Deck 19: Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854-1861

Question 1

Match each figure below with his role in the 1856 presidential campaign.
A.John C.Frémont
B.Millard Fillmore
C.Stephen A.Douglas
D.James Buchanan
1)Democratic nominee for president
2)Republican nominee for president
3)Know-Nothing (American Party)nominee for president
4)Too tainted by Kansas-Nebraska Act to obtain Democratic nomination

A) A-2, B-3, C-1, D-4
B) A-4, B-1, C-2, D-3
C) A-2, B-3, C-4, D-1
D) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2
E) A-1, B-3, C-2, D-4

Answer 1

A-2, B-3, C-4, D-1

Question 2

In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that  

A) slavery was inconsistent with the constitution and must be abolished.
B) protection of slavery was guaranteed in all the territories of the United States.
C) slavery would be constitutional only in those areas that were already slave territories.
D) abolition of slavery would be done only in those areas in which it is already abolished.
E) slavery was constitutional, but the slave trade was unconstitutional.

Answer 2

protection of slavery was guaranteed in all the territories of the United States.

Question 3

In the presidential election of 1856, the Republicans  

A) although not victorious, revealed impressive popular appeal in the Northeast and parts of the West for the first presidential election.
B) lost behind their most popular leader, Senator William Seward.
C) made their debut as the most successful third party in American history.
D) proved unable to present a clear platform on slavery expansion.
E) finished third behind the Democrats and the Know-Nothings.

Answer 3

although not victorious, revealed impressive popular appeal in the Northeast and parts of the West for the first presidential election.

Question 4

The Lecompton Constitution was written so that Kansas  

A) could enter the Union as either a slave state or a free state.
B) would hold a popular referendum on slavery after admission to the Union.
C) would permit temporary residents like the abolitionists and border ruffians to vote.
D) would allow slavery but prohibit the slave trade.
E) would continue to permit slavery for owners of slaves who held slaves in Kansas at the time of the ratification vote, even if the voters of Kansas enacted the Lecompton Constitution "without slavery."

Question 5

In "Bleeding Kansas" in the mid-1850s, ____ was/were identified with the proslavery element, and ____ was/were associated with the antislavery free-soilers.  

A) Beecher's Bibles; border ruffians
B) John Brown; Preston Brooks
C) the Pottawatomie massacre; the sack of Lawrence
D) the Lecompton Constitution; the New England Immigrant Aid Society
E) Stephen A. Douglas; William Sumner

Question 6

Hinton R.Helper's book, The Impending Crisis of the South, argued that those who suffered most from slave labor were  

A) African Americans.
B) southern planters.
C) northern Republican abolitionists.
D) western farmers.
E) nonslaveholding southern whites.

Question 7

James Buchanan won the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1856 because he  

A) campaigned against the policy of popular sovereignty.
B) had gained fame as a western explorer and soldier.
C) controlled the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
D) had extensive administrative and foreign policy experience.
E) could distance himself and the Democrats from the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Question 8

Uncle Tom's Cabin may be described as  

A) a firsthand account of slavery.
B) a success only in the United States.
C) a romanticized account of slavery.
D) having little effect on the start of the Civil War.
E) a powerful political force.

Question 9

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin  

A) intended to show the cruelty of slavery.
B) was prompted by passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
C) comprised the recollections of a long-time personal witness to the evils of slavery.
D) received little notice at the time it was published but became widely read during the Civil War.
E) portrayed blacks as militant resisters to slavery.

Question 10

When the people of Britain and France read Uncle Tom's Cabin, their governments  

A) realized that intervention in the Civil War on behalf of the South would not be popular.
B) concluded that they must end slavery in their own territory.
C) decided to give aid to the slaveholding South.
D) banned the book.
E) distributed the book as anti-American propaganda.

Question 11

In 1856, the breaking point over slavery in Kansas came with  

A) the arrival of John Brown.
B) a deadly armed attack and partial burning of the the free-soil town of Lawrence by a gang of proslavery raiders.
C) the influx of a large number of slaves.
D) the establishment of evangelical abolitionist churches.
E) the passage of the Lecompton Constitution.

Question 12

Harriet Beecher Stowe was described by President Abraham Lincoln as  

A) a troublemaker.
B) a radical abolitionist.
C) the woman who wrote the book that started the Civil War.
D) the force behind the Underground Railroad.
E) None of these choices are correct.

Question 13

The central plank(s) of the Know-Nothing party in the 1856 election was/were  

A) popular sovereignty.
B) expansionism.
C) proslavery.
D) abolitionism.
E) antiforeignism and anti-Catholicism.

Question 14

President James Buchanan's decision on Kansas's Lecompton Constitution  

A) hopelessly divided the Democratic party.
B) admitted Kansas to the Union as a free state.
C) admitted Kansas to the Union as a slave state.
D) reaffirmed the Democratic party as a national party.
E) turned the focus of controversy to Nebraska.

Question 15

The situation in Kansas in the mid-1850s indicated the impracticality of ____ in the territories.  

A) abolitionism
B) free soil
C) popular sovereignty
D) slavery
E) cotton growing

Question 16

The clash and political fallout between Congressman Preston S.Brooks of South Carolina and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in 1856 revealed that  

A) despite stark differences over the issue of slavery, a political compromise and consensus over slavery was likely to emerge in Congress.
B) the importance of honor to northerners.
C) despite divisions over slavery, the House of Representatives would unite to expel a member for bad conduct.
D) passions over slavery were becoming dangerously inflamed in both North and South.
E) there were stark divisions between the House and the Senate over slavery in the Democratic party.

Question 17

The roots of Harriet Beecher Stowe's antislavery sentiments lay in the  

A) evangelical religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening.
B) rationalist theories of the Enlightenment.
C) economic theories of Robert Owen and Karl Marx.
D) evangelical ideas of Jonathan Edwards and First Great Awakening.
E) feminist ideals of the Seneca Falls Convention.

Question 18

As a result of reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, many northerners  

A) found the book's portrayal of slavery too extreme.
B) vowed to halt British and French efforts to help the Confederacy.
C) rejected Hinton Helper's picture of the South and slavery.
D) would have nothing to do with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law.
E) sent guns to antislavery settlers in Kansas ("Beecher's Bibles").

Question 19

In 1855, proslavery southerners regarded Kansas as  

A) territory governed by the Missouri Compromise.
B) slave territory worth contesting against antislavery northerners to determine the territory's ultimate political status.
C) geographically unsuitable for slavery.
D) too close to free states for slavery to be practical.
E) a test for slavery in wheat-growing areas.

Question 20

The Lecompton Constitution proposed that the state of Kansas  

A) be free of all slavery.
B) hold a popular referendum on slavery.
C) be controlled by the free-soilers if approved.
D) allow slavery but prohibit slave auctions.
E) None of these choices are correct.

Question 21

When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, people in South Carolina  

A) waited to see how other southern states would act.
B) were very upset because they would have to secede from the Union.
C) vowed to give their loyalty to Stephen Douglas.
D) rejoiced because Lincoln's election as president provided secessionist South Carolinians with the political pretext to vote in the state legislature in favor of secession.
E) accepted the democratic process and vowed to support Lincoln.

Question 22

Match each presidential candidate in the 1860 election below with his party's position on the slavery question.
A.Abraham Lincoln
B.Stephen Douglas
C.John Breckenridge
D.John Bell
1)extend slavery into the territories
2)ban slavery from the territories
3)preserve the Union by compromise
4)enforce popular sovereignty

A) A-3, B-2, C-1, D-4
B) A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3
C) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1
D) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3
E) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2

Question 23

The Republicans lost the 1856 election in part because of  

A) southern threats that a Republican victory would tantamountbe a declaration of war.
B) lingering support for slavery in the North.
C) northern bullyism.
D) the North's unwillingness at this stage to let the South depart in peace.
E) the division between Democrats and Know-Nothings.

Question 24

As late as 1856, many northerners were still willing to vote Democratic instead of Republican because  

A) of innate liberalism.
B) the Democrats consistently presented superior presidential and congressional candidates to the other parties.
C) many Democrats involved in interstate commerce did not want to lose their profitable business connections with the South.
D) the Democrats were the only national party.
E) the presidential Democratic candidates were the only major or minor party candidates truly committed to preserving the Union at almost any cost.

Question 25

For a majority of northerners, the MOST outrageous part of the several objectionable parts of the U.S.Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney's majority opinion (decision)in the Dred Scott case was that the Court ruled that   

A) the Constitution could not be amended to prohibit slavery because that such an amendment would violate Americans' Fifth Amendment property rights.
B) Scott did not automatically become free when his owner took him through free states and territories.
C) Congress never had the constitutional power to prohibit slavery in any territory.
D) black slaves did not have the constitutional power to sue in federal courts to win their freedom.
E) the Bill of Rights did not apply even to free African Americans.

Question 26

In ruling on the Dred Scott case, the United States Supreme Court  

A) freed Dred Scott but upheld the Missouri Compromise.
B) denied Scott's appeal but held that slaves could not be taken into free territories.
C) essentially upheld the doctrine of popular sovereignty.
D) tried to settle the immediate issue on technical legal grounds.
E) issued a broad judicial decision ruling that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the federal territories.

Question 27

In the election of 1860, the Constitutional Union party was formed  

A) to show support for the Constitution and the decisions made by the United States Supreme Court.
B) as a middle-of-the-road party seeking to prevent the break up of the Union.
C) to help catapult the country into a Civil War.
D) as an antislavery southern party that supported Lincoln.
E) as a proslavery northern party.

Question 28

The decision rendered in the Dred Scott case was applauded by  

A) abolitionists.
B) Republicans.
C) popular sovereignty proponents.
D) proslavery southerners.
E) None of these choices are correct.

Question 29

In his raid on Harpers Ferry, John Brown intended to  

A) call upon the slaves to rise and establish a black free state.
B) arouse the South to secede from the Union.
C) stir West Virginia to break away from Virginia as a free state.
D) demonstrate that blacks could fight for their freedom.
E) seize weapons to start a guerrilla war against the federal government.

Question 30

In the North, the panic of 1857 created calls for  

A) an end to the gold standard and dependence on British investment.
B) free homesteads and higher protective tariffs.
C) price supports for farmers.
D) federal regulation of land and stock speculation.
E) All of these choices are correct.

Question 31

Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 Republican party presidential nomination in part because he

A) had been a strong supporter of William Seward.
B) had never taken a stand on the issue of slavery in the territories.
C) had made fewer enemies than front-runner William Seward.
D) had more political experience than his opponents.
E) None of these choices are correct.

Question 32

The MOST significant result of the election of 1856 was that it  

A) showed that the Democrats still remained the majority party in the country.
B) demonstrated the importance of charismatic leadership in the presidency.
C) foreshadowed an ominous sectional clash over slavery in the election of 1860.
D) offered the prospect of a viable presidential candidacy for IllinoisSenator Stephen Douglas in 1860.
E) signalled the demise of the Know-Nothing (American) Party.

Question 33

John Brown's execution produced all of the following results except  

A) Harriet Tubman praised Brown's support of freedom for slaves.
B) abolitionists and free-soilers were outraged.
C) Ralph Waldo Emerson and other northerners hailed him as a martyr, much like Jesus.
D) Southerners wondered how they could stay in the Union.
E) Brown's bloody past prior to the Harper's Ferry raid was exposed and he was discredited.

Question 34

In the Dred Scott case, the U.S.Supreme Court made all of the following determinations except  

A) it ruled that Dred Scott was a slave, not a citizen, and therefore could not sue in federal court.
B) it said that because slaves were private property, they could be taken into free or slave territories.
C) it decided that slaves brought into territories north of the 36º 30´ line were considered free.
D) it declared that the Constitution protected slave owners' rights to property no matter where they resided.
E) it stated that Scott should be returned to slavery.

Question 35

As a result of the panic of 1857, the South  

A) became more economically dependent on the North.
B) became hostile to Wall Street and the stock market.
C) overconfidentlybelieved that it was now economically superior to the North.
D) stopped considering the viability of an independent southern nation.
E) saw the need to develop manufacturing.

Question 36

After John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, the South concluded that  

A) the raid was an isolated incident.
B) the U.S. army could not protect slavery.
C) Brown should be put in an insane asylum.
D) Brown had been attempting to defend his right to own slaves.
E) the North was dominated by "Brown-loving" Republicans.

Question 37

The government of the Confederate States of America was first organized in  

A) Atlanta, Georgia in February 1860.
B) Montgomery, Alabama in February 1861.
C) Richmond, Virginia in February 1861.
D) Knoxville, Tennessee in February 1860.
E) Charleston, South Carolina in February 1861.

Question 38

"Lame-duck" President James Buchanan asserted following the presidential election of 1860 that  

A) southern states had a legal right to secede from the Union.
B) southern states did not have any legitimate political or economic grievances against the northern states.
C) the election of 1860 was a fraud.
D) southern states had no choice but to secede from the Union.
E) southern states could not legally secede under the Constitution, but was unable to find the presidential authority under the Constitution to use American armed forces to prevent the seven southern states that had voted for secession from doing so.

Question 39

Arrange these events in chronological order:
(A)Dred Scott decision,
(B)Lincoln-Douglas debates,
(C)Kansas-Nebraska Act, and
(D)Harpers Ferry raid.  

A) A, C, B, D
B) B, D, C, A
C) C, A, B, D
D) D, B, A, C
E) A, C, D, B

Question 40

The panic of 1857  

A) was caused by overproduction of southern cotton.
B) hit hardest among grain growers of the Northwest.
C) finally brought most southern congressmen to support free homesteads.
D) stimulated northern demands for lower tariff rates.
E) demonstrated the economic dominance of the North.

Question 41

Compare and contrast the criticism in Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin to Helper's The Impending Crisis of the South.Which had the more dramatic effect on public opinion? Why?

Question 42

Always in 1787, 1820, 1833, and 1850, the North and South had been able to compromise over their sectional political, economic, and social differences.Why not in 1861?

Question 43

Secessionists supported leaving the Union for all of the following reasons except  

A) they were dismayed by the success of the Republican party.
B) they believed that the North would not oppose their departure.
C) the political balance seemed to be tipping against them.
D) they were tired of abolitionist attacks.
E) they believed that Republicans had been infiltrating their political ranks.

Question 44

Assess the validity of the following statement, "It was probably fortunate for the Union that secession and civil war did not come in 1856, following a Republican victory."

Question 45

Before his presidential nomination  by the Republican party in 1860, Abraham Lincoln had been  

A) a Jacksonian Democrat.
B) a state legislator in Illinois.
C) a United States congressman from Illinois.
D) the vice-presidential candidate of the Republican party in 1856.
E) a failed candidate for the United States Senate.

Question 46

The 1860 Republican party platform favored  

A) the abolition of slavery.
B) protective tariffs.
C) construction of a transcontinental railroad.
D) free homesteads.
E) non-extension of slavery.

Question 47

In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln  

A) carried the Border States.
B) won a majority in the Electoral College.
C) won less than a majority of the popular vote.
D) won the majority of votes from the territories.
E) lost the northern popular vote to Douglas.

Question 48

Rank the following in order of their importance to the commencement of the Civil War in April 1861: Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid, and Lincoln's election.Justify your ranking.

Question 49

In declaring their independence, the Confederate States asserted that they were following the historical example of the  

A) nullification crisis in South Carolina.
B) principles of self-determination of the Declaration of Independence.
C) Texas declaration of independence from Mexico.
D) French Revolution.
E) Mexican Revolution toppling Spanish colonial rule.

Question 50

To what extent did each of these individuals contribute to the commencement of the Civil War in April 1861: John Brown, Stephen Douglas, and Abraham Lincoln?

Question 51

All of the following are true statements about southerners in the secession movement except

A) they regarded their region as a subnation with a distinct culture from the North.
B) the southern secessionists were inspired by worldwide impulses of nationalism.
C) they were dismayed by the political triumph of the new sectional Republican party, which seemed to threaten their "property" rights as a slaveholding minority.
D) a majority of southern secessionists believed the South had an absolute right to resume importation of slaves from Africa.
E) the development of the Underground Railroad and John Brown's raid represented two examples in secessionist southerners' minds of undue and unwarranted northern influence in southern political, economic, and social affairs.

Question 52

Assess the validity of the following statement, "Kansas provided a horrible example of the working of popular sovereignty."

Question 53

Kansas Territory's Lecompton Constitution was supported by  

A) President James Buchanan.
B) Stephen A. Douglas.
C) the Republican party.
D) proslavery settlers in Kansas.
E) Henry Ward Beecher.

Question 54

Write your definition of national self-determination.Then use this definition to argue that southern secession in 1860-1861 was or was not an act of a people conscious of their own separate nationalism and determined to achieve it for themselves.

Question 55

President James Buchanan declined to use force to keep the seven southern secessionist states in the Union for all of the following reasons except   

A) northern public opinion would not support it.
B) the army was needed to control Indians in the West.
C) he believed that the Constitution required Congressional approval of the use of force.
D) a slim chance of reconciliation remained.
E) he was surrounded by prosouthern advisers who had advised him not use military force against the southern states threatening to secede from the Union.

Question 56

Abraham Lincoln opposed the Crittenden Compromise because  

A) it allowed the doctrine of popular sovereignty to be overridden once statehood was achieved.
B) it permitted slavery in the Utah territory.
C) its adoption might provoke Kentucky to leave the Union.
D) he felt bound by President Buchanan's earlier rejection of it.
E) he had been elected on a platform that opposed the extension of slavery.

Question 57

The immense debt owed to northern creditors by the South was  

A) repaid immediately after the Civil War.
B) repudiated by the South.
C) paid by pro-Union southerners during the war.
D) not repaid until the twentieth century.
E) converted into long-term Confederate bonds.

Question 58

In the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court ruled that  

A) Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States.
B) Dred Scott could not legally sue in a federal court.
C) the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
D) Congress had no power to ban slavery from a federal territory, even if a territorial legislature had voted to do so.
E) free blacks who were citizens had no right to sue federal court.

Question 59

What was responsible for the violence in "Bleeding Kansas"? Why might the violence be viewed as a "prelude to Civil War"?

Question 60

The proposed Crittenden Compromise, if adopted, would have  

A) prohibited slavery north of 36° 30'.
B) guaranteed federal protection of slavery in territories south of 36° 30'.
C) annexed Cuba as a slave territory of the United States.
D) repealed the Fugitive Slave Law.
E) permitted the expansion of slavery into new territories south of 36° 30'.

Question 61

In "Varying Viewpoints," the authors argue that both Northerners and Southerners saw their way of life threatened by the time of the onset of the Civil War in April 1861.How and why could both Northerners and Southerners feel this way? Do you feel that both Northerners and Southerners were each justified in fearing that their different ways of life were each being threatened by crucial political, economic, and social developments in America from 1848 to 1861? How may northern and southern paranoid fears about the loss of their distinctive ways of life played a role in providing the political momentum for the drift toward disunion and ultimately the onset of the Civil War?

Question 62

To what extent was the Crittenden Compromise a realistic way to avoid Civil War? What, if any, modifications might have been made to the Crittenden Compromise of December 1860 to make it palatable to President Lincoln and his fellow Republicans, on the one hand, and to the South, on the other? How would your proposed modifications to the Crittenden Compromise influenced the views of the Border States toward possible secession?

Question 63

The authors argue that despite Lincoln's election in 1860, the South "was not badly off." What do they mean? Why, in spite of this, did southern states secede?