States' Rights and Slavery

Explain the arguments, the fight over slavery in the west, and how each increased tension.

Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.

What children learn in Level 63

Why did North and South grow so far apart? People at the time often spoke of states' rights, the idea that states should decide many things for themselves.
But which right? Above all, white Southern leaders meant the right to keep slavery and to take it into new lands. Cotton wealth and their whole way of life rested on it.
The hottest fight was over the West. Each new state changed the balance in Congress. Should it allow slavery or not? In Kansas, people fought and died over that question.
We don't have to guess why Georgia left. Its leaders wrote it down in 1861. This is a primary source. Their main complaint was slavery.
Alexander Stephens of Georgia, the Confederate vice president, said slavery was the foundation of the new government. You may hear other reasons for the war, but the South's leaders were clear at the time. Without slavery, there would have been no Civil War.

Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:

SS4H5.b — Discuss how the issues of states' rights and slavery increased tensions between the North and South.