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| Subject/Title | On the Issue of Slavery | | Synopsis/Intro text | Few issues at the Constitutional Convention were more divisive than the question of slavery. At times, the very success of the convention hinged upon how the delegates dealt with this controversial topic. In this lesson, students will complete a close reading of the arguments offered during the Convention debates regarding the importation of slavery before 1808 (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1.). After analyzing and discussing the moral, economic, and political arguments made during the debate, students take on the roles of the delegates in a dramatic reading. For homework, students draft a newspaper article reporting on the day’s events. | | Last Edited on | 9/5/2008 9:03:00 AM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | No Taxation Without Representation | | Synopsis/Intro text | John Dickinson of Pennsylvania was a learned Presbyterian lawyer whose letters, pamphlets, and broadsides in the years leading up to the War for Independence earned him the name “Penman of the Revolution.” In this lesson, students will complete a close reading of his Letter from a Pennsylvania Farmer in which Dickinson asserts the maxim “no taxation without representation.” | | Last Edited on | 9/2/2008 9:14:00 AM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | The Second Amendment Today | | Synopsis/Intro text | The Second Amendment of the Constitution reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” This amendment was not controversial at the time it was ratified but has become increasingly so in American political discourse. Some argue that the right to bear arms is a relic of a time when hunting was necessary for food and when there was an inordinate fear of a standing (a permanent, professional) army. Others insist that the Second Amendment’s protections are as important today as in the late eighteenth century, as citizens still need the means to defend themselves against criminals and against despotic government.
In this activity, students will assume the role of members of the modern Congress and conduct a debate about the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Should the Second Amendment be repealed by a new amendment? Or should it be preserved as it stands? | | Last Edited on | 4/11/2008 9:31:00 AM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Treason and Trials - Aaron Burr | | Synopsis/Intro text | Treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution. In this lesson, students will examine the Constitutional definition of treason as first interpreted in the 1807 trial of Aaron Burr in federal court. Students will analyze excerpts from the indictment against Aaron Burr as well as excerpts from Chief Justice John Marshall’s rulings in the case and will then apply Marshall’s rulings and Constitutional interpretations to a the more contemporary case of John Walker Lindh. | | Last Edited on | 7/27/2005 10:59:00 AM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Roots of Religious Liberty | | Synopsis/Intro text | In this lesson, students will trace the language of the First Amendment’s religion clauses to earlier works by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and begin to analyze how the two clauses work together to protect individual religious liberty. Provided with background about the church-state conflict in Virginia in the 1780s, students are then asked to write a Madisonian argument opposing the passage of Patrick Henry’s “A Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion.” A key question in the lesson is what role do factions play in preserving individual liberty? In the end, students are asked to evaluate the validity under the First Amendment of a current church-state issue: the setting aside of a room to accommodate prayer in a public school. | | Last Edited on | 6/30/2005 1:44:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | A Right to Bear Arms - One Patriot's View | | Synopsis/Intro text | Over in the course of this lesson, students will work together to analyze a selection of Samuel Adams’ writing—two newspaper articles, a letter, and a proposed constitutional amendment—and evaluate his position(s) concerning a “right to bear arms.” Did Adams believe in an individual right to bear arms? Did he support the Militia or a standing army? How did his views change, if at all, leading up to the ratification of the United States Constitution? Students will analyze Adams’ proposed amendment to the Constitution, compare his language to that of the Second Amendment as it was ratified, and work their way to a conclusion about Adams’ understanding of the “right to bear arms.” The end of the lesson offers students an opportunity to apply Adams’—as well as their own—understanding of the Second Amendment to current events. | | Last Edited on | 6/30/2005 1:35:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Case Study - The Imperial Supreme Court? | | Synopsis/Intro text | Case studies related to the lesson "Reflections on Judicial Power" | | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 4:38:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Reflections on Judicial Power - Part III | | Synopsis/Intro text | This series of lessons and extensions takes a closer look at the foundations of judicial power and the development of judicial review in the United States. Part I includes a review of the language of Article III of the U.S. Constitution; Part II outlines the beginning of a group exercise where students examine, using primary source documents, the range of the Founders’ positions as the government was taking shape on the relative strength and role of the judicial branch (Yates, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Wilson, and Madison). In the continuation of the group exercise, Part III, students who became experts on a particular Founder’s view will play that part in a group of “supreme court justices” (the range of the Founders in Part I). The “court” will hear, review, and debate the facts and issues of law presented in Marbury v. Madison. | | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 4:34:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Reflections on Judicial Power - Part I | | Synopsis/Intro text | This series of lessons and extensions takes a closer look at the foundations of judicial power and the development of judicial review in the United States. Part I includes a review of the language of Article III of the U.S. Constitution; Part II outlines the beginning of a group exercise where students examine, using primary source documents, the range of the Founders’ positions as the government was taking shape on the relative strength and role of the judicial branch (Yates, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Wilson, and Madison). In the continuation of the group exercise, Part III, students who became experts on a particular Founder’s view will play that part in a group of “supreme court justices” (the range of the Founders in Part I). The “court” will hear, review, and debate the facts and issues of law presented in Marbury v. Madison.
| | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 4:34:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Reflections on Judicial Power - Part II | | Synopsis/Intro text | This series of lessons and extensions takes a closer look at the foundations of judicial power and the development of judicial review in the United States. Part I includes a review of the language of Article III of the U.S. Constitution; Part II outlines the beginning of a group exercise where students examine, using primary source documents, the range of the Founders’ positions as the government was taking shape on the relative strength and role of the judicial branch (Yates, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Wilson, and Madison). In the continuation of the group exercise, Part III, students who became experts on a particular Founder’s view will play that part in a group of “supreme court justices” (the range of the Founders in Part I). The “court” will hear, review, and debate the facts and issues of law presented in Marbury v. Madison.
| | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 4:27:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | No Bill of Rights, No Constitution | | Synopsis/Intro text | In the course of this lesson, students will compare the way that today’s political leaders are able to build an opposition to proposed legislation as contrasted with the slower, and potentially more fragmented political process of the delegates of the Founding generation. Students will review the political climate at the time of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and read the writings of delegates who refused to sign the proposed Constitution. Taking on the role of Mason, Gerry, Randolph and others, students will work together to create a modern-day document – a press release, advertisement, bill, or declaration – that summarizes their objections to the Constitution. Students are asked to analyze what effect, if any, the ability to communicate objections quickly to the majority of state legislatures and to the citizenry would have had on the outcome of the Constitutional Convention and the future of the country. | | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 4:11:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Unity in Times of National Crisis | | Synopsis/Intro text | In this lesson, students will trace the roots of federalism from the Founding documents back to one of the earliest plans for an American union of the colonies under Benjamin Franklin’s Albany Plan of 1754. Students will analyze and outline the Albany plan, then work in a group to research the perspective of a particular historical group that might be affected by the provisions of the plan. Following a report on their research, groups will prepare a structured position statement on the Albany Plan, then send a spokesman to appear on a colonial TV talk show panel. Discussion about the pros and cons of the Albany Plan will focus on the balance of power between the colonies and the proposed union. At the end of the lesson, students will vote on the Plan and discuss the historical outcome. | | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 3:43:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | The Bill of Rights in Times of National Crisis | | Synopsis/Intro text | In this lesson, students will examine the ability of the government to suspend individual rights in times of national crisis. They will read primary documents from the “Quasi War” with France, Civil War, World War I and World War II and formulate a constitutional amendment that clearly states if, when, how and by whom the rights of individuals expressed in the Bill of Rights can be suspended in favor of national security interests. | | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 2:28:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Heroism and the Declaration of Independence | | Synopsis/Intro text | The Founding Fathers were faced with a critical decision in 1776. Should they continue to endure what they considered to be “a long train of abuses and usurpations” by King George III ? Or should they declare America’s independence from England and establish a new nation? The latter option was a dangerous one. Such an action would be considered treasonous by the British and certainly meant war. Defeat in such a conflict likely meant that American leaders would be tried as traitors and sentenced to death.
In this activity, students will be asked to consider the meaning of heroism. In what way was the signing of the Declaration of Independence a heroic action? What did individual signers risk by their action?
| | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 1:45:00 PM | | | Details |
| Subject/Title | Liberty and Justice for All | | Synopsis/Intro text | During and after the Civil War, the United States government recognized that African Americans ought to be guaranteed their freedom and basic rights as human beings. In this activity, students will examine The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Why were these documents created? What impact did they have? What is the importance of each in relation to the others? | | Last Edited on | 6/21/2005 1:36:00 PM | | | Details |
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