Slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Mexican War

Today we continued our look at slavery by listening to excerpts from slave narratives read by contemporary actors.

We looked at John Gast's "American Progress" and discussed the imagery.

We read an excerpt of John O'Sullivan's "Manifest Destiny" and other descriptions of America in the mid 19th century, then responded with a tweet.  Here's mine:

• check it: life-giving truth > hoary-headed hypocrisy #boundlessprairies #dazzlingrewards #WestwardHo!

We finished by dividing into groups to read a collection of pieces of evidence to help us explore the question: Was the Mexican War a justified war?  Why / why not?

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Tonight for homework you will be reading the first 8 pages of Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience."  

Here is a link to your homework assignment about it.