An Election That Divided the Nation

The next lesson on the Civil War unit was the Election of 1860. The essential question was "How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery?". To first get an overview on the Election of 1860, we watched this Crash Course video in class. This helped explain how the slavery issue caused divisions for events like the Fugitive Slave Law and Bleeding Kansas. As you can see in the photo, the country was basically divided into sections. Abraham Lincoln was against slavery, Stephen A. Douglas believed that people should be able to vote on whether slavery should exist or not (popular sovereignty), John C. Breckenridge believed that slavery was the priority and all blacks were inferior to whites, and John Bell wanted to preserve the Constitution and the Union as is, including slavery. Because of all of this, Lincoln was most likely to win in states that were against slavery, Douglas would probably win in states like Missouri, because many people fighting in Bleeding Kansas from Missouri were pro slavery. Breckenridge was predicted to win in southern states, since slavery was always the priority there, and Bell would win in areas right in between the pro and anti slavery lines. This is because they don't want people fighting in their states. Lincoln ended up winning the Election. We then went onto the Civil War in Art website and looked at & analyzed five photographs. Small groups created mini-documentaries using sites like Educreations and ShowMe to explain the events surrounding the Election of 1860 and also to answer the essential question. My group's Educreations video is below.