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Helping to Move On? An Analysis of the Reconstruction Amendments
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Author: Courtney Hoffberger, Arundel High School, Anne Arundel County Public Schools
Grade Level: Middle/High
Duration: One class
Overview:
At the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States' government was faced with two separate problems. First, the country had to reintegrate the states of the Confederacy into the Union. Secondly, the legal status of the roughly three million former slaves had to be determined, specifically, how the newly emancipated would be regarded as citizens. In response to both problems, three amendments to the Constitution were added which sought to define what life would be like for the freedmen in the states of the former Confederacy, as well as in the nation as a whole. In this lesson students will read and scrutinize the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to decide if the amendments had political, economic, and/or social implications in the newly reunited country. In the end they will determine what legacy the three Reconstruction Amendments left on the United States and what impact they still have on the present day.
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