Deck 11: The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861

Question 1

What situation led to the Compromise of 1850? ​

A)California's request to join the Union as a free state
B)A disagreement over the route for a transcontinental railroad
C)​A proposal to abolish the slave trade in the nation's capital
D)​None of these

Answer 1

California's request to join the Union as a free state

Question 2

After winning an unfair election in Kansas in 1854,proslavery proponents took control of the territorial legislature at what city? ​

A)Lecompton
B)Pottawatomie
C)​Topeka
D)​Lawrence
E)​Kansas City

Answer 2

Lecompton

Question 3

Who was the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin? ​

A)Simon Legree
B)Harriet Beecher Stowe
C)​Edgar Allan Poe
D)​James Russell Lowell
E)​Frederick Douglass

Answer 3

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Question 4

Popular sovereignty failed in the 1854 Kansas elections in part because of which of the following? ​

A)Voter apathy
B)Voting fraud committed by John Brown's followers
C)​Illegal voting by Missouri residents
D)​The failure to clearly identify the key issues

Question 5

Franklin Pierce,winner of the 1852 presidential election,was a member of which political party?​

A)Whig
B)Republican
C)​Democratic
D)​Know-Nothing
E)​Nativist

Question 6

Which of the following best describes the attitudes of white northerners toward African Americans in the early 1850s? ​

A)Rigid and paternalistic
B)Ambivalent
C)​Accepting
D)​Tolerant and condescending
E)​Puzzled but unafraid

Question 7

Which of the following occurred in the election of 1848? ​

A)Democrats nominated Lewis Cass,who believed in popular sovereignty.
B)Antislavery Democrats nominated Zachary Taylor.
C)​The Whig Party and its candidate,Zachary Taylor,denounced slavery.
D)​Taylor won the election with a massive popular majority.
E)​Taylor refused to run on the Democratic ticket.

Question 8

The Know-Nothings gained support for a time through the defections of many disgruntled members of which political party? ​

A)Republican
B)Democratic
C)​Free-Soiler
D)​Whig
E)​Anti-Mason

Question 9

After the 1860 election,the Democrats retained control of which government body? ​

A)Senate
B)Supreme Court
C)​House of Representatives
D)​Both the Senate and Supreme Court
E)​All of these

Question 10

In the 1860 election,Abraham Lincoln won all of the following northern states except​

A)New York.
B)Indiana.
C)​Connecticut.
D)​Rhode Island.
E)​New Jersey.

Question 11

The controversy over Kansas taught the nation which of the following about popular sovereignty? ​

A)It offered an effective solution to the problem of slavery.
B)It could easily lead to violence within a territory.
C)​It was wholeheartedly accepted by the South.
D)​It was a solution supported by both the North and the South.
E)​It was more popular in the South than in the North.

Question 12

Which of the following statements regarding the 1860 presidential election is true? ​

A)Southern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas.
B)Northern Democrats nominated John Bell.
C)​Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln.
D)​The Constitutional Union Party nominated John C.Breckenridge.

Question 13

According to the principle of popular sovereignty,which of the following would be allowed? ​

A)Congress would determine whether a territory would have slavery.
B)The Supreme Court would determine whether a territory would have slavery.
C)​Settlers would determine whether a territory would have slavery.
D)​Slavery would be mandated in all new territories.
E)​Slavery would be excluded from all new territories.

Question 14

Which of the following was true of slavery in the United States during the 1850s? ​

A)The country had just under 2 million slaves.
B)Southerners agitated for the reopening of the slave trade with Africa because the price of slaves was so high.
C)"Cotton is King" was an empty boast because,in truth,the North was responsible for three-fourths of the country's exports.
D)​The cotton boom brought so much prosperity to the South that immigrants and northern businesses began to move there.

Question 15

What was the most problematic aspect of the Compromise of 1850? ​

A)The exclusion of slavery from California
B)The banning of the slave trade in Washington,D.C.
C)​The Fugitive Slave Act
D)​The banning of slavery in the territories of the Southwest
E)​The banning of slavery in the nation's capital

Question 16

What did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott decision? ​

A)Scott was not a citizen of the United States.
B)Scott could not sue in a U.S.court.
C)​The Missouri Compromise was still valid.
D)​Both A and B

Question 17

Which of the following events occurred during the summer of 1856? ​

A)Brooks's caning of Sumner
B)The Dred Scott case came before the Supreme Court
C)​The Pottawatomie massacre
D)​The sack of Lawrence
E)​All of these

Question 18

Who was the Supreme Court chief justice who presided over the Dred Scott case? ​

A)John Marshall
B)James Marbury
C)​Joseph Scalia
D)​Roger B.Taney
E)​John Quincy Adams

Question 19

​In 1856,on the floor of the U.S.Senate,Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina almost beat to death which Massachusetts senator?

A)Thaddeus Stevens
B)John C.Calhoun
C)​Charles Sumner
D)​Zachary Taylor
E)​Benjamin Butler

Question 20

The Compromise of 1850 became law in part because ​

A)President Millard Fillmore supported the bill.
B)John C.Calhoun died.
C)​Stephen A.Douglas brokered a new compromise.
D)​components of the compromise were steered through committees and votes were cast separately.
E)​All of these

Question 21

William H.Seward served as Lincoln's secretary of war.​

Question 22

Fire-eaters were people who were extremely vocal in their opposition to slavery.​

Question 23

The young prominent U.S.representative from Illinois who played a major role in bringing about the Compromise of 1850 was Abraham Lincoln.​

Question 24

Southerners who opposed secession in the months before the Civil War took all of the following positions on secession except ​

A)They considered it economic suicide 
B)They regarded it as treason
C)​They wanted to wait until states favoring secession could form a unified coalition
D)​They believed that if they were patient and held off,the North would eventually back down

Question 25

Antislavery Whigs were known as Liberty Whigs.​

Question 26

Southern Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor for president in 1848 because they assumed he would support the spread of slavery.​

Question 27

During the first series of secessions,seven states left the Union during a six-week period.​

Question 28

Conscience Whigs were Whigs who were opposed to slavery.​

Question 29

The Know-Nothing political party was formed in the early 1850s by nativists opposed to immigration.​

Question 30

Clay's Omnibus Bill included all of the following provisions except ​

A)slavery would be permitted in the District of Columbia.
B)a stronger fugitive slave law would be put into effect.
C)​California would be admitted as a free state.
D)​slavery would be permitted in the other territories acquired from Mexico.
E)​the slave trade would be ended in Washington,D.C.

Question 31

Popular sovereignty allowed residents of a territory to decide when to apply for statehood.​

Question 32

The Compromise of 1850 was proposed by Stephen A.Douglas and passed by Congress when California asked to join the Union as a free state.​

Question 33

The Free-Soil Party's slogan in the 1848 presidential election was "fight on and fight forever."

Question 34

As people prepared to vote in the presidential election of 1860,they were very much aware that their decision might result in civil war.​

Question 35

The three famous legislators of the first half of the nineteenth century were Henry Clay,John C.Calhoun and Stephen Douglas.​

Question 36

Which of the following national political figures won the 1848 presidential election?

A)Martin Van Buren
B)Zachary Taylor
C)​Lewis Cass
D)​James K.Polk
E)​Winfield Scott

Question 37

"Slave power" was a term used by critics of the South to describe the political conspiracy of southern aristocrats who took advantage of poor whites as well as slaves.​

Question 38

Who was the original organizer of the Compromise of 1850? ​

A)John C.Calhoun
B)Henry Clay
C)​Lewis Cass
D)​Zachary Taylor
E)​John Tyler

Question 39

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 instituted popular sovereignty in the territories and inflamed people throughout the country.​

Question 40

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin about the evils of slavery prompted publication of pro-slavery books in the South.​

Question 41

South Carolina seceded the day after Abraham Lincoln was elected president.​

Question 42

"Bleeding Nebraska" was the term applied to the Nebraska Territory during the 1850s when so much violence occurred between pro- and antislavery forces.​

Question 43

The northern press referred to those who crossed from Missouri to Kansas to vote illegally for proslavery candidates as LeCompton ruffians.​

Question 44

In the Pottawatomie massacre,John Brown and several followers attacked and killed five men as revenge for the sack of Lawrence.​

Question 45

John Marshall was chief justice of the Supreme Court who presided over the Dred Scott case.​

Question 46

The incident that marked the beginning of the war between the North and South took place at Fort Sumner.​

Question 47

Jefferson Davis strongly supported secession.​

Question 48

Harriet Beecher Stowe filed a lawsuit seeking to have the Dred Scott freed by the U.S.Supreme Court.​