Teaching American History – Lesson Plan Template



Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the ConstitutionSocial Studies Lesson Plan TemplateTitle: The Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the ConstitutionOverview - Big Ideas: Enduring Understandings – It is important for student to understand this because slavery was a major issue during the formation of the new nation and the affects of slavery and its aftermath still linger today. The compromises on slavery documented in the Constitution may have been the catalyst for the abolition movement and the Civil War decades later.Essential Questions – Where the founding fathers hypocrites or heroes or both?Should the founding fathers who felt slavery was wrong refused to compromise with the Southern States? If so, what may be the result?What was the main purpose of the Constitution?Lesson Objectives and Key Vocabulary:Standards - SS5A11 - Use primary and secondary sources to understand history.SS5C11 - Explain how and Why the United States Government was formed.Vocabulary - Slavery, congress, enumeration, ratify, representative, convention, ordinance, compromiseEvidence of Student Understanding (Assessment) in this Lesson:What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this lesson? The learner will be able to use primary and secondary documents to better understand historical content.The learner will have a better understanding of slavery’s affect on the formation of the United States and the U.S. constitutionWhat will students be able to do as a result of such knowledge and skills?The learner will be able to express diverse and contrasting viewpoints in relation to slavery and the ConstitutionThe learner will be able to demonstrate master y of related vocabularyThe learner will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the historical facts and theories of the period discussed.Both formative and summative assessments are includedParticipation in discussion regarding the founding fathers, slavery, and the constitutionThe student will write a speech to address the Constitutional Convention from the viewpoint of a founding father who owned slaves and represented a southern state.Student will take Brain pop quizzesMaterials Needed: Advertisement by Thomas Jefferson for the return of runaway slaveExcerpt from letter to Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin BannekerPicture of "Am I Not a Man and a Brother"Picture "The Effects of the Fugitive Slave Act"Founding Fathers quotes on slaveryCopy of the ConstitutionSteps to Deliver the Lesson:Discuss the role of slavery in the period after the American Revolution and the role it played in the new nation. Use the picture of the slave to generate comments from the learners. Discuss the founding fathers and the continental congress and slavery in the constitution including Article I Section 9, the Enumeration clause and the Fugitive Slave Act. Use the pictures of the African Slave and The Effects of the Fugitive Slave Act. Use VTS (Visual-Thinking Strategy).Specific Activities: (From Guided to Independent)Students will do a kinesthetic activity to match their vocabulary word to another student and their words.Students will use Brain Pop Lesson on the Constitution and Slavery.Students will use the computers to research information on one of the signers of the Constitution including their views on Slavery. Students will create their own Class Constitution in groups. Differentiated Instruction Strategies:Pair their students in groups.Oral Assessments and Discussion.Kinesthetic Vocabulary Activity.Describe how you will accommodate a variety of student learning needs, remediation strategies as well as enrichment strategies.Technology Integration:Students will watch brain pops on the Constitution and Slavery at and take the online quizzes for each. will be asked to find 10 people who signed the Constitution and quotes about their views on Slavery.Online Constitution Quiz - will be assigned the name of a signer of the Constitution and asked to use the computer to write a short biography along with their views on slavery.Lesson Closure:Class discussion focusing on the priority of the founding fathers to unite and preserve the new nation juxtaposed against their positions on slavery and their relationship to slavery in their personal lives. Did the compromises on slavery written in the Constitution plant the seeds for the abolishment of slavery nearly 100 years later? Did the way that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson treated there slaves affect the way you view them as slave owners?The Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the ConstitutionEvidenceExcerpt of Letter From Benjamin Banneker (freed slave) to Thomas Jefferson 1791"This, Sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was now that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages : ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Here was a time, in which your tender feelings for yourselves had engaged you thus to declare, you were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature; but, Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves. "Historical ContentSlavery was first "legalized" in the Carolina colony in 1669 and was stated in the ConstitutionThe Ordinance of 1784 was drafted by a Congressional committee headed by Thomas Jefferson, and its provisions applied to all United States territory west of the original 13 states. The original version was read to Congress on March 1, 1784, and it contained a clause stating:[4]'That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.'Founding FatherQuote Owned Slaves?Signed ConstitutionGeorge Washington“I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery].”316 (including those owned by his wife and dowered to his estateYesBenjamin Franklin, "Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils."Several (at different times.) By the time of the American Revolution he became a staunch abolitionistyesJohn Jay"It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused." 1786Yes. His father was the biggest slave owner in New York. The son became a staunch abolitionist and attempted to ban slavery in New York in 1777. He eventually passed th law in 1799 freeing all slaves in the state.No. He retired from Congress prior to the signing.Thomas Jefferson"There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate itYes. As many as 223.Later warned that slavery must be abolished to avoid an inevitable slave uprising. Writing in 1821 ""Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free."No. He was overseas serving as a diplomat.Patrick Henry"I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery." 1773Yes. 75. No. He was suspicious of the new government.Alexander Hamiliton"The existence of slavery makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason or experience."Inconclusive, though he did buy and sell slaves on behalf of others at times. History paints him as an abolitionist who YesJphn Adams“Consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness”No. His wife Abagail was also against slavery and paid her African servants.No. He was overseas serving as a diplomat.Janes Madison"[I]f slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expense, the amount of the expense is not a paramount consideration. "Yes. 100 willed to him his father along with his estate. Although he owned slaves all of his life he is considered an abolitionistYesCharles Cotesworth Pickney“The nature of our climate, and the flat swampy situation of our country, obliges us to cultivate our lands with Negroes, and that without them South Carolina would be a desert waste.”YesYes.The Constitutional CompromiseIn order for the Constitution to be signed, many compromises had to be made to appease the representatives from different colonies. Slavery was not an exception to this rule. The Enumeration Clause agrees to count slaves "other persons" as three fifths of a whole person when determining the number of representatives a state is warranted. Significant, because prior to this slaves were not counted as persons at all in the south, but as property.In Article 1, Section 9, Congress is limited, expressly, from prohibiting the "Importation" of slaves, before 1808. Significant because it expressly implies that the importation of slaves would be banned in the near future.The Fugitive Slave Clause expressly requires that the state in which an escapee is found deliver the slave to the state he escaped from "on Claim of the Party." Significant because the returning of runaway slaves was one of the practices that ignited the abolition movement. ................
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