Lesson Six: The Court System in Action
In this Lesson the students will become lawyers. They will have the job of defending their sides on a very important court case from Lincoln's cases.
The first thing we are going to do is review what a lawyer is and what their job is. Lawyers represent people in court. The try and argue on behalf of a person so that they can win the trial or case. They do research and interview witnesses and clients to prepare for trial. There are two sides which are the prosecutor and the defense.
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Who is in charge of trying to prove the other guilty?
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Who is trying to prove they are innocent?
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Who listens to all the evidence and gives a verdict?
Today I will be the jury and the judge and the students are going to be the lawyers. They will split into two sides. The prosecuting team will be represnting Captian John Hurd and the defense will be represeting the Rock Island Railroad Company.
The prosecuting team will being trying to prove that Captain John Hurd was not trying to run into the bridge and that it was Rock Island Railroad Company's fault for building it in the first place.
The defense will being trying to prove that Captain John Hurd was trying to run into the bridge in protest of its existance. The students will have their very own court documents. This booklet will be thiers to gather evidence from. It contains all the information regarding background information and actual arguements used by Lincoln. Each piece of evidence can be used on either the prosecuting side of the defense side.
Resources
Freedman, R. (1987). Lincoln: A photobiography. New York: Clarion Books.
Pfeiffer, D. (2004) "Bridging the Mississippi." Prologue Magazine.
27 Jan. 2007. http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/bridge.html.
