Center for Civic Education - Lincoln Bicentennial with Supplemental Lesson: Questions 1-4

Reviewing and Using the Lesson
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Question 1

What key events led to Abraham Lincoln’s rise from humble origins and relative obscurity to national prominence and the summit of political power in the United States of America?

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Question 2

Did President Lincoln usurp the constitutional authority of Congress in his exercise of executive power to defend the Union after the start of military conflict between the Union and the Confederate States?

• Evaluate Lincoln’s comments in his July 4, 1861, “Message to Congress,” about the use of executive powers in a time of national crisis.
• Evaluate the response of Congress to the president’s message.

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Question 3

Did President Lincoln’s suspensions of the writ of habeas corpus violate the Constitution?

• Evaluate Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s opinion in Ex parte Merryman.

• Evaluate President Lincoln’s response to Taney in his July 4, 1861, “Message to Congress.”

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Question 4

Do you agree with Lincoln’s position about the extension of slavery to the federal government’s western territories and his opposition to the popular sovereignty provision of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

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