The Election that Changed Everything

We continued our unit on the Civil War this week and focused on the Election of 1860.  The essential question for this lesson was, “How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery.”  To learn about the Election of 1860, we first watched a Crash Course Video.  This video gave us an overview of the topic and discussed the following; the Fugitive slave law, railroads, Republicans, Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott v. Sanford,  and John Brown.  Next, we analyzed a map that depicted which states voted for each candidate in the Election of 1860.  This map showed that people living in the North voted for Lincoln, who was a republican and was against slavery, and that people living in the South voted for Breckenridge, who was a Southern Democrat and was pro slavery.  This map really helped us see that the results of the Election of 1860 were representative of the deep divisions over slavery because the Northerners, who were anti slavery, voted for the candidate that was anti slavery, and the Southerners, who were pro slavery, voted for the candidate who was pro slavery.  We then read an article titled, The Civil War in Art, which explained the events of the Civil War through various pieces of art.  After captioning each of these five pictures in our groups, we then found three more pictures about the Civil War.  Each group then created an Educreations Video with all their pictures.  

This is a picture that shows which states voted for each candidate.

Click on this picture to watch my group's Educreations video.

Sources:

Dred-Scott:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandord.  

The Confederacy:
Mataconis, Doug.  Lee-Jackson Day and The South’s Continuing Confederate Fetish.  Outside the Beltway.  Friday, January 14, 2011. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/lee-jackson-day-and-the-souths-continuing-confederate-fetish/.  3/12/15.

The Election of 1860:
http://www.edline.net/files/_CJKPB_/ee553a2c7835765f45a49013852ec4/Election_of_t1860_Lesson_Notes.pdf

The rest of the pictures:

http://www.civilwawrinart.org/exhibits/show/causes/introduction/the-election-of-1860-and-seces.