Georgia SS4H5.b
The Standard
Discuss how the issues of states' rights and slavery increased tensions between the North and South.
Georgia Standards of Excellence for Social Studies · Explain the causes, major events, and consequences of the Civil War.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain why disputes over slavery and the power of state and federal governments pushed the North and South apart. They use examples such as fugitive slave laws, western territories, and secession.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can explain that Southern leaders used states’ rights claims to protect slavery and support secession. The student can connect a specific law or event to growing sectional tension.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat states’ rights and slavery as separate issues. They may think all Northerners were abolitionists or that all Southerners owned enslaved people. They may also blame the war on one event alone.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Explain how slavery and states’ rights were connected, then name one law or event that increased tension between North and South.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Place event cards on a classroom tension line, then have pairs explain why each event raised or lowered sectional conflict.
Write a response to this prompt: Why did arguments about state power become arguments about slavery?
Play a matching game connecting events, such as the Fugitive Slave Act, with the issue involved and its effect on tension.
Read a short excerpt from Georgia’s secession declaration and underline references to slavery, state power, and leaving the Union.
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Printable SS4H5.b Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS8H5.a
Explain the importance of key issues and events that led to the Civil War; include slavery, states' rights, nullification, Compromise of 1850 and the Georgia Pl...
- SS4H2.b
Evaluate the major issues debated at the Constitutional Convention: the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, the rights of states to govern themselves (...
- SS4H5.a
Identify Uncle Tom's Cabin and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry and explain how each of these events was related to the Civil War.
- SS4H5.e
Describe the effects of war on the North and South.
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