedmen had not received the “forty acres and a mule” they had hoped for — many worked land they did not own, under sharecropping contracts. The commercial title the photographers gave it, Early Negro Life, tells you it was made to be sold to Northern buyers as a scene of Southern life. Pair it directly with Primary Source 11.4: Blake explains the arithmetic the photograph cannot show, and the two together answer the part of that asks students to weigh the Black Codes against sharecropping as instruments of the same end.

Figure 11.12 · Arthur Burdett Frost, Of Course He Wants To Vote The Democratic Ticket, 1876 (p. 362)

Ink on wove paper, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; published in Harper’s Weekly. Two white men stand over a Black voter at the polls, one of them armed. The caption carries the whole argument: Democratic “Reformer”: “You’re as free as air, ain’t you? Say you are, or I’ll blow yer black head off!” Frost has compressed the Fifteenth Amendment and its nullification into a single sentence—the right exists, is formally acknowledged, and is worthless at the moment of exercise. The year matters. This ran during the 1876 campaign, the election that produced the disputed count and the Compromise of 1877, and the intimidation it depicts is what the Enforcement Acts of 1870–71 had been passed to stop. The chapter’s essay question already cites this cartoon; the entry gives students what they need to read it. Note that the book’s own illustration credits title the work with an exclamation point, Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democratic Ticket!, where the caption on p. 362 does not.

Figure 11.15 · Winslow Homer, A Visit from the Old Mistress, 1876 (p. 369)

Oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. Three Black women and a child stand in a cabin facing a white woman who has come to call. Nobody bows. Nobody offers a chair. Homer painted it eleven years after emancipation and in the year of the disputed election, and he composed it as a deliberate answer to his own earlier Prisoners from the Front—the same standoff, the same refusal of deference, transposed from the battlefield to a domestic room. The legal order had changed; what had not been settled was how people who had known each other as owner and owned would now stand in a room together. That is the chapter’s closing problem, and Homer states it without resolving it. It is the right last image before lesson 11.5 asks students to evaluate Reconstruction. Ask them who in the painting is standing, who is seated, and what the artist gains by refusing to tell us how the conversation ends.

Maps

Map 11.1 · The South during Reconstruction, 1868–77 (p. 357)

The map shows the eleven former Confederate states divided into the five military districts created by the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, with the date each state was readmitted to the Union and the date each fell to a Redeemer government. Read in that order, it becomes a chronology rather than a picture: readmission is not the end of the story, and the gap between the two dates varies enormously from state to state. Tennessee never entered a district at all; Louisiana and South Carolina held out until 1877. The Guide should be candid with students that the same arrangement carried two meanings at once. To abolitionists, military occupation was the only way the antislavery cause would be carried out in the South. To white Southerners, it was an affront to their sovereignty and the grievance around which Redemption organized. Both readings are on this one map, and students should be able to state each in a sentence before they judge either. Set it beside Map 11.2 to see how quickly the arrangement it shows came apart.

Map 11.2 · The Election of 1876 (p. 364)

The map gives the electoral vote by state for Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden, with the twenty disputed votes of Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon marked separately. Three facts sit on it. Tilden won the popular vote by roughly 250,000 and finished one electoral vote short of the majority—the first time in American history the popular winner did not win the Electoral College. The disputed returns came from the three Southern states still under Republican governments. And the electoral commission that awarded every disputed vote to Hayes divided eight to seven along party lines. The chapter’s Geography assessment item already uses this map; the numbers on it are also the chapter’s only quantitative material, and lesson 11.5 should put students to work on them. The Compromise of 1877 that followed ended Reconstruction: Hayes took the presidency, federal troops left the South, and the last two Republican state governments collapsed. Ask students what a map can and cannot show about how that bargain was struck.

BACKGROUND READING FOR EDUCATORS

Books on the chapter's subjects, selected for the teacher who wants to go deeper. Background rather than required reading.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York: HarperCollins, 1988.

White, Richard. The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865–1896. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

11.1 Chapter Opening (pp. 341–345)

Each lesson corresponds to a subsection of the chapter and follows the same structure.

In a Single Class Period

One workable path through the lesson’s materials — a suggestion, not a requirement. Teachers are encouraged to adapt or replace it as they see fit.

Read: Pages 341–345.

Exercise: The Chapter Epigraph, Blaine on the ordeal of Reconstruction; Figure 11.1, Mosler’s The Lost Cause; Figure 11.2, Barnard’s ruins of Charleston.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on what the war left behind in each section and what the nation had to settle next.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Eleven, Section Two, “How to Reunite a Nation?” (pp. 346–350).

Essential Understanding

The central idea students should grasp by the end of the lesson.

The social and economic condition of both the North and the South after the war; how the disparities between them posed challenges to reunification.

Lesson Objectives

What students should be able to do once the lesson is complete.

• Describe the disparities between the North and South after the Civil War.

• Analyze the challenges of reunification and reconstruction.

Key Dates

Dates and the sequence of events students should learn.

1865 Congress creates the Freedmen’s Bureau (March 3)

Key Concepts

Ideas students should analyze and engage with during the lesson.

Total war had devastated the cities, infrastructure, and economy of the southern states.

Emancipated slaves found themselves wandering in a strange and unfriendly new world, without capital, land, literacy, or most other means necessary for competition in a free economy. They possessed a nominal freedom that fell very far short of being freedom in fact.

By contrast to the humiliated South, the North had prospered from the war in many respects. Without competition from Southern Democrats, Congress had easily achieved the platform objectives of the Republican Party, implementing major protective tariffs (such as the Morrill Tariff in 1861) and making accessible free land for western settlers in the Homestead Act.

The gaping inequality of the two sections, which proved a persistent problem well into the twentieth century, helped give rise to a view, classically expressed in 1927 by the historian Charles A. Beard, that the war had actually been a “second American Revolution,” a social upheaval in which “the capitalists, laborers, and farmers of the North and West drove from power in the national government the planting aristocracy of the South.” Whatever the merits of this thesis, it is undeniable that America’s economic and social history was radically altered by the Civil War.

Key Terms

Terms students should be able to define by the end of the lesson.

The Freedmen’s Bureau: Established in March 1865, just before the war’s conclusion, the Freedmen’s Bureau was operated by the War Department to promote the well-being of emancipated slaves. Its assistance ultimately proved inadequate to the challenges freedmen faced in the postwar South.

National Banking Act: This legislation created a uniform system of banking and currency. Its enactment attested to the Republican Party’s cooperative relationship with financial interests. Naturalization requirements for immigrants were eased in the same period, though not by this Act.

Classroom Experience

Homework and in-class activities for the lesson. Both lists are suggestions; select according to time and need.

Suggested Homework Assignments

Reading and written work to assign before the lesson.

Encourage students to read the introductory section of Chapter Eleven.

Assign several of the following questions:

How did the war transform the South economically and in terms of its infrastructure? What was its postwar condition?

What challenges did freed slaves face in the immediate aftermath of the war? How many freed slaves were there?

What was the Freedmen’s Bureau?

How did the war transform the North? Was it more or less prosperous than before the war had begun?

What were some of the questions facing the nation as it emerged from the war? What was their general tenor?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

In-class activities, each named for the skill it develops.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to make a chart to compare the conditions of the North and the South after the war. Students will use the text to write bullet-point descriptions of the conditions for each section. After students have completed the chart, review with the whole class and use the following questions either as a written exercise or a class discussion:

What was the biggest problem facing the nation after the Civil War?

Should the North punish the rebels? If so, what should the punishment be? What are the pros and cons of this punishment?

In what ways did the South’s decision to secede end up fulfilling its prewar fears?

Writing Skills: Ask students to imagine they have been sent to visit the postwar South and write a letter advising Congress as to the best course of assistance. What could be done to help postwar day-to-day life? What should be the priority for reconstruction?

Examining Artwork: Put Figure 11.1, Mosler’s The Lost Cause (p. 338), beside Figure 11.2, Barnard’s Ruins in Charleston (p. 342), and have students study both before answering.

One is a painting made four years after the war; the other is a photograph made within months of it. List what each one shows. Where do the two agree about the condition of the South?

Mosler’s painting was commissioned by a former Confederate colonel. Barnard was the official photographer of Sherman’s army. How might each fact have shaped what the image includes?

Who is absent from both images? The chapter says four million people were freed in this same landscape. Where are they?

Insight: Both images are truthful about the devastation and both are incomplete in the same way. Neither shows a freedman. Mosler’s title supplied a name for a whole postwar memory that recast the war as a defense of home rather than a war over slavery, and a picture of a ruined white farmstead was one of the ways that memory was built and sold.

Further: Ask students what photograph or painting they would commission to complete the record, and who would have paid for it in 1869. Then ask which of the two images would have been easier to sell in the North, and why that might matter to a historian.

Guiding Classroom Questions

Questions to pose to the class. Those in bold most directly advance the Essential Understanding; prioritize them if time is short.

What was the difference in the condition of the North and South after the Civil War?

Insight: The South faced the need to rebuild much of its infrastructure, and its main economic sector – agriculture – was devastated by the loss of slave labor. Also, the former slaves of the South suddenly found themselves free but mostly without economic assets. The North, in contrast, had mostly prospered during the war with the passage of economic development policies such as protective tariffs, free land for settlers in the West, and the building of the transcontinental railroad.

What were some important questions facing the nation regarding the Reconstruction of the South?

Insight: Students could offer several questions, including: Should former Confederates be punished for treason against the United States? What should be done about former slaves? Should the freedmen be given land of their own? How should the southern economy be rebuilt?

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

A two-level check to gauge understanding. Recall items confirm the building blocks; the Explain item asks whether students can use them, and its answers may vary.

Recall

In what month and year did Congress create the Freedmen’s Bureau?

Acceptable responses: March 1865, before the war ended.

Explain

Why did four years of the same war leave the North richer and the South ruined?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: almost all the fighting took place on Southern soil, destroying farms, railroads and cities; the South’s capital was largely held in slaves and was wiped out by emancipation; meanwhile wartime demand, protective tariffs, the Homestead Act and the National Banking Act accelerated Northern industry and settlement.

Daily Recap

A closing summary for the teacher to deliver, drawing the lesson's threads together.

Unsurprisingly, the war caused the nation to diverge as much economically as it already had socio-politically. The South’s economy was wrecked, and it was unclear what would become of the millions of slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. The North, meanwhile, benefited from a burgeoning economy as a result of its pro-industrial policies. This divergence, and the challenges posed by the freedmen’s new status, exacerbated the difficulties facing the nation in the wake of its civil war.

Looking Ahead

A bridge to the next lesson, and to what topics the chapter takes up next.

The next lesson takes up the question this devastation forced on the victors: on what terms should the defeated states come back?

Language Support

For students still building academic English. Each support supplies the words for what students can already grasp, drawn from the lesson's central ideas.

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: reconstruction, emancipation, freedmen, devastation

Frames that carry the reasoning: “After the war the North had __, while the South had __.” “One problem the nation had to solve first was __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students describe one difference between the two sections to a partner before writing it.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a two-column list, North and South, three items each.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

11.2 How to Reunite a Nation? (pp. 346–350)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 346–350.

Exercise: Primary Source 11.1, Stanton’s letter announcing Lincoln’s assassination.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the distance between Lincoln and the Radicals and on what his death changed.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Eleven, Section Three, “Johnson Takes Over” (pp. 350–353).

Essential Understanding

The differing views in the Republican Party on how to treat the South; the Wade–Davis Bill; the reasoning behind Lincoln’s advocacy of clemency for the South; and the effect of Lincoln’s assassination on the national mood.

Lesson Objectives

• Evaluate the various Republican Party ideas for how to treat the South.

• Differentiate between the roles of the president and Congress in dealing with reconstruction.

Key Dates

1865 Vice President Andrew Johnson is inaugurated as president (April 15)

Key Concepts

Differences emerged among the victorious Northerners about how to proceed with the reunification of the United States. The central question was whether Southern states should be treated as returning equals or as conquered provinces.

Lincoln had concluded that, since secession was illegal, the states had never actually left the Union, such that it would be appropriate to demand only a very minimal standard of loyalty as a condition for restoration to full membership.

Congress, on the other hand, proposed and passed in 1864 the Wade–Davis Bill, which required that only those who had never been loyal to the Confederacy would be able to vote for the new state constitutions in the South. Lincoln pocket-vetoed the bill, meaning that he refused to sign it and allowed it to expire unapproved, which infuriated many Republicans.

Lincoln’s assassination meant that the Confederates in some sense had lost their best advocate. In any case, the national mood toward the South soured in its aftermath.

Key Terms

Reconstruction: Reconstruction refers to the period in American history after the Civil War when the United States attempted to reintegrate the former Confederate states and newly freed African Americans into the country.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the second section of Chapter Eleven, “How to Reunite a Nation?”

Assign several of the following questions:

Generally speaking, what were the two leading views on how the Union should treat the South in the wake of the war?

What was the Wade–Davis Bill and what was its fate?

What was Lincoln’s rationale for his opinion on how the South should be reintegrated into the Union?

What happened to the national mood in the wake of Lincoln’s assassination?

In what way was John Wilkes Booth’s act self-defeating?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Speaking Skills: Ask students to imagine they are members of Congress in 1864, divided into two groups to argue the proper approach to readmitting Southern states — one representing the presidential plan favored by Lincoln, or the moderate Republicans, the other representing the congressional plan favored by the Radical Republicans and embodied in the Wade–Davis Bill. Have each side answer: should the South be readmitted quickly with minimal conditions, or should Reconstruction require a deeper transformation of Southern society first? Each side should support their answer with one concrete detail from the text — for example, the specific loyalty threshold their plan requires, or the “thoroughgoing reformation” language associated with the Radical Republicans' position. Have them present their case to the class, either as a formal debate or as short speeches followed by questions from the other side.

Further: This same question of how to incorporate Southern states back into the Union, which often divided the Republican Party, underlies other disputes covered in this lesson and the one before it. For instance, whether the South should be treated as returning equals or conquered provinces; whether and how former Confederates should be punished for their role in the rebellion; and whether the president or Congress holds constitutional authority to decide (see Lesson 11.3, Argumentation, for further development on the tension between branches during Reconstruction). As time allows, ask each side to explain how their position on these questions follows from their answer to the central question above.

Civic Discourse: As the previous exercise showed, the Radical Republicans and Lincoln disagreed sharply over the terms for readmitting the Southern states. Later in the chapter (Lesson 11.4), Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens argued that the rebel states had to be made “republican in spirit” before readmission, concretely meaning Black suffrage. Could a Southern state that excluded most of its Black population from political life truly be considered “republican in spirit”? If not, could its return to a nation founded on republican principles count as a true reunification, or merely a readmission in name only? Before students read further to see how Congress handled Black suffrage and civil rights, ask them: what practical steps would you take to ensure the South gave ex-slaves civil rights?

Suggested Ongoing Activity: Have students begin a running chart, added to throughout the chapter, titled “Influential Persons and Groups of Reconstruction and Their Impact on Civil Rights.” Use four columns: Person/Group, Goal, Method, Outcome. As students encounter new figures and groups across the chapter, have them record who the person or group was, their intended goal, how they pursued it, and what ultimately became of it, noting whether each advanced, hindered, or had no bearing on civil rights. At the end of the chapter (see Lesson 11.5, Analytical Skills), students will revisit this discussion and use the chart as evidence to determine what steps the federal government should have taken to reunite the nation while securing civil rights for the formerly enslaved.

Writing Skills: Ask students to imagine that they are a presidential advisor to Lincoln during the final years of the war. Have them compose a brief letter identifying what the primary goals of Reconstruction should be. What are the relevant considerations and challenges to achieving them, and what measures would best facilitate their attainment? Keep in mind that this letter is to the president, not the Congress. Instruct students to demonstrate their understanding of the different branches of government in their letter.

Further: After completing these first two sections of reading, lead the class in a discussion to review the differences between the branches of government. The textbook describes this as a dilemma at the time, because the Constitution doesn’t say anything about how to deal with secession and Civil War. What are the proper roles of each branch of government here? In what ways could a different president change the outcome of policy, even if the Congress remained the same?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Discuss the following question in class: how might reunification have gone had Lincoln been alive to lead the country?

Civic Discourse: Thaddeus Stevens argued that the rebel states must be made republican in spirit before they could be readmitted. He was not talking about the party. Put the question to the class and let them argue it.

What do you think Stevens meant by a republican government? Write a one-sentence definition before you hear anyone else’s.

Stevens’s own conclusion followed at once: I am for negro suffrage in every rebel State. If it be just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be adopted. How does his definition produce that conclusion?

A state where most adult men cannot vote—is it a republic with a narrow franchise, or not a republic at all? Take a side and defend it.

Andrew Johnson believed the Southern states were already entitled to govern themselves. What must he have meant by republican that Stevens did not?

Insight: Stevens means a government resting on the consent of the governed, which cannot be said to exist where most adult men are barred from voting. Johnson means a state with its own constitution and elected officers, however narrow the electorate. Neither man is being dishonest. The whole constitutional quarrel of Reconstruction sits inside that one disputed word.

Further: Ask students whether the United States in 1867 met Stevens’s own definition, given that women could not vote anywhere in it. Then ask whether a standard is worth less when the people applying it fall short of it themselves.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did Lincoln and the Radical Republicans differ on how to readmit the seceded states back into the Union?

Insight: Lincoln had a very mild and forgiving view. He proposed that a state would be readmitted if 10 percent of its voters swore an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and promised to accept the abolition of slavery. He did not seek to radically reshape southern society, besides insisting on the end of slavery. The Radical Republicans, in contrast, wanted to act much more aggressively to reshape the South. They proposed that a majority of a state’s voters would need to swear loyalty to the Constitution in order for a state to be readmitted. Lincoln pocket vetoed the Wade–Davis Bill that would have established this policy.

How did Lincoln’s assassination affect the politics of Reconstruction?

Insight: Lincoln’s assassination turned northern opinion against a lenient Reconstruction policy and empowered the Radical Republican vision of Reconstruction. Also, the assassination brought Andrew Johnson to the presidency, who lacked Lincoln’s political acumen.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Under Lincoln’s plan, what share of a state’s voters had to swear a loyalty oath before readmission?

Acceptable responses: 10 percent.

Explain

Why did the Wade–Davis Bill demand so much more than Lincoln’s plan?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the Radical Republicans held that the seceded states had forfeited their standing and had to be remade before returning, not merely readmitted; a majority oath and guarantees for the freedmen were the price of readmission. Lincoln, who wanted the Union restored quickly and with as little rancor as possible, refused to sign it.

Daily Recap

Northern Republicans did not agree about how to go about reintegrating the seceded Southern states back into the country. In this debate, Lincoln was something of a bulwark against the more radical tendencies of the abolitionist wing of his party, which wanted to punish the South for its commitment to slavery. Lincoln was assassinated before the project of reintegration had begun in earnest, which allowed the Radical Republicans to determine the federal government’s Reconstruction policies.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson follows what happened when the man who replaced Lincoln turned out to want something neither side expected.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: clemency, amnesty, oath of loyalty, radical

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Lincoln wanted __, because __.” “The Radical Republicans disagreed, because they believed __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: partners take one side each and state its position in a sentence before writing.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a two-column comparison, Lincoln and the Radicals, on terms of readmission.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

11.3 Johnson Takes Over (pp. 350–353)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 350–353.

Exercise: Figure 11.8, The Cruel Uncle and the Vetoed Babes in the Wood.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on why Johnson lost Congress.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Eleven, Section Four, “Congress Takes Charge” (pp. 354–364).

Essential Understanding

The background and political career of Andrew Johnson and the major events and controversies of his first two years in office.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the differences between Lincoln and Johnson in terms of personality and policy preferences.

• Create an argument about the division of powers in the Constitution.

Key Dates

1865 Johnson introduces a plan for Reconstruction in the South (May 29)

1865 The Thirteenth Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery (December 6)

1866 Johnson vetoes the first Civil Rights Act (March 27)

1866 Congress overrides Johnson’s veto to enact the Civil Rights Act (April 9)

Key Concepts

Andrew Johnson had been added to the ticket in 1864 as a unity candidate from Tennessee, a War Democrat who opposed secession but had none of Lincoln’s enthusiasm for a “new birth of freedom.”

Shortly after Johnson’s inauguration, Congress instituted a Joint Committee on Reconstruction to investigate how the seceded states should be readmitted to the Union. The Committee concluded that Congress, not the president, was the appropriate authority to determine whether and when and how the forfeited rights of former Confederates could be restored. Up to that point, the process of Reconstruction had been guided by the president, but the Committee signaled that Congress intended to take the reins.

Johnson vetoed a Civil Rights Act that was designed to counter black codes and other forms of grossly unequal treatment being reinstitutionalized in the postwar South. The Civil Rights Act featured language establishing that “all persons born in the United States” were entitled to “full and equal benefit of all laws” (a tacit repudiation of one of the conclusions in the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision). But Johnson’s veto was overridden – the first time in American history that a major piece of legislation had been enacted into law over presidential veto.

Key Terms

Black codes: These laws in postwar Southern states regulated and restricted the rights and behavior of former slaves in order to confine their movement and economic mobility. They were generally seen as an attempt to perpetuate the conditions of slavery, which was to remain illegal in name only.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the third section of Chapter Eleven, “Johnson Takes Over.”

Assign several of the following questions:

What was Andrew Johnson’s background?

How had he become Lincoln’s vice president? What did he deliver politically?

In what ways were Republicans unpleasantly surprised by Johnson’s approach?

How did Johnson’s Reconstruction plan outrage Republicans? What did they do in response?

What bills did Johnson veto in 1866? What was his justification for doing so? What effect did these vetoes have on his presidency?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to write a description of the differences between these presidents in terms of their plans and personalities. According to the textbook, why did Johnson take the policy positions that he did?

Further: Ask students to consider whether it was a mistake for Lincoln to select Johnson as his vice president. Why did Lincoln select him? Discuss what, if any, implications Johnson’s presidency has for Lincoln’s legacy.

Argumentation: The text describes a dispute between the president and the Congress over the powers of reconstruction. Instruct students to write an argument as to which branch should be taking the lead for reincorporating rebellious states back into the union. Have students cite textual evidence from the Constitution in defense of their argument.

Analyzing Figures: Display Figure 11.8, The Cruel Uncle and the Vetoed Babes in the Wood (p. 353), from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, and let students find the labels themselves before you explain anything.

Identify every label in the drawing. Who is the uncle, who are the children, and where are they being taken?

The cartoon retells a sixteenth-century English ballad in which an uncle abandons his nephews in the forest to take their inheritance. What does the artist assume his readers already know?

What is the cartoonist accusing Johnson of—a bad policy, or a betrayal? Point to the part of the image that carries your answer.

Insight: The charge is betrayal, not error. Johnson is not shown arguing a constitutional position; he is shown leading helpless children to their deaths for his own gain. That is a claim about character, and it is the claim that stuck. Congress overrode his Civil Rights Act veto in April 1866, the first override of a major law in American history.

Further: Ask students to name a modern political cartoon that relies on a story its audience is expected to recognize. What happens to such a cartoon when the reference is forgotten, and what does that suggest about using cartoons as historical evidence?

Guiding Classroom Questions

Why did Andrew Johnson’s background make Radical Republicans believe that he would support their aggressive vision of Reconstruction?

Insight: Johnson came from relatively poor areas of Tennessee and North Carolina, and he hated the planter aristocracy of the South. He had been added to Lincoln’s re-election ticket to demonstrate unity in the cause of defeating secession. Johnson’s populism, however, did not extend to regarding black people as equal to whites, and he did not share the Radical Republicans’ Reconstruction agenda.

How did Johnson’s actions lead to Congress taking over Reconstruction from the president?

Insight: Under a very lenient policy, Johnson readmitted all 11 ex-Confederate states, which proceeded to elect many former Confederates to federal office. These states also passed Black Codes and other discriminatory policies targeted at the former slaves, including restrictions on their right to vote. To top it off, Johnson vetoed the reauthorization of the Freedmen’s Bureau and a Civil Rights Act, which led to both of these vetoes being overturned by Congress. The Republicans in Congress thus took over the administration of Reconstruction from Johnson.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Which measure did Congress first enact over a presidential veto, and on what date?

Acceptable responses: The Civil Rights Act, April 9, 1866—the first time in American history that a major piece of legislation became law over a president’s veto.

Explain

How did Johnson’s lenient policy produce the opposite of what he intended?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: he readmitted all eleven ex-Confederate states on easy terms; those states promptly elected former Confederates to federal office, including Alexander Stephens, and passed Black Codes restricting the freedmen. Northern opinion read this as the rebellion returning by other means, and Congress refused to seat the delegations and took Reconstruction into its own hands.

Daily Recap

Johnson lacked Lincoln’s political skill, and his lenient Reconstruction policy collided with the congressional Republicans. His vetoes of the Freedmen’s Bureau renewal and the Civil Rights Act accelerated Congress’s assumption of control over Reconstruction, and the events of the ensuing years deepened wartime rancor.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson takes up what a Congress with a veto-proof majority did once it no longer needed the president’s signature.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: veto, override, Black Codes, pardon

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Johnson vetoed __ because he believed __.” “Congress responded by __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students explain to a partner what a veto override requires before writing about one.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a labeled flow chart—bill, veto, override, law.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

11.4 Congress Takes Charge (pp. 354–364)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 354–364.

Exercise: Primary Sources 11.2 and 11.3, Stevens and Johnson on the Reconstruction Acts; Map 11.1; Figure 11.12, Frost’s cartoon.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on the elections of 1866 and on what the Fourteenth Amendment aimed at and what it changed.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Eleven, Section Five, “Evaluating Reconstruction” (pp. 365–369).

Essential Understanding

How the Republican-dominated Congress won its struggle against President Johnson, impeaching him and passing the Fourteenth Amendment; also, ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment during the Grant administration.

Lesson Objectives

• Describe the new laws and amendments that were enacted during reconstruction.

• Explain the obstacles to the Republican goals for reconstruction.

Key Dates

1866 Johnson’s “swing around the circle” speaking tour (Summer–Fall)

1867 Congress passes the Reconstruction Acts over Johnson’s vetoes, dividing the South into five military districts (March 2)

1868 Congress impeaches Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act (February 24)

1868 The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, granting citizenship to former slaves (July 9)

1868 Ulysses S. Grant wins the presidential election (November 3)

1870 The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified, protecting black citizens’ right to vote (February 3)

1865 The first chapter of the Ku Klux Klan forms in Tennessee (December 24)

1873 A financial panic triggers a severe depression, turning Northern attention away from Reconstruction (September)

1877 An electoral commission declares Rutherford B. Hayes president (March 2)

1877 The Compromise of 1877 marks the end of Reconstruction (March 2)

Key Concepts

Emboldened by veto-proof majorities in Congress, the Radical Republicans implemented the Reconstruction Acts over Johnson’s vetoes, dividing the South into five military districts governed by federally appointed generals. They also attempted to impeach President Johnson, who was acquitted by a single vote in the Senate.

Nonetheless, Johnson was soon rendered a lame duck president by the nomination of General Ulysses S. Grant, who cruised to victory in the election of 1868. Meanwhile, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which had been authored by congressional Republicans to promote civil rights for African Americans and to guarantee them the franchise, were enacted, promising to transform the social landscape of the South.

During this period, political power in the South was generally held by a coalition of federal officials, freed slaves, opportunistic Northerners, and Southern collaborators. The former Confederates resented the new state governments organized under the Reconstruction Acts, even resorting to violence to undermine their rule and to intimidate freedmen.

The early years of the Grant administration featured continued Southern resistance to the Reconstruction state governments, with the activity of organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan leading to congressional passage of the Enforcement Acts to increase federal support. However, Grant proved unable to heal the nation’s divisions as president, as he proved to be politically ineffective, with a weakness for appointing corrupt officials.

The North’s enthusiasm for Reconstruction began to wane, particularly after the Panic of 1873 brought economic concerns to the fore. By the presidential election of 1876, all but three of the former Confederate states were governed by formerly Confederate Southern Democrats known as “redeemers.”

The Compromise of 1877 marked the end of Reconstruction, as Democrats allowed Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to ascend to the presidency in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South.

Key Terms

Carpetbagger: This derisive term refers to Northerners who moved to the South in the immediate aftermath of the war, often to help implement or profit from Reconstruction.

Scalawag: This pejorative refers to locals who cooperated with Reconstruction initiatives in the South.

Incorporation (Bill of Rights): This constitutional doctrine holds that the Fourteenth Amendment enforces the limitations on the federal government in the Bill of Rights against state governments. It became an important element of constitutional jurisprudence in the twentieth century.

Ku Klux Klan: First organized in Tennessee in 1865, this group promoted white supremacy and acted as an insurgent movement against Reconstruction state governments in the South. Members used violence and intimidation tactics to suppress voter turnout among freedmen, prompting the Enforcement Acts to counter the Klan’s activities.

Sharecropping: This agricultural arrangement became widespread in the postwar South, as laborers would work on a landowner’s property in exchange for a percentage of their produce and access to tools and living accommodations.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the fourth section of Chapter Eleven, “Congress Takes Charge.”

Assign several of the following questions:

What was President Johnson’s response to the proposed Fourteenth Amendment?

What did the Reconstruction Acts do?

What precipitated Johnson’s impeachment? What was its result?

Who was the Republicans’ replacement for Johnson?

What motivated the Fifteenth Amendment?

What was a “carpetbagger”? A “scalawag”?

What were conditions like for freed slaves?

What was the Ku Klux Klan? What effect did it have on the black vote in the South?

What were President Grant’s enforcement acts and what effect did they have?

What became of the abolitionist movement in the North? What explains its fate?

What was the Compromise of 1877?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Reading Comprehension: Invite students to read the text of the Fourteenth Amendment. How does Section 1 define U.S. Citizenship, and what states may not do? What else did the Fourteenth Amendment entail? For example: Could a state, before 1868, jail a man without a hearing, or write one criminal penalty for black residents and a lighter one for white? Find the words in Section 1 that settle each case now.

Further: Place the Fourteenth Amendment among the other constitutional changes that slowly reshaped the concept of citizenship in the U.S.: the Thirteenth, which abolished slavery; the Fifteenth, which protected the right to vote by race; and the Nineteenth, ratified more than fifty years later, which extended the right to vote to women. Students should recognize that each of these used the same tool, a formal amendment to the Constitution, to challenge the existing understanding of citizenship. What could that suggest about the nature of the Constitution itself?

Further: Beyond citizenship by birth, Section 1 also names citizenship by naturalization. A third status, permanent residency, allows a non-citizen to live and work in the United States indefinitely without becoming a citizen. Which of the three requires the most steps to reach? Native-born and naturalized citizens can both vote and hold nearly every public office—but not all: Article II of the Constitution requires the President to be a "natural born Citizen." Have students find this clause in the Constitution's text in the Appendix, then explain why the presidency might be held to a different standard than every other office.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to use this section to make a graphic organizer to chart the various new laws and amendments that were enacted. Have them note the legal effects of each, and whether the outcome was successful or not. These will include the Reconstruction Acts, the Tenure of Office Act, and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. After students have completed their notes, use the following questions for class discussion:

Were the Reconstruction Acts justified under the circumstances? Why or why not?

Why were the reconstruction efforts not as successful as some Radical Republicans hoped they would be? What are some examples that show evidence for this lack of success?

Looking at your organizer, what freedom did the Thirteenth Amendment guarantee that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth did not touch? What did the Fourteenth add that the Thirteenth left open? What did the Fifteenth add that the Fourteenth left open?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to consider why Ulysses S. Grant was chosen as the Republican candidate in 1868. Which other “common man” military hero did he resemble? What were his strengths and weaknesses as a presidential candidate?

Civic Discourse: Ask students to debate whether the Reconstruction Acts were a good or a bad idea. They might like to consider whether they were sufficiently democratic, whether they unduly antagonized Southerners, or whether they were justified measures that suffered from a lack of enforcement.

Analytical Skills: Primary Sources 11.2 and 11.3 are printed facing each other on page 356. Thaddeus Stevens and Andrew Johnson are arguing the same statute—the Reconstruction Acts of 1867—in the same season. Have students read both before answering.

For each source, identify the author, his office, his audience, and the date. What was each man trying to accomplish by speaking or writing?

Stevens asks, Call you this liberty? Johnson writes that the freedmen have not asked to vote and have no idea what it means. State each man’s premise about the freedmen in one sentence.

Both men claim to be defending liberty. What does each mean by the word?

Which source would you trust more to tell you what the Reconstruction Acts actually did, and which to tell you why Americans disagreed about them?

Insight: The disagreement looks constitutional and is not. Johnson argues that Congress is imposing government on unwilling states; Stevens argues that freedom without self-government is not freedom at all. Underneath, Johnson denies the freedmen are fit to govern and Stevens insists they already bear the duties of citizens. Congress passed the Acts over the veto on March 2, 1867.

Further: Ask students how the argument would read if only one of the two sources survived. Then ask what a historian gains from having both printed on the same page, and what McClay is signalling by placing them there.

Compare and Contrast: Have students begin a chart they will add to for the rest of the chapter. Give it two columns — What was it and How it impacted freedmen — to be filled in as they encounter Black Codes, sharecropping, and Jim Crow laws throughout the chapter. Have students first fill out the chart for Black Codes and sharecropping, drawing on this section and the previous one, including Primary Source 11.4, Henry Blake's 1941 interview (p. 360). After they have finished their charts, ask students the following questions:

The Black Codes were law and sharecropping was contract. Which did the Fourteenth Amendment reach, and which did it not?

Blake says, “A man that didn't know how to count would always lose. He might lose anyhow.” What is he describing about the settlement of accounts?

Insight: While both Black Codes and sharecropping imposed economic restrictions on freedmen, Black Codes were laws passed by state legislatures, while sharecropping was a private contract, agreed upon by both the tenant and the landowner. The Fourteenth Amendment declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens and guaranteed them equal protection under the law, providing a constitutional basis for challenging Black Codes and rendering many of their provisions unconstitutional. During Reconstruction, Congress directly countered Black Codes and largely overturned them. Sharecropping, by contrast, was not directly prohibited by federal law, and was able to persist for decades after Reconstruction, often trapping freedmen in a form of debt peonage as they turned over much of their crop to landowners with no clear path to independence.

Further: After reading Lesson 11.5, have students add Jim Crow to this chart, noting what it was and how it impacted freedmen. Share with students the Key Term for the Nadir (Lesson 11.5), the period of American race relations following Reconstruction until the 1920s, when conditions for African Americans were at their lowest after the strides made during Reconstruction, with political rights and economic liberties restricted and segregation enacted. Ask students: if many Black Codes were struck down by Congress during Reconstruction, why might lawmakers have succeeded in reviving many of their same provisions during the Nadir, and why were these laws able to last so long?

Writing Skills: The chapter says the Reconstruction governments were largely run by Northerners who came South for reasons ranging from idealism to opportunism, and that white Southerners called them carpetbaggers. Have students write a letter of no more than 300 words from one such migrant in 1868, to a relative back home, explaining the move.

Before drafting, list the pull factors the chapter names. What would draw a Northerner to a defeated region in 1868?

The chapter also names what these governments built—civil rights measures, internal improvements, hospitals, public school systems—and what went wrong, including corrupt state contracts. Have your writer mention one of each.

Your writer knows what the neighbors call him. How does he answer the name?

Then write two sentences from a white Southerner in the same county about the same man. What changes, and what stays the same?

Insight: Migration is easier to judge than to describe. The chapter refuses to settle whether carpetbaggers were idealists or opportunists, and calls their record mixed—real accomplishments beside real corruption. Students writing from inside the move find that the epithet carried a judgment the chapter itself declines to make, and that a place can be changed by people who never joined it.

Further: Ask students what the same letter would say in 1877, after the last federal troops withdrew and the writer’s government collapsed. Then ask what the word carpetbagger means today, and how a term coined in one decade survives into a century that has forgotten the luggage it named.

Guiding Classroom Questions

How did the Fourteenth Amendment take aim at the disenfranchisement of Southern Black citizens?

Insight: Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment provided that if a state prohibited an eligible citizen from voting, its representation in Congress would be reduced. This provision attempted to fight back against the widespread denial of the franchise to black men in southern states.

What was the result of the congressional elections of 1866?

Insight: Running against President Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policies, Republicans won a landslide victory, resulting in a veto-proof majority in both the House and the Senate. Congress now directed Reconstruction, and it put almost the entire South under military occupation. A state could only be fully restored to the Union if it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and guaranteed all adult males the right to vote.

How did Black Southerners fare under Congressional Reconstruction?

Insight: Many blacks won election to political office, but they did not receive land or other compensation for slavery. This often resulted in former slaves being forced into sharecropping, under which the former slaves owed a percentage of their crop to the white landowner rather than owning land for themselves. Finally, groups like the Ku Klux Klan murdered and intimidated black and white citizens who defended the right to vote and advanced other Reconstruction policies. This terrorism worked; gradually Republicans received fewer and fewer votes as black voters stayed home.

What factors led to the abandonment of Reconstruction?

Insight: Several possible answers. The North became exhausted with attempting to reform the social structures of the South. Other developments, such as the business panic of 1873, distracted attention from Reconstruction. President Grant’s administration was marked by corruption, which lessened his political capital to continue Reconstruction. The North and South had historical and cultural ties that were hard to completely dissolve, even after the Civil War. Finally, the disastrously convoluted election of 1876 saw Rutherford B. Hayes elected after assurances were made that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South.

How does the Fourteenth Amendment say a person becomes a citizen of the United States, and what other route to citizenship does this chapter mention?

Insight: The amendment declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and legally subject to its jurisdiction are citizens—two routes, written into the Constitution together. The chapter mentions the second earlier: during the war, naturalization requirements for immigrants were eased. Birth is automatic and unconditional; naturalization is a process the government sets and can change.

Before the Fourteenth Amendment, which government was obliged to respect a citizen’s rights? What changed, and how did that make the Black Codes possible in the first place?

Insight: Before 1868 the Bill of Rights restrained the federal government within its own sphere and left the states largely to themselves—which is precisely how the Black Codes were possible. The Fourteenth Amendment obliged the states to respect their citizens’ rights, beginning what the chapter calls incorporation: the extension of the Bill of Rights to state governments, culminating in the 1920s.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

By what margin did the Senate fail to remove Johnson from office?

Acceptable responses: A single vote—an unexpected vote against conviction from Republican senator Edmund Ross of Kansas, after a trial lasting three months.

Explain

What did the Reconstruction Acts actually do to the governments of the Southern states?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: they dissolved the existing state governments, divided the South into five military districts under army command, and required each state to write a new constitution, enfranchise black men and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment before regaining representation. Congress passed them over Johnson’s veto on March 2, 1867.

Daily Recap

The passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and the tenure of President Andrew Johnson, changed the course of U.S. history. Johnson’s presidency was the first to be overshadowed by Congress, which implemented and oversaw the early years of Reconstruction. Even with a more sympathetic president like Grant in the White House, the Radical Republicans’ efforts faced daunting odds of success, as they were countered by obstinate and well-organized Southern opposition.

Looking Ahead

The next lesson asks what all of this amounted to, and why the country stopped short.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: impeachment, ratification, military district, sharecropping

Frames that carry the reasoning: “The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed __.” “It was needed because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students say aloud the difference between impeachment and removal before writing about Johnson’s trial.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a three-row table—Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth—with what each guarantees.

DAILY LESSON PLAN

11.5 Evaluating Reconstruction (pp. 365–369)

In a Single Class Period

Read: Pages 365–369.

Exercise: Primary Sources 11.5 and 11.6, Douglass and Grady; Map 11.2, the election of 1876; Figure 11.15, Homer’s A Visit from the Old Mistress.

Discuss: The Guiding Classroom Questions in bold, on Jim Crow, on what survived Reconstruction, and on why a national right failed a man locally.

Close: The Formative Assessment.

Homework: Assign students to read Chapter Twelve, “A Nation Transformed: The Coming of Modern America” (pp. 371 ff.).

Essential Understanding

The varying outcomes of Reconstruction and the debate as to whether or not it was a failure; the fate of the abolitionist movement; and the Compromise of 1877.

The disenfranchisement of freedmen and the implementation of segregation; the lingering, if dormant, promise of the Reconstruction Amendments to guarantee civil rights.

Lesson Objectives

• Review the strategy and implementation of reconstruction.

Key Dates

1877 An electoral commission declares Rutherford B. Hayes president (March 2)

1877 The Compromise of 1877 marks the end of Reconstruction (March 2)

Key Concepts

Following the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1877, the last Reconstruction state governments swiftly collapsed. After nearly two decades of war and social unrest, the South’s social order reverted to its antebellum norms, with the eventual disenfranchisement of freedmen (and poor whites). Moreover, the implementation of segregation meant the lengthy delay of Lincoln’s “new birth of freedom,” until the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment ultimately provided legal grounds for the Civil Rights movements of the mid-twentieth century.

Key Terms

Nadir: The period of American race relations following Reconstruction until the 1920s, when conditions for African Americans were at their lowest after the strides made during Reconstruction, with political rights and economic liberties restricted and segregation enacted.

Segregation: This practice of racial separation governed social practices and access to various services in the American South from the end of Reconstruction to the mid-twentieth century. It was formalized in “Jim Crow” laws, starting in the 1890s.

Classroom Experience

Suggested Homework Assignments

Encourage students to read the fifth section of Chapter Eleven, “Evaluating Reconstruction.”

Assign the following questions:

What were conditions like for African Americans after the end of Reconstruction?

Who took power in the Southern states after the Compromise of 1877?

How did the Fifteenth Amendment become a “dead letter” (that is, an empty guarantee)?

Suggested Exercises & Foundational Skills Opportunities

Analytical Skills: Finish the chart you began in Lesson 11.2, adding any remaining significant people and groups from this chapter (for instance, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, the Radical Republicans, the Ku Klux Klan). Once your chart is complete, answer: Has your view of how the South could become “republican in spirit” changed since Lesson 11.2? Looking at the people and groups in your chart, was the South ever truly made “republican in spirit” by the end of Reconstruction? What should the federal government have done differently to reunite the nation while securing civil rights for the formerly enslaved?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Ask students to consider how they would have improved Reconstruction. Were its failures a result of strategy, implementation, or some combination of the two?

Close Reading: Ask a student volunteer to read aloud the testimony of Henry Adams quoted in the text. What does his perspective reveal about conditions in the South by the end of Reconstruction?

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Instruct students to add a row for Jim Crow laws using their charts from Lesson 11.4, answering what they were, and how they impacted freedmen. Then have students answer the question posed in Lesson 11.4: why might lawmakers have succeeded in reviving many of the Black Codes' provisions during the Nadir, and why were they able to last so long?

Insight: Black Codes were overturned during the height of Reconstruction, when Congress was still willing to intervene. By the mid-1870s, weariness from the war, fatigue from postwar tensions, and a host of other national issues pushed Reconstruction toward its conclusion. Violence and voter intimidation by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan helped Southern “Redeemer” governments regain control of Southern legislatures, and Jim Crow laws were implemented, unchecked by Congress, which later legitimized them with Plessy v. Ferguson's “separate but equal” doctrine. These laws remained in effect well into the 1960s, segregating public facilities — including public education — for African Americans. Companion laws deprived almost all African Americans of the vote in the South and of any participation in representative government.

Civic Discourse: Ask students to write a creative epitaph or an obituary for the end of Reconstruction. How should it be remembered? What is its legacy in the context of the aftermath of the Civil War?

Geography:

Have students study Map 11.2, the election of 1876 (p. 364), and work with the numbers printed on it.

Record the electoral vote for each candidate from the map. What is the difference between them? How many electoral votes would have had to change hands to reverse the result?

Twenty electoral votes were disputed, from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon. Compare that figure with the margin you just calculated. What does the comparison tell you about how much the disputed states mattered?

Tilden won the popular vote by about 250,000. Ask students to say in one sentence how a candidate can lead the popular vote and lose the Electoral College, using the map to support the answer.

The electoral commission decided the disputed votes 8 to 7 along party lines. If the commission had split the other way, what would the final electoral count have been?

Insight: The arithmetic is the argument. Hayes took the presidency by 185 to 184, and every one of the twenty disputed votes went to him. Three of the four disputed states were the last still under Republican governments. A single vote in a fifteen-member commission decided a national election, and the price of accepting the result was the Compromise of 1877.

Further: Ask students to identify which regions on the map voted as blocs, and what that suggests about the state of the country eleven years after Appomattox. Then ask whether the map alone would let them see the disenfranchisement its caption mentions.

Civic Discourse: Frederick Douglass spoke in 1878, Henry Grady in 1887, and both were addressing Northern audiences about how the war should be remembered. Read Primary Sources 11.5 and 11.6 (pp. 366–367) aloud, then hold a structured discussion.

Douglass says he bears no malice toward the ex-slaveholders, and then insists there was a right side and a wrong side that no sentiment ought to make us forget. How do those two statements fit together?

Grady says the South must carry two races in peace, separately, and in equal justice. Read the rest of his speech. Does the ending keep the promise the opening makes?

The chapter reports that historians such as William A. Dunning judged Reconstruction an unmitigated disaster, and it also records Henry Adams’s judgment in 1877 that the freedmen had almost as well be slaves under the men then governing them. Whose failure is each describing?

Which of these two speakers describes the America that actually followed?

Insight: Douglass is refusing to let reconciliation be bought with forgetting; Grady is offering a reconciliation on different terms. Both were applauded in the North. Students should notice that the more reasonable-sounding speech is the one that ends in the declaration that white supremacy must be maintained forever, nine years before Plessy made the formula law.

Further: Ask students what a memorial to Reconstruction should say, and who should write it. Then ask them to name one thing Douglass would insist it include and one thing Grady would want left out, citing the sources rather than their own impressions.

Guiding Classroom Questions

What were “Jim Crow” laws?

Insight: “Jim Crow” laws were passed by the “Redeemer” governments of southern states. The laws instituted strict racial segregation and stripped black Americans of rights they had gained during Reconstruction.

Despite the obvious failures of Reconstruction, what were some developments that would provide for positive change in the future?

Insight: The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments made fundamental changes to constitutional law that would provide avenues to fight against racial discrimination in the twentieth century.

Henry Adams said the men who had held them as slaves were holding the reins of government “even the constable up to the governor.” Which levels of government is he naming, and why did a national amendment not protect him from them?

Insight: Adams names local, state and national government in one breath, and the gap between them is his point. The Fifteenth Amendment was national law throughout the years he describes. The constable, the sheriff and the county registrar were local, and they were drawn from the same men who had owned him. A right guaranteed at one level and administered at another is only as good as the officials in between.

CLOSING THE LESSON

Formative Assessment

Recall

Who passed the Jim Crow laws, and what did they do?

Acceptable responses: The Redeemer governments of the Southern states; they imposed strict racial segregation and stripped black Americans of political and economic rights.

Explain

If Reconstruction failed, why does the chapter not treat it as worthless?

Acceptable responses: A defensible range: the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments remained in the Constitution after the political will to enforce them was gone, and became the legal ground on which segregation was fought in the twentieth century. The chapter also records the contrary verdict of historians such as William A. Dunning, and Henry Adams’s own judgment in 1877 that the freedmen had almost as well be slaves under the men then governing them.

Daily Recap

Over the course of the Grant administration, the will of the rest of the country to struggle with the South over Reconstruction waned. In the Compromise of 1877, Reconstruction ended ingloriously, with decidedly mixed results. In the South, it would take nearly a century before the civil rights promoted by congressional Republicans became a reality. Reconstruction ended in 1877, and the efforts of congressional Republicans seemed for naught. The constitutional amendments passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, however, would eventually provide legal recourse to promote legal and political equality throughout the United States.

Looking Ahead

The next chapter turns to the country the North was building while its attention moved away from the South.

Language Support

Establish the terms first, supply frames that carry the reasoning, rehearse aloud before writing, and offer a way to show understanding without a paragraph.

Establish first: segregation, disenfranchisement, Redeemer, compromise

Frames that carry the reasoning: “Reconstruction failed to __.” “But the Reconstruction Amendments later mattered because __.”

Rehearse aloud, then write: students state one failure and one lasting result to a partner before writing.

Show understanding without a paragraph: a two-column list—what ended in 1877, what remained.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT — ANSWER KEY

The questions and answers that follow offer a range of ways to assess students’ understanding of the chapter. Teachers may use the assessment as written or select and adapt questions to suit their students and course of study. Reproducible map exercises are provided in the Geography Assessments appendix for photocopying or printing.

Matching — Answers

Timeline

Place the following into chronological order from earliest to latest. Number one is the earliest; number five is the latest.

__C__ A. Congress overrides Johnson’s veto to divide the South into military districts

__A__ B. A compromise making Rutherford B. Hayes president in a disputed election ends Reconstruction

__E__ C. Abraham Lincoln is assassinated

__D__ D. A financial panic during Grant’s presidency turns northern attention away from Reconstruction

__B__ E. The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified

Key Persons and Concepts

Fill in the blank.

1. Ulysses S. Grant was a Civil War general whose presidential administration was dogged by corrupt business deals.

2. The Freedmen’s Bureau was established near the end of the Civil War to provide education and economic assistance to freed slaves.

3. Abraham Lincoln pocket-vetoed the Wade–Davis Bill which would have provided much more stringent terms for ex-Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union than Lincoln’s “ten percent” plan.

4. The Ku Klux Klan was a group that harassed, intimidated, and murdered blacks in the South for attempting to exercise their right to vote.

5. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction by naming Rutherford B. Hayes president in a disputed election and guaranteeing that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South.

Geography

Consult this map for the answers to the corresponding exercise in the Geography Assessments appendix.

[ART REQUIRED — CH11 Geography, ANSWER KEY ONLY: use the labeled answer-key version of Map 11.2, The Election of 1876 (p. 364)—NOT Map 11.1. Identify South Carolina, Louisiana, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Tennessee, Georgia, and New Mexico Territory.]

Short Answer

Each question should be answered with around 2–4 complete sentences. Some questions may require more sentences than others. Points will be awarded for accuracy, historical detail, and clarity of writing.

1. How did Lincoln propose to readmit the ex-Confederate states to the Union, and how did it compare to other proposals?

Model response: Lincoln proposed a relatively lenient policy in which a state would be readmitted if only 10 percent of its voters swore an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and promised to accept the abolition of slavery. This was a much milder proposal than the Radical Republicans who insisted that a majority of a state’s voters should be required to take this loyalty oath.

2. How did Lincoln’s assassination change Reconstruction policy?

Model response: The assassination increased support for the Radical Republicans’ more stringent vision of Reconstruction. Lincoln’s milder policy now seemed inadequate to bring the South back in line, and Republicans demanded a harder line against those they saw as traitors to the Union.

3. What was President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction policy, and how did it clash with Republicans in Congress?

Model response: Johnson instituted a policy for readmitting ex-Confederate states that offered a general pardon to most former Confederates. Under it, southern states elected many former Confederates to office; Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens was elected senator from Georgia. Southern states also started passing “Black Codes” that violated the rights of black citizens. Finally, Johnson vetoed a bill to reauthorize the Freedmen’s Bureau and a bill to pass a Civil Rights Act, which enraged Republicans and drove the two sides further apart.

4. How did Republicans in Congress take control of Reconstruction policy away from President Johnson, and what policies did they institute?

Model response: Running against Johnson, Republicans won a veto-proof majority in the congressional elections of 1866. This meant that Republicans were free to institute their own Reconstruction policies, cutting Johnson entirely out of the process. Congress imposed a military occupation on the South and demanded that the ex-Confederate states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to be readmitted to the Union.

5. What effects did the Ku Klux Klan and other terror groups have on blacks in the South?

Model response: The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 and engaged in intimidation, harassment, and murder of blacks and white Republicans who supported the political rights of blacks. One goal of the KKK was to prevent blacks and Republicans from exercising their right to vote, thus paving the way for white “Redeemers” to gain power and eliminate the Republican Party from the South. This terror campaign worked. Each ex-Confederate state was eventually taken over by white counterrevolutionaries.

6. Why did support for Radical Reconstruction gradually decrease in the North?

Model response: The author provides three main reasons for decreasing northern support. (1) The problems in the South, including violence and apparent corruption in southern Reconstruction governments, prompted northerners to become weary of trying to solve what appeared to be unsolvable problems. (2) Other issues distracted from Reconstruction, such as the business panic of 1873 and the corruption of President Grant’s administration. (3) A rising sense of American nationalism and a desire to fully reunite with the South, the region that had produced founders like Washington and Jefferson, overwhelmed the zeal to protect the rights of southern blacks.

7. How did the presidential election of 1876 put the final nail in the coffin of Reconstruction?

Model response: Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes won an extremely close and disputed election against Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden. Congress appointed an electoral commission to determine the outcome. The so-called Compromise of 1877, which resolved the election, declared Hayes the winner while guaranteeing that Hayes would remove all federal troops from the South, allow the “Redeemers” to take over Louisiana and South Carolina (the last remaining southern Republican governments), and build a southern transcontinental railroad. In return the Democrats dropped their opposition to Hayes and agreed to accept the three Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution. This agreement ended Reconstruction without guaranteeing civil rights for blacks in the South.

8. According to the author, why is Reconstruction largely considered a failure?

Model response: First, Reconstruction failed to secure civil rights for blacks, especially in the South. “Redeemer” governments passed “Jim Crow” laws that instituted racial segregation and discrimination. Second, historians such as William A. Dunning criticized Radical Reconstruction for what they saw as misguided attempts to reform the South.

9. Despite the widely acknowledged failures of Reconstruction, what achievements of Reconstruction does the author highlight?

Model response: The Reconstruction Amendments (Amendments 13–15) provided constitutional grounding for the Civil Rights movement of the twentieth century.

Essay — Scoring Guidance

Strong essays hold two things together rather than choosing between them, because the chapter does. The freedmen gained emancipation, citizenship, the vote, and the ability to build churches and schools, and in the years of Congressional Reconstruction many won election to office. They did not gain land, and without it many worked land they did not own, under sharecropping and the crop-lien system—no escape from the web of obligations, no way to accumulate capital and work toward independence. Credit students who register both, and who notice that the second was not a failure to change the law but a limit on what changing the law could reach. The three required sources pull in different directions and should not be made to agree: Stevens argues in 1867 for what ought to be secured, Blake describes from 1941 what the settlement of accounts actually was, and Frost shows in 1876 a right formally held and violently denied. The strongest essays date their evidence—conditions in 1868 were not conditions in 1876—and end where the chapter ends, with rights written into the Constitution and unenforced. Answers will vary; no verdict is privileged, provided it is argued from the text and from all three sources.

Student Map Appendix

Student Map Appendix

Student-facing geography exercises · Volume I · Chapters 1–11

Editorial extraction only. Student-facing directions and questions are preserved from the supplied chapter files. Teacher answer-key material has been excluded. Bracketed ART REQUIRED notes are production instructions, not student copy.

Chapter 1

World Geography

Write the name of each location on the map.

Europe

Asia

North America

South America

Pacific Ocean

North Atlantic Ocean

South Atlantic Ocean

Indian Ocean

Africa

Chapter 2

The Thirteen Colonies and the Appalachian Mountains

Identify the location of each on the map: the Appalachian Mountains and the thirteen colonies (plus the District of Maine and Vermont).

Chapter 3

The Proclamation Line of 1763

Using the map, answer the following question:

What geographic feature did the Proclamation Line of 1763 follow? Why did the British government draw this boundary? How did colonists respond to this restriction?

Chapter 4

Geography of the Revolutionary Era

Match the following with the locations on the map.

____ Philadelphia

____ Boston

____ Northwest Territory

____ The Siege at Yorktown

____ Delaware River

____ New York City

____ The Battle of Saratoga

Chapter 5

The Ratification of the Constitution

Using Map 5.1, The Ratification of the Constitution, answer the following.

Which state ratified first, and which was the ninth—the one that put the Constitution into effect?

Two large and essential states ratified after the ninth. Name them, and explain why their ratification still mattered.

Look at where support and opposition cluster on the map. What does the pattern suggest about who favored the Constitution and who was wary of it?

Chapter 6

Geography

Identify the location according to the map:

1. ______ Missouri

2. ______ Maine

3. ______ Erie Canal

4. ______ New York City

5. ______ New Orleans

6. ______ Florida

7. ______ Washington, D.C.

Chapter 6 assessment map

Chapter 8

Geography

Using the census data, identify the following southern states on the map. (Map 8.1)

1. ______ The southern state with the largest free population

2. ______ The southern state with the lowest slave population

3. ______ The southern state with the highest percentage of slaves

Chapter 8 assessment map

Chapter 9

Geography

Identify the location according to the maps:

1. ______ Texas

2. ______ California

3. ______ Mexican Cession

4. ______ Oregon Territory

5. ______ South Carolina

6. ______ Illinois

7. ______ Kansas Territory

8. ______ Nebraska Territory

Chapter 9 assessment map 1

Chapter 9 assessment map 2

Chapter 10

Geography

Using the map (10.2), answer the following prompts:

Locate the northernmost, southernmost, easternmost, and westernmost Civil War battles shown. Record the place’s name and state where each one occurred. Then measure or estimate the distance in miles between the two that are farthest apart.

North – ____________________________

South – ____________________________

East – ____________________________

West – ____________________________

Distance is roughly __________ miles from ______________ to ______________.

What does that distance tell you about the scale of the war and the challenge of moving troops and supplies across it?

Chapter 10 assessment map

Chapter 11

Geography

Identify the location according to the map (Map 11.2):

1. ______ South Carolina

2. ______ Louisiana

3. ______ Nevada

4. ______ Colorado

5. ______ Minnesota

6. ______ Tennessee

7. ______ Georgia

8. ______ New Mexico Territory

Chapter 11 assessment map

Extraction Notes

Chapter 6: geography location-identification exercise extracted from the chapter summative assessment; one supplied assessment map inserted.

Chapter 7: no assessment map was supplied in this batch. The chapter contains a lesson-level Mormon Route geography exercise, but no separate appendix page has been created here.

Chapter 8: census-data geography exercise extracted from the chapter summative assessment; the supplied 1860 slave-population map inserted.

Chapter 9: geography location-identification exercise extracted from the chapter summative assessment; both supplied assessment maps inserted.

Chapter 10: map-based Civil War geography prompts extracted from the chapter summative assessment; the supplied Major Battles map inserted.

Chapter 11: geography location-identification exercise extracted from the chapter summative assessment; the supplied assessment map inserted.

Appendix: Founding Documents

The Declaration of Independence

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Signers of the Declaration

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Constitution of the United States

Article I

Section 1

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section 4

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section 5

Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section 7

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

Section 8

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section 9

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Section 10

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Article II

Section 1

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Section 2

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article III

Section 1

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section 2

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section 3

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Article IV

Section 1

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section 2

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Section 3

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Section 4

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Article VI

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Article VII

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The Word, “the,” being interlined between the seventh and eighth Lines of the first Page, The Word “Thirty” being partly written on an Erazure in the fifteenth Line of the first Page, The Words “is tried” being interlined between the thirty second and thirty third Lines of the first Page and the Word “the” being interlined between the forty third and forty fourth Lines of the second Page.

Attest William Jackson Secretary

done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

Signatories

G°. Washington — Presidt and deputy from Virginia

Delaware

Geo: Read

Gunning Bedford jun

John Dickinson

Richard Bassett

Jaco: Broom

Maryland

James McHenry

Dan of St Thos. Jenifer

Danl. Carroll

Virginia

John Blair

James Madison Jr.

North Carolina

Wm. Blount

Richd. Dobbs Spaight

Hu Williamson

South Carolina

J. Rutledge

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney

Charles Pinckney

Pierce Butler

Georgia

William Few

Abr Baldwin

New Hampshire

John Langdon

Nicholas Gilman

Massachusetts

Nathaniel Gorham

Rufus King

Connecticut

Wm. Saml. Johnson

Roger Sherman

New York

Alexander Hamilton

New Jersey

Wil: Livingston

David Brearley

Wm. Paterson

Jona: Dayton

Pennsylvania

B Franklin

Thomas Mifflin

Robt. Morris

Geo. Clymer

Thos. FitzSimons

Jared Ingersoll

James Wilson

Gouv Morris

Amendments I–X, ratified December 15, 1791, are known as the Bill of Rights.

Amendments to the Constitution of the United States

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Amendment XI

Passed by Congress March 4, 1794. Ratified February 7, 1795.

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

Amendment XII

Passed by Congress December 9, 1803. Ratified June 15, 1804.

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Amendment XIII

Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.

Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XIV

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Amendment XV

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870.

Section 1

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—

Section 2

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XVI

Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Amendment XVII

Passed by Congress May 13, 1912. Ratified April 8, 1913.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

Amendment XVIII

Passed by Congress December 18, 1917. Ratified January 16, 1919. Repealed by amendment 21.

Section 1

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Amendment XIX

Passed by Congress June 4, 1919. Ratified August 18, 1920.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XX

Passed by Congress March 2, 1932. Ratified January 23, 1933.

Section 1

The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 3

If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section 4

The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 5

Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section 6

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

Amendment XXI

Passed by Congress February 20, 1933. Ratified December 5, 1933.

Section 1

The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2

The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Amendment XXII

Passed by Congress March 21, 1947. Ratified February 27, 1951.

Section 1

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

Amendment XXIII

Passed by Congress June 16, 1960. Ratified March 29, 1961.

Section 1

The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XXIV

Passed by Congress August 27, 1962. Ratified January 23, 1964.

Section 1

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XXV

Passed by Congress July 6, 1965. Ratified February 10, 1967.

Section 1

In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3

Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Amendment XXVI

Passed by Congress March 23, 1971. Ratified July 1, 1971.

Section 1

The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XXVII

Originally proposed Sept. 25, 1789. Ratified May 7, 1992.

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

Florida United States History Honors Standards, Volume I & II

This Teacher's Edition is published in two volumes: Volume I (Chapters 1–11) and Volume II (Chapters 12–22). The table below lists every Florida Social Studies benchmark addressed across both volumes of Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, 2nd Edition, and which volume(s) contain it. This summary is for reference only and does not link to instructional content — for clickable links to the exact lesson location, see the Standards Index in Volume I (for benchmarks marked "Volume I") or in Volume II (for benchmarks marked "Volume II").

Benchmark | Standard | Volume
SS.912.A.1.1 | Describe the importance of historiography, which includes how historical knowledge is obtained and transmitted, when interpreting events in history. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.1.2 | Utilize a variety of primary and secondary sources to identify author, historical significance, audience, and authenticity to understand a historical period. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.1.3 | Utilize timelines to identify the time sequence of historical data. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.1.4 | Analyze how images, symbols, objects, cartoons, graphs, charts, maps, and artwork may be used to interpret the significance of time periods and events from the past. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.1.5 | Evaluate the validity, reliability, bias and authenticity of current events, and Internet resources. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.1.6 | Use case studies to explore social, political, legal, and economic relationships in history. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.1.7 | Describe various socio-cultural aspects of American life including arts, artifacts, literature, education, and publications. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.2.1 | Review causes and consequences of the Civil War. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.2.2 | Assess the influence of significant people or groups on Reconstruction. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.2.3 | Describe the issues that divided Republicans during the early Reconstruction era. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.2.4 | Distinguish the freedoms guaranteed to African Americans and other groups with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.2.5 | Assess how Jim Crow Laws influenced life for African Americans and other racial/ethnic minority groups. | Vol. I & Vol. II
SS.912.A.2.6 | Compare the effects of the Black Codes and the Nadir on freed people and analyze the sharecropping system and debt peonage as practiced in the United States. | Vol. I
SS.912.A.2.7 | Review the Native American experience. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.1 | Analyze the economic challenges to American farmers and farmers' responses to these challenges in the mid to late 1800s. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.2 | Examine the social, political, and economic causes, course, and consequences of the second Industrial Revolution that began in the late 19th century. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.3 | Compare the first and second Industrial Revolutions in the United States. | Vol. I & Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.4 | Determine how the development of steel, oil, transportation, communication, and business practices affected the United States economy. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.5 | Identify significant inventors of the Industrial Revolution including African Americans and women. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.6 | Analyze changes that occurred as the United States shifted from agrarian to an industrial society. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.7 | Compare the experience of European immigrants in the east to that of Asian immigrants in the west (the Chinese Exclusion Act, Gentlemen's Agreement with Japan). | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.8 | Examine the importance of social change and reform in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., class system, migration from farms to cities, Social Gospel movement, role of settlement houses and churches in providing services to the poor). | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.9 | Examine causes, course, and consequences of the labor movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.10 | Review different economic and philosophic ideologies. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.11 | Analyze the impact of political machines in United States cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.12 | Compare how different nongovernmental organizations and progressives worked to shape public policy, restore economic opportunities, and correct injustices in American life. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.3.13 | Examine key events and peoples in Florida history as they relate to United States history. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.1 | Analyze the major factors that drove United States imperialism. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.2 | Explain the motives of the United States acquisition of the territories. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.3 | Examine causes, course, and consequences of the Spanish American War. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.4 | Analyze the economic, military, and security motivations of the United States to complete the Panama Canal as well as major obstacles involved in its construction. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.5 | Examine causes, course, and consequences of United States involvement in World War I. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.6 | Examine how the United States government prepared the nation for war with war measures (i.e., Selective Service Act, War Industries Board, war bonds, Espionage Act, Sedition Act, Committee of Public Information). | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.7 | Examine the impact of airplanes, battleships, new weaponry, and chemical warfare in creating new war strategies (e.g., trench warfare, convoys). | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.8 | Compare the experiences Americans (i.e., African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, women, conscientious objectors) had while serving in Europe. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.9 | Compare how the war impacted European Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Jewish Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, women, and dissenters in the United States. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.4.10 | Examine the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles and the failure of the United States to support the League of Nations. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.1 | Discuss the economic outcomes of demobilization. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.2 | Explain the causes of the public reaction (e.g., Sacco and Vanzetti, labor, racial unrest) associated with the Red Scare. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.3 | Examine the impact of United States foreign economic policy during the 1920s. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.4 | Evaluate how the economic boom during the Roaring Twenties changed consumers, businesses, manufacturing, and marketing practices. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.5 | Describe efforts by the United States and other world powers to avoid future wars. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.6 | Analyze the influence that Hollywood, the Harlem Renaissance, the Fundamentalist movement, and prohibition had in changing American society in the 1920s. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.7 | Examine the freedom movements that advocated civil rights for African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and women. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.8 | Compare the views of Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey relating to the African American experience. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.9 | Explain why support for the Ku Klux Klan varied in the 1920s with respect to issues such as anti-immigration, anti-African American, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti- women, and anti-union ideas. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.10 | Analyze support for and resistance to civil rights for women, African Americans, Native Americans, and other minority groups. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.5.11 | Examine causes, course and consequences of the Great Depression and the New Deal. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.1 | Examine causes, course, and consequences of World War II on the United States and the world. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.2 | Describe the United States’ response in the early years of World War II (e.g., Neutrality Acts, Cash and Carry, Lend Lease Act). | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.3 | Analyze the impact of the Holocaust during World War II on Jews as well as other groups. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.4 | Examine efforts to expand or contract rights for various populations during World War II. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.5 | Explain the impact of World War II on domestic government policy including, but not limited to, rationing and the forced internment of Japanese Americans. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.6 | Analyze the use of atomic weapons during World War II and the aftermath of the bombings. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.7 | Describe the attempts to promote international justice through the Nuremberg Trials. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.8 | Analyze the effects of the Red Scare on domestic United States policy. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.9 | Describe the rationale for the formation of the United Nations, including the contribution of Mary McLeod Bethune. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.10 | Examine causes, course, and consequences of the early years of the Cold War (i.e., Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, Warsaw Pact). | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.11 | Examine the controversy surrounding the proliferation of nuclear technology in the United States and the world. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.12 | Examine causes, course, and consequences of the Korean War. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.13 | Analyze significant foreign policy events during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.6.14 | Analyze causes, course, and consequences of the Vietnam War. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.1 | Identify causes for Post-World War II prosperity and its effects on American society. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.2 | Compare the relative prosperity between different ethnic groups and social classes in the post-World War II period. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.3 | Examine the changing status of women in the United States from post-World War II to present. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.4 | Evaluate the success of 1960s era presidents' foreign and domestic policies. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.5 | Compare nonviolent and violent approaches utilized by groups (e.g., African Americans, women, Native Americans, Hispanics) to achieve civil rights. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.6 | Assess key figures and organizations in shaping the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.7 | Assess the building of coalitions between African Americans, whites, and other groups in achieving integration and equal rights. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.8 | Analyze significant Supreme Court decisions relating to integration, busing, affirmative action, the rights of the accused and reproductive rights. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.9 | Examine the similarities of social movements (e.g., Native Americans, Hispanics, women, anti-war protesters) of the 1960s and 1970s. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.10 | Analyze the significance of Vietnam and Watergate on the government and people of the United States. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.11 | Analyze the foreign policy of the United States as it relates to Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.12 | Analyze political, economic, and social concerns that emerged at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.13 | Analyze the attempts to extend New Deal legislation through the Great Society and the successes and failures of these programs to promote social and economic stability. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.14 | Review the role of the United States as a participant in the global economy (e.g., trade agreements, international competition, impact on American labor, environmental concerns). | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.15 | Analyze the effects of foreign and domestic terrorism on the American people. | Vol. II
SS.912.A.7.16 | Examine changes in immigration policy and attitudes toward immigration since 1950. | Vol. II
SS.912.CG.1.1 | Examine how intellectual influences in primary documents contributed to the ideas in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.1.2 | Explain the influence of Enlightenment ideas on the Declaration of Independence. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.1.3 | Explain arguments presented in the Federalist Papers in support of ratifying the U.S. Constitution and a republican form of government. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.1.4 | Analyze how the ideals and principles expressed in the founding documents shape America as a constitutional republic. | Vol. I

SS.912.CG.1.5
Explain how the U.S. Constitution and its amendments uphold the following political principles: checks and balances, consent of the governed, democracy, due process of law, federalism, individual rights, limited government, representative government, republicanism, rule of law and separation of powers.
Vol. I

SS.912.CG.2.1 | Explain the constitutional provisions that establish and affect citizenship. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.2.2 | Explain the importance of political and civic participation to the success of the United States’ constitutional republic. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.2.3 | Explain the responsibilities of citizens at the local, state, and national levels. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.2.7 | Analyze the impact of civic engagement as a means of preserving or reforming institutions. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.3.1 | Analyze how certain political ideologies conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.3.12 | Analyze the concept of federalism in the United States and its role in establishing the relationship between the state and national governments. | Vol. I
SS.912.CG.3.15 | Explain how citizens are affected by the local, state, and national governments. | Vol. II
SS.912.CG.4.1 | Analyze how liberty and economic freedom generate broad-based opportunity and prosperity in the United States. | Vol. I
SS.912.E.2.3 | Research contributions of entrepreneurs, inventors, and other key individuals from various demographic backgrounds in the development of the United States. | Vol. II
SS.912.E.3.5 | Compare the current United States economy with other developed and developing nations. | Vol. II
SS.912.G.1.2 | Use spatial perspective and appropriate geographic terms and tools, including the Six Essential Elements, as organizational schema to describe any given place. | Vol. I
SS.912.G.1.3 | Employ applicable units of measurement and scale to solve simple locational problems using maps, and globes. | Vol. I
SS.912.G.2.1 | Identify the physical characteristics and the human characteristics that define and differentiate regions. | Vol. I
SS.912.G.4.2 | Use geographic terms and tools to analyze the push, and pull factors contributing to human migration within and among places. | Vol. I
SS.912.G.4.3 | Use geographic terms and tools to analyze the effects of migration both on the place of origin and destination, including border areas. | Vol. I
MA.K12.MTR.1.1 | Actively participate in effortful learning both individually and collectively. | Vol. I
MA.K12.MTR.2.1 | Demonstrate understanding by representing problems in multiple ways. | Vol. I
MA.K12.MTR.3.1 | Complete tasks with mathematical fluency. | Vol. I
MA.K12.MTR.4.1 | Engage in discussions that reflect on the mathematical thinking of self and others. | Vol. I
MA.K12.MTR.5.1 | Use patterns and structure to help understand and connect mathematical concepts. | Vol. I
MA.K12.MTR.6.1 | Assess the reasonableness of solutions. | Vol. I
MA.K12.MTR.7.1 | Apply mathematics to real-world contexts. | Vol. I
ELA.K12.EE.1.1 | Cite evidence to explain and justify reasoning. | Vol. I
ELA.K12.EE.2.1 | Read and comprehend grade-level complex texts proficiently. | Vol. I
ELA.K12.EE.3.1 | Make inferences to support comprehension. | Vol. I
ELA.K12.EE.4.1 | Use appropriate collaborative techniques and active listening skills when engaging in discussions in a variety of situations. | Vol. I
ELA.K12.EE.5.1 | Use the accepted rules governing a specific format to create quality work. | Vol. I
ELA.K12.EE.6.1 | Use appropriate voice and tone when speaking or writing. | Vol. I
ELD.K12.ELL.SI.1 | English language learners communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school setting. | Vol. I
ELD.K12.ELL.SS.1 | English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of Social Studies. | Vol. I

Florida United States History Honors Standards Found in This Volume

This index lists Florida Social Studies benchmarks addressed in Volume I (Chapters 1–11) of Land of Hope, 2nd Edition, Teacher's Edition. Teacher's Edition references below link directly to the corresponding location within this volume. Where a benchmark is also addressed in Volume II, that reference is noted but not linked. Student Edition page references are listed for manual lookup.

SS.912.A.1.1

Describe the importance of historiography, which includes how historical knowledge is obtained and transmitted, when interpreting events in history.

Student Edition: Historians Interpret the Revolution, Ch. 4, p. 109; Evaluating the Reconstruction, Ch. 11, p. 368-369; Ch. 12, Assessing the Past, Ch. 12, p. 404; Introduction, "One Long Story," Ch. 1, p. xix–xxii.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.1 → Civic Discourse: Students distinguish the past from history, evaluate why history must be selective to be intelligible, and justify whether history is objective or subjective. Ch. 9 → Lesson 9.1 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students construct two competing characterizations of a single event and explain why participants saw it differently from hindsight. Develops the ability to describe the importance of historiography, including how historical knowledge is obtained and transmitted when interpreting events.

SS.912.A.1.2

Utilize a variety of primary and secondary sources to identify author, historical significance, audience, and authenticity to understand a historical period.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.6 → Analytical Skills: Students identify the author, setting, content, and intended purpose of Columbus's letter to Santángel. Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.7 → Analytical Skills: Students identify the author, setting, events, and intended purpose of William Pinkney's speech to the House. Develops the ability to utilize a variety of primary and secondary sources to identify author, historical significance, audience, and authenticity.

SS.912.A.1.3

Utilize timelines to identify the time sequence of historical data.

Student Edition: Chapter timelines, p. 4, 31, 60, 97, 135, 166, 210, 242, 268, 304, 341, 373, 415, 443, 478, 514, 552, 588, 632, 679, 718, 758.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 10 → Lesson 10.7 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students construct a timeline of the war from Fort Sumter to Appomattox, identifying the dates of the major engagements and their commanders. Ch. 1 → Summative Assessment → Matching → Timeline: Students sequence the chapter's events from the chapter Timeline. Develops the ability to utilize timelines to identify the time sequence of historical data.

SS.912.A.1.4

Analyze how images, symbols, objects, cartoons, graphs, charts, maps, and artwork may be used to interpret the significance of time periods and events from the past.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.6 → Analyzing Figures: Students analyze de Bry's engraving of the landing of Columbus and The Allegory of America, identifying what each image was intended to persuade a European viewer to believe. Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.3 → Analyzing Figures: Students interpret a Frank Leslie's cartoon of the vetoed Freedmen's Bureau bill, finding the labels themselves before the caption is read. Develops the ability to analyze how images, cartoons, and artwork interpret the significance of events.

SS.912.A.1.6

Use case studies to explore social, political, legal, and economic relationships in history.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.5 → Civic Discourse: Students trace the emergence of a trade-based middle class in Europe and evaluate what long-distance commerce changed about social and economic relationships. Develops the ability to use case studies to explore social, political, legal, and economic relationships in history.

SS.912.A.1.7

Describe various socio-cultural aspects of American life including arts, artifacts, literature, education, and publications.

Student Edition: Advances in American Literature, Ch. 7, p. 226-239.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.5 → Artifacts: Students analyze the mariner's astrolabe as evidence of how navigational technology shaped exploration. Ch. 7 → Lesson 7.6 → Close Reading: Students interpret works of the American literary renaissance as expressions of a distinct national culture. Develops the ability to describe socio-cultural aspects of American life including arts, artifacts, literature, education, and publications.

SS.912.A.2.1

Review causes and consequences of the Civil War.

Student Edition: The Missouri Compromise, Ch. 6, p. 189–192; The Nullification Crisis, Ch. 6, p. 197–199; The Wilmot Proviso and Compromise of 1850, Ch. 9, p. 276–282; The Kansas–Nebraska Act and "Bleeding Kansas," Ch. 9, p. 282–288; The Dred Scott Decision, Ch. 9, p. 288–292; The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and Election of 1860, Ch. 9, p. 292–301; The Emancipation Proclamation, Ch. 10, p. 316–320; Total War, Ch. 10, p. 326; Wartime Casualties, Ch. 10, p. 336-337; Economic Effects of the War, Ch. 11, p. 341–343; Conditions of freed slaves and civil rights p. 352, 360-361, 368-369; 1866 Civil Rights Act p. 353; The 14th Amendment, Ch. 11, p. 354; The 15th Amendment, Ch. 11, p. 358-359.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 10 → Lesson 10.1 → Geography: Students analyze Map 10.1, the secession voting results and dates of secession, and evaluate what the pattern of the vote reveals about the war's causes. Ch. 10 → Lesson 10.7 → Civic Discourse: Students reflect on the significance of the Civil War in a Socratic seminar. Develops the ability to review causes and consequences of the Civil War.

SS.912.A.2.2

Assess the influence of significant people or groups on Reconstruction.

Student Edition: Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan and the Wade-Davis Bill, Ch. 11, p. 346-347; Johnson's Reconstruction Plan and Conflict with Congress, Ch. 11, p. 350–353; The Radical Republicans and Congressional Reconstruction, Ch. 11, p. 354– top of 358; Carpetbaggers and Scalawags, Ch. 11, p. 359; Freedmen's Community-Building (schools, churches, political participation), Ch. 11, p. 361; The Ku Klux Klan and Grant's Enforcement Acts, Ch. 11, p. 361–362; The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction, Ch. 11, p. 365–368; Frederick Douglass's Retrospective on Reconstruction, Ch. 11, p. 366.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.2 → Civic Discourse: Students evaluate Thaddeus Stevens's claim that the rebel states had to be made republican in spirit before readmission, and assess what that required of Congress. Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.4 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students assess why Grant was chosen as the Republican candidate in 1868. Develops the ability to assess the influence of significant people or groups on Reconstruction.

SS.912.A.2.3

Describe the issues that divided Republicans during the early Reconstruction era.

Student Edition: Wade-Davis Bill and Republicans' Rejection of Lincoln's Lenient Plan, Ch. 11, p. 346–347; Johnson's Impeachment, Ch. 11, p.358; Hayes v the Radical Republicans agenda, Ch 11. p. 363.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.2 → Speaking Skills: Students take the position of members of Congress in 1864 and argue the proper mechanism for readmitting Southern states, exposing the division between presidential and congressional plans. Develops the ability to describe the issues that divided Republicans during the early Reconstruction era.

SS.912.A.2.4

Distinguish the freedoms guaranteed to African Americans and other groups with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

Student Edition: The Thirteenth Amendment, Ch. 10, p. 320, and Ch. 11, p. 352; The Freedman's Reality, p. 341; The Fourteenth Amendment, Ch. 11, p. 354, 358; The Fifteenth Amendment and African Americans at the Polls, Ch. 11, p. 358, 361-362.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.4 → Reading Comprehension: Students read the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and identify how Section 1 defines citizenship and what it forbids the states to do. Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.4 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students chart the new laws and amendments and note the legal effect of each. Develops the ability to distinguish the freedoms guaranteed with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

SS.912.A.2.5

Assess how Jim Crow Laws influenced life for African Americans and other racial/ethnic minority groups.

Student Edition: Jim Crow Laws and Plessy v. Ferguson, Ch. 11, p. 368.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.4 → Compare and Contrast: Students compare the Black Codes with sharecropping, drawing on Primary Source 11.4, Henry Blake's 1941 interview, and assess the constraints each placed on freed people. Ch. 20 → Lesson 20.5 → Key Concepts: (see Volume II Standards Index) Students examine segregation as the settled legal order the Civil Rights Movement confronted, and what dismantling it required. Develops the ability to assess how Jim Crow Laws influenced life for African Americans and other racial/ethnic minority groups.

SS.912.A.2.6

Compare the effects of the Black Codes and the Nadir on freed people and analyze the sharecropping system and debt peonage as practiced in the United States.

Student Edition: The Black Codes, Ch. 11, p. 352; Land Distribution ("Forty Acres and a Mule") and Sharecropping/Debt Peonage, Ch. 11, p. 359–360.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.4 → Compare and Contrast: Students build a two-column comparison of the Black Codes and sharecropping, drawing on Primary Source 11.4, Henry Blake's 1941 interview. Develops the ability to compare the effects of the Black Codes and the Nadir on freed people's rights.

SS.912.A.3.3

Compare the first and second Industrial Revolutions in the United States.

Student Edition: Early Industrialization, Ch. 6, p. 187-188; The Rise of Big Business and Three Titans, Ch. 12, p. 376–387.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.6 → Classroom Experience: Students examine the early industrial economy of mills and textile manufacture. Ch. 12 → Lesson 12.4 → Guiding Classroom Questions: (see Volume II Standards Index) Students trace Rockefeller's control of ninety percent of refining capacity, Morgan's consolidation of U.S. Steel, and Carnegie's use of the Bessemer process, then set the scale, financing and organizational form of this economy against the earlier one. Develops the ability to compare the first and second Industrial Revolutions in the United States.

SS.912.CG.1.1

Examine how intellectual influences in primary documents contributed to the ideas in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 3 → Lesson 3.5 → Analytical Skills: Students identify the author, setting, and intended purpose of the Declaration of Independence (Primary Source 3.2) and of Jefferson's rough draft (Figure 3.12), comparing what the revisions changed. Develops the ability to examine how intellectual influences in primary documents contributed to the ideas in the Declaration of Independence.

SS.912.CG.1.2

Explain the influence of Enlightenment ideas on the Declaration of Independence.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 3 → Lesson 3.5 → Analyzing Figures: Students analyze The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 (Figure 3.14) and trace the document's claims about natural rights and consent back to their intellectual sources. Develops the ability to explain the influence of Enlightenment ideas on the Declaration of Independence.

SS.912.CG.1.3

Explain arguments presented in the Federalist Papers in support of ratifying the U.S. Constitution and a republican form of government.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 5 → Lesson 5.1 → Close Reading: Students conduct a line-by-line reading of the block quotation from Federalist 1, working from questions set before the reading begins. Ch. 5 → Lesson 5.1 → Geography: Students analyze the Ratification of the Constitution map (Map 5.1) and evaluate where support and opposition concentrated. Develops the ability to explain arguments presented in the Federalist Papers in support of ratifying the U.S. Constitution.

SS.912.CG.1.4

Analyze how the ideals and principles expressed in the founding documents shape America as a constitutional republic.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 4 → Lesson 4.8 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students compare the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in structure, content, and style, and justify which matters more to American identity. Develops the ability to analyze how the ideals and principles expressed in the founding documents shape America as a constitutional republic.

SS.912.CG.1.5

Explain how the U.S. Constitution and its amendments uphold the following political principles: checks and balances, consent of the governed, democracy, due process of law, federalism, individual rights, limited government, representative government, republicanism, rule of law and separation of powers.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 4 → Lesson 4.7 → Analytical Skills: Students work through the constitutional structure at book pp. 118–120 and identify where each constraint on government is located in the text, on the principle that the Constitution does not simply organize a government but constrains one. Develops the ability to explain how the U.S. Constitution upholds checks and balances, separation of powers, and limited government.

SS.912.CG.2.1

Explain the constitutional provisions that establish and affect citizenship.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 11 → Lesson 11.4 → Reading Comprehension: Students read the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and identify how Section 1 defines United States citizenship and what it forbids the states to do. Develops the ability to explain the constitutional provisions that establish and affect citizenship.

SS.912.CG.2.2

Explain the importance of political and civic participation to the success of the United States’ constitutional republic.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.8 → Civic Discourse: Students evaluate why votes cast for president more than tripled between 1824 and 1828 as states dropped property qualifications, and assess what wider participation did to the system. Ch. 5 → Lesson 5.1 → Civic Discourse: Students examine why the 1801 transfer of power held when enough citizens accepted an outcome they had voted against. Develops the ability to explain the importance of political and civic participation to the success of the constitutional republic.

SS.912.CG.2.3

Explain the responsibilities of citizens at the local, state, and national levels.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 4 → Lesson 4.2 → Civic Discourse: Students evaluate what ordinary people owed the cause in the winter of 1776, with enlistments expiring and Congress fled from Philadelphia. Develops the ability to explain the responsibilities of citizens at the local, state, and national levels.

SS.912.CG.2.7

Analyze the impact of civic engagement as a means of preserving or reforming institutions.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 7 → Lesson 7.4 → Argumentation: Students debate the tactics of the antislavery movement, naming the lawful methods available to citizens seeking change and assessing which reformed the institution and which threatened it. Develops the ability to analyze the impact of civic engagement as a means of preserving or reforming institutions.

SS.912.CG.3.1

Analyze how certain political ideologies conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.8 → Analyzing Figures: Students analyze the cartoon Nullification … Despotism (Figure 6.16) and interpret how the artist casts the doctrine as a threat to self-government. Develops the ability to analyze how certain political ideologies conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy.

SS.912.CG.3.12

Analyze the concept of federalism in the United States and its role in establishing the relationship between the state and national governments.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.8 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students build a t-chart of the core arguments in the Nullification Crisis and list the case made on each side for the reach of federal and state authority. Develops the ability to analyze the concept of federalism and its role in establishing the relationship between the states and the national government.

SS.912.CG.4.1

Analyze how liberty and economic freedom generate broad-based opportunity and prosperity in the United States.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.10 → Reading Comprehension: Students read Tocqueville's “Why the Americans are so Restless in the Midst of their Prosperity” and discuss in seminar what he attributes to open opportunity. Develops the ability to analyze how liberty and economic freedom generate broad-based opportunity and prosperity in the United States.

SS.912.G.1.2

Use spatial perspective and appropriate geographic terms and tools, including the Six Essential Elements, as organizational schema to describe any given place.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 2 → Lesson 2.7 → Geography: Students analyze the Thirteen Colonies map (Map 2.4), establish what it depicts, and compare the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies by geographic setting. Develops the ability to use spatial perspective and appropriate geographic terms and tools as organizational schema.

SS.912.G.1.3

Employ applicable units of measurement and scale to solve simple locational problems using maps, and globes.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 4 → Summative Assessment → Geography: Students match named places to their locations on a blank map, solving each locational problem from the map alone. Ch. 8 → Lesson 8.4 → Geography: Students use the 1861 census data to identify southern states on Map 8.1. Develops the ability to employ applicable units of measurement and scale to solve simple locational problems using maps and globes.

SS.912.G.2.1

Identify the physical characteristics and the human characteristics that define and differentiate regions.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.2 → Geography: Students shade on a modern map the area the United States comprised through 1803 and then the Louisiana Purchase, distinguishing the two by the physical and human characteristics of each. Develops the ability to identify the physical characteristics and the human characteristics that define and differentiate regions.

SS.912.G.4.2

Use geographic terms and tools to analyze the push, and pull factors contributing to human migration within and among places.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.2 → Geography: Students analyze the Two Theories of the Peopling of the Americas map (Map 1.1) and evaluate what each route implies about why people moved. Ch. 7 → Lesson 7.2 → Geography: Students trace the Mormon Route to Utah (Map 7.1) and identify what drove the migration and what drew it west. Develops the ability to use geographic terms and tools to analyze the push and pull factors contributing to human migration.

SS.912.G.4.3

Use geographic terms and tools to analyze the effects of migration both on the place of origin and destination, including border areas.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 2 → Lesson 2.5 → Geography: Students analyze the Colonial Holdings in the New World map (Map 2.2), compare the reach of each imperial power, and assess what settlement did to both the places settled and the powers that sent the settlers. Develops the ability to analyze the effects of migration on the place of origin and the destination.

MA.K12.MTR.1.1

Actively participate in effortful learning both individually and collectively.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 8 → Lesson 8.4 → Geography: Students work from the 1861 Coast Survey census data to identify southern states on Map 8.1 by their enslaved population, sustaining the task across the full data set. Develops the ability to actively participate in effortful learning both individually and collectively.

MA.K12.MTR.2.1

Demonstrate understanding by representing problems in multiple ways.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 10 → Lesson 10.2 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students construct a chart comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Union and Confederacy at the war's outset, representing the same comparison as tabulated data and as a judgment about which mattered most. Develops the ability to demonstrate understanding by representing problems in multiple ways.

MA.K12.MTR.3.1

Complete tasks with mathematical fluency.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.8 → Civic Discourse: Students calculate by what multiple the votes cast for president increased between 1824 and 1828, state the multiple, and assess what a change of that magnitude signifies about the widening of the franchise. Develops the ability to complete tasks with mathematical fluency by selecting an efficient method and applying it accurately within a historical context.

MA.K12.MTR.4.1

Engage in discussions that reflect on the mathematical thinking of self and others.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.2 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students estimate the challenges of a North Atlantic crossing from distance, vessel capability, and seasonal conditions, then compare their reasoning with classmates'. Develops the ability to engage in discussions that reflect on the thinking of self and others.

MA.K12.MTR.5.1

Use patterns and structure to help understand and connect mathematical concepts.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 8 → Lesson 8.2 → Analyzing Figures: Students study the Coast Survey's 1861 map of the enslaved population and identify the geographic pattern in the distribution, connecting density to soil, river systems, and the structure of the plantation economy. Develops the ability to use patterns and structure to understand and connect concepts.

MA.K12.MTR.6.1

Assess the reasonableness of solutions.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.2 → Analyzing Figures: Examining Figure 1.3 and a world map, students estimate from the map scale the distance of each leg of the Erikson voyage — Iceland to Greenland, Greenland to Vinland, Vinland to the contiguous United States — then test each estimate against a benchmark distance the teacher supplies, explain how they checked it, and judge whether the result is reasonable given what an open vessel of the period could do. Develops the ability to assess the reasonableness of solutions.

MA.K12.MTR.7.1

Apply mathematics to real-world contexts.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.6 → Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students build a graphic organizer of the components of economic growth in the era and rank the top four by their effect, justifying the ordering. Develops the ability to apply mathematics to real-world contexts.

ELA.K12.EE.1.1

Cite evidence to explain and justify reasoning.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 2 → Lesson 2.5 → Argumentation: Students write a one-page persuasive argument stating a claim and supporting it with at least two pieces of evidence drawn from the chapter. Develops the ability to cite evidence to explain and justify reasoning.

ELA.K12.EE.2.1

Read and comprehend grade-level complex texts proficiently.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 3 → Lesson 3.3 → Analytical Skills: Students read aloud and explain Benjamin Franklin's description of George Whitefield (Primary Source 3.1), then answer questions on it in discussion or written short answer. Ch. 7 → Lesson 7.6 → Close Reading: Students read two lengthy Emerson excerpts and compare them. Develops the ability to read and comprehend grade-level complex texts proficiently.

ELA.K12.EE.3.1

Make inferences to support comprehension.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 2 → Lesson 2.4 → Analyzing Figures: Students examine Discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto (Figure 2.5), establish what is depicted and who made it, and infer what the painter wanted a viewer to conclude about the encounter. Develops the ability to make inferences to support comprehension.

ELA.K12.EE.4.1

Use appropriate collaborative techniques and active listening skills when engaging in discussions in a variety of situations.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.2 → Writing Skills: Students work in pairs to read and critique each other's written responses, identifying in two sentences what each response does well. Develops the ability to use appropriate collaborative techniques and active listening skills when engaging in discussions.

ELA.K12.EE.5.1

Use the accepted rules governing a specific format to create quality work.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 2 → Lesson 2.7 → Writing Skills: Students write an essay on the extent to which colonies were founded in pursuit of ideals and the extent to which they answered material need, observing the conventions of the form. Develops the ability to use the accepted rules governing a specific format to create quality work.

ELA.K12.EE.6.1

Use appropriate voice and tone when speaking or writing.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 6 → Lesson 6.2 → Writing Skills: Students compose a letter in the voice of President Jefferson persuading Lewis and Clark to lead the expedition, matching register and address to the writer and the recipient. Develops the ability to use appropriate voice and tone when speaking or writing.

ELD.K12.ELL.SI.1

English language learners communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school setting.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.1 → Language Support: Students building academic English rehearse the lesson's reasoning aloud before writing, using frames supplied for the purpose, and are offered a way to show understanding without producing a paragraph. Develops the ability to communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school setting.

ELD.K12.ELL.SS.1

English language learners communicate information, ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of Social Studies.

Teacher's Edition: Ch. 1 → Lesson 1.1 → Language Support: Students receive the lesson's central terms paired with a plain instance before the abstract term, with sentence frames that carry the reasoning, in every lesson of the chapter. Develops the ability to communicate the information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in social studies.