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Lesson 2: The Election Is in the House: 1824: The Candidates and the Issues

All of the major candidates for president in the 1824 election claimed allegiance to the same party, the Democratic-Republicans. What distinguished the candidates from each other? What were the important issues in the campaign of 1824?

Lesson 1: The Campaign of 1840: The Whigs, the Democrats, and the Issues

William Henry Harrison ran against Van Buren in 1840 as a Whig.

Many accounts portray the campaign of 1840 as almost exclusively image-based. This lesson offers students the opportunity to reflect on the nature of the campaign. Though intended for the teacher, all or part of the following background information may be useful for some students.

Lesson 3: The Election Is in the House: Was There a Corrupt Bargain?

Henry Clay did not win the 1824 presidential election

Students examine John Quincy Adams' win of the 1824 election.

Lesson 1: The Election Is in the House: The Denouement

Andrew Jackson was one of four presidential candidates in 1824.

This lesson will help students develop a better understanding of the election of 1824 and its significance.

Lesson 4: The Monroe Doctrine: Whose Doctrine Was It?

John Quincy Adams played a crucial role in formulating the Monroe Doctrine when he was Monroe's Secretary of State.

In what ways did John Quincy Adams and Thomas Jefferson contribute to the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine?

Lesson 4: Abraham Lincoln, the 1860 Election, and the Future of the American Union and Slavery

Created July 19, 2010

This lesson plan will explore Abraham Lincoln's rise to political prominence during the debate over the future of American slavery. Lincoln's anti-slavery politics will be contrasted with the abolitionism of William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass and the "popular sovereignty" concept of U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

Lesson 1: An Early Threat of Secession: The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Nullification Crisis

Created July 18, 2010

Henry Clay, author of the Missouri Compromise.

Americans affirmed their independence with the ringing declaration that “all men are created equal.” But some of them owned African slaves, and were unwilling to give them up as they formed new federal and state governments. So “to form a more perfect union” in 1787, certain compromises were made in the Constitution regarding slavery. This settled the slavery controversy for the first few decades of the American republic, but this situation changed with the application of Missouri for statehood in 1819.

Lesson 3: The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854: Popular Sovereignty and the Political Polarization over Slavery

Popular sovereignty allowed the settlers of a federal territory to decide the slavery question without interference from Congress. This lesson plan will examine how the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 affected the political balance between free and slave states and explore how its author, Stephen Douglas, promoted its policy of popular sovereignty in an effort to avoid a national crisis over slavery in the federal territories.

Lesson 2: Slavery's Opponents and Defenders

Idyllic cartoon of slaves thanking their master for taking care of them

This lesson plan will explore the wide-ranging debate over American slavery by presenting the lives of its leading opponents and defenders and the views they held about America's "peculiar institution."

Lesson 3: Abraham Lincoln and Wartime Politics

Created July 17, 2010

This lesson will look at the partisan political issues which emerged in the election of 1864 around Abraham Lincoln's role as a wartime president. Through an examination of primary documents, students will focus on Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, the Emancipation Proclamation, his decision to arm the freed slaves, his refusal to accept a compromise peace with the South, and the election of 1864.

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