Monday, December 17, 2012

Rockefeller - Robber Baron?


The New Tycoons: John D. Rockefeller

'Trust Giant,' John D. Rockefeller
"What a Funny Little Government!" Cartoonist Horace Taylor pokes fun at John D. Rockefeller in this cartoon which appeared in The Verdict, a partisan magazine of the day.
He was America's first billionaire.
In a pure sense, the goal of any capitalist is to make money. And JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER could serve as the poster child for CAPITALISM. Overcoming humble beginnings, Rockefeller had the vision and the drive to become the richest person in America.
At the turn of the century, when the average worker earned $8 to $10 per week, Rockefeller was worth millions.

Robber Baron or Captain of Industry?

John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)
What was his secret? Is he to be placed on a pedestal for others as a "CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY?" Or should he be demonized as a "robber baron." A ROBBER BARON, by definition, was an American capitalist at the turn of the 19th century who enriched himself upon the sweat of others, exploited natural resources, or possessed unfair government influence.
Whatever conclusions can be drawn, Rockefeller's impact on the American economy demands recognition.
Rockefeller was born in 1839 in Moravia, a small town in western New York. His father practiced herbal medicine, professing to cure patients with remedies he had created from plants in the area. John's mother instilled a devout Baptist faith in the boy, a belief system he took to his grave. After being graduated from high school in 1855, the family sent him to a Cleveland business school.
Young John Rockefeller entered the workforce on the bottom rung of the ladder as a clerk in a Cleveland shipping firm. Always thrifty, he saved enough money to start his own business in produce sales. When the Civil War came, the demand for his goods increased dramatically, and Rockefeller found himself amassing a small fortune.
He took advantage of the loophole in the Union draft law by purchasing a substitute to avoid military service. When EDWIN DRAKE discovered oil in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, Rockefeller saw the future. He slowly sold off his other interests and became convinced that refining oil would bring him great wealth.

Waste Not...

Rockefeller introduced techniques that totally reshaped the OIL INDUSTRY. In the mid-19th century, the chief demand was for kerosene. In the refining process, there are many by-products when CRUDE OIL is converted toKEROSENE. What others saw as waste, Rockefeller saw as gold. He sold one byproduct paraffin to candlemakers and another byproduct petroleum jelly to medical supply companies. He even sold off other "waste" as paving materials for roads. He shipped so many goods that railroad companies drooled over the prospect of getting his business.
Rockefeller demanded REBATES, or discounted rates, from the railroads. He used all these methods to reduce the price of oil to his consumers. His profits soared and his competitors were crushed one by one. Rockefeller forced smaller companies to surrender their stock to his control.

Standard Oil — a Trust-worthy Company?

Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller had to perform a delicate balancing act to maintain his reputation as a philanthropist while living the live of a wealthy businessman.
This sort of arrangement is called a trust. ATRUST is a combination of firms formed by legal agreement. Trusts often reduce fair business competition. As a result of Rockefeller's shrewd business practices, his large corporation, the STANDARD OIL COMPANY, became the largest business in the land.
As the new century dawned, Rockefeller's investments mushroomed. With the advent of the automobile, gasoline replaced kerosene as the number one petroleum product. Rockefeller was a bona fide billionaire. Critics charged that his labor practices were unfair. Employees pointed out that he could have paid his workers a fairer wage and settled for being a half-billionaire.
Before his death in 1937, Rockefeller gave away nearly half of his fortune. Churches, medical foundations, universities, and centers for the arts received hefty sums of oil money. Whether he was driven by good will, conscience, or his devout faith in God is unknown. Regardless, he became a hero to many enterprising Americans.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Manfest Destiny - Make-up (Please Type and use evidence!)


Was manifest destiny justified?


The Case for Manifest Destiny

Supporters of Manifest Destiny were motivated by two beliefs: the nation's God-given destiny to expand its civilizing influence across the continent and the practical need to expand the nation's borders. Most advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that American society, being predominantly white northern European, or "Anglo-Saxon," and Christian, was more advanced and enlightened than other cultures. American novelist Herman Melville summed up that belief when he stated, "We Americans are the chosen people—the Israel of our time."
Adherents to the ideal of Manifest Destiny asserted that, as the chosen nation, the U.S. had an obligation to mankind to expand its reach and spread its culture, bringing God, technology and civilization to the west. O'Sullivan had elaborated on that idea in an 1839 article:
The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High—the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere—its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens....
Others stressed a more practical need for expansion. The U.S. was experiencing a big growth in population, they said, and the U.S. needed to expand to accommodate those people. Furthermore, they contended, expansion would make the new nation more secure. Many agreed with author and diplomat George Bancroft when he said: "The acquisition of California by ourselves is the decisive point in the perfect establishment of the Union." Now the nation rested on a "foundation that cannot be moved," he continued. In his inaugural address, Polk laid out further benefits:
None can fail to see the danger to our safety and future peace if Texas remains an independent state, or becomes an ally or dependency of some foreign nation more powerful than herself. Is there one among our citizens who would not prefer perpetual peace with Texas to occasional wars, which often occur between bordering independent nations? Is there one who would not prefer free intercourse with her, to high duties on all our products and manufactures which enter her ports or cross her frontiers? Is there one who would not prefer an unrestricted communication with her citizens, to the frontier obstructions which must occur if she remains out of the Union?
Advocates of fulfilling the nation's Manifest Destiny argued that critics' concerns that expansion would weaken the union by stretching it too far had not been borne out. Polk asserted that the addition of new territories had in fact bolstered the Union:
As our population has expanded, the Union has been cemented and strengthened. As our boundaries have been enlarged and our agricultural population has been spread over a large surface, our federative system has acquired additional strength and security. It may well be doubted whether it would not be in greater danger of overthrow if our present population were confined to the comparatively narrow limits of the original thirteen States than it is now that they are sparsely settled over a more expanded territory. It is confidently believed that our system may be safely extended to the utmost bounds of our territorial limits, and that as it shall be extended the bonds of our Union, so far from being weakened, will become stronger.
Other advocates simply subscribed to the romantic notion of moving west to establish new lives on the frontier. The very idea of Manifest Destinyencouraged men and women to dream about boundless opportunity, supporters said. Senator James Semple (D, Illinois), in debate in the House over Oregon, noted that in 1843, as many as 1,500 settlers traveled to Oregon "to reclaim this vast wilderness, and to unite, by civilization and human intercourse, the shores of the Pacific with the great West of the Union." Indeed, proponents pointed out, Manifest Destiny inspired pioneers to transform plains and fertile valleys into farms and small towns, helping to build up the nation.
The government not only had a divine right to expand its influence, supporters said, it also had a duty to incorporate territories to protect those American citizens who had settled there. Semple asserted that such expansion expressed the will of the nation to expand. "It is impossible for [the government] to overlook the expression of public opinion on this point, so emphatically and universally pronounced. How was it to act? Was it to allow Great Britain to exercise jurisdiction over its citizens?" he asked.
Whatever their reasons for seeking expansion, proponents of Manifest Destiny defended the government's right to acquire new territories, even though the Constitution did not specifically give it the authority to do so. Supporters were sometimes labeled as "loose constructionists," because they interpreted the Constitution "loosely" or broadly enough to say that, under it, land acquisition was an implied power of the federal government.
Overall, for supporters of Manifest Destiny, all factors indicated that the U.S. should push westward. Buchanan perhaps best summed up the national mood regarding expansion when he stated: "Prevent the American people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might as well command Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny."

The Case Against Manifest Destiny

Critics of Manifest Destiny rejected the idea that it was God's will or even a good thing for the country to expand when it resulted in warfare and the subjugation and mistreatment of native peoples. Expansionists used the concept to justify their cruel treatment of those peoples, critics asserted. ManifestDestiny, with its talk of the need to "civilize" the "savages" who occupied the west, was also blatantly racist, they asserted.
Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing, in a letter written to former Senator Henry Clay (Whig, Kentucky) about the annexation of Texas, described the impact of Manifest Destiny:
[T]the Indians have melted before the white man, and the mixed, degraded race of Mexico must melt before the Anglo-Saxon. Away with this vile sophistry! There is no necessity for crime. There is no fate to justify rapacious nations, any more than to justify gamblers and robbers, in plunder ... We talk of accomplishing our destiny. So did the late conqueror of Europe [Napoleon Bonaparte]; and destiny consigned him to a lonely rock in the ocean, the prey of ambition which destroyed no peace but his own.
Critics grew particularly incensed when the concept was used to justify wars of expansion. God would not destine a nation to kill and subjugate people, they argued. If the "war be right then Christianity is wrong, a falsehood, a lie," Congregationalist minister Theodore Parker asserted in opposition to the war with Mexico.
Many in particular portrayed the Mexican-American War as a land grab, aimed at the conquest of a vulnerable neighbor with little ability to defend itself. Critics argued that Manifest Destiny was used to justify imperialism, and that the U.S. would never have tolerated being treated the way it was treating other countries. Senator Thomas Corwin (Whig, Ohio) was a particularly strong critic of the war with Mexico. According to him: [See Senator Corwin Criticizes Concept of 'Manifest Destiny' (Excerpts) (primary document)]
Had one come and demanded Bunker Hill of the people of Massachusetts, had England's lion ever showed himself there, is there a man over 13 and under 90 who would not have been ready to meet him; is there a river on this continent that would not have run red with blood; is there a field but would have been piled high with the unburied bones of slaughtered Americans before these consecrated battlefields of liberty should have been wrested from us? But this same American goes into a sister republic and says to poor, weak Mexico, 'Give up your territory—you are unworthy to possess it—I have got one-half already—all I ask of you is to give up the other!'....
Furthermore, critics asserted, overexpansion was a threat to the country; it risked spreading the nation's institutions too thin, they warned. "Possessed of a domain, vast enough for the growth of ages, it is time for us to stop in the career of acquisition and conquest," Channing wrote to Clay. "Already endangered by our greatness, we cannot advance without imminent peril to our institutions, union, prosperity, virtue, and peace."
Other critics echoed Channing's belief that the U.S. already had enough land, and should stop seeking more. Supporters of Manifest Destiny exaggerated the stresses of a growing population, they asserted. Corwin argued that the U.S. had enough land, and that it was not worth waging war for "room." He asserted:
Look at your country, extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, capable itself of sustaining in comfort a larger population than will be in the whole Union for one hundred years to come. Over this vast expanse of territory your population is now so sparse that I believe we provided, at the last session, a regiment of mounted men to guard the mail from the frontier of Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia; and yet you persist in the ridiculous assertion, 'I want room.' One would imagine, from the frequent reiteration of the complaint, that you had a bursting, teeming population, whose energy was paralyzed, whose enterprise was crushed, for want of space.
Opposition to Manifest Destiny was also strong among the "Conscience Whigs," a small group mostly from the New England states who saw expansion as facilitating the spread of slavery. That would only increase the tension between a precariously balanced North and South, they warned. In opposing war with Mexico, Corwin presciently claimed, "Should we prosecute this war another moment, or expend one dollar in the purchase or conquest of a single acre of Mexican land, the North and the South are brought into collision on a point where neither will yield. Who can foresee or foretell the result!"
Not only was Manifest Destiny morally wrong, critics argued, but its realization through territorial expansion was unconstitutional. Those critics, called "strict constructionists," maintained that the Constitution never expressly gave the country a right to acquire new lands, so the government did not have the right to acquire territory. That view had also been expressed by opponents of the Louisiana Purchase.
In short, opponents questioned both the ideal of Manifest Destiny and its practical consequences. "I spurn the notion that patriotism can only be manifested by plunging the nation into war or that the love of one's country can only be measured by one's hatred to any other country," declared Representative Robert Winthrop (Whig, Massachusetts) in congressional debate in January 1846. He warned of the "danger of fixing our views so exclusively on our own real or imagined wants as to overlook the rights of others."

Last call for 6 assignments (Please Type) See Blog archive right hand column

All 6 assignments must be typed and turned in by Friday December 21!  Follow instructions carefully and give complete answers using all documents and quotes!

Posted Dec 16 - Please type using proofs
-Was manifest destiny justified?

2 Posted Nov 27 - Final questions must be answered completely using all documents!
1- War with Mexico  questions (last question #8 use all other documents and quotes to prove)
2- Texas Independence Complete chart (Last question use all documents and quotes to prove)

Posted Dec 5 - Complete assignment by following instructions carefully
-Lincoln's Speeches

Posted Dec 12(documents) Dec 15 (instructions for make-up)
 - For those who got an incomplete or failing grade on Plessy quiz
Plessy v Ferguson (follow instructions use all documents - instructions in Dec 15th post)

Posted Dec 12 and 15 - (Three posts- that include historical background, Task, Rubric, Sample outline, 2 sets of documents)
DBQ Essay assignment 
See all three posts to have everything neccesary to complete this essay
Follow task Directions carefully!
Must be at least 5 paragraphs and use all information from class T-charts, textbook, and at least 8 documents.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

For those who got an incomplete or lower than a 3.3 on the Plessy quiz!

Type your answer using all three documents and quoting from them!

Your answer should be at least a page long with quotes from all documents!

1) Explain the case
2) Explain the Supreme Court Ruling
3) Explain how the courts decision demonstrates the success or failure of Reconstruction

Instructions for DBQ, Rubric, sample outline (Please attach Rubric to Essay)



ESSAY - Directions
Historical Context: During Reconstruction the federal government attempted to rebuild and bring the nation together through a series of programs, laws, amendments and acts.  The state and local governments in the South created laws of their own.  Often the goals of the federal and state governments did not match. 
         To insure the Southern states would participate in Reconstruction and not continue their policies of racial inequality Republicans worked in Congress to develop Civil rights Acts, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and the Freedman’s Bureau.  The South opposed them legally and illegally by developing Black Codes, voting rules(poll taxes, grandfather clause, literacy tests) Jim Crow laws, and sharecropping that continued to segregate the races.  These rules were sometimes upheld by the Supreme Court in cases like Plessy v Ferguson (separate-but-equal).  Some Southerners also participated in groups like the K.K.K. and the White League that worked to keep the races separate. 
         In 1865 President Lincoln called on Americans to help put the country back together  “With malice(hatred) toward none; with charity(help) for all; with firmness in doing right…let us bind up the nations wounds and…bring lasting peace."  By 1877 Reconstruction was over and the federal troops were being pulled from the South.  Where Lincoln’s hopes in vain?  This is a question still debated by historians today?

TASK: Use textbook pages 190-198, 233-235 (and documents on 200-202) as well as class notes and all documents used in class to answer the following question.
-----How successful was Reconstruction?  (1865-1877)--------
-Use specific information from the textbook and your documents
-Compare and contrast the actions of the federal and state governments
-How were Freedmen’s lives helped or hurt during this period? 

This is only a sample outline!
Fill in Document #s and Text pages to help you stay on task!



Paragraph#1
Hook:possible hooks(Line from Lincoln"With Malice..."
,13th Amendment, Line from Judge Harlans Dissent" In view of the Constitution...",  etc.)

Historical Context: 1-Define Reconstruction 
2-give background information (see textbook and historical context indirections)


Thesis: Example (Although African Americans and the country experienced many positive changes between 1865 and 1877 the evidence shows that Reconstruction was a failure in the end.) 
Paragraph#2
DBQ 1:

DBQ 2:

Textbook pages:




Successes Topic Sentence: Example (Federal Reconstruction brought many succeses and changes.)
Proof:Radical Republicans Plans and Civil Rights Acts

Proof:13, 14, 15 Amendments

Proof:Freedman's Bureau

Proof:New members of Legislature and Congress

Proof: Schools, Churches, etc.


Paragraph#3
DBQ 1:

DBQ 2:

Textbook pages:



Failures Topic Sentence: Example (The Southern states and groups of people worked against the succeses of Reconstruction)
Proof:KKK (actions to go against changes and Amendments)

Proof:Black Codes(State government against Amendments)

Proof:Voting Restrictions(State governments against Amendments)

Proof:

Paragraph#4
DBQ 1:

DBQ 2:

Textbook pages:

Decision Topic Sentence:Example "As we look back at Reconstruction we see that it proved to be a failure."
Proof:Compromise of 1877

Proof:Share cropping

Proof:Plessy v Ferguson - segregation



Paragraph#5
DBQ 1:

DBQ 2:

Textbook pages:

Restate Thesis
Restate Proofs
Your opinion based on proofs
Wrap up - Quote from Susie Taylor King

Reconstruction DBQ Documents Set 1 & 2 (USE ALL) Don't Forget PLESSY!










Monday, December 10, 2012

Essay due 12-19-12


ESSAY
Context: During Reconstruction the federal government attempted to rebuild and bring the nation together through a series of programs, laws, amendments and acts.  The state and local governments in the South created laws of their own.  Often the goals of the federal and state governments did not match. 
         To insure the Southern states would participate in Reconstruction and not continue their policies of racial inequality Republicans worked in Congress to develop Civil rights Acts, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and the Freedman’s Bureau.  The South opposed them legally and illegally by developing Black Codes, voting rules(poll taxes, grandfather clause, literacy tests) Jim Crow laws, and sharecropping that continued to segregate the races.  These rules were sometimes upheld by the Supreme Court in cases like Plessy v Ferguson (separate-but-equal).  Some Southerners also participated in groups like the K.K.K. and the White League that worked to keep the races separate. 
         In 1865 President Lincoln called on Americans to help put the country back together  “With malice(hatred) toward none; with charity(help) for all; with firmness in doing right…let us bind up the nations wounds and…bring lasting peace.  By 1877 Reconstruction was over and the federal troops were being pulled from the South.  Where Lincoln’s hopes in vain?  This is a question still debated by historians today?
TASK: Use textbook pages 190-198, 233-235 (and documents on 200-202) as well as class notes and all documents used in class to answer the following question.
-----How successful was Reconstruction?  (1865-1877)--------
-Use specific information from the textbook and your documents
-Compare and contrast the actions of the federal and state governments
-How were Freedmen’s lives helped or hurt during this period? 
-Don't Forget Plessy v Ferguson



Extra information for essay

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Lincoln's Speeches Classwork TYPED assignment DUE 12-10


Documents and Questions
The House Divided Speech (June 16, 1858) Word Cloud

Background: Lincoln gave this speech in Springfield, Illinois, at the close of the Republican State convention which named him as the Republican candidate for U. S. Senator. Senator Douglas, a Democrat, was not present. This was before the Civil War, when both men were running for the U.S. Senate. Lincoln lost to Douglas.

Excerpt: “…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 the 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….”

What does Lincoln believe will happen to the division of the U.S. into slave and free states? Lincoln made this speech two years before the Civil War began. What does this speech tell you about Lincoln’s intentions for going to war?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861) Word Cloud

Background: Abraham Lincoln won 40% of the popular vote in 1860 and almost 60% of the electoral vote. However, his name was not even on the ballot in some Southern states, and he received almost no votes from the south. Lincoln’s election was due, in part, to the fact that the opposition split their support between three different candidates. He made this speech after he was sworn in as president. Some of the southern states had already seceded from the Union.

Excerpt: “…I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. . . . In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath … to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained,
it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

What is Lincoln’s oath?  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why does he say that the seceded states have no oath?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What does this speech tell you about Lincoln’s reasons for going to war?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) Word Cloud

Background: After two years of war, Lincoln decided to free the slaves in the Confederacy (but not those in Union states). On September 22, 1862, he issued the first version of this proclamation [announcement] which said that the final document would take effect January 1, 1863.

Excerpt: “… 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, thence forward, 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…
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service...”

Who are the “persons” that Lincoln is referring to and where do they live?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How will this proclamation affect the Union military?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What does this speech tell you about Lincoln’s reasons for fighting the war?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863) Word Cloud

Background: Six months after the Union victory in the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln gave this speech as part of a dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. 23,000 Union and 28,000 Confederacy soldiers died at the battle of Gettysburg.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

What was the unfinished task? _________________________________________________________________
How did Lincoln think people could honor those who died? 
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What does “a new birth of freedom” mean? _________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Why did Lincoln think the people of the Union should continue fighting the war?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What does this speech tell you about Lincoln’s reasons for fighting the war?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865)

Background: After four years of bloody war, the Union re-elected Lincoln. The defeat of the Confederacy was near, and many slaves were now free. In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln argued for reunification and rebuilding the South.

Excerpt: “ …One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease…”

What is the peculiar and powerful interest and what did it have to do with the start of the war? _________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lincoln is saying that at the beginning of the war, the Union and the Confederacy did not think that slavery would ___________________ before the war was over.

What does this speech tell you about Lincoln’s reasons for going to war?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Assignment 
Should be at least one typed Page!  Follow instructions below carefully!

Making an Interpretation: How did Lincoln’s reasons for fighting change
over time?

Directions: You have been considering the question, “Why did Lincoln fight?” as you analyzed excerpts from five of his speeches. You have seen that he did not always state the same reason or reasons for fighting the war, but that his reasons changed over time (that is, as time went on, Lincoln stated different reasons.) Now that you have evidence from five speeches in order, spread out over the length of the war, the focus question changes to: “How did Lincoln’s reasons for fighting the war change over time?” When historians interpret change over time,
they look at what was said in the beginning, when and how it changed, and what was said at the end. In order to answer this question, you have to make an interpretation.  An interpretation is an educated opinion, your opinion based on the evidence (from the speeches.) There is no one right interpretation, but an interpretation is wrong if the evidence does not support it, or if some evidence contradicts it. Like a main idea or thesis, an interpretation is a general statement only one or two sentences long. 

Here are three “interpretation starters.” Select one starter that best fits your interpretation, and fill in the blanks. Then write your interpretation with evidence in the space below.  Quote from speeches and summarize Lincoln’s ideas when necessary.  (Use each of the 5 speeches to prove your interpretation!)

1. In the beginning, Lincoln argued that the reason for fighting was _____, but by the end of the war, his reason(s) had changed to _____.

2. In all of his speeches, Lincoln had the same reason(s) for fighting the war, which was _____.

3. In the beginning, Lincoln argued that the reason for fighting was _____, but by the end of the war, he added a reason(s), which was (were) _____.

How did Lincoln’s reasons for fighting change over time?
Type at least one page using specific quotes and evidence from the speeches (follow the directions above carefully)