RAL QUESTIONS

_a_. Give, with dates, the important laws as to slavery since 1783.

_b_. What were the arguments in favor of the extension of slavery?
Against it?

_c_. Find and learn a poem against slavery by Whittier, Lowell, or
Longfellow.

_d_. Make a table of elections since 1788, with the leading parties,
candidates, and principal issues. Underline the name of the
candidate elected.

TOPICS FOR SPECIAL WORK

_a_. John Brown in Kansas or at Harper's Ferry.

_b_. The career, to this time, of any man mentioned in Chapters 33 and
34.

_c_. Any one fugitive slave case: Jerry McHenry in Syracuse (A.J. May's
_Antislavery Conflicts_), Shadrach, Anthony Burns.

SUGGESTIONS

Preparation is especially important in teaching this period. The teacher
will find references to larger books in Channing's _Students' History._

Show how the question of slavery was really at the basis of the Mexican
War. Geographical conditions and the settlement of the Western country
should be carefully noted. A limited use of the writings and speeches of
prominent men and writers is especially valuable at this point.

Have a large map of the United States in the class room, cut out and
fasten upon this map pieces of white and black paper to illustrate the
effects of legislation under discussion, and also to illustrate the
various elections.

The horrors of slavery should be but lightly touched. Emphasize
especially the fact that slavery prevented rather than aided the
development of the South, and was an evil economically as well
as socially.

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1860.]

XII

SECESSION, 1860-1861

Books for Study and Reading

References.--Scribner's _Popular History_, IV, 432-445; McMaster's
_School History_, chap. xxvi (industrial progress, 1840-60).

Home Readings.--Page's _The Old South_.

CHAPTER 35

THE UNITED STATES IN 1860

[Sidenote: Area of the United States, 1860.]

[Sidenote: Population, 1860.]

361. Growth of the Country.--The United States was now three times
as large as it was at Jefferson's election. It contained over three
million square miles of land. About one-third of this great area was
settled. In the sixty years of the century the population had increased
even faster than the area had increased. In 1800 there were five and a
half million people living in the United States. In 1860 there were over
thirty-one million people within its borders. Of these nearly five