Facts-Only History
Good morning, class. Today begins the roughly three days we have allotted by our state-mandated curriculum to cover the causes, major events, and impact of the American Civil War.
Unlike past units in which I’ve sometimes been guilty of inflicting my personal opinions and interpretations on your instead of just teaching you history, I’ll be making every effort to present the facts and only the facts. Evaluation, analysis, synthesis, or conclusions are entirely up to you. We've practiced these skills through structured activities, and you already, no doubt, supplement my unwittingly biased and inadequate methods via long, meaningful discussions with your parents and/or clergy, as well as extensive research of your own. Hopefully that will mitigate some of the ongoing damage I've done as a bumbling, leftist, possibly atheistic public school educator out to destroy American values.
It’s not my job to teach you what to think, after all – just to present everything that’s ever happened anywhere in or to our great nation in more or less chronological order without prioritization or unnecessary commentary.
The 1850s: Countdown to Civil War
In 1850, the U.S. census showed a population of 23,191,876.
In 1840 - 17,063,353.
In 1830 - 12,866,020.
In 1820 - 9,638,453.
In 1810 - 7,239,881.
Rather than me inflict my personal interpretations on which elements of this growth were significant, I refer you to the U.S. Census Bureau for more details and to several biased-but-comprehensive overviews of U.S. History which you may read in order to make upFacts-Only History | Blue Cereal Education: