Division From Slavery

For this lesson we covered the topic if the election of 1860, and hoe it was affected by slavery and the divisions in which it caused. Our essential question was, how were the results of the election of 1860 representative of the deep division over slavery? Before the civil war the country was divided by views on slavery, which by looking at the map of the results of the election of 1860 it is clear that the north and west supported Lincoln who was anti-slavery, and the south supported Breckenridge who was pro-slavery. The middle region of the country supported Douglas and bell. Douglas supported popular sovereignty and bell believed in keeping everything the same. The clear separation between the northern and southern states indicate that the election of 1860 was representative of the deep division over slavery.

In class we used Educreations to make a video about the events that took place leading up the the election. Before we could create this project we first watched a crash course video by John Green on the topic, and then did research on a website called, Civil War in Art where we analyzed artwork and took notes on how it connected to the event in which it represented. Lastly we compiled the information we gathered along with the artwork to create a short documentary.

North VS. South

advantages in the north and south during the civil war | Create infographics

During the civil war and the division between the northern anti-slavery states, and the southern pro-slavery states, each side had their advantages that the other lacked. I used an info graphic to show these advantages and disadvantages of the offending north and the defending south by compiling statistics into charts and graphs and analyzing war strategies. Some information that i chose to include in my info graphic includes, the population of both the north and south as well as the slave population, the number of industrial workers, railroad mileage, and the amount of manufactured goods. i finished off my info graphic by  explaining the strategies of both the north and the south. The process of creating this info graphic helped my to look at the statistics of the north and the south, allowing me to realize how it applied to the advantages of each side and why it is significant.   

Ignoring Slavery

In the early 19th century was a huge debate in american society. There were two groups of people that this debate split our country into, the pro-slavery side which was generally located in the south, and the anti-slavery side, which was generally located in the north. Our essential question for this lesson was, How did we know the debate over slavery was the “elephant in the room” for american politics in the early 19th century? To learn more about these debates and answer our essential question we  looked at many of the events that took place during this time period and compiled

the information into a timeline. The events that 

we learned about on our timeline help to prove

that slavery was “an elephant in the room” 

because while it was a big debate whether 

or not states should be free or slave states , 

the idea of slavery itself was somewhat ignored.

The first event that proves slavery to be “an elephant in the room” during the early 19th century is the Compromise of 1850.  prior to this event there had been 11 slave states, and 11 free states for 30 years because of the Missouri compromise. however, in 1850, California requested to join the nation as a free state, which inevitably would throw off the balance of free and slave states. to solve this issue Henry Clay proposed the 5 part compromise. this compromise let California be organized as a free state, but also organized New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Nevada without the mention of slavery. Also because of this compromise the slave-trade in DC was shut down, and the fugitive-slave act was passed in order to satisfy the imbalance of adding another free state. Another event that proved slavery to be “ an elephant in the room” was the Gadsden purchase. The US paid $10 million for a strip of land known as the Gadsden purchase, which would be used to build the transcontinental railroad. By doing this more pro slavery settlers would come and settle there, which would later affect the vote of whether or not the land would be free or pro slavery. Both these acts, the Compromise of 1850, and the Gadsden purchase focused on the idea of  determining whether or not states would be free or slave states. Because of this no one actually discussed and debated about what should be done about slavery, making it the elephant in the room.  

A third event that proves slavery to be “an elephant in the room” is Bleeding Kansas. In 1856 Kansas was a new territory filing for statehood, and because both pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates wanted the land to support their side, two capitals were set up, one a free capital and another a slave capital. This resulted in violent battles being fought over which side would get to have the land. Lastly, The caning of Charles Sumner is an event that took place that help to prove that slavery was “an elephant in the room”. Charles Sumner a senator during this time, spoke a two day speech about his views on slavery in Kansas titled, Crime Against Kansas. In his speech he stated, “Such is the Crime and such the criminal which it is my duty to expose; and, by the blessing of God, this duty shall be done completely to the end.” Because his speech was directly targeting those who were pro-slavery specifically Andrew Butler, his nephew, Preston Brooks, beat Sumner with a cane.  These two events help us to see that slavery was indeed, “an elephant in the room” because slavery was a somewhat ignored topic,that was never resolved which eventually lead to violence because no one knew any other way to solve the issue.