Deck 9: Abolitionism in Black and White

Question 1

Which southern physician "discovered" that many blacks suffered from "draeptomania," an affliction which caused them to suddenly run away?

A)George Fitzhugh
B)James Henry Hammond
C)Beverly Tucker
D)Samuel Cartwright

Answer 1

Samuel Cartwright

Question 2

Gerrit Smith played an influential role in persuading Frederick Douglass to abandon which Garrisonian principle?

A)political noninvolvement
B)gradual emancipation
C)colonization
D)violent resistance

Answer 2

political noninvolvement

Question 3

How did President Andrew Jackson respond to southern postmasters who barred abolitionist literature from being sent through the mail?

A)He supported and encouraged the ban.
B)He condemned the ban and forced the postmasters to uphold the First Amendment.
C)He reserved judgment about the ban until after referring the matter to the Supreme Court.
D)He expressed sympathy for the postmasters,but urged them to lift the ban.

Answer 3

He supported and encouraged the ban.

Question 4

The American Foreign Anti-Slavery Society broke off from the American Anti-Slavery Society due to disagreements over all of the following issues EXCEPT

A)whether women's rights should be a component of the antislavery struggle.
B)whether abolitionists should condemn the Constitution for protecting slavery or employ it to end slavery.
C)whether or not abolition had to be accompanied by the colonization of freed slaves to Africa or the West Indies.
D)whether abolitionists should adopt a conciliatory or a denunciatory attitude toward churches which equivocated on the question of abolition.

Question 5

Disgruntled former students from Lane Theological Seminary helped to found which school that became a hub of antislavery activism and the first avowedly integrated school of higher learning?

A)Oberlin College
B)Princeton University
C)Mary Washington College
D)Howard University

Question 6

A pivotal moment in the abolitionist struggle was the publication of the first issue of The Liberator in 1831 by

A)David Walker.
B)William Lloyd Garrison.
C)Frederick Douglass.
D)Henry Highland Garnet.

Question 7

Which of the following statements about the divisions between white and black abolitionists is LEAST accurate?

A)White abolitionists sometimes expressed racist sentiments or excluded blacks from their meetings and organizations.
B)Black abolitionists grew frustrated with white abolitionists' refusal to condemn the disenfranchisement of northern blacks.
C)Whereas white abolitionists splintered into a variety of factions,black abolitionists generally shared the same views on how to end slavery.
D)Black abolitionists were generally more likely than white ones to suggest that violence was an acceptable means of ending slavery.

Question 8

Abolitionists argued against slavery on all of the following grounds EXCEPT

A)slavery was economically unsound because slaves had no incentive to work efficiently.
B)Jesus taught universal brotherhood.
C)the Constitution guaranteed freedom and equality for all men.
D)the American way of life valued freedom and the inalienable rights of individuals.

Question 9

Among which group was support for colonization the strongest?

A)slaveholders in the Upper South
B)slaveholders in the Deep South
C)free blacks in the Northeast
D)free blacks in the Upper South

Question 10

Who was the most famous black female abolitionist and advocate of women's rights?

A)Mary Ann Shadd
B)Sojourner Truth
C)Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
D)Sarah Parker Remond

Question 11

Which of the following statements about abolitionism and women's rights is MOST accurate?

A)White women's rights leaders such as Angela and Sarah Grimké opposed abolitionism as a distraction from their own cause.
B)Most prominent male abolitionists,including William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass,opposed the women's rights movement.
C)Women who spoke publicly in support of abolitionist causes faced verbal and physical attacks from hostile audiences.
D)All men engaged in the anti-slavery struggle recognized that a true commitment to freedom and equality required them to support the women's rights movement as well.

Question 12

In general,how did most black and many white abolitionists feel about the colonization movement?

A)They believed that African Americans must establish their own nation in order to maintain their liberty,and so believed that colonization must necessarily follow the abolition of slavery.
B)They believed that colonization was a perfidious program which strengthened racial prejudice and buttressed the system of slavery.
C)They believed that colonization was a necessary evil which would hasten the demise of slavery,even if it also increased racial prejudice.
D)They did not agree with all of the goals of the colonization movement,but they regarded the movement as a valuable ally in the struggle against slavery.

Question 13

Which South Carolina governor and senator defended slavery on the ground that every society needed its "mudsill," and blacks were the "mudsills" of the South?

A)George Fitzhugh
B)James Henry Hammond
C)Beverly Tucker
D)Samuel Cartwright

Question 14

What was the primary purpose of "vigilance societies"?

A)to help slaves escape to freedom
B)to weed out drinking,gambling,and prostitution from northern black communities
C)to lend money to free blacks hoping to start their own businesses
D)to ensure that black workers received pay and treatment equal to their white counterparts

Question 15

Whose Light and Truth,published in 1836,offered a history of the world which demonstrated black superiority and minimized the presence of whites?

A)Frederick Douglass
B)James McCune Smith
C)Lunsford Lane
D)Robert Benjamin Lewis

Question 16

What famous newspaper did Frederick Douglass found with Martin Delany in 1847?

A)The Liberator
B)Freedom's Journal
C)Mirror of Liberty
D)The North Star

Question 17

In general,how did proslavery defenses change from the beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century?

A)Apologists began to describe slavery as a positive good rather than a necessary evil.
B)Apologists abandoned religious claims and based their defenses of slavery solely on "scientific" theories.
C)Apologists began to argue that slavery would die a natural death as long as abolitionists did not end it prematurely.
D)Apologists began to abandon paternalistic arguments in favor of capitalistic ones.

Question 18

The murder of which white abolitionist newspaper editor in Alton,Illinois,revealed the depths of anti-abolitionist hatred in the northern states?

A)Elijah Lovejoy
B)William Lloyd Garrison
C)Arthur Tappan
D)David M.Reese

Question 19

From 1836 to 1845,Congress operated under a "gag rule" which

A)barred all discussion of slavery.
B)made it illegal to publish or distribute antislavery literature.
C)left antislavery petitions unaddressed.
D)prevented congressmen from expressing opposition to the slave system.

Question 20

Whose Appeal,first published in 1829,startled many Americans with its call for a violent uprising to end slavery?

A)David Walker
B)William Lloyd Garrison
C)Frederick Douglass
D)Henry Highland Garnet

Question 21

Which of the following statements about John Brown's raid is LEAST accurate?

A)The raid terrified white southerners,who viewed it as evidence that abolitionism would lead inevitably to slave rebellions.
B)The raid drew praise from most northerners,but made prominent whites such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson repudiate the antislavery cause.
C)Members of Brown's raiding party included not only whites but also several black men.
D)Brown planned to seize the arsenal at Harpers Ferry as part of a broader plan to instigate a large-scale operation against slavery.

Question 22

The Compromise of 1850 included all of the following measures EXCEPT

A)a more stringent fugitive slave law.
B)the admission of California as a free state.
C)the extension of the Missouri Compromise's 36° 30´ line across the territories acquired from Mexico.
D)the prohibition of the public sale of slave within the District of Columbia.

Question 23

Which of the following statements about the Underground Railroad is LEAST accurate?

A)Many slaves escaped by pretending to be whites.
B)Both black and white southerners assisted the Railroad's operations in the South.
C)The Railroad operated in such secrecy that slaveholders had no awareness of its existence.
D)Although the number cannot be established precisely,tens of thousands of slaves may have escaped along the Railroad.

Question 24

Which abolitionist contributed so much to the operations of the Underground Railroad that he became known as its president?

A)Frederick Douglass
B)Arthur Tappan
C)Theodore Dwight Weld
D)Levi Coffin

Question 25

The slaveholder Edward Gorsuch,while trying to retrieve fugitive slaves,was killed in September 1851 in a melee which came to be known as the

A)Bel Air Riot.
B)Christiana Riot.
C)Macon Riot.
D)Jerry Rescue.

Question 26

Whose scientific research into the environmental origins of racial difference provided the most erudite challenge to notions of innate black inferiority,earning him a spot in the otherwise all-white American Geographical Society?

A)James McCune Smith
B)Robert Benjamin Lewis
C)Solomon Northup
D)Austin Steward

Question 27

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act led directly to the establishment of which political party?

A)Republican Party
B)Free Soil Party
C)Liberty Party
D)Whig Party

Question 28

Which Ohio congressman was censured for praising a mutiny of slaves on board the Creole,bound from Virginia to an auction in New Orleans?

A)William Henry Seward
B)Gerrit Smith
C)Jermain Lougen
D)Joshua Giddings

Question 29

By what nickname was the escaped slave Henry Brown known?

A)"Box," because he escaped to the north packed inside of a shipping crate
B)"Engineer," because he led several dozen slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad
C)"Telegraph," because he developed a code for transmitting secret messages between members of the Underground Railroad
D)"Steamboat," because he charted a well-traveled escape route along the tributaries of the Ohio River

Question 30

In the Supreme Court cause of Prigg v.Pennsylvania (1842),the U.S.Supreme Court decided that

A)federal officials had a responsibility to return fugitive slaves but local state officials did not.
B)both federal and local state officials had an equal responsibility to return fugitive slaves.
C)although the Constitution allowed slaveholders to reclaim fugitive slaves,it did not require local state or federal officials to assist them in the process.
D)fugitive slaves could not be reclaimed from states which refused to recognize the legality of slavery.

Question 31

Chief Justice Roger Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case included all of the following provisions EXCEPT

A)slaves were not citizens of the United States,and could not bring suit in court.
B)free blacks were not citizens of the United States,and had no rights which whites must respect.
C)the federal government could bar slavery from territories,but not from existing states.
D)the Missouri Compromise had been unconstitutional.

Question 32

Which of the following statements about Harriet Tubman is MOST accurate?

A)She is generally credited with having established the Underground Railroad.
B)She was the only black conductor willing not only to assist runaway slaves,but to risk forays into the South to free them.
C)She developed a system for escapes based on daylight hours and newspaper publication dates.
D)Despite her exploits,she remained unknown until she revealed the details of her former career after the Civil War.