The USA in the 19th Century: Westward
expansion and the Civil War 1803 – c.1890
Consequences of the Mexican War: Who presented
the most valid solution to deal with acquisitions
from the Mexican war?
Activity 1
This activity has been designed to enable students to critically evaluate the proposed solutions to
deal with the land gained from the Mexican War. This activity promotes higher order thinking skills
and requires students to bring in their prior knowledge of sectional tension. The class should be spilt
into groups of four. Each member of the group takes responsibility for a proposed solution for
dealing with the vast territory gained as a result of the Mexican War (The Wilmot Proviso, The
Calhoun Doctrine, Popular Sovereignty and Continuation of the Missouri Compromise line).
Individually they record basic information about their solution (the proposal, strengths, weaknesses,
key supporters). The group must share their solutions and work out which one would appeal to the
most people. They must then present the solutions as a giant jigsaw; solutions that would appease
more than one group should be linked together with the explanation of parity explained in the
interlinking section of the jigsaw piece. The group should then come to an overall judgement about
which solution represented the best way to deal with the newly acquired territory, which solution
would be the most amenable (or the least upsetting) to the populace.
Resources:
The American Civil War: Causes, course and consequences pages 38-40.
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The USA in the 19th Century: Westward expansion and the Civil War 1803 – c.1890
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Activity 1
Calhoun Doctrine to the notion of Popular Sovereignty as the notion of Popular Sovereignty
gives power to the people, not the states, which would please supporters of the Calhoun
Doctrine who wanted to see a reduction in the power of the states.
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The USA in the 19th Century: Westward expansion and the Civil War 1803 – c.1890
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TASK: produce a giant jigsaw to represent the proposed solutions to the crisis over how to deal
with the new territory.
The jigsaw should be designed in such a fashion that the pieces (solutions) fit together – an
explanation of how the solution would be amicable to each party should be made in the linking
section of the jigsaw.
It should also present an overall assessment of who presented the most valid solution.
Use pages 38-40 of ‘The American Civil War: Causes, course and consequences’ to find out about
each solution.
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The USA in the 19th Century: Westward expansion and the Civil War 1803 – c.1890
© OCR 2015