8th+Grade+History

Preview of 8th Grade History
 * Development of American Constitutional Democracy
 * Federalist Papers (authored by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay) and the role of such [|leaders] as Madison, George Washington, Roger Sherman, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson in the writing and ratification of the Constitution
 * Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom as a forerunner of the First Amendment and the origins, purpose, and differing views of the founding fathers on the issue of the separation of church and state
 * Bill of Rights
 * Principles of federalism, dual sovereignty, separation of powers, checks and balances, the nature and purpose of majority rule, and the ways in which the American idea of constitutionalism preserves individual right
 * American Political System
 * Conflicts between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton resulted in the emergence of two political parties
 * Basic law-making process and how the Constitution provides numerous opportunities for citizens to participate in the political process and to monitor and influence government (e.g., function of elections, political parties, interest groups)
 * Functions and responsibilities of a free press
 * Aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation
 * U.S. foreign policy in the early Republic
 * War of 1812
 * Native Americans from first known contact with the Vikings to today.
 * 1800 to 1850's
 * Immigration
 * American education system from its earliest roots, including the roles of religious and private schools and Horace Mann’s campaign for free public education
 * Women’s suffrage movement (e.g., biographies, writings, and speeches of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Fuller, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony)
 * Origins and development of slavery; its effects on African Americans and on the region’s political, social, religious, economic, and cultural development
 * Texas War for Independence and the Mexican-American War (also called the U.S. Invasion of Mexico), including territorial settlements, the aftermath of the wars, and the effects the wars had on the lives of Americans, including Mexican Americans today
 * Attempts to Abolish Slavery
 * Leaders of the movement included John Quincy Adams and his proposed constitutional amendment, John Brown and the armed resistance, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, and Frederick Douglass
 * Annexation of Texas and California’s admission to the union as a free state under the Compromise of 1850
 * The Civil War
 * Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and his significant writings and speeches and their relationship to the Declaration of Independence, such as his “House Divided” speech (1858), Gettysburg Address (1863), Emancipation Proclamation (1863), and inaugural addresses (1861 and 1865)
 * Views and lives of leaders such as Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Robert E.Lee and others
 * Lasting Consequences of Reconstruction
 * Freedmen’s Bureau and the restrictions placed on the rights and opportunities of freedmen, including racial segregation and “Jim Crow” laws
 * The word "Jim Crow" actually comes from a song written by Thomas Dartmouth Rice
 * The effect of the Ku Klux Klan
 * Industrial Revolution