Lesson by Ron Nash
Essay by Sharon Ann Murphy, Providence College
Grade Level: 9–12
Number of Class Periods: 3–4
Primary Era: National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
About This Lesson Plan Unit
Over the course of three to four lessons, the students will analyze five primary source documents. These documents represent five different points of view concerning President Andrew Jackson’s veto of the recharter of the national bank. Students will closely analyze these primary sources with the goals of not only understanding the literal but also inferring the more subtle messages. Their understanding will be assessed using an organizer as well as a dramatic culminating activity.
Lesson Plan Author: Ron Nash
Historical Background Essay by: Sharon Ann Murphy, Providence College
Additional Information About This Unit
Common Core State Standards
Common Core State Standards
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.2: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
What was the purpose of the Bank of the United States?
How did Andrew Jackson explain his decision to veto the charter of the Bank of the United States?
How did Americans try to discredit Jackson’s veto?
Why did Americans think that the bank question was important?
Documents
Documents
President Jackson’s Bank Veto Message, July 10, 1832, Veto Message from the President of the United States, Returning the Bank Bill, with His Objections, &c., Herald Office, Washington DC
Daniel Webster, Reply to Jackson’s Bank Veto Message, July 11, 1832, in the Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the First Session of the Twenty-Second Congress: Together with An Appendix, Containing Important State Papers and Public Documents and the Laws, of a Public Nature, Enacted During the Session: with a Copious Index to the Whole, vol. 8, no. 1, Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1838
Letter from Nicholas Biddle to Charles J. Ingersoll, February 11, 1832, in The Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle Dealing with National Affairs, 1807–1844
“The Bank Veto,” Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express, August 9, 1832
George Bancroft on the Bank of the United States from “Mr. Bancroft’s Letters, No. 1,” Lancaster (PA) Journal, December 12 and 19, 1834