Guided Readings Guided Readings: Conflict over Ratifying the Constitution Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 View these Guided Readings as a printable PDF.
Spotlight on: Primary Source Slave Patrol Contract, 1856 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the 1800s, particularly after Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, the legislatures of slave states passed increasingly strict laws governing the activities of enslaved and free African Americans and the interactions between whites and...
Guided Readings Guided Readings: Secession and the Civil War Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Reading 1 The leaders and oracles of the most powerful party in the United States have denounced us as tyrants and unprincipled heathens through the whole civilized world. They have preached it from their pulpits. They have declared...
Guided Readings Guided Readings: Political Battles of the Jacksonian Era: Nullification Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Reading 1: And, sir, let it be remembered that a revenue system, grossly and palpably unequal in itself--a system which, under the most favorable modification, would levy the entire amount of the federal taxes from one-fifth part of...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Province of Massachusetts Bay requests aid from Queen Anne, 1708 Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) was the second of four great wars for empire fought among France and England and their Indian allies. This struggle broke out when the French raided English settlements on the New England frontier....
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Union Army and Juneteenth, 1865 Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ This engraving depicts a White Union soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation to an enslaved family. It was published in 1864 by Lucius Stebbins, based on a painting by Henry W. Herrick. According to Stebbins, the scene ...
Lesson Plan An "Unconstitutional" Act? The Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 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...
Essay The American Civil War Gary W. Gallagher 6, 7, 8, 9 The Civil War marked a defining moment in United States history. Long simmering sectional tensions reached a critical stage in 1860–1861 when eleven slaveholding states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. Political...
Lesson Plan Democracy in Early America: Servitude and the Treatment of Native Americans and Africans prior to 1740 World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Essential Questions How did European explorers and colonists who came to the New World for "Gold, Glory and/or God" justify their treatment of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and indentured servants? To what extent were there...
Video The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Jill Lepore, Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, draws on scholarship from her book, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity, to trace how the meanings attached to this brutally...