Coming to Terms with Social Injustice Brought on by Government Part 1

Teaching 8th grade civics is interesting, because students are at the age when they want to know "how things really are" as opposed to what the text book presents.  They obviously know about social injustice to various groups such as African Americans, American Indians, and women.  What is not obvious to them is that for a long time those social injustices were often affirmed by government action.  The powers of government comes alive for students when they learn about  those powers in historical context.  The story to be told is not always positive.

Teaching with primary documents is the best way to approach  tough subjects like this.  The three documents that follow stand out to me and have really helped my students understand the power of Congress in conjunction with the U.S. Supreme Court in perpetuating social injustice.

The Declaration of Independence (Jefferson's Rough Draft)

• I like to start off with a document that students already know so that they feel comfortable with the document analysis. This also grounds the primary source lesson in a fundamental principle that they have already learned.
• Don't be afraid to excerpt!  Sometimes time does not allow for full document analysis, and it may not be appropriate for all learners.  Excerpts make the document more accessible.

"WE hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and* [certain]* inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness"

John C Calhoun - Speech in the Senate on the Oregon Bill (1848)

• This document stuns students! In this speech John C Calhoun refutes the intention of the authors of the Declaration and makes a religious justification for the institution of slavery. He makes the accretion that not all are created equal.  This common justification for slaves not being equal sets the tone for the documents that follow.

 "If we trace it back, we shall find the proposition (that "all men are born free and equal") differently expressed in the Declaration of Independence. That asserts that "all men are created equal." The form of expression, though less dangerous, is not less erroneous. All men are not created. According to the Bible, only two, a man and a woman, ever were, and of these one was pronounced subordinate to the other. All others have come into the world by being born, and in no sense, as I have shown, either free or equal. But this form of expression being less striking and popular has given way to the present, and under the authority of a document put forth on so great an occasion, and leading to such important consequences, has spread far and wide, and fixed itself deeply in the public mind. It was inserted in our Declaration of Independence without any necessity. It made no necessary part of our justification in separating from the parent country, and declaring ourselves independent. Breach of our chartered privileges, and lawless encroachment on our acknowledged and well-established rights by the parent country, were the real causes, and of themselves sufficient, without resorting to any other, to justify the step. Nor had it any weight in constructing the governments which were substituted in the place of the colonial. They were formed of the old materials and on practical and well-established principles, borrowed for the most part from our own experience and that of the country from which we sprang."

Frederick Douglas - Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)

• Here we take a turn from directly reading the Dred Scott decision to looking at Frederick Douglas' speech in response to it.  Most students have heard of Douglas, and it's good to make connections with background knowledge.  
• Don't be afraid to send students to Wikipedia to get the basic idea behind the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott decision.

"This infamous decision of the Slaveholding wing of the Supreme Court maintains that slaves are within the contemplation of the Constitution of the United States, property; that slaves are property in the same sense that horses, sheep, and swine are property; that the old doctrine that slavery is a creature of local law is false; that the right of the slaveholder to his slave does not depend upon the local law, but is secured wherever the Constitution of the United States extends; that Congress has no right to prohibit slavery anywhere; that slavery may go in safety anywhere under the star-spangled banner; that colored persons of African descent have no rights that white men are bound to respect; that colored men of African descent are not and cannot be citizens of the United States."

Tying it all Together - Constitutional Connection

My students need to write as much as possible.  After discussing the ideas presented in these documents in small groups, and then as a class, my students write about their thoughts on these documents and make connections to the powers of government, and the constitutional amendments that righted social injustice.