How to teach the causes of the Civil War

Why this matters

Many students start the Civil War sure that the South left over states' rights or taxes, because that is what they heard at home or online. A student can read the declarations of secession, write "slavery" on the worksheet, and still believe the old answer. The worksheet looks the same either way, and the teacher has to wait for quiz day to find out.

Caleb's chat: why did the South secede?

Caleb is a middle schooler who plays basketball. His uncle told him the war was about states' rights and taxes, not slavery, and Caleb believes it.

The whole class gets the same activity: the same greeting, the same four declarations of secession from Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, and the same task of predicting what the states wrote about most and then counting it. Each student picks their own words to count, and Sparky's next message depends on that student's prediction, words and answers.

Sparky counts the student's words with codeSparky sends the student back to his own chart or to the declaration's wordsA right answer gets a harder question

C

Caleb

Interest: Plays basketballStarting point: Thinks the South left over states' rights and taxes

Sparky

Between December 1860 and June 1861, eleven Southern states left the United States. Four of them, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, wrote official declarations explaining why. You're going to test what they said by counting it. First, predict: which reason do you think they wrote about most? States' rights, taxes on imported goods, or slavery? Tell me why, and one thing you're into outside school.

Caleb

states rights. my uncle says the war was about states rights and taxes, not slavery. i play basketball

Sparky

Your uncle's view is a common one. Let's see what the states themselves wrote. If you were going to search those four declarations for evidence of states' rights, what words would you look for?

Caleb

rights for states rights. tariff and tax for taxes

Sparky

Good choices. Think of what's coming as a box score for each state. I counted every word starting with "slave", every "right" or "rights", and every word starting with "tariff" or "tax". The counts come from Georgia¹, Mississippi², South Carolina³ and Texas⁴. What does the chart say about your prediction?

Caleb

south carolina says rights 19 times, thats more than slave. so it was states rights

Sparky

That count is right: South Carolina uses "rights" 19 times. Now look at what kind of rights they mean. Here are two sentences from South Carolina's declaration: "The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights..." and "...have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution." What kind of property do you think those sentences are talking about?

Caleb

oh. enslaved people. the right they mean is the right to own slaves

Sparky

Exactly. Now look back at your chart. How many times does "tariff" or any tax word appear across all four states?

Caleb

1 time total, just south carolina. so it wasnt taxes either. it was slavery

Understanding check

You've got the evidence to back that up. Now here's a harder question. South Carolina wrote this: "The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them." Those were laws those Northern states passed refusing to help return people who had escaped slavery. So whose states' rights was South Carolina actually complaining about?

Caleb

the northern states rights. so south carolina only liked states rights when it helped slavery

Sparky

That's a sharp observation. Now put it all together: write two sentences explaining why the four states said they seceded, and use at least one number from the chart or one exact quote as evidence.

Caleb

The four states said they seceded to protect slavery. Georgia used words starting with slave 35 times and tariff 0 times, and South Carolina's rights were the right of property in slaves.

Sparky

That's a strong answer. You used a number from the chart and an exact quote, and you explained what "rights" actually meant in the declarations.

Counted the words himself, found that South Carolina's "rights" were the rights of slaveholders, and backed his final answer with a number and a quote

Caleb picked the words that would prove his uncle right, and Sparky counted them. When he pointed to South Carolina's 19 uses of "rights", Sparky agreed with his count and showed him the two sentences that say which rights. When he was ready, Sparky sent him back to the tariff bar in his own chart. Nobody told Caleb his uncle was wrong. His own count and the declarations' own sentences showed him.

Sparky runs the count fresh in every chat with the words that student picked, so a student who picks "constitution" and "property" gets those charted next to "slave". A student who notices that Georgia complains about "protection" and high "duties" for Northern factories, without using the word "tariff", hears that Georgia does complain about them, then gets Georgia's own sentence about its opponents: "anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose." The activity tells Sparky not to play anyone from the period, and the chart is the only picture in it.

Caleb is an example student, and Sparky's replies are shortened. The numbers in the chart match our own count of the four declarations on Yale Law School's Avalon Project.

What Flint did for Caleb

• Sparky wrote and ran code that downloaded the four declarations and counted the words Caleb picked, so the evidence was his own count, not Sparky's opinion.
• Sparky drew the counts as a bar chart and cited each declaration, so Caleb could check the document behind every bar.
• When Caleb said South Carolina's 19 "rights" proved him right, Sparky agreed with the count and quoted the sentences that say which rights, instead of telling him he was wrong.
• Once Caleb named slavery, Sparky asked a harder question with South Carolina's own list of 13 Northern states.

A teacher can't do this by hand for 30 students, and Sparky does it in every student's chat.

Who still says states' rights after the count

When a student gives three wrong answers, Sparky flags them for the teacher under Needs attention while the class is still working. When students finish, Sparky grades each chat against the activity's rubric and sums up the class on the activity page: what most students understood, which mistake came up most, and what to practice next.

Set up the activity for free

The secession activity is in Flint's public library, with the four declarations attached as sources, Sparky's guidelines, the greeting and a rubric already set up. Open it, select Use activity to copy it into a free Flint account, and move it to a class. In the activity's Preview tab, select Try session myself to test it as a student before you assign it.

For more social studies activities, see Flint for social studies.