SLavery Analysis

Each group will select a major individual to represent 

• Activity 1. Biographies of Slavery's Opponents and DefendersStudents will compare and contrast the life stories of slavery's opponents and defenders by going to the following EDSITEment-reviewed websites to obtain information about their lives. A matrix for recording answers to questions about each viewpoint has been provided on pages 1-4 of the lesson's PDF.
  
  (a) Three Opponents of Slavery: William Lloyd Garrison, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass
  • Africans in America
    • William Lloyd Garrison
    • William Lloyd Garrison, biography
  • American Memory
    • Abraham Lincoln
    • "The White House"—Abraham Lincoln, biography
  • Africans in America
    • Frederick Douglass
    • Frederick Douglass, biography
  (b) Two Defenders of Slavery: John C. Calhoun and James Henry Hammond
  • American Memory
    • John C. Calhoun, biography
    • James Henry Hammond, biography
  • American Studies at the University of Virginia
    • John C. Calhoun, A Brief Introduction
  Activity 2. The Morality and Legitimacy of Slavery Under the U.S. Constitution: Northern Abolitionist vs. Slaveholding Senator. In this activity, students will compare and contrast the ideas in two documents: one from the abolitionist orator and editor William Lloyd Garrison, and the other from the slaveholding Senator from South Carolina John C. Calhoun. Students will read Garrison's editorial:
  
  
  • "On the Constitution and the Union" (December 29, 1832), in the PDF for this lesson.
  • They should also read Calhoun's speech, Slavery a Positive Good" (February 6, 1837), accessible via the EDSITEment-reviewed web site History Matters.
  • Students read the two documents and answered the questions in the matrix, gather the class to discuss their findings. After the matrix has been completed by the class, give students time to ask questions and make comments about what they have learned. Ask them why Garrison excoriated the people of New England and the rest of the free states, and why Calhoun maintained that the South could not "concede an inch" on its position in regard to slavery. See if they noticed the role that temperament and personality played in the opinions and positions of these two men. Ask them to think about situations where an uncompromising stance on an issue would be a good thing, and where it might not be.

Other Important Documents:

• William Lloyd Garrison, "On the Constitution and the Union" (1832)
• John C. Calhoun, "Slavery a Positive Good" (1837)
• James Henry Hammond, "Africans in America," (1858)
• Abraham Lincoln, "Annual Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society" (1859)
• Frederick Douglass, "Reception Speech at Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England" (1846)
• Frances "Fanny" Anne Kemble (1841)
• George Fitzhugh, "The Universal Law of Slavery" (1857)
• White Southerners Defense of Slavery—Article One
• White Southerners Defense of Slavery—Article Two
• White Southerners Defense of Slavery—Article Three