Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the Constitution
Social Studies Lesson Plan Template
Title:
The Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the Constitution
1. Overview - Big Ideas:
Enduring Understandings – It is important for student to understand this because slavery was a
major issue during the formation of the new nation and the affects of slavery and its aftermath still
linger today. The compromises on slavery documented in the Constitution may have been the catalyst
for the abolition movement and the Civil War decades later.
Essential Questions –

Where the founding fathers hypocrites or heroes or both?

Should the founding fathers who felt slavery was wrong refused to compromise with the
Southern States? If so, what may be the result?

What was the main purpose of the Constitution?
2. Lesson Objectives and Key Vocabulary:
Standards 
SS5A11 - Use primary and secondary sources to understand history.

SS5C11 - Explain how and Why the United States Government was formed.
Vocabulary - Slavery, congress, enumeration, ratify, representative, convention, ordinance,
compromise
3. Evidence of Student Understanding (Assessment) in this Lesson:
What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this lesson?

The learner will be able to use primary and secondary documents to better understand
historical content.

The learner will have a better understanding of slavery’s affect on the formation of the
United States and the U.S. constitution
What will students be able to do as a result of such knowledge and skills?

The learner will be able to express diverse and contrasting viewpoints in relation to
slavery and the Constitution

The learner will be able to demonstrate master y of related vocabulary

The learner will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the historical facts and theories of
the period discussed.
Both formative and summative assessments are included

Participation in discussion regarding the founding fathers, slavery, and the constitution

The student will write a speech to address the Constitutional Convention from the
viewpoint of a founding father who owned slaves and represented a southern state.

Student will take Brain pop quizzes
4. Materials Needed:

Advertisement by Thomas Jefferson for the return of runaway slave

Excerpt from letter to Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Banneker

Picture of "Am I Not a Man and a Brother"

Picture "The Effects of the Fugitive Slave Act"

Founding Fathers quotes on slavery

Copy of the Constitution
5. Steps to Deliver the Lesson:

Discuss the role of slavery in the period after the American Revolution and the role it
played in the new nation. Use the picture of the slave to generate comments from the
learners.

Discuss the founding fathers and the continental congress and slavery in the
constitution including Article I Section 9, the Enumeration clause and the Fugitive Slave
Act. Use the pictures of the African Slave and The Effects of the Fugitive Slave Act. Use
VTS (Visual-Thinking Strategy).
6. Specific Activities: (From Guided to Independent)

Students will do a kinesthetic activity to match their vocabulary word to another student
and their words.

Students will use Brain Pop Lesson on the Constitution and Slavery.

Students will use the computers to research information on one of the signers of the
Constitution including their views on Slavery.

Students will create their own Class Constitution in groups.
7. Differentiated Instruction Strategies:

Pair their students in groups.

Oral Assessments and Discussion.

Kinesthetic Vocabulary Activity.
Describe how you will accommodate a variety of student learning needs, remediation strategies as well
as enrichment strategies.
8. Technology Integration:




Students will watch brain pops on the Constitution and Slavery at brainpop.com and
take the online quizzes for each.
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/usconstitution/preview.weml
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/slavery/preview.weml
Students will be asked to find 10 people who signed the Constitution and quotes about
their views on Slavery.
Online Constitution Quiz http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/constitution_day/activities/quiz/
index.asp
Students will be assigned the name of a signer of the Constitution and asked to use the
computer to write a short biography along with their views on slavery.
Lesson Closure:
Class discussion focusing on the priority of the founding fathers to unite and preserve the new
nation juxtaposed against their positions on slavery and their relationship to slavery in their
personal lives. Did the compromises on slavery written in the Constitution plant the seeds for
the abolishment of slavery nearly 100 years later? Did the way that George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson treated there slaves affect the way you view them as slave owners?
The Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the Constitution
Evidence
Excerpt of Letter From Benjamin Banneker (freed slave) to Thomas Jefferson 1791
"This, Sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had
just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was now that your abhorrence thereof was so excited,
that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and
remembered in all succeeding ages : ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are,
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Here was a time, in which your tender feelings for yourselves
had engaged you thus to declare, you were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of
liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature; but, Sir, how
pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of
Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath
conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and
violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you
should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in
others, with respect to yourselves. "
Historical Content
 Slavery was first "legalized" in the Carolina colony in 1669 and was stated in
the Constitution
 The Ordinance of 1784 was drafted by a Congressional committee headed
by Thomas Jefferson, and its provisions applied to all United States territory
west of the original 13 states. The original version was read to Congress on
March 1, 1784, and it contained a clause stating:[4]'That after the year 1800
of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.'
Founding Father
Quote
Owned Slaves?
George Washington
“I can only say that
there is not a man
living who wishes
more sincerely than I
do to see a plan
adopted for the
abolition of it
[slavery].”
316 (including those
Yes
owned by his wife and
dowered to his estate
Benjamin Franklin
, "Slavery is such an
atrocious debasement of
human nature, that its
very extirpation, if not
performed with
solicitous care, may
sometimes open a
source of serious evils."
"It is much to be wished
that slavery may be
abolished. The honour
of the States, as well as
justice and humanity, in
my opinion, loudly call
upon them to
emancipate these
unhappy people. To
contend for our own
liberty, and to deny that
Several (at different
yes
times.) By the time of
the American
Revolution he became
a staunch abolitionist
John Jay
Signed Constitution
Yes. His father was
No. He retired from
the biggest slave
Congress prior to the
owner in New York.
signing.
The son became a
staunch abolitionist
and attempted to ban
slavery in New York
in 1777. He
eventually passed th
law in 1799 freeing all
blessing to others,
involves an
inconsistency not to be
excused." 1786
slaves in the state.
"There must doubtless
be an unhappy influence
on the manners of our
people produced by the
existence of slavery
among us. The whole
commerce between
master and slave is a
perpetual exercise of the
most boisterous
passions, the most
unremitting despotism
on the one part, and
degrading submissions
on the other. Our
children see this, and
learn to imitate it
Yes. As many as 223.
Patrick Henry
"I believe a time will
come when an
opportunity will be
offered to abolish this
lamentable evil.
Everything we do is to
improve it, if it happens
in our day; if not, let us
transmit to our
descendants, together
with our slaves, a pity
for their unhappy lot
and an abhorrence of
slavery." 1773
Yes. 75.
No. He was
suspicious of the new
government.
Alexander Hamiliton
"The existence of
slavery makes us
fancy many things
that are founded
neither in reason
Inconclusive, though
he did buy and sell
slaves on behalf of
others at times.
History paints him as
an abolitionist who
Yes
Thomas Jefferson
Later warned that
slavery must be
abolished to avoid an
inevitable slave
uprising. Writing in
1821 ""Nothing is more
No. He was overseas
serving as a diplomat.
certainly written in the
book of fate than that
these people are to be
free."
or experience."
Jphn Adams
“Consenting to slavery is
a sacrilegious breach of
trust, as offensive in the
sight of God as it is
derogatory from our own
honor or interest of
happiness”
No. His wife Abagail
was also against
slavery and paid her
African servants.
No. He was overseas
serving as a diplomat.
Yes. 100 willed to
him his father along
with his estate.
Although he owned
slaves all of his life he
is considered an
abolitionist
Yes
Janes Madison
"[I]f slavery, as a
national evil, is to
be abolished, and
it be just that it be
done at the
national expense,
the amount of the
expense is not a
paramount
consideration. "
Charles Cotesworth
Pickney
“The nature of our
Yes
climate, and the
flat swampy
situation of our
country, obliges us
to cultivate our
lands with Negroes,
and that without
them South
Carolina would be a
desert waste.”
Yes.
The Constitutional Compromise
In order for the Constitution to be signed, many compromises had to be made to appease the
representatives from different colonies. Slavery was not an exception to this rule.

The Enumeration Clause agrees to count slaves "other persons" as three fifths of a whole
person when determining the number of representatives a state is warranted. Significant,
because prior to this slaves were not counted as persons at all in the south, but as
property.

In Article 1, Section 9, Congress is limited, expressly, from prohibiting the "Importation" of
slaves, before 1808. Significant because it expressly implies that the importation of slaves would
be banned in the near future.
The Fugitive Slave Clause expressly requires that the state in which an escapee is found deliver
the slave to the state he escaped from "on Claim of the Party." Significant because the returning
of runaway slaves was one of the practices that ignited the abolition movement.
