Lincoln and the Threat of Slavery

Abraham Lincoln was our 16th President. He is commonly credited with being one of the best presidents our nation has ever had, winning the war to save the union, and freeing the slaves. In this unit we want to look at the career of Lincoln over a longer period of time. We will begin with his first campaign for political office and end with a speech given in the final year of his life. We want to trace the arc of his full political career. Why is he held in such high regard?

Unit Goal: To see the correlation between the political events of the day and Lincoln's views/actions in regards to slavery.

Operating Unit Thesis: As the threat of slavery grew, Lincoln reacted by speaking against it with more force and took stronger actions.

Student Expectations:

Listen and Read from the document excerpts provided within this section of the class site. Use the timeline below to navigate through the required documents in GREEN and the other resources that will help give Lincoln's writings context.
Take notes from each document using the 3Pass System.
Connect each speech to a moment of political significance in our Causes of the Civil War Unit
Use the reading analysis support videos to improve reading and comprehension skills for primary sources.
Keep track of thesis notes on a separate note space.

Documents: