Deck 14: The Sectional Crisis

Question 1

Which of the following was true about the Compromise of 1850?

A) It temporarily restored sectional peace.
B) It failed to pass Congress despite revisions.
C) It prohibited slavery in the New Mexico territory.
D) It made it easier for escaped slaves to hide in the West.
E) It temporarily made California a slave state.

Answer 1

It temporarily restored sectional peace.

Question 2

Who was the "great pacificator" who established the Compromise of 1850?

A) John C. Calhoun
B) Henry Clay
C) Lewis Cass
D) Zachary Taylor
E) Roger B. Taney

Answer 2

Henry Clay

Question 3

What action took place after proslavery adherents raided Lawrence,the free-state capital of Kansas,in 1856?

A) John Brown and his followers killed five Native Americans in a land dispute.
B) A mob of angry settlers attacked and killed five escaped slaves.
C) An escaped slave killed a family of five white settlers.
D) John Brown killed eight abolitionists in Kansas.
E) John Brown and his followers killed five proslavery settlers in cold blood.

Answer 3

John Brown and his followers killed five proslavery settlers in cold blood.

Question 4

When did the "irrepressible conflict" over slavery in the territories begin?

A) the late 1840s
B) the mid-1860s
C) the early 1830s
D) the late 1700s
E) the late 1850s

Question 5

In the first House vote on the Wilmot Proviso,party lines crumbled and the vote split ________.

A) along party lines
B) along sectional lines
C) along religious lines
D) along socioeconomic lines
E) along gender lines

Question 6

During the presidential election of 1856,what did the Republican Party platform call for?

A) popular sovereignty in the territories
B) prohibition of slavery in the territories
C) election of Fillmore, who opposed Buchanan
D) secession from the United States
E) election of Buchanan, who opposed Fillmore

Question 7

What did the Ostend Manifesto of 1854 accuse the Pierce administration of doing?

A) accepting bribes from southern plantation owners
B) conspiring with Northerners to make the U.S. a "free soil wasteland"
C) wanting to punish the working class through taxation
D) wanting to create a "Caribbean slave empire" by annexing Cuba
E) discriminating against recent immigrants through unfair voting laws

Question 8

In 1856,which antislavery Senator was almost beaten to death on the floor of the U.S.Senate by Representative Preston Brooks?

A) Thaddeus Stevens
B) John C. Calhoun
C) Charles Sumner
D) Zachary Taylor
E) William Graham Sumner

Question 9

The founding of which party was the first significant effort to create a broadly based sectional party addressing itself to voters' concerns about the extension of slavery?

A) Free-Soil Party
B) Whig Party
C) Republican Party
D) Democratic Party
E) Know-Nothing Party

Question 10

What was the main reason that many native-born Americans disliked Irish and German immigrants?

A) because they were mostly communists
B) because they were mostly illiterate
C) because they were mostly Jewish
D) because they were mostly Roman Catholic
E) because they were mostly atheists

Question 11

What law did Stephen Douglas need to repeal in order to gain southern support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

A) the Wilmot Proviso
B) the Missouri Compromise
C) the Compromise of 1850
D) the Bill of Rights
E) the new Fugitive Slave Law

Question 12

The tension between ________ became nearly insurmountable in the years between the elections of 1856 and 1860.

A) blacks and whites
B) Northerners and Southerners
C) immigrants and native-born citizens
D) farmers and factory owners
E) Southerners and former slaves

Question 13

In what area did the Wilmot Proviso propose to ban slavery?

A) in the northern states
B) in the southern states
C) in territory acquired from Mexico
D) in any future U.S. territories
E) from all U.S. lands

Question 14

What does the term "second party system" refer to?

A) the two-party system of American politics from about 1790
B) the party system from about 1830 to 1850
C) the creation of a new third political party in the 1940s
D) the political party not in power in government
E) a total shift in American politics

Question 15

Which part of the Compromise of 1850 was most opposed by Northerners?

A) admission of California as a free state
B) opening of New Mexico and Utah territories to slavery under popular sovereignty
C) reduction of Texas to its present boundaries
D) enactment of the new Fugitive Slave Law
E) prohibition of slavery in the District of Columbia

Question 16

Which political party wanted to extend the period of naturalization in order to weaken immigrant voter strength?

A) Free-Soil party
B) Whig party
C) Know-Nothing party
D) Democratic party
E) Liberty party

Question 17

In 1854,Stephen Douglas proposed a bill that would set up territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska on the basis of ________.

A) the Compromise of 1850
B) Free-Soil ideology
C) congressional approval or disapproval of slavery
D) presidential approval or disapproval of slavery
E) popular sovereignty

Question 18

A small-scale civil war over slavery broke out in the late 1850s between rival regimes of which state?

A) Missouri
B) Kansas
C) South Carolina
D) Tennessee
E) Texas

Question 19

Which notable Southern author wrote proslavery polemics?

A) Edgar Allan Poe
B) Henry David Thoreau
C) Herman Melville
D) James Russell Lowell
E) Ralph Waldo Emerson

Question 20

Under the Compromise of 1850,who would determine whether a territory would have slavery,per the principle of squatter sovereignty,or popular sovereignty as it was later called?

A) Congress
B) territorial legislatures
C) the state's constitutional convention
D) the Supreme Court
E) the House of Representatives

Question 21

What ultimately resulted from the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

A) It shattered sectional harmony.
B) It revived support for an expansionist foreign policy.
C) It strengthened the political power of the Whig Party.
D) It had little effect on sectional tensions.
E) It never got the congressional support it needed for passage.

Question 22

What was true of most Northerners during the 1840s?

A) They disliked slavery, but opposed abolition.
B) They were fierce and loyal abolitionists.
C) They supported the institution of slavery.
D) They were apathetic about the slavery issue.
E) They felt that slavery was starting to spread to the North.

Question 23

Why was it difficult for northern abolitionists to develop a practical program that would eliminate the institution of slavery throughout the country?

A) Southern states generally had much better lawyers than northern states.
B) There was a serious lack of strong northern congressional leadership.
C) The Constitution protected state laws that allowed slavery.
D) Southern plantation owners donated heavily to northern political candidates.
E) The issue of slavery was overshadowed by more pressing problems.

Question 24

What were the different stands Democrats and Whigs took on annexation and slavery in new territories?

A) Democrats endorsed expansion and both free and slave states, while Whigs opposed annexation to avoid the slavery debate.
B) Democrats opposed annexation to avoid the slavery debate, while Whigs endorsed expansion and both free and slave states.
C) Both Democrats and Whigs endorsed expansion, but Democrats wanted the new territories to allow slavery while the Whigs did not.
D) Both Democrats and Whigs endorsed expansion, but Whigs wanted the new territories to allow slavery while the Democrats did not.
E) Neither party endorsed expansion, but if it was inevitable, the Whigs encouraged the spread of slavery while the Democrats did not.

Question 25

How did the Republican Party manage to gain so much support in the 1850s?

A) It was sympathetic toward immigrants.
B) It supported agricultural expansion.
C) It wanted to prohibit slavery in the territories.
D) It supported the Catholic Church.
E) It supported progressive labor laws.

Question 26

Harriet Beecher Stowe published her abolitionist novel ______ in 1852,and it was enormously successful.

A) Uncle Tom's Cabin
B) The Impending Crisis of the South
C) Tom Sawyer
D) Up from Slavery
E) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Question 27

In the South,how was James Buchanan's winning of the 1856 presidential election viewed?

A) with a temporary sense of relief
B) as a long-term victory for the southern cause
C) as a victory for Free-Soil supporters
D) with a strong sense of dismay
E) as evidence of the strength of the North's threat

Question 28

What issue brought the case of Dred Scott v.Sanford to the Supreme Court?

A) A slave owner sued for damages because he was beaten severely by an abolitionist.
B) A slave owner sued for damages because abolitionists helped his slaves.
C) A slave sued for damages because he was beaten severely by a white owner.
D) An escaped slave sued for his freedom because he was caught in a free territory.
E) A slave sued on the grounds that he had lived in a free state and so he should be a free man.

Question 29

Which does NOT help explain why Whig Party candidate General Winfield Scott was crushed in the 1852 presidential campaign?

A) The Compromise of 1850 weakened the political differences between Whigs and Democrats.
B) The Whigs did not succeed in rallying public interest in a major political issue.
C) The Whigs alienated nativists by actively seeking the immigrant vote.
D) The Whig nominee lost northern support by allying himself with the antislavery wing of the party.
E) The Whig nominee lost southern support by allying himself with the antislavery wing of the party.

Question 30

Which was the intended message of southern literature during the 1840s and 1850s?

A) Genteel southern civilization was superior to greedy northern culture.
B) Southerners should reevaluate their dependency on slavery.
C) Southerners should try to change their culture to be more like Northerners.
D) Southerners should maintain slavery but dismantle the plantation system.
E) Southern morals should be more strictly based on the Protestant ethic.

Question 31

What made Northerners so opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854?

A) It permitted slavery in all the states west of the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
B) It permitted slavery in all the states east of the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
C) It permitted slavery in an area where it had previously been prohibited.
D) It made it much more difficult for escaped slaves to find freedom in the North.
E) It abolished slavery in all the states west of the Kansas and Nebraska territories.

Question 32

Which of the following men was NOT a presidential candidate in the 1860 election?

A) John Bell
B) John Breckinridge
C) Stephen Douglas
D) Millard Fillmore
E) Abraham Lincoln

Question 33

Why did the Free-Soil movement support the exclusion of slavery from the territories?

A) It believed in racial justice.
B) It believed in the immorality of slavery.
C) It feared the outbreak of slave insurrections in the territories.
D) It feared labor competition from slaves.
E) Most western land was unsuited for plantation agriculture.

Question 34

What was one of the effects of the new Fugitive Slave Law that was passed as part of the Compromise of 1850?

A) It became easier for escaped slaves to stay free.
B) It became easier to kidnap and enslave free African Americans.
C) It became easier for slaves to sue for their freedom.
D) It became easier for slaves to purchase their freedom.
E) It became more difficult for plantation owners to reclaim their escaped slaves.

Question 35

What was revealed by the Republican Party's nominating convention for the 1856 presidential election?

A) The party received broad-based support throughout the nation.
B) It was primarily a sectional party.
C) The party was made up of farmers and laborers.
D) The party was made of southern planters.
E) The party had to struggle in its first years of existence.

Question 36

How did Abraham Lincoln argue about slavery in his debates with Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Senate race?

A) He favored abolishing slavery in all the states and territories.
B) He favored restricting slavery to the states where it was most profitable.
C) He favored restricting slavery to the states where the Constitution protected it.
D) He favored using popular sovereignty to decide the slavery issue in new territories.
E) He favored allowing slavery in newly acquired territories.

Question 37

What made the Compromise of 1850 so difficult to pass?

A) President Taylor opposed the compromise, and congressmen kept granting key concessions to rival parties.
B) President Taylor was for the compromise, but congressmen kept granting key concessions to rival parties.
C) The compromise was broken into too many small and ineffective measures.
D) President Taylor died and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, who opposed the compromise.
E) President Taylor supported the compromise, but key senators kept proposing new compromises before a vote could be taken.

Question 38

What happened in 1859 in Harpers Ferry,Virginia?

A) The federal arsenal was attacked in an unsuccessful attempt to start an uprising against slavery.
B) A slave rebellion resulted in the deaths of eighteen participants.
C) A group of white men raided a southern abolitionist office and killed five white and black anti-slavery protestors.
D) White men and women seized eighteen slaves in order to forcibly emancipate them in Mexico.
E) A group of white and black abolitionists killed three slave owners and wounded five others.

Question 39

What was true about the sectional quarrel between North and South during the 1840s and early 1850s?

A) It was primarily expressed in political terms.
B) It was entirely expressed in legal, constitutional terms.
C) It had little impact on the common man.
D) It was increasingly seen in cultural and intellectual terms.
E) It had reached an uneasy but peaceful stalemate by 1860.

Question 40

Why did the doctrine of popular sovereignty fail in the 1854 Kansas territorial government elections?

A) voter apathy
B) illegal voting by Missouri residents
C) a lack of enthusiasm from voters
D) a lack of compelling candidates
E) extremists' destruction of polling centers

Question 41

How did the people of each section increasingly view each other during the 1850s? What events intensified their fears and resentments? How did this lead to the breakup of the Union?

Question 42

Most of the emotional impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin came from what?

A) its portrayal of Southerners as greedy, immoral barbarians
B) its portrayal of northern abolitionists as heroic defenders of morality
C) its evidence that slaves were just as evil as the slave owners
D) its portrayal of slavery as a necessary evil that needed to be preserved
E) its portrayal of slavery as a threat to the family and the cult of domesticity

Question 43

Discuss the major elements of the Compromise of 1850 and how they were an attempt to balance the requirements of pro- and antislavery factions in the United States.Why did the compromise ultimately fail?

Question 44

Why did the acquisition of Texas,New Mexico,and California cause conflict in the United States?

A) The Constitution did not establish the status of slavery in future states, so whether or not those territories would allow slavery was hotly debated.
B) The new territories were all north of the Missouri Compromise line, which threatened to disrupt the balance between slave and free states.
C) The Missouri Compromise mandated that those territories should be free, but the economies of the territories were already completely dependent on slavery.
D) Mexico kept claiming the territories even after they had been annexed to the United States.
E) Citizens in those territories refused to pay taxes to a federal government that they did not support.

Question 45

What ultimately led to the Republican success in the election of 1860?

A) Republicans compromised on the issue of slavery.
B) Republicans were able to win decisively in the North.
C) Republicans won significant southern support.
D) Abraham Lincoln offered the potential for sectional harmony.
E) The Democrats dropped out of the race.

Question 46

What was the difference between northern and southern evangelicalism in the mid-1800s?

A) Northern evangelicalism focused on self-discipline and social reform; southern evangelicalism focused on personal piety.
B) Northern evangelicalism focused on personal piety; southern evangelicalism focused on philanthropy.
C) Northern evangelicalism focused on the virtues of the family unit; southern evangelicalism focused on helping the poor.
D) Northern evangelicalism focused on philanthropy; southern evangelicalism focused on self-discipline.
E) Northern evangelicalism focused on conversion of the poor; southern evangelicalism focused on personal piety.

Question 47

Why did the Republican Party call for "free soil" in the territories rather than freedom for African Americans?

A) Focusing on land rather than people would make it easier to pass legislation through Congress.
B) The party knew that achieving its dream of liberating all African Americans was unrealistic, so it settled on the compromise of "free soil."
C) The party was focusing on "free soil" as a first step in the eventual freedom of all African Americans.
D) Putting the focus on the laws of the land rather than the freedom of African Americans would prevent isolating the hard line racists in the party.
E) Abolitionism conflicted with the North's commitment to both white supremacy and the original constitutional compromise about slavery.

Question 48

How did Southerners react to Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860?

A) They celebrated the end of sectionalist tensions that plagued the nation.
B) They were optimistic that Lincoln would preserve their interests.
C) They redoubled their efforts to win the next congressional election.
D) They resigned themselves to being permanent minorities in America.
E) They launched a movement to secede from the Union.

Question 49

What was Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery in his debates with Stephen Douglas?

A) He suggested a new balance between slave and free territories.
B) He took a position similar to Douglas on the issue of slavery.
C) He suggested that not opposing slavery was the same as endorsing it.
D) He differed with the Republican platform by supporting slavery in new territories.
E) He avoided discussing the issue of slavery altogether.

Question 50

What was the impact of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry?

A) It increased southern fears of northern hostility.
B) It was condemned by most Northerners.
C) It had little effect on sectional tensions.
D) It united North and South in their condemnation of Brown.
E) It has been exaggerated by historians.

Question 51

What do most modern historians believe was the underlying cause of the breakup of the Union?

A) religious leaders promising salvation or damnation to each side
B) politicians and agitators stirring public opinion into a frenzy
C) ideological differences over the morality and utility of slavery
D) a clash of economic interests between agrarian and industrialized regions
E) infighting within political parties

Question 52

How did national political parties help to hold the Union together during the 1840s and early 1850s? What role did the failure of the two-party system play in the breakup of the Union?

Question 53

In the Dred Scott v.Sanford decision,which of the following was the one thing the Supreme Court did NOT rule?

A) An African American could not be a citizen of the United States.
B) Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in federal territories.
C) The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
D) The Democratic platform was unconstitutional.
E) Slaves could not pursue justice through the court system.