Question 1

After all the compromises enacted to preserve the Union between 1820 and the 1850s,why were there no new compromises over slavery in 1861?

Accepted Answer

Answer would ideally include:
- History of Compromises: Previous compromises regarding the spread of slavery to new states and territories had all failed.This history led some participants to believe that any additional effort at compromise would also fail.
- Crittenden Compromise: Lincoln's election in November 1860 intensified southerners' fears and created a secession movement that,by December,had led to the withdrawal of several southern states.The Crittenden Compromise proposed a constitutional amendment to protect existing slavery and the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific.Acting on strict instructions from Lincoln,who planned to take a harder line when he was inaugurated,congressional Republicans rejected it.The sides had become too polarized to compromise.

Question 2

The Crittenden Compromise of 1861 included a proposal to

Accepted Answer

A)   amend the Constitution to protect slavery where it already existed.
B)   repeal the Kansas-Nebraska Act and eliminate the practice of popular sovereignty.
C)   prohibit slavery in any future territories acquired by the United States.
D)   make Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln co-presidents of the United States. A

Question 3

Which of the following statements describes the American Party,or Know-Nothings,that emerged in the North in the 1850s?

Accepted Answer

A)   The American Party originated in anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic societies of the 1840s.
B)   Its nickname referred to opponents' jibes that it "knew nothing" about solving the political crises of the 1850s.
C)   Despite gaining much attention,the Know-Nothings failed to win control of any state government or any seats in Congress.
D)   Only southern voters who were equally fearful of both immigrants and the "slave power" joined the party in large numbers. A

Question 4

Which of the following developments occurred during the 1852 presidential campaign?

Accepted Answer

A)   Whigs renominated Millard Fillmore because of his vigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act and support of popular sovereignty.
B)   Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce as a compromise candidate because he was a congenial man with southern sympathies.
C)   Northern and southern Whigs resolved their differences over the Compromise of 1850 and supported their nominee,Winfield Scott.
D)   The American Party nominated former president and ardent expansionist John Tyler for the presidency.

Question 5

In 1854,why did Senator Stephen A.Douglas introduce a bill to extinguish Native American rights in the Great Plains and organize the northern segment of the Louisiana Purchase into a large territory called Nebraska?

Accepted Answer

A)   He wanted to negate the Missouri Compromise and open the area to slaveholders.
B)   He wanted to build a transcontinental railroad from Chicago to northern California.
C)   He wanted to win support for his presidential candidacy among northern Democrats.
D)   He wanted to disprove the allegation that the Great Plains area was a desert and thus unsuitable for settlement.

Question 6

During the 1850s,proslavery American expansionists attempted to acquire which of the following regions?

Accepted Answer

A)   Haiti
B)   Panama
C)   Cuba
D)   The Bahamas

Question 7

At which of the following points did the states of the Lower South secede and organize a provisional government of the Confederate States of America headed by Jefferson Davis?

Accepted Answer

A)   Before the presidential election of 1860
B)   Before the popular votes were counted and Lincoln's election became apparent
C)   After Lincoln rejected the proposed Crittenden Compromise
D)   Before Buchanan left the White House and Lincoln was inaugurated

Question 8

Why did Harriet Beecher Stowe pen her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin,which was published in 1852?

Accepted Answer

A)   Stowe wanted to promote African colonization as the best solution to the evils of slavery.
B)   Stowe wanted women to leave any church that did not preach against slavery.
C)   Stowe wanted more white northern women to join abolitionist societies.
D)   Stowe sought to depict slavery as degrading,especially to slave women.

Question 9

The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act led to which of the following outcomes?

Accepted Answer

A)   The Kansas and Nebraska territories were admitted as free states.
B)   Stephen Douglas's political career ended.
C)   President Pierce signed the Ostend Manifesto.
D)   The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was repealed.

Question 10

What 1858 event catapulted Abraham Lincoln to national prominence?

Accepted Answer

A)   The Kansas-Nebraska Act
B)   The raid on Harper's Ferry
C)   The debates with Senator Stephen Douglas
D)   The Dred Scott decision

Question 11

During the 1840s and 1850s,Roman Catholic churches in the United States were known for

Accepted Answer

A)   providing community services and a sense of group identity for most Irish and many German immigrants.
B)   loosening many of their ties to the Church in Rome in hopes of gaining more American converts.
C)   emphasizing their spiritual functions while neglecting secular matters such as politics and economics.
D)   closing their doors to immigrants in order to protect themselves against nativist violence and bad publicity.

Question 12

What did the Wilmot Proviso,introduced in Congress in 1846,propose to do?

Accepted Answer

A)   Permit slavery in any new state or territory where the voters wished to allow it
B)   Prohibit slavery in any territory the United States acquired from Mexico
C)   Protect existing slavery in the South and legislate its end by 1900
D)   Prohibit slavery in any new territory acquired by the United States

Question 13

Which statement describes why John Brown's 1859 raid exacerbated the growing divide in the United States on the slavery issue?

Accepted Answer

A)   To many slave owners,it showed the lengths to which abolitionists would go to end slavery.
B)   Northerners were infuriated that Brown and his followers were so easily convicted and executed.
C)   Southern Democrats worried about the British-backed raid's effect on American sovereignty.
D)   Brown's capture of the army's only significant depot showed how poorly prepared the U.S.military was for war.

Question 14

Answer the following  questions :
-Gadsden Purchase

Accepted Answer

A)  Lands taken by the United States in the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) .
B)  Whig politicians who opposed the U.S.-Mexico War on moral grounds,maintaining that the purpose of the war was to expand and perpetuate control of the national government.
C)  The 1846 proposal by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania to ban slavery in territory acquired from the U.S.-Mexico War.
D)  The political argument,made by abolitionists,free soilers,and Republicans in the pre-Civil War years,that southern slaveholders were using their unfair representative advantage under the three-fifths compromise of the Constitution,as well as their clout within the Democratic Party,to demand extreme federal proslavery policies (such as annexation of Cuba) that the majority of American voters would not support.
E)  A political movement that opposed the expansion of slavery.In 1848 members of this movement organized their own political party,which depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and to the Jeffersonian ideal of a freeholder society,arguments that won broad support among aspiring white farmers.F) A discriminatory tax adopted in 1850 in the California Territory,that forced Chinese and Latin American immigrant miners to pay high taxes for the right to prospect for gold.The tax effectively drove these miners from the gold fields.G) A plan,first promoted by Democratic candidate Senator Lewis Cass as "squatter sovereignty," then revised as "popular sovereignty" by fellow Democratic presidential aspirant Stephen Douglas,under which Congress would allow settlers in each territory to determine its status as free or slave.H) The more than 80,000 settlers who arrived in California in 1849 as part of that territory's gold rush.I) Laws passed in 1850 that were meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories.Key elements included the admission of California as a free state and a new Fugitive Slave Act.J) Laws enacted in many northern states that guaranteed to all residents,including alleged fugitives,the right to a jury trial.K) An 1854 treaty in which,after a show of military force by U.S.Commodore Matthew Perry,leaders of Japan agreed to permit American ships to refuel at two Japanese ports.L) A small slice of land (now part of Arizona and New Mexico) purchased by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from New Orleans to Los Angeles.M) Private paramilitary campaigns,mounted particularly by southern proslavery advocates in the 1850s,to seize additional territory in the Caribbean or Latin America in order to establish control by U.S.-born leaders,with an expectation of eventual annexation by the United States.N) An 1854 manifesto that urged President Franklin Pierce to seize the slave-owning province of Cuba from Spain.Northern Democrats denounced this aggressive initiative,and the plan was scuttled.O) A pattern by which immigrants find housing and work and learn to navigate a new environment,and then assist other immigrants from their family or home area to settle in the same location.P) Opposition to immigration and to full citizenship for recent immigrants or to immigrants of a particular ethnic or national background,as expressed,for example,by anti-Irish discrimination in the 1850s and Asian exclusion laws between the 1880s and 1940s.Q) A controversial 1854 law that divided the Indian Territory into Kansas and Nebraska,repealed the Missouri Compromise,and left the new territories to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty.Far from clarifying the status of slavery in the territories,the Act led to violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas."R) The 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.The Court ruled against slave Dred Scott,who claimed that travels with his master into free states and territories made him and his family free.The decision also denied the federal government the right to exclude slavery from the territories and declared that African Americans were not citizens.

Question 15

Answer the following  questions :
-Dred Scott decision

Accepted Answer

A)  Lands taken by the United States in the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) .
B)  Whig politicians who opposed the U.S.-Mexico War on moral grounds,maintaining that the purpose of the war was to expand and perpetuate control of the national government.
C)  The 1846 proposal by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania to ban slavery in territory acquired from the U.S.-Mexico War.
D)  The political argument,made by abolitionists,free soilers,and Republicans in the pre-Civil War years,that southern slaveholders were using their unfair representative advantage under the three-fifths compromise of the Constitution,as well as their clout within the Democratic Party,to demand extreme federal proslavery policies (such as annexation of Cuba) that the majority of American voters would not support.
E)  A political movement that opposed the expansion of slavery.In 1848 members of this movement organized their own political party,which depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and to the Jeffersonian ideal of a freeholder society,arguments that won broad support among aspiring white farmers.F) A discriminatory tax adopted in 1850 in the California Territory,that forced Chinese and Latin American immigrant miners to pay high taxes for the right to prospect for gold.The tax effectively drove these miners from the gold fields.G) A plan,first promoted by Democratic candidate Senator Lewis Cass as "squatter sovereignty," then revised as "popular sovereignty" by fellow Democratic presidential aspirant Stephen Douglas,under which Congress would allow settlers in each territory to determine its status as free or slave.H) The more than 80,000 settlers who arrived in California in 1849 as part of that territory's gold rush.I) Laws passed in 1850 that were meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories.Key elements included the admission of California as a free state and a new Fugitive Slave Act.J) Laws enacted in many northern states that guaranteed to all residents,including alleged fugitives,the right to a jury trial.K) An 1854 treaty in which,after a show of military force by U.S.Commodore Matthew Perry,leaders of Japan agreed to permit American ships to refuel at two Japanese ports.L) A small slice of land (now part of Arizona and New Mexico) purchased by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from New Orleans to Los Angeles.M) Private paramilitary campaigns,mounted particularly by southern proslavery advocates in the 1850s,to seize additional territory in the Caribbean or Latin America in order to establish control by U.S.-born leaders,with an expectation of eventual annexation by the United States.N) An 1854 manifesto that urged President Franklin Pierce to seize the slave-owning province of Cuba from Spain.Northern Democrats denounced this aggressive initiative,and the plan was scuttled.O) A pattern by which immigrants find housing and work and learn to navigate a new environment,and then assist other immigrants from their family or home area to settle in the same location.P) Opposition to immigration and to full citizenship for recent immigrants or to immigrants of a particular ethnic or national background,as expressed,for example,by anti-Irish discrimination in the 1850s and Asian exclusion laws between the 1880s and 1940s.Q) A controversial 1854 law that divided the Indian Territory into Kansas and Nebraska,repealed the Missouri Compromise,and left the new territories to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty.Far from clarifying the status of slavery in the territories,the Act led to violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas."R) The 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.The Court ruled against slave Dred Scott,who claimed that travels with his master into free states and territories made him and his family free.The decision also denied the federal government the right to exclude slavery from the territories and declared that African Americans were not citizens.

Question 16

John Brown's 1859 raid on what town further exacerbated the growing divide in the United States on the slavery issue?

Accepted Answer

A)   Pottawatomie,Kansas
B)   Gettysburg,Pennsylvania
C)   Nashville,Tennessee
D)   Harper's Ferry,West Virginia

Question 17

Answer the following  questions :
-forty-niners

Accepted Answer

A)  Lands taken by the United States in the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) .
B)  Whig politicians who opposed the U.S.-Mexico War on moral grounds,maintaining that the purpose of the war was to expand and perpetuate control of the national government.
C)  The 1846 proposal by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania to ban slavery in territory acquired from the U.S.-Mexico War.
D)  The political argument,made by abolitionists,free soilers,and Republicans in the pre-Civil War years,that southern slaveholders were using their unfair representative advantage under the three-fifths compromise of the Constitution,as well as their clout within the Democratic Party,to demand extreme federal proslavery policies (such as annexation of Cuba) that the majority of American voters would not support.
E)  A political movement that opposed the expansion of slavery.In 1848 members of this movement organized their own political party,which depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and to the Jeffersonian ideal of a freeholder society,arguments that won broad support among aspiring white farmers.F) A discriminatory tax adopted in 1850 in the California Territory,that forced Chinese and Latin American immigrant miners to pay high taxes for the right to prospect for gold.The tax effectively drove these miners from the gold fields.G) A plan,first promoted by Democratic candidate Senator Lewis Cass as "squatter sovereignty," then revised as "popular sovereignty" by fellow Democratic presidential aspirant Stephen Douglas,under which Congress would allow settlers in each territory to determine its status as free or slave.H) The more than 80,000 settlers who arrived in California in 1849 as part of that territory's gold rush.I) Laws passed in 1850 that were meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories.Key elements included the admission of California as a free state and a new Fugitive Slave Act.J) Laws enacted in many northern states that guaranteed to all residents,including alleged fugitives,the right to a jury trial.K) An 1854 treaty in which,after a show of military force by U.S.Commodore Matthew Perry,leaders of Japan agreed to permit American ships to refuel at two Japanese ports.L) A small slice of land (now part of Arizona and New Mexico) purchased by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from New Orleans to Los Angeles.M) Private paramilitary campaigns,mounted particularly by southern proslavery advocates in the 1850s,to seize additional territory in the Caribbean or Latin America in order to establish control by U.S.-born leaders,with an expectation of eventual annexation by the United States.N) An 1854 manifesto that urged President Franklin Pierce to seize the slave-owning province of Cuba from Spain.Northern Democrats denounced this aggressive initiative,and the plan was scuttled.O) A pattern by which immigrants find housing and work and learn to navigate a new environment,and then assist other immigrants from their family or home area to settle in the same location.P) Opposition to immigration and to full citizenship for recent immigrants or to immigrants of a particular ethnic or national background,as expressed,for example,by anti-Irish discrimination in the 1850s and Asian exclusion laws between the 1880s and 1940s.Q) A controversial 1854 law that divided the Indian Territory into Kansas and Nebraska,repealed the Missouri Compromise,and left the new territories to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty.Far from clarifying the status of slavery in the territories,the Act led to violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas."R) The 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.The Court ruled against slave Dred Scott,who claimed that travels with his master into free states and territories made him and his family free.The decision also denied the federal government the right to exclude slavery from the territories and declared that African Americans were not citizens.

Question 18

Answer the following  questions :
-Mexican cession

Accepted Answer

A)  Lands taken by the United States in the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) .
B)  Whig politicians who opposed the U.S.-Mexico War on moral grounds,maintaining that the purpose of the war was to expand and perpetuate control of the national government.
C)  The 1846 proposal by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania to ban slavery in territory acquired from the U.S.-Mexico War.
D)  The political argument,made by abolitionists,free soilers,and Republicans in the pre-Civil War years,that southern slaveholders were using their unfair representative advantage under the three-fifths compromise of the Constitution,as well as their clout within the Democratic Party,to demand extreme federal proslavery policies (such as annexation of Cuba) that the majority of American voters would not support.
E)  A political movement that opposed the expansion of slavery.In 1848 members of this movement organized their own political party,which depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and to the Jeffersonian ideal of a freeholder society,arguments that won broad support among aspiring white farmers.F) A discriminatory tax adopted in 1850 in the California Territory,that forced Chinese and Latin American immigrant miners to pay high taxes for the right to prospect for gold.The tax effectively drove these miners from the gold fields.G) A plan,first promoted by Democratic candidate Senator Lewis Cass as "squatter sovereignty," then revised as "popular sovereignty" by fellow Democratic presidential aspirant Stephen Douglas,under which Congress would allow settlers in each territory to determine its status as free or slave.H) The more than 80,000 settlers who arrived in California in 1849 as part of that territory's gold rush.I) Laws passed in 1850 that were meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories.Key elements included the admission of California as a free state and a new Fugitive Slave Act.J) Laws enacted in many northern states that guaranteed to all residents,including alleged fugitives,the right to a jury trial.K) An 1854 treaty in which,after a show of military force by U.S.Commodore Matthew Perry,leaders of Japan agreed to permit American ships to refuel at two Japanese ports.L) A small slice of land (now part of Arizona and New Mexico) purchased by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from New Orleans to Los Angeles.M) Private paramilitary campaigns,mounted particularly by southern proslavery advocates in the 1850s,to seize additional territory in the Caribbean or Latin America in order to establish control by U.S.-born leaders,with an expectation of eventual annexation by the United States.N) An 1854 manifesto that urged President Franklin Pierce to seize the slave-owning province of Cuba from Spain.Northern Democrats denounced this aggressive initiative,and the plan was scuttled.O) A pattern by which immigrants find housing and work and learn to navigate a new environment,and then assist other immigrants from their family or home area to settle in the same location.P) Opposition to immigration and to full citizenship for recent immigrants or to immigrants of a particular ethnic or national background,as expressed,for example,by anti-Irish discrimination in the 1850s and Asian exclusion laws between the 1880s and 1940s.Q) A controversial 1854 law that divided the Indian Territory into Kansas and Nebraska,repealed the Missouri Compromise,and left the new territories to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty.Far from clarifying the status of slavery in the territories,the Act led to violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas."R) The 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.The Court ruled against slave Dred Scott,who claimed that travels with his master into free states and territories made him and his family free.The decision also denied the federal government the right to exclude slavery from the territories and declared that African Americans were not citizens.

Question 19

Which of the following statements describes Virginia's secession after the outbreak of the war?

Accepted Answer

A)   One of Virginia's military heroes,Robert E.Lee,led the movement for secession.
B)   The ordinance of secession passed at the convention by only one vote.
C)   Due to its strong patriotic history,Virginia was the last southern state to join the Confederacy.
D)   Many Virginia whites voted against secession but lost to those in favor of secession 88 to 55.

Question 20

Answer the following  questions :
-Ostend Manifesto

Accepted Answer

A)  Lands taken by the United States in the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) .
B)  Whig politicians who opposed the U.S.-Mexico War on moral grounds,maintaining that the purpose of the war was to expand and perpetuate control of the national government.
C)  The 1846 proposal by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania to ban slavery in territory acquired from the U.S.-Mexico War.
D)  The political argument,made by abolitionists,free soilers,and Republicans in the pre-Civil War years,that southern slaveholders were using their unfair representative advantage under the three-fifths compromise of the Constitution,as well as their clout within the Democratic Party,to demand extreme federal proslavery policies (such as annexation of Cuba) that the majority of American voters would not support.
E)  A political movement that opposed the expansion of slavery.In 1848 members of this movement organized their own political party,which depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and to the Jeffersonian ideal of a freeholder society,arguments that won broad support among aspiring white farmers.F) A discriminatory tax adopted in 1850 in the California Territory,that forced Chinese and Latin American immigrant miners to pay high taxes for the right to prospect for gold.The tax effectively drove these miners from the gold fields.G) A plan,first promoted by Democratic candidate Senator Lewis Cass as "squatter sovereignty," then revised as "popular sovereignty" by fellow Democratic presidential aspirant Stephen Douglas,under which Congress would allow settlers in each territory to determine its status as free or slave.H) The more than 80,000 settlers who arrived in California in 1849 as part of that territory's gold rush.I) Laws passed in 1850 that were meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories.Key elements included the admission of California as a free state and a new Fugitive Slave Act.J) Laws enacted in many northern states that guaranteed to all residents,including alleged fugitives,the right to a jury trial.K) An 1854 treaty in which,after a show of military force by U.S.Commodore Matthew Perry,leaders of Japan agreed to permit American ships to refuel at two Japanese ports.L) A small slice of land (now part of Arizona and New Mexico) purchased by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from New Orleans to Los Angeles.M) Private paramilitary campaigns,mounted particularly by southern proslavery advocates in the 1850s,to seize additional territory in the Caribbean or Latin America in order to establish control by U.S.-born leaders,with an expectation of eventual annexation by the United States.N) An 1854 manifesto that urged President Franklin Pierce to seize the slave-owning province of Cuba from Spain.Northern Democrats denounced this aggressive initiative,and the plan was scuttled.O) A pattern by which immigrants find housing and work and learn to navigate a new environment,and then assist other immigrants from their family or home area to settle in the same location.P) Opposition to immigration and to full citizenship for recent immigrants or to immigrants of a particular ethnic or national background,as expressed,for example,by anti-Irish discrimination in the 1850s and Asian exclusion laws between the 1880s and 1940s.Q) A controversial 1854 law that divided the Indian Territory into Kansas and Nebraska,repealed the Missouri Compromise,and left the new territories to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty.Far from clarifying the status of slavery in the territories,the Act led to violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas."R) The 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.The Court ruled against slave Dred Scott,who claimed that travels with his master into free states and territories made him and his family free.The decision also denied the federal government the right to exclude slavery from the territories and declared that African Americans were not citizens.

Exam 12: Sectional Conflict and Crisis, 1844-1860