[Free Registration/Login Required] Students use primary source documents to investigate the central historical question about slavery. In this investigation students consider the positions of delegates to the Constitutional Convention...

Comprehensive overview of the U.S. Constitution. Places the Constitution in context with two other founding charters of American democracy and government, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Includes access to digital...

After reading this section of the chapter on "Creating Republican Governments", students will be able to identify the central issues of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and their solutions and also describe the conflicts over the...

Article on Harriet Tubman describes her life and heroism as a leader of the Underground Railroad and of the fight against slavery. Includes questions for discussion and group activity.

There were 5 main issues that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention argued and debated: Slavery, Representation, State v. Federal Powers, Commerce, and Executive Powers. Analyze these issues by reading the following summaries,...

Article and activity in which students explore the distressful conditions of slavery in the South, answer questions based on the reading, and then participate in writing first person slave narratives for class discussion.

Presents the Thirteenth Amendment - Slavery and Involuntary Servitude, which abolished slavery and forced servitude in the United States. Includes four annotations to the Amendment.

Article outlines the issues of debate over slavery and the compromises made while writing the Constitution.

This source provides the Thirteenth Amendment as it is worded in the U.S. Constitution. At the bottom of the page are annotations with links to information about the abolition of slavery, origin and purpose of the amendment, peonage, and...

A learning module that begins with "Petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery" by Benjamin Franklin, accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be...

Read reconstructions of debates by delegates to the Constitutional Convention as they attempted to come to terms with slavery, the slave trade, and how to address the issue in the Constitution so all states would be willing to ratify it....

Primary source document, informational text and questions for discussion included for students studying issues surrounding the abolition of slavery and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.

Online exhibit of primary source documents related to the 13th Amendment after the Civil War and the end to slavery.

The issue of slavery was a contentious one during debates in the Constitutional Convention. Read about the various issues, the quotes of several of the delegates, and see how the word "slave" is not even mentioned in the Constitution....

The complete text of the Nevada Constitution. The Nevada constitution of July 4, 1864 forbid slavery and allowed for President Lincoln to proclaim that the State of Nevada was admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original...

In this lesson plan, 8th graders look at how slavery contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War, at Abraham Lincoln's efforts to save the Union, and at what impact the Emancipation Proclamation had on the North's view of the war....

Article and questions for discussion on the controveries surrounding slavery while writing the U.S. Constitution and forming a new U.S. government.

Lesson focuses on the debate over slavery at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

This website was created by faculty, students, and staff to publicly present information about Columbia's historical connections to the institution of slavery. This article focuses on King's College, soon to be Columbia College, in the...

Take a look at an image of the constitutional amendment that put an end to slavery in the United States. Interactive image is accompanied by an overview of the amendment's inception and adoption, as well as document transcript.

As new free and slave states were admitted to the Union prior to the Civil War, political divisions kept growing, despite attempts to balance the numbers of each. The South pushed for slavery to expand westward, while anti-slavery...

This site is from a unit called 'Writing the US Constitution.' It looks at the documents that preceded the Constitution, and the major issues that were debated while the Constitution was being created.

A copy and transcription of the 13th Amendment which ended slavery. The sidebar gives a brief overview of emancipation and what led to this amendment.

Read about how compromises were reached at the Philadelphia convention that dealt with issues between large and small states, and slave and free states. Take the quick quiz to assess knowledge about the writing of the Constitution.