Last updated: October 14, 2021
Lesson Plan
Compromise of 1850, 5th & 6th Grade
- Grade Level:
- Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
- Subject:
- Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- State Standards:
- Missouri: #3a. Knowledge & continuity in the history of Missouri & U.S. Outline the territorial expansion of the U.S.
Kansas: Use criteria to make judgments about strengths & weaknesses of a position on an issue.
Oklahoma: 8.6.4 Examine the increased - Additional Standards:
- tension between Southern sectionalist and Northern nationalist perspectives. 8.8.2 Explain territorial growth including annexation of Texas, Mexican Cession, describing need to maintain balance of "free" and "slave" states.
- Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts. Creating: Bring together parts (elements, compounds) of knowledge to form a whole and build relationships for NEW situations. Evaluating: Make informed judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Use standards and criteria to support opinions and views.
Essential Question
Is Compromise necessary for the success or survival of a representative government?
Objective
Students will be able to examine the multiple perspectives that the Compromise of 1850 brought out and evaluate how those perspectives impacted the construction and implementation of the Compromise of 1850.
Background
Show videoTriumph or Tragedy
Point to emphasize: There are multiple ways to get to a destination, depending on the reason for travel, the route does make a difference.
Preparation
Teacher led discussion of five main issues facing U.S. in 1850
1) Abolishing slave trade in Washington, D.C.
2) Admitting California as a free state
3) Decision about admittance of Mexican Cession: Utah and New Mexico
4) Stronger fugitive slave law
5) Border dispute between Texas and New Mexico
Materials:
Paper to make a map
Markers
Colored Pencils
Snap Chat Template
Materials
Lesson Hook/Preview
1. Ask students to create a map of how to get from the classroom to a point in the school that everyone is familiar with (playground, cafeteria, nurses office).
2. Have students compare their maps with their partner.
a. What do they notice about the maps?
b. How are they alike and different?
c. Is one more accurate and helpful than the other? How so, or why not?
Point explanation: What if there is an injury? The quickest route to the nurses office is best. What if there is something blocking the route drawn? (Accidental spill or construction). How do students deal with "roadblocks" and different reasons to get to the same place?
3. Have students construct a map together that gets them to the same spot, but uses the best elements of both of the maps. Display or share the maps to the whole class.
a. Reflection:
i. What was fun about collaborating with your partner?
ii. What was challenging about collaborating with your partner?
iii. How did you make your final choices for the route?
iv. Do you feel that you got what you wanted? Why or why not?
v. Do you feel that your partner got what they wanted? Why or why not?
vi. Do you see an element from another map you wished you would have included?
Why or why not?
Procedure
Compromise of 1850:
Issues: Expansion of the United States and the institution of slavery
Discuss the ways in which different people in the United States would have responded to the decisions of the Compromise of 1850.
Assign roles to each student:
Enslaved person, Freedman living in Boston, Massachusetts, Northern textile factory worker, Northern abolitionist, Southern slave owner in Virginia
Hypothesize: How would your person likely respond to the Compromise of 1850? (Justify your response with two reasons or pieces of evidence based on the type of work and lifestyle of the person). How would your person want the Compromise of 1850 to be constructed? (Justify your response with two reasons or pieces of evidence based on the type of work and lifestyle of the person.)
Create a SnapChat Story Through the Perspectives of one of the following:
1) Henry Clay (KY. Senator): Proposed initial compromise
2) Stephen Douglas (Illinois Senator) re-worked proposed initial compromise
3) John C. Calhoun (SC Senator) opposed compromise
SnapChat Template
Link the Snapchat Stories through this template and share with students. Have students comment (following the prompts given) on at least 3 classmates Snapchat Stories presented.
Lesson Closer: Class Discussion
What are the challenges of working with people from vastly different perspectives?
What is the point of a compromise?
What are the best rules to follow when compromising?
Evaluate the Compromise of 1850 using your rules: did it follow of break the rules?
How do you think the Compromise of 1850 is going to impact the development of the United States?
Vocabulary
Enslaved Person's attitude toward Compromise of 1850 - "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim." Frederick Douglass's "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" speech made on July 5, 1852 at Corinthian Hall to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society inRochester, New York.
Freedman living in Boston, MA. - Letter written in 1850 by Henry Weeden, a free African American tailor upon receiving a coat to repair owned by a US Marshal whose job was to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law. Weeden wrote that he did "crave the patronage of no Being that would volunteer his services to arrest a Fugitive Slave" and had "take [n] this method of returning [the coat] without complying with Your request.", Gilderlehrman.org, Institute of American History
Northern Textile Worker - Wage workers in the North were largely hostile to the abolition of slavery, fearing it would unleash more competition for jobs from free blacks.
Northern Abolitionist - Northerners argued that because Mexico had abolished slavery, no slaves currently lived in the Mexican Cession, and to introduce slavery there would extend it to a new territory, thus furthering the institution and giving the Slave Power more control over the United States. The strong current of antislavery sentiment---that is, the desire to protect white labor---only increased the opposition to the expansion of slavery into the West.
Southern Slave Owner in Virginia - Fall in the price of tobacco caused landowners in the Upper South to reduce their production of this crop and use more of their land to grow wheat, which was far more profitable. Tobacco was a labor-intensive crop that required many people to cultivate it, wheat was not. Former tobacco farmers in the older states of Virginia and Maryland found themselves with "surplus" slaves whom they were obligated to feed, clothe, and shelter. Some slaveholders responded to this situation by freeing their slaves; far more decided to sell their excess bondsmen. Virginia and Maryland therefore took the lead in the domestic slave trade, the trading of slaves within the borders of the United States.
Supports for Struggling Learners
Streamline the template to: Essential Info: Photo and what their person wanted and how they LIKELY reacted to the Compromise.
Enrichment Activities
Have students investigate whether they feel the issue of expansion and slavery has been solved in the U.S. Students can create a vlog or blog to share their findings and what evidence supports their positions.