Students examine founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution after 1787 and determine to what extent the Constitution protected the rights of all Americans during conquest and throughout U.S. History. Attention will be paid to policies and impacts of those policies on Native Americans, African Americans, and women. Students trace the origins of slavery in the United States and examine a range of primary sources by reading letters from slaves and freed slaves and watching “Race: The Power of Illusion,” in order to understand the institution of slavery. They will also learn of the changing policies of the United States towards Native Americans up to the Civil War, including assimilation and removal.  Students will review American government by considering the actions leading up to the Civil War and divisions within the North and South on the subjects of justice and slavery. They will closely read the post-Civil War amendments: Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth and the shifting American identity during this era. They will examine Reconstruction in terms of power, respect, fairness, equality, the meaning of freedom, backlash, the Ku Klux Klan, segregation brought on by Jim Crow laws, and their impact on racial inequities in late-nineteenth-century America. 

Are laws the most important factor in overcoming discrimination?

or

Support, refute, or modify the following statement: "Laws are the most important factor for freedom."

Declarations of Independence: Women's rights and the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions 

(from Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History ~3 days)

Inquiry: How did women of the nineteenth century use a national document of independence dating from the eighteenth century to make their argument for equal rights?

Literacy: 

• Declaration of Independence, National Archives

• Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Fordham University

• Comparison Worksheet (PDF)

Citizenship: Groups create their own Declarations of Independence and present in fishbowl format to the class.

Content: A Revolution for Both Sides

Inquiry: 

• What was at stake, politically and socially, in competing interpretations of the Revolution in the 1850s? 

• How did both abolitionists and secessionists, Unionists and Confederates draw on the collective memory of the Revolution? 

• What does that tell us about the collective memory of the Revolution?

Literacy:

• Douglass, “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July” and Teacher's Guide 

• Dred Scott: Taney decision, Curtis opinion

• Lincoln, Cooper Union speech (excerpt)

• Stephens’ “Corner Stone Speech” 

• “Past and Present,” DeBow’s Review (1861)

• The Last Men of the Revolution

Inquiry: Did the Constitution Establish a Just Government?

This inquiry is a joint effort from Teaching Tolerance and C3Teachers.org. From it, there are four learning activities centered around these supporting questions:

1. Why did the framers of the United States Constitution believe a new document was necessary? 

2. How did the Constitution structure the government?

3. How did the framers protect slavery in the Constitution?

4. How democratic was the 1787 Constitution? 

Literacy Outcomes: Students will...

• Read letters from three founders and generate a list of concerns that led to the creation of a new government through the Constitution. 

• Read selections from the Constitution and the Federalist Papers and create a graphic organizer that illustrates the branches of the federal government and their functions.

• Analyze selections from the Constitution and excerpts from members of the Constitutional Convention and write a paragraph using evidence to explain how the framers protected slavery in the Constitution. 

• Develop a claim supported by evidence from James Madison that explains the degree to which the 1787 Constitution is a democratic document. 

Performance Task: Did the Constitution establish a just government? Construct an argument (e.g., detailed outline, poster or essay) that addresses the compelling question using specific claims and relevant evidence from historical sources while acknowledging competing views. 

Citizenship: Select a proposed amendment that would make the Constitution more just and contact an individual or organization promoting that amendment to find out ways to advocate for it. 

Additional Resources:

John Jay, great supporter of the Constitution after its creation and an author of The Federalist wrote in 1786, "It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused." 

Patrick Henry, the great Virginian patriot, refused to attend the Convention because he "smelt a rat," was outspoken on the issue, despite his citizenship in a slave state. In 1773, he wrote, "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery." 

Constitution and Slavery

• Great Compromise, 1787

• Three-fifths Compromise, 1787 (Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, repealed by the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868)

• Slave Trade Clause, Article I, Section 9 (repealed Jan. 1, 1808)

• Fugitive Slave Law, Article IV, Section 2 ( repealed by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery in 1865 )

• Northwest Ordinance (prohibited slavery in the territories)

• Missouri Compromise

• Popular Sovereignty

• Supreme Court - Dred Scott decision 

Boyd, Susan L. "A Look Into the Constitutional Understanding of Slavery." Res Publica, April 1995

• 1830's, when the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded with William Lloyd Garrison 

Assignment: 

Students will analyze testimonials and letters from formerly enslaved people such as Anthony Johnson, Ralph Ellison, Liza Mixom, Martin Jackson, Dick Lewis Barnett, Mollie Russell, Jourdan Anderson, Frederick Douglass and statements from the Freedmen’s Bureau on the “Duties of Freedpeople.” Sources can be accessed here: https://www.facinghistory.org/books-borrowing/reconstruction-era-and-fragility-democracy 

Using evidence from the experiences of formerly enslaved African Americans, they will then support, refute, or modify this statement: Laws are the most important factor for freedom.

Article: How the South Won the Civil War