Final+Exam

=Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator?= =Part 1: Questions= //**Read the following background information as well as watch the video provided (visit http://goo.gl/fw720 and watch from 2:08:00 to 2:18:00). Using this as well as what you know about U.S. History, write a few questions below that you could use to guide you as a historian through this topic.**// media type="custom" key="27572854" In 1860, the Republican Party candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected President of the United States. What makes this election so tenuous was that his victory came without winning a single southern state. The platform of the Republican Party was to limit slavery to where it existed and not allow it to expand into new territories. While there were some Republicans with anti-slavery and even abolitionist views, the party as a whole held no such positions. But with this election, for the first time in U.S. history, a president was in office that may threaten the growth of the slave south. As the official results were declared of Lincoln’s victory, one by one, beginning with South Carolina, seven states in the Deep South passed ordinances of secession declaring themselves to be separated from the Union. As President, Lincoln would be called upon to lead the nation during the most divided period in our history. During the course of the four years he serves as president, he will support a constitutional amendment to protect slavery forever, support legislation to allow slave-owners to keep slaves until 1900, encourage black leaders to establish colonies in Africa where all blacks can go, and issue the Emancipation Proclamation which (kind of) freed the slaves in the south. In so doing, he is labeled as the “Great Emancipator.” In Lincoln’s own words in response to an admirer, he said he was "only an instrument" in the anti-slavery struggle.
 * Final Exam - 8th Grade US History **

media type="custom" key="26097678" Source: Taken from the PBS file The Abolitionists. //**Record your questions here:**//

=Part 2: Evaluating Evidence= //**Historians and students of history use sources to develop interpretations. Using what you have learned about sourcing, contextualizing, close reading, and corroborating sources, evaluate the following documents. You are encouraged to write on this packet and your annotations may be used to assess your evaluation. Answer the questions that follow about what you have gained from this part of the process.**// media type="custom" key="27576612"

Document A:
//Source: Harper’s Weekly. 11 October 1862.//

Document B:
media type="custom" key="27589720" //In 1862, Lincoln invited a group of black leaders to meet him in the White House. The purpose of the meeting was to encourage efforts of colonization. During that meeting, he made the following argument:.//

You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between any other races. Whether it right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. . . . If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.

Document C:
media type="custom" key="27591684" //On the editorial page of the New York Tribune of August 20, 1862, Horace Greeley published an open letter to President Abraham Lincoln entitled, “THE PRAYER OF TWENTY MILLIONS.” Greeley was an abolitionist who was adamant in his demand that the president do something about slavery. Following are excerpts from that letter://
 * Horace Greeley's Letter**

“DEAR SIR: I do not intrude to tell you—for you must know already—that a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain.
 * “To ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States:**

“We require of you, as the first servant of the Republic, charged especially and preeminently with this duty, that you EXECUTE THE LAWS....”

“We complain that the Union cause has suffered and is now suffering immensely, from mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery. Had you, Sir, in your Inaugural Address, unmistakably given notice that, in case the Rebellion already commenced were persisted in, and your efforts to preserve the Union and enforce the laws should be resisted by armed force, you would recognize no loyal person as rightfully held in Slavery by a traitor, we believe that the Rebellion would have received a staggering, if not fatal blow....”

“On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union Cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile—that the Rebellion, if crushed out tomorrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor—that the army of officers who remain to this day devoted to Slavery can at best be but half way loyal to the Union—and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union....”

“I close as I began with the statement that what an immense majority of the Loyal Millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act.... As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that of Principle and Honor, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensable not only to the existence of our country, but to the well-being of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.”

Yours, HORACE GREELEY NEW YORK, August 19, 1862

Document D:
media type="custom" key="27591690" //Lincoln published the following in response to Greeley to Lincoln, August 19, 1862, a New York Tribune editorial entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions.” In that letter, Greeley complained that Lincoln had not proclaimed emancipation as he was required to do by the Second Confiscation Act, and asserted that all attempts to put down the rebellion while at the same time upholding slavery were "preposterous and futile." Since Lincoln had already read a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet on July 22, this letter has seemed disingenuous to some. In it, however, Lincoln makes it clear to the public that though he considers his primary constitutional duty to be to save the Union, partial or even total emancipation might well be the necessary means to attain that end. Lincoln needed to make his position completely clear without tipping his hand on emancipation prematurely.//
 * From Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley [Newspaper Clipping], August 22, 1862**

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, August 22, 1862.

DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. Yours,

A. LINCOLN.

Document E:
media type="custom" key="27591706" //Following the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln began writing a proclamation by executive order that would later become the Emancipation Proclamation. It would be set to take effect January 1, 1863. //
 * The Emancipation Proclamation **
 * January 1, 1863**

By the President of the United States of America:


 * A P ROCLAMATION .**

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Document F:
media type="custom" key="27591710" //On June, 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech to the Illinois legislature to accept the Republican Party’s nomination to run for US Senate against “little giant” Stephen Douglas. This famous speech became known as Lincoln’s “A House Divided” speech.//

…A house divided against itself cannot stand.

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new – North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter* condition?

//*latter: later, or the second item listed, in this case, slavery in all of the states//

Document G:
media type="custom" key="27591714" //Note: In a letter from President Lincoln to General John C. Fremont, Lincoln responds to Fremont’s proclamation to shoot Confederate prisoners and confiscating slaves from traitorous owners.//

Two points in your proclamation of August 30th give me some anxiety. First, should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the Confederates very certainly shoot our best man in their hands in retaliation. And so, man for man, indefinitely. It is therefore my order that you allow no man to be shot, under the proclamation, without first having my approbation or consent.

Secondly, I think there is great danger that the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property, and the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our southern union friends, and turn them against us perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me therefore to ask, that you will as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the act of Congress, entitled, “An Act to Confiscate Property used for Insurrectional Purposes,” approved August 6th, 1861, in a copy of which act I herewith send you. This letter is written in spirit of caution and not of censure.

Document H:
media type="custom" key="27594280" Source: “Civil War for Kids”
 * Events Before the War**
 * Harpers Ferry Raid (October 16, 1859) - Abolitionist John Brown attempts to start a slave rebellion by taking over the Harpers Ferry arsenal. The uprising is quickly put down and John Brown is hanged for treason. Many people in the North, however, consider him a hero.
 * Abraham Lincoln Elected President (November 6, 1860) - Abraham Lincoln was from the northern part of the country and wanted to put an end to slavery. The southern states didn't want him president or making laws that would affect them.
 * South Carolina Secedes (Dec. 20, 1860) - South Carolina became the first state to secede, or leave, the United States. They decided to make their own country rather than be part of the USA. Within a few months several other states including Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana would also leave the Union.
 * The Confederation is formed (Feb. 9, 1861) - The southern states form their own country called the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis is their president.
 * Abraham Lincoln becomes President (March 4, 1861) - Now that President Lincoln is in office, he wants to restore the Union. In other words, get all the states back into the same country.
 * The Course of the War**
 * The Civil War Begins (April 12, 1861) - The South attacks Fort Sumter South Carolina and starts the war.
 * More States leave the Union (April 1861) - within a short period of time Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas all leave the Union to join the Confederacy.
 * Union Blockade (April 19, 1861) - Abraham Lincoln announces the Union Blockade where the Union Navy will attempt to keep supplies from entering or leaving the Confederacy. This blockade will weaken the Confederacy later in the war.
 * Many Battles of 1861 and 1862 - Throughout 1861 and 1862 there were many battles where lots of soldiers from both sides were wounded and killed. Some of the major battles include the First and Second Battles of Bull Run, The Battle of Shiloh, The Battle of Antietam, and the Battle of Fredericksburg. There was also the famous sea battle between the two ironclad battleships the Monitor and the Merrimac. These ships had iron or steel plates on their sides for armor making them much stronger and changing war on the seas forever.
 * Emancipation Proclamation (Jan. 1, 1863) - President Lincoln issues an executive order freeing many slaves and laying the groundwork for the Thirteenth Amendment.
 * The Battle of Gettysburg (July 1, 1863) - A major battle where the North not only wins the battle, but starts to win the Civil War.
 * Sherman Captures Atlanta (Sept. 2, 1864) - General Sherman captures the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Later in the year he would march to the sea and capture Savannah, Ga. On his way he would destroy and burn much of the land his army passed through.
 * General Robert E. Lee surrenders (April 4, 1865) - General Lee, the leader of the Confederate Army, surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant at The Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
 * President Lincoln is Assassinated (April 14, 1865) - While attending the Ford's Theatre, President Lincoln is shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth.
 * Reconstruction of the South (1865-1877) - The South is occupied by Federal troops while state governments, economies, and infrastructure are rebuilt.

Questions
//**Of the documents above, which do you think was most revealing about Lincoln’s views on slavery? Why?**//

//**Of the documents above, which did you find most surprising about Lincoln and his views on slavery? Why?**//

//**Documents C and D are a letter and response between Horace Greeley and President Lincoln. What are some things that Greeley accuses Lincoln of doing/being? Does it make a difference that these letters were published and not personal letters? Explain?**//

//**Based on the questions you asked in Part 1, what's missing from the documents here: what is one document that you would like to find in order to answer your questions? What would that document, if it existed, provide you?**//

//**Write an explanation or description for Document A that might provide insight into how American’s perceived Lincoln’s views of slavery.**//

=Part 3: Interpretation= Now that you have evaluated the evidence, what conclusions have you begun to come to? Keep in mind that I am not asking for an essay on what you've learned, but rather an outpouring of your thoughts regarding the Republican Party leadership, particularly President Lincoln, and his actions in the face of a Civil War as well as the encouragement of the abolitionists to make the War about ending slavery. Sentences that begin with "I think that maybe..." are perfectly acceptable here. Please use lined paper and staple them to this packet.