Deck 14: The House Divided 1846-1861

Question 1

Why did Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)influence northerners' attitudes toward slavery?

A) It included scientific evidence of the effects of slavery on those enslaved.
B) It put forth a stirring moral indictment of slavery.
C) Stowe argued that the North was not responsible for the institution of slavery.
D) It suggested that northerners should pay for slaves to be sent to Africa.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What was a requirement of the Fugitive Slave Act,part of the Compromise of 1850?

A) Any runaway slave who reached the North would be considered free.
B) Slave commissioners received $10 for setting a slave free and $5 for returning a slave to his or her master.
C) Slave owners needed three witnesses in order to claim a runaway.
D) All citizens were expected to assist officials in apprehending runaway slaves.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which issue in the debate of 1849-50 led to the Compromise of 1850?

A) The balance of power between the North and the South in Congress
B) Whether or not the nation should engage in a civil war
C) Stricter interstate commerce regulations
D) Whether or not Congress should raise taxes on imports

Answer 3

A

Question 4

How did American politics change in the aftermath of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act?

A) The Democratic party ceased to exist.
B) The Whigs gained new strength and vitality.
C) Democrats came to dominate northern politics.
D) The Whig party disintegrated.

Question 5

According to Map 14.3: The Kansas-Nebraska Act,1854,which modern-day state was reserved for Indian habitation in the mid-nineteenth century?

A) Kansas
B) Oklahoma
C) Colorado
D) Arkansas

Question 6

In 1854,Illinois senator Stephen A.Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act and included a section repealing the Missouri Compromise because

A) he had never supported the Missouri Compromise in the first place.
B) he needed southern support to pass his legislation.
C) he pocketed bribes from southern legislators in return for supporting their causes.
D) he did not think the plan would cause controversy.

Question 7

What happened to most fugitive slaves once they were captured after the Fugitive Slave Act was enacted?

A) They were peacefully returned to their masters.
B) Abolitionists broke them out of jail.
C) Commissioners granted them freedom.
D) Masters declined to obtain them.

Question 8

What did the Wilmot Proviso of 1846 propose?

A) Slavery would be allowed to expand only into the area below the southern boundary of Missouri.
B) Any slaves taken in the area ceded by Mexico would be freed at age twenty-eight.
C) People living in the area ceded by Mexico could choose for themselves whether or not to permit slavery.
D) Slavery would be prohibited throughout the entire area ceded by Mexico.

Question 9

Per the Compromise of 1850,which state entered the union as a free state?

A) New Mexico
B) Utah
C) California
D) Arizona

Question 10

What effect did John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry have on the South?

A) It reassured southerners about the safety of slavery.
B) It convinced the southern states that secession was necessary.
C) It indicated that abolitionists would use violence to overthrow slavery.
D) It demonstrated the shortcomings of popular sovereignty.

Question 11

Why did the Democrats remain a national organization after 1854?

A) They made inroads into the North.
B) Gains in the South offset losses in the North.
C) They abandoned popular sovereignty in favor of a free-soil platform.
D) They welcomed former Whigs into their ranks.

Question 12

Why did the United States negotiate the Gadsden Purchase in 1853?

A) To secure mining rights in the Southwest
B) To remove troublesome Native Americans from the area ceded by Mexico
C) To support the dream of a southern route for the transcontinental railroad
D) To establish James Gadsden as a territorial governor

Question 13

Why did Zachary Taylor anger southerners when he became president in 1849?

A) He proposed a ten-year program to phase out slavery throughout the nation.
B) He introduced a new tariff bill that would affect cotton plantation owners.
C) He unveiled a new railroad-building plan that favored the North over the South.
D) He urged Congress to admit California and New Mexico to the Union as free states.

Question 14

How did the Mexican-American War affect American politics?

A) It allowed Congress to avoid the slavery issue for another decade.
B) It divided the nation based on the issue of slavery in the territories.
C) It gave rise to a new political party,the Know-Nothings.
D) It ended the era of military heroes as presidential candidates.

Question 15

Why did the Whigs lose the election of 1852?

A) Their "doughface" leaders were unpopular in the South.
B) They insisted on going with the unpopular incumbent,Millard Fillmore,for president.
C) They were less successful than the Democrats in bridging differences between northern and southern views.
D) They tried to avoid controversy by having no real platform.

Question 16

What did the Whigs do in an attempt to reunite their party during the presidential campaign of 1848?

A) Denounce abolitionists
B) Remain silent on the issue of slavery
C) Nominate a wealthy southerner who opposed slavery
D) Nominate a northerner who advocated popular sovereignty

Question 17

Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan proposed the doctrine of popular sovereignty,a measure that would allow

A) the Supreme Court to decide whether or not territories might sanction slavery.
B) a national referendum on the issue of slavery expansion.
C) people who settled the territories to decide whether or not they wanted slavery.
D) a special congressional commission to decide slavery's fate in the territories.

Question 18

Which Senator argued that,when it came to ending slavery,there was "a higher law than the Constitution"-the law of God?

A) William Seward
B) Henry Clay
C) Daniel Webster
D) John C.Calhoun

Question 19

This Know-Nothing cartoon promoted stereotypes of which two groups?

A) The abolitionists and slaveholders
B) Democrats and Republicans
C) Irish and German immigrants
D) Slaves and poor southern whites

Question 20

Who supported the Wilmot Proviso?

A) Northerners who wanted to reserve new lands for white settlers
B) Southerners who had concluded that slavery could not flourish in the West
C) Northerners and southerners who were morally opposed to slavery
D) Southerners who could not afford to relocate their plantations to the West

Question 21

Who,according to Lincoln,had the responsibility to stop the spread of slavery?

A) Southern planters
B) The Democratic party
C) Congress
D) State governments

Question 22

How did more moderate southern Democrats respond to the choice of John C.Breckenridge as presidential nominee?

A) They joined Republicans in an effort to preserve the Union.
B) They attempted to revive the Whig party.
C) They backed Breckenridge once he offered support for a federal slave code.
D) They organized the Constitutional Union party.

Question 23

What common thread wove together northern men to form the Republican party in 1854?

A) The conviction that the federal government should increase social reform efforts
B) The belief that Congress should move quickly to abolish slavery where it existed
C) The belief that citizenship was too easily achieved by ill-prepared foreigners
D) The opposition to the extension of slavery into any territory of the United States

Question 24

What did Douglas argue in what became known as the Freeport Doctrine?

A) The Dred Scott decision would very likely be reversed in the near future.
B) Settlers could ban slavery by not passing the laws necessary to protect slave property.
C) The Supreme Court could not supersede the implementation of popular sovereignty.
D) Halting slavery would cause dire financial consequences for the United States.

Question 25

What did the Supreme Court rule in its 1857 Dred Scott decision?

A) Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States.
B) The Missouri Compromise was constitutional.
C) Slaves were free once they visited northern states.
D) Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in the territories.

Question 26

What did Abraham Lincoln personally believe about slavery?

A) It would be acceptable with a few humane modifications.
B) It should be abolished immediately.
C) It was morally wrong.
D) It was dangerously misunderstood by most northerners.

Question 27

Early in the struggle to win Kansas,proslavery supporters

A) invaded Kansas to control the election through fraud and intimidation.
B) initiated the first orderly implementation of popular sovereignty.
C) saw that the cause was lost and retreated from the contest.
D) got no support from the presidential administration of Millard Fillmore.

Question 28

What happened when the first territorial legislature in Kansas met?

A) It voted to settle the slavery issue peacefully.
B) It voted to secede from the Union.
C) It enacted tough proslavery laws.
D) It voted to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act.

Question 29

How did Stephen A.Douglas respond in 1857 when proslavery forces in Lecompton,Kansas,drafted a constitution that many felt was fraudulent?

A) He stood solidly behind southern Democrats in supporting the document.
B) He demanded that the votes be recounted before he would take a stand on that issue.
C) He came out against the constitution.
D) He ignored the issue because he feared it would ruin his career.

Question 30

During their senatorial campaign debates,Douglas depicted Lincoln as

A) an abolitionist who loved blacks.
B) uninformed on key issues.
C) an avid supporter of the Fugitive Slave Act.
D) a political chameleon who changed his opinions to get votes.

Question 31

What was the result of the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

A) The Democrats shunned Douglas.
B) Douglas scored a landslide victory against Lincoln.
C) Lincoln became nationally known.
D) Lincoln defeated Douglas and became a U.S.senator.

Question 32

"The only classes of male persons required to pay taxes,and not at the same time allowed the privilege of voting,are aliens and minors.The objection in the case of aliens is their supposed want of interest in our institutions and knowledge of them.The objection in the case of minors is the want of sufficient understanding.These objections can not apply to women,natives of the city,all of whose property interests are here,and who have accumulated,by their own sagacity and industry,the very property on which they are taxed.But this is not all;the alien,by going through the forms of naturalization,the minor on coming of age,obtain the right of voting;...though so ignorant as not to be able to sign their names,or read the very votes they put into the ballot-boxes.Even drunkards,felons,idiots,and lunatics,if men,may still enjoy that right of voting to which no woman,however large the amount of the taxes she pays,however respectable her character,or useful her life,can ever attain." According to Harriet K.Hunt,why should women be given the right to vote?

A) Because they are tax-paying citizens
B) Because they are smarter than men
C) Because they have different interests than male voters and deserve to vote accordingly
D) Because of biblical precedents involving women voters

Question 33

The presidential election of 1856 revealed the

A) weakness of the Democratic party in the South.
B) strength of the new Republican party.
C) indifference of southern voters.
D) fundamental flaws in the electoral college system.

Question 34

Who did the Democrats nominate as their presidential candidate in the election of 1856?

A) James Buchanan
B) John C.Frémont
C) Stephen Douglas
D) Millard Fillmore

Question 35

"I fully agree with you that woman is terribly cramped and crippled in her present style of dress ...it seems that if she would enjoy entire freedom,she should dress just like a man.Why proclaim our sex on the house-tops,seeing that it is a badge of degradation,and deprives us of so many rights and privileges wherever we go? ...If nature has not made the sex so clearly defined as to be seen through any disguise,why should we make the difference so striking?" What did Elizabeth Cady Stanton refer in her 1855 letter to as "a badge of degradation"?

A) The inability of women to vote
B) Pregnancy
C) Women's fashion
D) Womanhood itself

Question 36

How did the Dred Scott decision increase sectional tension?

A) It lent credence to the belief in the North that a slave power conspiracy existed.
B) It indicated that the issue of slavery could be determined in any territory long before the moment of statehood.
C) It strengthened the Democratic party by unifying its northern and southern branches.
D) It precipitated the resignation of Supreme Court justices from the North.

Question 37

What happened to John Brown after his raid on Harper's Ferry?

A) He escaped to Massachusetts.
B) He was deported to Canada.
C) He was pardoned by the Republican governor.
D) He was executed.

Question 38

What happened when Democrats met to choose a presidential candidate in Charleston,South Carolina?

A) They agreed unanimously on Stephen A.Douglas.
B) They divided into southern and northern factions.
C) They selected Jefferson Davis as their candidate.
D) Their delegates agreed to reject popular sovereignty.

Question 39

What was the result of Preston Brooks's caning of Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner in 1856?

A) It settled a longstanding personal grievance between the men.
B) It further inflamed sectional passions over the institution of slavery.
C) It ended Sumner's long career in the Senate.
D) It resulted in Brooks becoming an outcast in his home state of South Carolina.

Question 40

In the mid-1850s,Abraham Lincoln's search for a political home was based on his

A) commitment to the abolition of slavery throughout the United States.
B) belief that nothing short of war would settle the slavery issue in the country.
C) desire to fight the Dred Scott decision.
D) opposition to the extension of slavery in the United States.

Question 41

Southerners felt so much hostility toward the Republican party during the presidential election of 1860 that

A) they burned Lincoln in effigy in most major areas of the South.
B) they boycotted the polls in numerous states.
C) ten states refused to allow Lincoln's name to appear on the ballot.
D) states passed laws allowing women to vote in order to defeat the Republicans.

Question 42

Explain the provisions of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act and the reaction to it in both North and South.

Question 43

Identify the chief factors that prompted Republicans to select Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for Illinois senator in 1858.

Question 44

Explain the process by which Stephen A.Douglas engineered the passage of the Compromise of 1850,and what was contained in this collection of bills.

Question 45

Why did Republican John C.Frémont's showing in the presidential election of 1856 worry southerners?

Question 46

In his first inaugural address,how did President Abraham Lincoln seek to assure southerners that they had nothing to fear from a Republican administration?

Question 47

Explain the basic northern arguments for and southern arguments against the Wilmot Proviso.

Question 48

Why did the slave states of the Upper South initially reject secession?

A) They believed the North would quickly send invading armies to the Upper South.
B) They had great difficulty in getting together a quorum of legislators to debate the issue.
C) They feared that secession would lead to a great slave rebellion.
D) They did not have as great a stake in slavery as the states in the Lower South.

Question 49

In his first inaugural address,Abraham Lincoln

A) reassured the South that he had no right to interfere with slavery where it existed.
B) threatened to declare war if any more southern states seceded from the Union.
C) promised he would not allow the South to fire the first shot in a civil war.
D) declared that he did not have the power to execute the law in states that had seceded.

Question 50

Why was John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry,Virginia,so significant to both northerners and southerners in America?

Question 51

Which southerner argued that "I consider slavery much more secure in the Union than out of it"?

A) Jefferson Davis
B) Howell Cobb
C) John Smith Preston
D) Alexander Stephens

Question 52

How did James Buchanan respond as the secession crisis loomed over the final weeks of his presidential administration?

A) He called several ineffective special sessions of Congress.
B) He remained in Washington and did nothing.
C) He urged the Supreme Court to rule on secession before Lincoln took office.
D) He prodded Congress to beef up the military in case there was a war.

Question 53

Who became the president of the new Confederate States of America?

A) Howell Cobb
B) John Smith Preston
C) Jefferson Davis
D) Alexander Stephens

Question 54

What made Abraham Lincoln an attractive candidate for the Republican nomination?

A) He supported high tariffs.
B) He represented the crucial state of Illinois.
C) His extreme racial views appealed to antislavery southerners.
D) He was good friends with powerful Democrats.

Question 55

In 1860,Abraham Lincoln was elected president because he had

A) a majority of the popular vote.
B) strong support in the more populous free states.
C) enough popularity to carry two crucial slave states.
D) three opponents who split the southern vote.

Question 56

Why were southerners so angry with President Zachary Taylor's position on the admission of California to the Union?

Question 57

How did the increasingly confident Republican party prepare for the election of 1860?

A) It expanded its platform to address issues beyond slavery.
B) It focused on the slavery issue with more intensity than ever.
C) It nominated John Bell for president.
D) It focused on gaining votes in the South.

Question 58

Cite the key economic and political factors that motivated Stephen A.Douglas to propose the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the way he did.

Question 59

Explain why southern Democrats walked out of the Democratic nominating convention in Charleston in 1860.What did this example of the Lower South Democrats "voting with their feet" say about the nation's sectional party configuration?

Question 60

Which was the first state to secede from the Union after Lincoln's election?

A) Virginia
B) Mississippi
C) South Carolina
D) Texas

Question 61

Explain how America's political parties realigned between the late 1840s and mid-1850s.What were the most important issues behind this realignment?

Question 62

By 1856,the Republican party had organized around the premise that the South was a profound threat to "free soil,free labor,and free men." Discuss how Republican fears were reflected in the violence in Kansas and the Senate as well as in decision-making in the Supreme Court.

Question 63

What was the relationship between westward expansion and slavery? How did the Mexican-American War contribute to the sectional conflict,and what compromises were created?

Question 64

The Compromise of 1850 began to come apart almost immediately,and the most contentious issue was the new Fugitive Slave Act.Discuss its effects on fugitive slaves as well as reactions to it in the North and South.

Question 65

Although morally opposed to slavery,Abraham Lincoln held the same opinion of African Americans as most white Americans did in the 1850s.Discuss how Lincoln was able to separate his personal feelings about African Americans from his convictions about slavery.How did he believe these views could keep the Union from breaking apart?