Deck 12: Reform and Politics, 1824-1845

Question 1

During the 1830s and 1840s, wide distribution of books and periodicals was made possible by

A) the advent of Rural Free Delivery.
B) the establishment of the United States Postal Service.
C) parcel post delivery.
D) power printing presses and better transportation.

Answer 1

power printing presses and better transportation.

Question 2

Which of the following was the largest of the communal utopian experiments in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century?

A) Brook Haven
B) The Davidians
C) The Shakers
D) New Harmony

Answer 2

The Shakers

Question 3

The Shakers were founded by

A) Charles Finney.
B) Ann Lee.
C) Lucretia Mott.
D) Lucy Wright.

Answer 3

Ann Lee.

Question 4

Which of the following was a reason for the emergence of temperance as a major issue in the 1840s and 1850s?

A) Alcohol became a symbol of evil because of its association with Sabbath violations, abusive husbands, and poor work habits.
B) It was revealed that organized crime was involved in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol.
C) Revelations about the health and mental problems of infants born to alcoholic mothers caused public concern.
D) Newspaper reporters documented and publicized widespread alcohol abuse within the Senate and House of Representatives.

Question 5

Horace Mann advocated

A) free, tax-supported education.
B) that teachers should concentrate on imparting the moral lessons to be learned from a study of the classics.
C) that education was a private, family concern and not the concern of the state.
D) religious indoctrination in state-supported schools.

Question 6

Which of the following is a belief held by the leaders of southern secessionist churches?

A) The perfectibility of humans is an impossible task.
B) The Second Coming will come about only when all slaves have been freed and equal rights under the law are extended to all races.
C) In striving toward the perfectibility of humans, we need only be concerned with whites and not with those of other, inferior races.
D) The guidance of benevolent masters will bring slaves to Christ, ensure the perfectibility of humans, and hasten the Second Coming.

Question 7

The leader of the movement seeking to reform the treatment of the mentally ill was

A) Susan B. Anthony.
B) Dorothea Dix.
C) Sarah Grimké.
D) Lucretia Mott.

Question 8

The first state to ban the use of alcohol except for medicinal purposes was

A) Maine.
B) Massachusetts.
C) South Carolina.
D) Vermont.

Question 9

Which of the following is true of the Brook Farm community?

A) The community's leaders encouraged the use of hallucinogenic drugs to achieve pure thought.
B) The community's members believed that Jesus had returned and that the Last Judgment had begun.
C) The residents rejected formal education and intellectual endeavors.
D) The community's members believed that the spiritual transcends the worldly.

Question 10

Which of the following was the most effective means by which reform associations of the 1830s and 1840s spread their message?

A) Rallies in major northern cities
B) Gatherings in the private homes of urban residents
C) Itinerant preachers
D) Mass production and distribution of newspapers and pamphlets

Question 11

The financial resources for the spread of evangelical reform often came from

A) northern state governments.
B) the members of Masonic lodges.
C) wealthy industrialists and merchants.
D) groups associated with recent Catholic immigrants.

Question 12

Which of the following statements is most consistent with the beliefs of Horace Mann?

A) Misery and crime can be ended through universal education.
B) Men are superior to women as teachers because they command obedience and discipline from their pupils.
C) The teaching of Christian religious principles should be the central focus of education.
D) Formal education should be reserved for the talented tenth, and vocational training should be available to the masses.

Question 13

The Second Great Awakening affected women in which of the following ways?

A) The movement adversely affected women by blaming them for the sins of American society.
B) The only impact the movement had on women was to reinforce the cult of domesticity.
C) By participating in organizations advocating moral reform, many women became politically involved for the first time.
D) Both the Episcopal and Methodist denominations allowed women to rise to the rank of bishop.

Question 14

The "benevolent empire" refers to which of the following?

A) Reform associations in the 1830s and 1840s that were inspired by the Second Great Awakening
B) The international relief organizations in the United States that gave aid to the impoverished of the earth
C) A loosely-knit organization of northern factory owners dedicated to the abolition of slavery.
D) The slave society of the Cotton South

Question 15

Which of the following touched the lives of more Americans than any other reform movement?

A) The temperance movement
B) The antigambling movement
C) The public education movement
D) The antiprostitution movement

Question 16

Which of the following is true of advocates of the "common school" movement?

A) They advocated teacher training and a lengthening of the school year.
B) They proposed that the state should assume responsibility for teaching lower-class children, but that upper- and middle-class children should be educated at home or in private institutions.
C) They advocated the building of state-supported technical and vocational schools.
D) They proposed that institutions of higher learning should be free to all who wanted to attend.

Question 17

The social reform movements associated with the Second Great Awakening began in

A) the mountainous areas of Virginia and North Carolina.
B) the Burned-Over District of western New York.
C) western Kentucky.
D) the Cotton South.

Question 18

What did the people associated with the Shaker community, the Mormon community, and Brook Farm have in common?

A) They wanted to establish a more communal environment to replace the excessive individualism associated with the emergence of a market economy.
B) They wanted to withdraw completely from civilized society.
C) They wanted to return to a state of nature.
D) They wanted to establish societies based on Biblical law.

Question 19

Which of the following is considered the most famous revival associated with the Second Great Awakening?

A) The Red River revival
B) The Pleasant Point revival
C) The Indian Creek revival
D) The Cane Ridge revival

Question 20

Which of the following statements is most consistent with the ideas preached by Charles G. Finney?

A) All humans are condemned to misery because of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
B) All souls are predestined to either heaven or hell.
C) The United States, like Sodom and Gomorrah, will be destroyed by God because of the depravity of its citizens.
D) Because sin is avoidable, anyone can achieve salvation.

Question 21

Which of the following is true of white abolitionists in the late eighteenth century?

A) They often did not advocate equal rights for African Americans.
B) They were usually of the middle and lower class.
C) They encouraged women to participate in the abolitionist movement.
D) They usually supported extending the right to vote to women.

Question 22

Which of the following is true of the Mormon community established in the Great Salt Lake valley?

A) All land was held, owned, and controlled by the church.
B) The church elders eventually controlled the territorial government of Utah.
C) The community rejected the use of farm machinery.
D) The Twelve Apostles extended equal rights to women, including the right to vote.

Question 23

Beginning with an Arkansas law passed in 1835, by 1860 sixteen additional states allowed

A) no-fault divorces.
B) married women the right to vote.
C) single, married, and divorced women to own and convey property.
D) children sixteen years of age and older to choose their own marriage partner.

Question 24

The most prominent and uncompromising advocate of immediate abolition during the 1830s and 1840s was

A) James G. Birney.
B) Henry Highland Garnet.
C) William Lloyd Garrison.
D) Elijah P. Lovejoy.

Question 25

How did South Carolina respond to the increase in the volume of antislavery mailings during the early 1830s?

A) The state established its own postal service, which refused to deliver any mail handled by the United States Postal Service.
B) Abolitionist literature entering the state was intercepted and burned.
C) The state paid for the mass printing and mailing of proslavery tracts to northern households.
D) In a nullification convention, the state declared such literature to be an unconstitutional exercise of free speech.

Question 26

After having been arrested and jailed for treason, Joseph Smith

A) wrote the Book of Mormon.
B) renounced the Mormon religion.
C) escaped from prison and led his followers to the Great Salt Lake Valley.
D) was murdered by opponents.

Question 27

Which of the following is true concerning the involvement of free blacks in the abolitionist movement during the nation's earliest years?

A) Free blacks established their own abolitionist societies through which they extended aid to fugitive slaves.
B) Free blacks did not speak in favor of abolition until a minority of whites had advocated the immediate end to slavery.
C) Free blacks, like antislavery whites, recognized William Lloyd Garrison as the nation's most representative abolitionist.
D) Free blacks were too busy trying to cope with a racist society to become concerned with those still enslaved.

Question 28

How did antislavery advocates associated with the American Colonization Society differ from those associated with the American Anti-Slavery Society?

A) Members of the American Colonization Society believed slavery was a sin; members of the American Anti-Slavery Society did not.
B) Members of the American Colonization Society favored forced emancipation; members of the American Anti-Slavery Society favored voluntary emancipation.
C) Members of the American Colonization Society were gradualists; members of the American Anti-Slavery Society were immediatists.
D) Members of the American Colonization Society did not believe slaveowners should be compensated when they emancipated their slaves; members of the American Anti-Slavery Society did.

Question 29

This person is considered the "prime mover" of the American Renaissance and the center of the transcendental movement.

A) James Fenimore Cooper
B) Ralph Waldo Emerson
C) Nathaniel Hawthorne
D) Herman Melville

Question 30

Liberia was founded in 1824 by which of the following?

A) The American Colonization Society
B) The leadership council of the African Methodist Episcopal church
C) Leaders of the Negro Convention Movement
D) The Masonic Order

Question 31

Which of the following is true of the American Anti-Slavery Society?

A) The organization's leaders and its members were united in their belief in women's rights.
B) The organization welcomed men and women of all races and all social classes.
C) The organization based its call for an end to slavery exclusively on economic arguments.
D) The organization called for a political solution that would bring a gradual end to slavery.

Question 32

The literature associated with the American Renaissance is characterized by

A) a realistic portrayal of life in an urban environment.
B) the portrayal of figures engaged in ruthless power struggles.
C) a rejection of the concepts embodied in the European romantic movement.
D) moral idealism and the use of American settings and characters to address universal themes.

Question 33

Most of the day-to-day conversion efforts by the American Antislavery Society were undertaken by

A) women.
B) politicians.
C) evangelists.
D) African Americans.

Question 34

Which of the following best expresses the belief of William Lloyd Garrison?

A) Slavery must be ended gradually.
B) A political solution is necessary to bring an end to slavery.
C) To end slavery, we must convince either the Whig party or the Democratic party to include an antislavery plank in their national platform.
D) Slavery can be ended by winning over the hearts of slavery owners and slavery supporters to Christ.

Question 35

Which of the following is considered to have launched the women's rights movement?

A) The Seneca Falls' Declaration of Sentiments
B) The publication of the Grimké sisters' books in 1838
C) The merger of the abolitionist and feminist movements in 1839
D) The emergence of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as national figures in the 1840s

Question 36

The founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society was

A) Martin Delany.
B) William Lloyd Garrison.
C) Arthur Tappan.
D) Theodore Weld.

Question 37

Which of the following is true of members of the Liberty Party?

A) They believed that the federal government should establish a reservation for African Americans in the western territories.
B) They advocated a federal resettlement program to aid newly freed slaves.
C) They believed that southern slaveowners should be compensated for their loss of property when they freed their slaves.
D) They believed that it was up to the states to abolish slavery.

Question 38

The Liberty Party was formed by

A) the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.
B) the American Colonization Society.
C) William Lloyd Garrison.
D) Frederick Douglass.

Question 39

In the pamphlet entitled Appeal . . . to the Colored Citizens, David Walker

A) encouraged slaves in the South to engage in passive resistance against their white masters.
B) informed slaves of the opportunities to escape through the network of people collectively known as the Underground Railroad.
C) advocated the violent overthrow of the institution of slavery.
D) called upon runaway slaves in the North to band together and invade the South.

Question 40

Which of the following is true of James G. Birney?

A) Birney was an ardent supporter of the women's rights movement.
B) Birney called for the colonization of African Americans.
C) Birney rejected the belief that there was a political solution to ending slavery.
D) Birney was an immediatist who rejected moral suasion in favor of political action to achieve the goal of ending slavery.

Question 41

The major issue in Jackson's campaign for re-election in 1832 was the

A) stationing of federal troops in South Carolina.
B) Second Bank of the United States.
C) gag rule.
D) Maysville Road veto.

Question 42

Which of the following is true of the multi-candidate presidential race of 1824?

A) Although John Quincy Adams was second in the electoral vote, he was elected because he led in popular votes.
B) John Quincy Adams had a majority of electoral votes and became president, but his major opponent, Andrew Jackson, became vice president.
C) Because no candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, assumed the presidency.
D) Although Andrew Jackson led in both popular and electoral votes, he was not elected.

Question 43

The Jacksonian Democrats favored

A) expanded government.
B) limited government.
C) reformist government.
D) nonpartisan government.

Question 44

Why did President Jackson reject the doctrine of nullification?

A) He believed that sovereignty rested with the people; therefore, he did not accept the idea of state sovereignty.
B) He was adamantly opposed to states' rights.
C) He totally distrusted the federal government.
D) He personally disliked Daniel Webster.

Question 45

The 1836 Specie Circular provided that only gold or silver would be accepted as payment for federal) lands sold to speculators.

A) lands sold to speculators
B) loans extended to corporations.
C) tariffs imposed on luxury items.
D) taxes owed by individuals.

Question 46

During the nullification crisis,

A) Jackson acknowledged the constitutional validity of the theory of nullification.
B) Calhoun and Clay drafted a compromise tariff to resolve the crisis.
C) the Supreme Court ruled that a state lacks the power to nullify a federal law.
D) a majority of southern states supported South Carolina's ordinance of nullification.

Question 47

With regard to the doctrine of nullification, John C. Calhoun asserted that federal legislation could be overruled by a

A) state governor.
B) state court.
C) special state convention.
D) state referendum.

Question 48

Andrew Jackson enhanced executive power relative to the power of Congress by making a major political weapon out of

A) treaty negotiations.
B) impoundment of funds.
C) the presidential veto.
D) cabinet appointments.

Question 49

Statistics indicate that between 1824 and 1840 the proportion of eligible voters actually voting in presidential elections

A) increased substantially.
B) increased slightly.
C) decreased substantially.
D) decreased moderately.

Question 50

How did the Whigs and the Democrats want to promote economic expansion?

A) Both the Whigs and the Democrats advocated a limited government.
B) The Whigs advocated a limited government; the Democrats advocated an activist government.
C) Both the Whigs and the Democrats advocated an activist government.
D) The Whigs advocated an activist government; the Democrats advocated a limited government.

Question 51

Which of the following is most likely to have been a Democrat in the 1840s?

A) A native-born evangelical Protestant
B) A free black man
C) A Congregationalist
D) An Irish Catholic

Question 52

In the 1840s and 1850s, what was the response of most male abolitionists to the idea of extending the right to vote to women?

A) Support
B) Neutrality
C) Opposition
D) Toleration

Question 53

Which of the following is true of the Jacksonian Democrats?

A) They were generally proponents of high protective tariffs.
B) They favored government action to stimulate economic growth.
C) They believed in strong central government that actively promoted religious reform.
D) They sought to foster the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society.

Question 54

During Jackson's presidency, there was a substantial increase in the power of the

A) diplomatic branch of government.
B) judicial branch of government.
C) executive branch of government.
D) legislative branch of government.

Question 55

The Antimasons introduced which of the following to national politics?

A) The convention system for choosing candidates
B) The direct presidential primary election
C) The campaign for a straight party-line ticket
D) The distribution of campaign literature through the mail

Question 56

In the 1830s, an individual's political party affiliation was primarily determined by

A) geographic region.
B) economic occupation.
C) religion and ethnicity.
D) wealth and social standing.

Question 57

The evangelical Protestants of the 1840s and 1850s were most closely associated with the

A) Whig Party.
B) Federalist Party.
C) Democratic Party.
D) American Party.

Question 58

Which of the following is true of President Andrew Jackson?

A) He strongly supported the educational reforms advocated by Horace Mann and advocated federal aid to education.
B) Out of his desire to cleanse the body politic, he supported the temperance and antiprostitution movements.
C) Promoting a limited role for government, he used the veto more often than all previous presidents combined.
D) Believing that government could be a force for good in society, he favored the use of the positive power of government.

Question 59

How did the majority of states choose their presidential electors by the time of the 1824 presidential election?

A) Through the caucus system
B) By popular vote
C) Through the state legislature
D) By special state convention

Question 60

After Jackson was re-elected in 1832, he took away the power of the Bank of the United States to regulate the economy by

A) persuading Congress to revise its charter.
B) depositing federal funds in state-chartered banks.
C) closing most of its branch banks.
D) issuing an executive order that curtailed the bank's regulatory powers.

Question 61

Adopted by the House of Representatives in 1836, the gag rule

A) ordered the immediate arrest of any and all persons engaged in the slave trade in Washington, D.C.
B) ordered the cessation of debate in southern state legislatures over South Carolina's ordinance of nullification.
C) made it illegal for anyone in the United States to speak against slavery.
D) automatically tabled abolitionist petitions and thus prevented debate on them.

Question 62

Which of the following is true of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty?

A) The treaty settled the boundary dispute between the United States and Great Britain over the Oregon Country.
B) It resulted in an agreement between the United States and Great Britain on the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick and along the Great Lakes.
C) It resulted in Great Britain relinquishing all claims to Texas.
D) By the treaty, the United States and Great Britain agreed to the westernmost boundary of the Louisiana Purchase.

Question 63

Which of the following advantages did the Whigs enjoy in the 1840 presidential campaign?

A) They were seeking to re-elect an incumbent.
B) Harrison was a spellbinding orator who insisted on running an issue-oriented campaign.
C) They had put together a huge majority of registered voters.
D) They could blame the nation's economic problems on their opponents.

Question 64

Why is President John Tyler referred to as a president without a party?

A) Tyler refused to affiliate with either the Whig party or the Democratic party and ran as an independent candidate.
B) Tyler's decision to switch officially from the Whig party to the Democratic party caused so much animosity that neither party accepted him.
C) Because the Whig party disbanded soon after Tyler's election, he was left without a party organization and without a political platform.
D) Although Tyler ran on the Whig ticket with William Henry Harrison, he was a Democrat at heart and opposed the Whig congressional program.

Question 65

During the presidency of John Tyler,

A) the United States negotiated its first treaties with China.
B) the United States annexed the Hawaiian islands.
C) the Bank of the United States was rechartered.
D) the powers of the presidency waned while the powers of Congress expanded.

Question 66

The independent treasury bill enacted during the Van Buren administration

A) was designed to help banks survive the economic crisis that began in 1837.
B) stimulated the use of paper currency.
C) required all government funds to be kept in a central treasury.
D) was a deflationary economic measure.