Causes of the Civil War (and How to Effectively Teach It To Students)

Kirsten 0:00

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm Kirsten at the southern teach, an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies. I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Kirsten 0:47

Hello there, and welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. Today I wanted to create a teacher concept podcast episode. I've done this before. I've done it on Veterans Day, I've done it on the Bill of Rights, and I wanted to do one on another foundational topic that I think every upper elementary teacher will likely cover at some point, and that is the causes of the Civil War. This was one of the most pivotal moments in American history, but its causes are layered, complex, and often oversimplified in textbooks. So in today's episode, I will be breaking down the key causes of the Civil War so that you feel confident teaching this topic to your students. Whether you're teaching it for the first time or you're looking for a little refresher, this episode will help you go beyond surface level explanations and give your students the context that they need to understand this critical period in US history. So let's get started.

Kirsten 1:57

There were several causes of the Civil War, and it's nuanced in its own way, but I wanted to talk about the central issue that caused the Civil War, and that is slavery. While there were a variety of economic and political and social tensions, the system of enslaving human beings was the core issue that drove the division between the North and the South. You had your economic differences with the economy. They were vastly different in the north and the south. The North was more industrialized. They relied on factories, and also they relied on wage labor, and it wasn't the greatest either, because there were no regulations, so there were children working in these factories. But on the other hand, in the south, you have the economy depending on agriculture, and especially cotton tobacco. This fueled the whole cash crop system, and it was also really on the backs of enslaved people to do the manual labor. So southern leaders argued that their economy couldn't survive without this system of forced labor. And then there was the moral and political divide. You have the abolitionists in the north that viewed slavery as morally wrong, and they were actively working to end it. And meanwhile, many people in the south, including enslavers on plantations, they viewed slavery as essential to their way of life, and they even justified it in their own way as a quote, positive good. So this moral divide continued to create deep tensions within the two regions. And part of this economic, political, moral divide between the North and South, this is known as sectionalism. When you teach your students, you're usually talking about how the people, or group of people, feel more loyal to a section of their country than to the entirety of the country. So when you're teaching this particular part with slavery being the central issue, it's important to emphasize that this wasn't just an economic system. It was a system of oppression and human suffering that shaped every aspect of southern society, and it was deeply embedded. People were deeply divided over whether to keep it or to abolish it.

Kirsten 4:41

All right, let's talk about another major cause of the Civil War. This was the debate over states rights over federal power. So at its core, this was a question of who had the authority to make decisions about the legality of slavery. Is it individual states that have the power, or is it the federal government? So because of sectionalism, the North and the South had their own perspective. The southern perspective was that states had the right to decide whether or not to allow slavery. They believed that the federal government was overstepping its authority by trying to interfere with the state's decisions, whereas the northern perspective, particularly abolitionists, they believe the federal government had the responsibility to limit or abolish the practice of slavery in order to ensure justice inequality in accordance to the Constitution. This tension played out in events such as the Fugitive Slave Act, which required people in free states to return those who had escaped enslavement to the south. This law highlighted the growing divide over the role of the federal power in enforcing or dismantling the system of slavery. When you're teaching states rights versus federal power, you could always also use examples like the Missouri Compromise. That is just like a little basic overview of the states rights versus federal power and just how it increases the tensions leading to the Civil War.

Kirsten 6:22

Next we're going to - we kind of already talked about this - talk about another really important cause of the Civil War, and that is the economic and cultural differences. So you've got the industrial north. They are rapidly industrializing. They've got railroads, they've got factories, they've got urban centers, you got New York City, Philadelphia, all these major cities popping up, and this created a culture that valued innovation and wage labor and a growing middle class. Of course, you've got the downsides to it as well, with the lack of regulations of who works and when they work. They can work all seven days for just a little bit amount of money. They're living in really cramped apartments called tenements. Then you've got the agricultural south. There is not as many people living in the South in general, and the South was largely rural. The economy is dominated by plantations and the forced labor of enslaved people. This culture was deeply rooted in tradition and hierarchy, and who's at the top, who's at the bottom, the way of life that was tied to land ownership. So these differences created this lack of understanding and also resentment and sectionalism. Many southerners saw northerners as hypocritical and meddling into things, and northerners saw southern leaders as overly reliant on exploiting human beings.

Kirsten 7:58

Kirsten 9:48

All right, now that we've covered the main causes of the Civil War, I want to talk about how to present this information to your students in a way that's age appropriate, of course, and also engaging. Because I know this is a lot of just background information that's good for us to know, but I know, like every single nuance of it is probably not needed to know by your students, depending on their age level. So one way to present this information is through primary sources. You can use real speeches, letters, newspaper articles from the time period, and you could also show excerpts from Lincoln's inaugural address, or even the Dred Scott decision in writing- that would be really interesting to look at. I also recommend encouraging discussion. You can create opportunities for students to discuss these causes. You could ask open ended questions such as, why do you think slavery became such a divisive issue? Or you could ask something like, how might westward expansion have contributed to this conflict? Another suggestion is to use visual aids, using timelines, maps, diagrams, to help students understand how these events are interconnected. And you can even have like a, you know, butcher paper on the wall going into each different part, just so that they can see where things are chronologically. And you could also have even a map showing the states that allowed slavery and which ones didn't allow slavery during westward expansion. So you can see, you know, even where they are today, like, where am I in conjunction to you know which states allowed slavery and which states didn't. Another major thing, last but not least, emphasize empathy. Help students understand the human side of these events. Share stories if you can, of those who were enslaved, abolitionists, and ordinary citizens who were affected by the growing divide. This was one of the first wars that we have real photographs for. And of course, you know some of them are going to be graphic. Some of them are easily able to be shown at the upper elementary level. So at your discretion, you can kind of show what this looked like and how real it was. Before World War Two, this was the deadliest war in our country's history.

So to recap, the causes of the Civil War were complex and deeply rooted in the history and culture of the United States. And while the system of slavery was the central issue, it was also intertwined with debates over states rights and economic differences and westward expansion and political tensions. As teachers and educators, our goal is to help students understand not just the facts but the why behind these events. By breaking it down into manageable concepts and connecting it to the bigger picture, we can help students see how these causes led to one of the most defining conflicts in American history.

If you're looking for something that is completely tailored to upper elementary students. I do have a Civil War and Reconstruction unit. It's a three week unit. You can pick and pull lessons as needed, but there are 3 out of the 10 main lessons that are dedicated to the causes of civil war. We first talk about the sectionalism that happened in the differences between the North and the South. Then we talk about slavery and how this was deeply rooted into American society up to a certain point. And then the third cause we talk about, or the third main cause, is states rights and all the issues surrounding that, such as the Kansas Nebraska Act, as well as the Missouri Compromise. But then it goes even further into the major events, important figures, the effects of the Civil War and also the amendments that followed, such as amendment 13, which completely abolished slavery, and also just how the South had to rebuild during Reconstruction time. So if you're interested in this very comprehensive resource, I know there has been plenty of people who have really enjoyed this with their students, and even as home schooling parents. I've heard of parents using this. This this is a really great resource. I'll make sure to link it in the description so you can grab it

All right. Thanks for joining this episode and listening in. Maybe you might have learned something, or a couple of things, or maybe you've been able to refresh yourself, and I'm so glad that you've been able to tune in. Until next time, keep making history meaningful and engaging for your students. I'll talk to you again next week.

Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.