Deck 15: The Union Broken 1850-1861

Question 1

The chapter introduction tells the stories of Lawrence and Pottawatomie, Kansas, to make the point that

A) westward migration continued despite the distractions of sectional strife.
B) it was deliberate, violent acts by an extremist minority that sucked Americans into civil war.
C) the ability of settlers in Kansas to disagree, yet still get along, shows that the Civil War was not necessarily inevitable.
D) violence in Kansas discredited popular sovereignty, the only remaining compromise solution to the growing sectional split.

Answer 1

violence in Kansas discredited popular sovereignty, the only remaining compromise solution to the growing sectional split.

Question 2

Which of the following does NOT characterize the American economy in the 1840s and 1850s?

A) Transportation improvements on land and water, especially the rise of the railroad, transformed the American economy.
B) Agriculture remained largely unaffected by technology, and thus diminished in importance as a component of the market economy.
C) The maturing factory system employed a growing industrial workforce, increasingly foreign-born.
D) Water power was increasingly being replaced by steam power.

Answer 2

Agriculture remained largely unaffected by technology, and thus diminished in importance as a component of the market economy.

Question 3

Which is a correct statement regarding mid-century immigrants?

A) Germans fled a severe potato famine.
B) Germans, Irish, and Scandinavians came seeking improved economic opportunity.
C) The Irish and Scandinavians tended to come as families with some resources, but the Germans were usually single men from impoverished backgrounds.
D) Immigration swelled to its highest levels during periods of economic downturns in the U.S., when employers sought cheaper labor.

Answer 3

Germans, Irish, and Scandinavians came seeking improved economic opportunity.

Question 4

What weakened the natural economic and political ties of the South to the West?

A) Southerners opposed federal aid for economic development.
B) Railroads diverted trade from the Mississippi artery to an eastward direction.
C) Southerners opposed federal aid for economic development, and railroads diverted trade from the Mississippi.
D) None of these answers is correct.

Question 5

By mid-century, the birth rate was declining, but population continued to grow. The explanation for this paradox is also the explanation for another development in those years,

A) the rise of the medical and nursing professions in the United States.
B) the rise of the short-lived American Party.
C) the Gadsden Purchase.
D) the Ostend Manifesto.

Question 6

Southerners voiced many concerns and complaints in the 1850s, including that

A) the North was making the South into a slave colony.
B) the immigrant influx strengthened the North's dominance in the slave market.
C) only the expansion of slave states could overcome the South's isolation and decreasing political clout.
D) the threats against slavery had led to a sharp drop in the market value of slaves.

Question 7

What was the Gadsden Purchase?

A) acquisition of a strip of Mexican land as a railroad route
B) payment to Britain to clear the last jointly held area in the Oregon Country
C) an offer to buy Cuba from Spain that was rejected by Congress
D) an agreement with Russia to obtain Alaska

Question 8

Stephen Douglas pushed for the organization of territorial governments in the Louisiana Purchase in order to

A) slow down the opening of the West for the sake of economic development.
B) accelerate the process of bringing the Plains Indians under federal control.
C) fulfill his desire that the eastern terminus of the transcontinental railroad would be Chicago.
D) help fulfill the aims of the Whig Party.

Question 9

According to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, what would be the status of slavery in those western territories?

A) Slavery was expressly prohibited.
B) Slavery was expressly permitted.
C) Slavery was permitted in Kansas but banned in Nebraska.
D) The people would decide.

Question 10

Why was the Kansas-Nebraska Act so controversial?

A) Because it worked to the advantage of Douglas's home state, southerners felt betrayed.
B) Because it overturned a policy on slavery already in place, northerners felt betrayed.
C) Because it did not provide for land grants along with territorial government, westerners felt betrayed.
D) Because it would attract immigrants who would vote Democrat, Whigs felt betrayed.

Question 11

The Kansas-Nebraska Act resulted in

A) the restoration of the Missouri Compromise.
B) the destruction of the Whig Party.
C) the formation of the new Republican Party in the South.
D) a virtual civil war in Kansas.

Question 12

The Republican Party

A) quickly won solid voter support in the elections of 1854 and 1855.
B) prospered because of northern outrage over "Bleeding Sumner" and "Bleeding Kansas."
C) won the presidency the first time it fielded a national ticket.
D) advocated popular sovereignty to defuse the issue of slavery in the territories.

Question 13

Which statement about the Republican Party is true?

A) It attracted a coalition of voters throughout the nation.
B) It emerged from a coalition of Democrats and Whigs who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
C) It was a sectional party pledged to the spread of slavery.
D) It was led by the principle that slavery degraded free markets.

Question 14

The most important component of the ideology of the Republican Party at its founding was

A) a nationalist approach to economic development.
B) free labor.
C) immigration restriction.
D) a repudiation of the Revolution and its acceptance of slavery.

Question 15

The "Know-Nothing"or nativist movement (later the American Party), which prospered especially in the northeastern states, was characterized by its

A) states' rights position.
B) antislavery position.
C) defense of Indian rights.
D) anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant position.

Question 16

What group was particularly susceptible to the appeal of the Know-Nothing Party?

A) southern Whigs
B) western farmers
C) young, native-born workers
D) the elderly

Question 17

To what does "Bleeding Sumner"refer?

A) violence in a small town in Kansas
B) violence on the floor of the U.S. Senate
C) the agonized pleas on behalf of free labor made by a New York editor
D) the threats of secession and armed defense of southern rights made by a southern Congressman

Question 18

In addition to the Democratic and Republican tickets, additional presidential candidates were fielded in 1856 by the ________ and in 1860 by the ________.

A) Whig Party; American Party
B) American Party; Free Soil Party
C) Southern Democratic Party; Constitutional Union Party
D) American Party; Constitutional Union Party

Question 19

The Dred Scott decision

A) struck down the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
B) asserted that Congress could prohibit slavery in any territory.
C) asserted that Congress could not ban slavery from any territory.
D) freed Dred Scott.

Question 20

The Dred Scott decision actually involved three distinct Supreme Court rulings. Which of the following was NOT among them?

A) The popular sovereignty doctrine was a violation of the First Amendment.
B) Missouri law applied in this case, and therefore Scott remained a slave.
C) The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
D) Slaves were not and could not ever be citizens.

Question 21

What was so important about the Lecompton constitution?

A) It was a proslavery document, fairly drawn, that Congress approved.
B) It was a proslavery document, claimed to be fraudulent, and rejected by Congress.
C) Douglas's support for it undermined his political credibility in the North.
D) Congress had not authorized a separate state of Lecompton.

Question 22

In his Freeport Doctrine, Douglas defended popular sovereignty despite the Dred Scott ruling by arguing that

A) the Scott case was not valid constitutional interpretation.
B) if the people of a territory refused to pass a slave code, slavery would never be established there.
C) Americans would stand behind congressional legislation to reverse the decision.
D) strategic river cities that chose to ban slavery within their city limits would set the tone for the whole territory.

Question 23

Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel that was quickly adapted into a play, had a significant impact on northern opinion because it

A) took advantage of the fact that influential middle-class Americans were regular playgoers.
B) introduced ordinary Americans to the literary classics.
C) conveyed a moral condemnation of slavery.
D) presented for the first time a factual account of the actual conditions of slavery in the South.

Question 24

While northerners increasingly feared ________, southerners raised the specter of ________.

A) that the West would become contaminated by black slaves; a South contaminated by northern free-labor industrialism
B) the South's secessionist threats; the North's determination to abolish slavery once and for all
C) a Slave Power conspiracy; a conspiracy by the "Black Republicans"
D) economic uncertainty; social chaos

Question 25

Which statement about the southern economy in the later 1850s is true?

A) A sense of crisis grew in the region as the price of slaves rose sharply.
B) The progress of transportation development reoriented western trade toward New Orleans.
C) Although cotton's importance as an export crop declined, it remained the primary driver of domestic economic growth.
D) As they converted to the new agricultural machinery, southern planters found themselves deeply in debt in a time of declining profits.

Question 26

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was significant because

A) it provoked bloody retaliation against antislavery voters in Kansas.
B) it intensified southern fears of slave insurrection.
C) it intensified southern suspicions about the Democratic Party.
D) it added to southerners' belief that their interests could be protected within the Union.

Question 27

The first shots of the Civil War were fired when

A) South Carolina seceded.
B) the Confederate States of America was established.
C) Lincoln decided to hold a fort on southern soil.
D) northern forces invaded Virginia.

Question 28

In what order did the following states secede from the Union?

A) South Carolina; Virginia; Kentucky; Alabama
B) Alabama; Virginia; South Carolina
C) South Carolina; Alabama; Virginia
D) Virginia; South Carolina; Kentucky; Alabama

Question 29

After 1840, the most important stimulus to economic growth came from ________ construction.

Question 30

The flood of new immigrants from ________ attracted nativist hostility not only because they were foreign but also because they were Catholic.

Question 31

Senator Stephen Douglas sponsored the ________, the fateful piece of legislation that toppled the second party system and started the nation on its road to civil war

Question 32

Known as the Know-Nothings, the American Party was strongly anti-immigrant and, because of the church's "undemocratic"hierarchy, anti-________.

Question 33

Abraham Lincoln first won national prominence in a series of senatorial campaign confrontations known as the ________ debates.

Question 34

Political parties disintegrated in the 1850s; the last one to do so, in 1860, was the ________ Party.

Question 35

The presidential election of 1860 was really two contests in one: Breckinridge versus Bell in the South; and Lincoln versus ________ in the North.

Question 36

The first shot of the Civil War was fired by South Carolinians on Union forces at ________.

Question 37

Explain how changes in three of the following areas heightened sectional tensions: the new commercial agriculture, the growth of a railroad economy, rising industrialization, and immigration.

Question 38

List four major sectional events of the period 1854-1856. Which of these events aided the Republican Party?

Question 39

Why did the Know-Nothing Party arise when it did? Why did the Republican Party eventually surpass it?

Question 40

How did the violence in Kansas and the caning of Charles Sumner help the Republicans?

Question 41

What did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott decision? Why did the decision fail to settle the slavery expansion issue?

Question 42

Consider this statement: "Ever since the Revolution, when Americans accused the king and Parliament of deliberately plotting to deprive them of their liberties, Americans constantly looked for conspiracies and suspected the motives of political opponents."Give examples of the way in which northerners feared that the Slave Power was conspiring against them and southerners worried about the plots of the Black Republicans.

Question 43

How did economic and social developments of the 1850s contribute to the growing sectional strain between North and South? Do you feel that these factors were more or less important than the political events of the decade? Explain why.

Question 44

Why did southern anxiety increase in the 1850s? What contributed to the South's sense of being beleaguered?

Question 45

What were the provisions of the Crittenden Compromise? Did these deal with the causes of secession? Would this compromise have ended the crisis over secession?

Question 46

What arguments did southern radicals advance in urging secession? Were there effective rebuttals to these arguments?

Question 47

Which of the following issues do you feel was most central to provoking civil war: the debate over slavery, the debate over states' rights, or the growing economic and social differences between North and South? Defend your position by discussing specific events from the 1850s.