41 items
Who Was John Brown?
"Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic." —Frederick Douglass Background The late 1840s and the 1850s were a turbulent and complex time in American history as the...
Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan
Essential Question To what degree was Abraham Lincoln successful in achieving his goals? Background The Civil War was perhaps the most momentous event that the United States endured in its history. Author and historian Shelby Foote...
What Events Led to Lincoln’s Assassination?
Overview Fourth-grade students often associate Abraham Lincoln with three things: He wore a tall hat, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and he was assassinated. The murder of Lincoln, whom most historians consider one of the...
The Supreme Court and the Fourteenth Amendment
Overview: The Founding Fathers created the Supreme Court in Article III of the Constitution of the United States. The most influential role of the Court, however, was defined later through the appeal process, in cases involving the...
An "Unconstitutional" Act? The Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus
Background At the beginning of the Civil War, as the number of dead increased daily, a force of opposition to the war efforts began to intensify in the Congress and in the voices of the American people. Abraham Lincoln, in an effort...
Traitors and Spies in the Time of War: How the Supreme Court Determined Who Would Live and Who Would Die
Overview In April 1865 over 600,000 Americans lay dead from battle wounds and other causes directly related to their service in the armies of the Confederacy and Union during the four-year Civil War. If we adjusted the number of dead...
Travels Through Time: The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions on the Struggle for African American Equality
Overview After the Civil War, African Americans were under attack as they struggled for equal rights in America. Laws were put in place during Reconstruction to assure Freedmen basic civil rights. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and...
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