Election of 1860

The essential question for the lesson the Election of 1860 is: Were the results of the election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery. To start off this lesson, we watched a Crash Course video. This video helped to show how the slavery caused divisions for some events. Events like the Fugitive slave law and the Dred Scott vs Sanford case. After watching the video, we took a look at the Election of 1860 results map. Lincoln is represented in red and was against slavery and felt it should be contained. Shown in dark blue, Douglas believed that the expansion of slavery should be determined using popular sovereignty. Bell wanted to preserve the constitution and the Union as it was and he is represented by pink. The light blue represents Breckenridge who believed there should be no limits on slavery. Here is the map:

The main activity for this lesson was to create a video that explained the essential question and the events surrounding the Election of 1860. Our video had to include the 5 images that were found on the Civil War in Art website and an additional 3 images that help support the story. To begin my partner and I read the information provided on the Civil War in Art website and took notes on the 5 images. After completing that research, we found 3 additional images. We chose to use an image to represent the Dred Scott case, one to represent Jefferson Davis, and one to show the attack on Fort Sumter. We also took notes on each image. Before starting our video we wrote out a script. For each slide we would record a little blurb about that event to help tell the story. We used Educreations to create our video. Here is our video:

Citations: 
~Dred Scott Decision Image- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford 
~Jefferson Davis Image- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis 
~Attack on Fort Sumter image- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Battle_of_Fort_Sumter 
~Other images- http://www.civilwarinart.org/exhibits/show/causes/introduction/the- election-of-1860-and-seces

North vs South

My Infograpic

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH AND THEIR EFFECT ON SUCCESS IN THE CIVIL WAR | Create infographics

I created an infographic to display the information I learned throughout this lesson. An infographic is a visual image such as a chart or diagram used to represent information or data. To create my infographic I used the tool Infogram. The point of this infographic is to answer the essential question. The essential question is: how did the differences between the North and the South affect each region’s strategy and success in the Civil War. Within in my infographic, I mentioned the advantages of the North and the advantages of the South and how they affected the outcome of the Civil War. First, I used a doughnut graph to represent the resources percentages in 1861. I made 5 different graphs one representing industrial workers, one representing the Value of Manufactured Goods, one representing Railroad Mileage, one representing Corn, and one representing Cotton. The North dominated and had advantages in all of these aspects except the Cotton one. Cotton was how the South made a lot of their money. Following my graphs, I represented the total population in the North and the South using a pictorial. This just shows that 73% of the total population lived in the North and 27% lived in the South. Due to the high population percentage in the North, the Union had enough men to go fight in the war and enough to stay back and work on farms and in factories. After that I used another pictorial to display the slave population. This showed that 88% of slaves were located in the South and 12% were located in the North. The high slave population in the South was what fueled the economy. The 2 pictorials were followed by the North Advantages and the South Advantages. At the bottom of my infographic, I created a word cloud for both the North and the South. A word cloud is an image composed of words used in a particular text or subject, in which the size of each word indicates its frequency or importance. I used the words that were the most important and the most relevant for the North and the South. 

The Elephant in the Room

The essential question for this lesson is “how do we know the debate over slavery was the elephant in the room for American politics in the early 19^th century”. The elephant in the room is an idiom that is talking about an obvious topic that is either being ignored or going unaddressed. It is clear that slavery was the elephant in the room during the early 19^th century because all of these events took place after 1850. Slavery was such an obvious issue that should have been dealt with earlier than it actually was. Throughout this lesson, we learned about the Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, the Gadsden Purchase, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, the Caning of Charles Sumner, and about Dred Scott decision, Lincoln- Douglas Debates, and John Brown’s Raid.  We read articles and looked up information on all of these events and then record them into our Evernote. We then transferred what we learned onto the timeline we created within our smaller groups. After adding the events onto the timeline we had to place the ones that benefited anti-slavery on top of the timeline and the events that benefited pro-slavery on the bottom of the timeline. Here is my group’s Timeline:

One of the events we learned about was the Gadsden Purchase. After winning the Mexican War, the U.S. negotiated and paid $15 million for all of Nevada, California, Utah, and much of Arizona and New Mexico in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  Only 5 years later the U.S. then purchased a much smaller strip of land known as the Gadsden Purchase for $10 million. The U.S. planned to use this land to provide a route for the southern transcontinental railroad because it is flat and is easy to lay railroads on. This event was put below the line because it is pro slavery. The railroad could be used to transport other pro slavery people from the south to settle in these territories who will vote for the territories to be slave states. Another event we learned about was the Compromise of 1850. There were 5 parts to the compromise. In 1850, California requested to join the Union as a free state. Henry Clay anticipated the inevitable controversy of the loss of balance between slave and free states. So he proposed a 5-part compromise called the Compromise of 1850. The first part of the compromise was that Texas would give up some land but would be given 10 million dollars to use to pay off its debts to Mexico. This part of the compromise was placed below the line because it is pro-slavery. It created distinct boundaries for a very large slave state. The second part of the compromise was that New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah would be organized without mention of slavery. When they apply for statehood the population got to vote on the slave status. This was also placed under the line because it benefited pro slavery advocates. This benefited them because they could transport pro slavery people into the states to vote for the states to become slave states. The third part of the compromise was slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia although slavery would still be allowed. This was placed above the line because it benefited anti-slavery advocates. The fourth part of the compromise was that California would be admitted as a free state. This would obviously be placed above the line because it benefited anti-slavery advocates. The last part of the compromise was the Fugitive Slave Act which stated that all citizens were required to assist in the recovery of runaway slaves. If you knew of a fugitive slave living free you had to report them.  This was placed under the line because it helped pro slavery advocates capture runaway slaves. Also, we learned about the Kansas- Nebraska Act in 1854. Stephan Douglas, senator of Illinois, thought that a northern railroad route would be beneficial. This act benefited both pro slavery and anti-slavery. It would help anti-slavery people because the railroad started in Chicago and would boost its economy and would make it possible to transport Anti-slavery people into states were the population voted for the slave status. This act also helped the pro slavery people because it violated the Missouri Compromise and would make it possible for slavery to extend north of the line. 

Slavery's Impact

The essential questions for this lesson were How did slavery become both economically and politically entrenched in American society by the early 19th century, how does a system of slavery based on race affect human dignity, and what human characteristics does such a system tend to ignore. To start this lesson we read passages from Founders’ Constitution. One of the three sections that my group read and analyzed was Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, “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.” After reading this we decided that it is saying, before 1808 the government was prohibited from imposing a tax on the importation of slaves but after 1808 the government could impose a tax on the importation of slaves. They could make you pay no more than $10 per slave. The second section my group analyzed and read was Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3, “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.” This is saying that if any slave escapes into a different state, they will not be set free, but they would be returned to their owner. Overall this is saying that there is no way to escape once you become enslaved. We also read an article called Cotton is King: Slavery is Entrenched in American Society. This article talked about how people thought that slavery was declining and on the road to extinction. Then the cotton gin was created by Eli Whitney. The cotton gin would roll seeds out of the cotton so the cotton could be used to make cloth. This obviously helped the cotton production go faster so the need for more people to pick the cotton increased to keep up with the production. Between 1792, which was when Whitney invented the cotton gin, and 1794 the price of slaves doubled. Field hands who had brought $500 apiece in 1794 were worth $1500 by 1825. The number of slaves in the U.S. rose by 33% during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Along with these 2 articles we did an online activity called the Spread of Cotton & Slavery Activity. This talked about how cotton dominated the Southern and Northern States due to slavery and that even though the north did not have slaves they were still economically benefiting from the slave labor taking place. The pictures below are from this website.                                                                                  

The one above shows the slave population in 1790 which was approximately 690,000. 

The picture below shows the slave population in 1860 which was approximately 3,954,000.                                                         

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

To start off the second part of the lesson, helping to answer the other 2 essential questions, we divided into groups and each group researched someone who was related to slavery prior to the Civil War. My group was assigned John Brown. John Brown was a radical abolitionist who had a lot of hatred for slavery and he believed in the violent overthrow of slavery. He was a conductor of the Underground Railroad and he established the League of Gileadites which was an organization established to help runaway slaves escape to Canada. He also freed many slaves and murdered slave owners. In 1859 at Harper's Ferry, him and his men raided the Federal Arsenal in hopes the slaves would become armed and join and start a rebellion. The rebellion was suppressed and he was captured. He was charged with Treason and then was hanged. Two of his sons were killed during the rebellion attempt. After exchanging notes with others in the class who researched the other two people, Fredrick Douglas and George Fitzhugh, we could move on. Next, we compared what slavery was like in Futa Jallon and what it was like Natchez. According to an article called ComparingSlavery, in Futa Jallon society was mainly divided by religion (Muslim or non- Muslim) and ethnicity had little relevance. While in the United States the slavery system was based on racial distinctions and permanent bondage. To wrap up this lesson, we watched a movie called Prince Among Slaves. This film was about the true story of Abdul Rahman, a Futa Jallon Prince, who was captured and brought to Natchez, Mississippi to then be sold to a white slave owner for a few guns, powder, and rum. He tried to tell Foster, his slave owner, that he was a prince and Foster gave him the name Prince. They cut off his hair and his hair was an important symbol of status. After escaping, he was on the run for weeks but he had nowhere to go and no food. He returned and was not punished. He got married to Isabella and had many children. Foster even gave him and his wife land to grow potatoes to sell for their own profit. Dr.Cox, someone Prince had helped back in Futa Jallon, tried to buy his freedom but died unsuccessful. Prince eventually got freed and had enough money to free his wife as well. Prince ended up dying in Liberia.  Every activity that we did during this lesson helped to answer the essential questions and to prove that race mattered and really demonstrated how horrible slavery was and how the slaves were treated.