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....

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....

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

Activity in which students examine the concept of democracy and the idea of a "just society" through the eyes of Abraham Lincoln. Lesson includes questions for discussion and activity in which students prepare a speech on the what they...

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...

Classroom ready resource includes primary resource document of the Emancipation Proclamation, background information and questions for discussion.

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.

Our Documents is home to one hundred milestone documents that influenced that course of American history and American democracy. Includes full-page scans of each document, transcriptions, background information on their significance, and...

A map of the United States during the period of 1850 to 1850 showing the effects of slavery, the slave trade, and the abolition movement on territorial development. The map uses colored patterns to indicate the areas and phases of...

A map of the United States during the period of 1850 to 1850 showing the effects of slavery, the slave trade, and the abolition movement on territorial development. The map uses colored patterns to indicate the areas and phases of...

Lesson with article and questions for discussion on the experience of African-Americans beginning with the slave trade.

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.

Article and questions for discussion on the slave trade. Students read about how Europeans captured, transported, and sold African men, women and children into slavery.

In this lesson, examine many of the opposing viewpoints held by founding fathers as they considered various compromises that made the U.S. Constitution possible, including the three-fifths compromise made to placate slave-owning states.

In this lesson, 11th graders examine the events and political philosophy that laid the foundations of the American government, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They also look at what role religion played in shaping American...

See what turmoil resulted from the acquisition of new territory after the Mexican-American War. There was great disagreement between those who wanted to abolish slavery and those who wanted to be able to carry slavery into the new lands....

See how the ideals of freedom and equality garnered from the American Revolution were reflected in the early abolitionist movement and the banning of slavery in many Northern state constitutions as the new country was forming.

Interactive and animated maps and timelines of historical events and time periods in American history from pre-European times until post-World War II.

Find short biographies of twenty-three of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention and their ideas about government. These men were certainly not representative of the common man in the new United States, but they were...