Causes of the Civil War   Across Five Aprils

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Your Job

Work with a partner to answer the following questions about the Civil War using the designated web sites.  After investigating each “Resource Link”, you must decide what you feel was the primary cause of the Civil War. 

Collecting Information

Read information from the following websites, then formulate your opinion about what were the major causes leading up to the Civil War.

http://www.us-civilwar.com/cause.htm

http://www.swcivilwar.com/cw_causes.html

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/case/206_civilwar.html

http://www.civilwarweb.com/articles/12-99/causes.htm

Questions

1. What were three major political actions or literary pieces leading up to the Civil War that affected people’s thinking and tell what effect they had?
2. Who were five important figures of that time period that wielded influence and affected people’s thoughts, actions and beliefs in both the North and South?  Then explain what that person did to make this impact.
3. Identify the North and South’s primary economic issues and tell how these impacted the view and opinions leading up to the Civil War.

Presentation

Together with your partner develop a presentation supported by information you learned after visiting your web sites, then identify what you feel was the primary cause of the Civil War and explain to others why you came to this conclusion.