Deck 10: And Black People Were at the Heart of It

Question 1

What does the story of Margaret Garner tell us about fugitive slaves?

A) The underground railroad worked very well.
B) Some slaves were very brave, and would return many times to the South to help others escape.
C) Some despised slavery so much that they were willing to kill their children rather than have them grow up as slaves.
D) Black women continued to face sexual exploitation even outside of slavery.

Answer 1

Some despised slavery so much that they were willing to kill their children rather than have them grow up as slaves.

Question 2

What was discovered in California in 1848 that caused settlers to pour in from all over the country?

A) cotton
B) gold
C) oil
D) buffalo

Answer 2

gold

Question 3

How did some northern communities react to fugitive slave laws prior to 1850?

A) They tried to comply with the laws entirely.
B) They passed personal liberty laws, making it illegal for law enforcement officials to capture runaways.
C) They declared the laws null and void.
D) They decided to fire on Fort Sumter, and start the Civil War.

Answer 3

They passed personal liberty laws, making it illegal for law enforcement officials to capture runaways.

Question 4

How did William and Ellen Craft escape from slavery?

A) Ellen passed for a sickly white man, accompanied by "his" slave, William.
B) They killed their master and several people along the way.
C) They escaped with the assistance of Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad.
D) They took a boat from Charleston to Haiti.

Question 5

Which of the following was not a component of the Compromise of 1850?

A) admitting Utah as a free state
B) a tougher fugitive slave act
C) the elimination of the slave trade only in Washington, D.C.
D) admitted California as a free state

Question 6

How did the federal government react over the fugitive slave incident in Christiana, Pennsylvania in 1851?

A) The president sent federal troops in to help free the slaves.
B) The president attempted to prosecute those who had helped the slaves escape.
C) The president ordered the arsenal destroyed, with the slaves inside it.
D) The president ignored the incident, since the state militia had the matter well under control.

Question 7

How did the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 strengthen previous laws?

A) The law required only lawmakers to help capture suspected runaways.
B) They law would punish (by fines or imprisonment) ordinary citizens who failed to help capture runaways.
C) Southerners were personally responsible for recapturing their slaves.
D) It actually weakened previous laws, due to abolitionist outcry.

Question 8

The Wilmot Proviso, if it had been passed, would have

A) allowed slavery in any area of the United States.
B) gained Canada from the British.
C) prohibited slavery in any lands acquired from Mexico, to reserve them specifically for whites.
D) made Mexicans and Native Americans slaves alongside blacks, in the territory acquired from Mexico.

Question 9

What does the story of Shadrach Minkins tell us about the Fugitive Slave Act?

A) Abolitionists were prepared to break the laws to help slaves.
B) Whites in the North were just as racist as whites in the South.
C) Black churches were very important in helping slaves escape to freedom.
D) Abolitionists would only go so far to help slaves, and sometimes let them be returned to slavery if they thought the story would generate more sympathy.

Question 10

What is a "nativist" movement?

A) another word for abolitionist
B) the same thing as racism
C) anti-immigrant sentiment
D) another word for patriotism, believing in your native country

Question 11

How did African-American antislavery advocates respond to the new Fugitive Slave Law?

A) With outrage, they demanded that supporters disobey the law or resort to violence.
B) They realized they had to accept the law or face additional violence.
C) They immediately began a mass migration to Canada.
D) None of these answers are correct.

Question 12

Most of the Forty-Niners in California were

A) African American
B) male
C) Immigrants from Asia
D) Former prisoners, hoping for a chance to redeem their lives

Question 13

What slave's story was the basis for the Toni Morrison novel Beloved (and the movie by Oprah Winfrey of the same name)?

Question 14

What was the idea of free labor?

A) an idea accepted by most northern whites, which emphasized the importance of free men and women working for a living
B) the idea that all people should be free
C) the idea of the South that all slaves were free, since their labor was free
D) a racist doctrine adopted by whites, which stated that blacks' labor should not be paid, since they were so inferior to whites

Question 15

What effect did the new fugitive slave laws have on many whites in the North?

A) Whites were overjoyed to have the blacks removed from their territory.
B) Whites generally paid little attention to any issue involving blacks.
C) They were horrified, as they personally witnessed scenes of slaves being recaptured.
D) Whites in the North renounced racism and began to immediately work for black voting rights.

Question 16

What eventually happened to the Crafts?

A) Like all other slaves found under the Fugitive Slave Act, they were returned to their former owner and severely punished.
B) They were killed as they tried to return to the South to retrieve their children.
C) They escaped to England with the help of abolitionists in Boston.
D) They fled to Cuba.

Question 17

Why did most northern whites oppose the expansion of slavery into the territories?

A) They felt that it would hurt them economically, since the slaveholders would have an unfair advantage by not having to pay for labor.
B) They thought that all blacks should be socially equal to whites.
C) They all objected to slavery as a moral evil.
D) They felt that it was important for America to spread ideals of equality for all.

Question 18

What was not a the result of fugitive slave Anthony Burns's case?

A) Burns was recaptured by his master and returned to slavery.
B) Many whites, even conservative ones, were very disturbed by the image of Burns being taken back into slavery.
C) President Pierce called upon federal troops to ensure that Burns was returned to slavery.
D) Burns was murdered by his southern master shortly after capture.

Question 19

Which party formed in 1848 to prevent the expansion of slavery into the territories?

A) the Liberty Party
B) the Free-Soil Party
C) the Republican Party
D) the Democratic Party

Question 20

What was the outcome of the African-American Rochester Convention in 1853?

A) African Americans were splintered over the fugitive slave acts, with the great majority simply wanting to remain silent until the matter blew over.
B) African Americans showed courage in refusing to submit to the laws and in looking for improvements for the future.
C) The convention, dominated by whites, pushed blacks into more menial jobs in New York.
D) The convention pushed for immediate migration to Africa for all who were able.

Question 21

What was the main issue in the Dred Scott case?

A) whether all slaves should be free or not
B) whether a slave taken into free territory was free
C) whether a slave woman could be legally raped by a white man
D) whether the abolitionists could continue to use mass mailings as a major strategy

Question 22

Around what main principle did the Know-Nothing Party organize?

A) to eliminate schools for blacks
B) to protect "American" values from immigrants
C) to upgrade white schools
D) to eliminate slavery from America

Question 23

What was the name of the proslavery groups who were fighting for slavery in Kansas?

Question 24

What was it that Stephen Douglas proposed to resolve the problem of whether Kansas should come in as a free or slave state?

Question 25

How were the reactions of the North and the South to John Brown's raid different?

A) Neither side paid much attention to the attempt, since it was unsuccessful.
B) The North saw Brown as a hero and mourned his death, while the South was swept up in paranoia and rage against what they saw as an act of terrorism.
C) The South thought that the raid was a good test of their militia, since they put it down so quickly.
D) The North thought that it was a good test of their militia, since Brown had been the commander and had made some gains into southern territory.

Question 26

Why did Preston Brooks attack Charles Sumner?

A) Sumner had accused Brooks's uncle of keeping a slave as his mistress and lover.
B) Sumner had an affair with one of Brooks's slaves.
C) Sumner had physically attacked him earlier that year.
D) The two men had been fighting since they were children about white men's access to slave women.

Question 27

What were the main issues in the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858?

A) the discovery of gold in California
B) slavery and race
C) secession of the South
D) the expansion of the powers of the federal government

Question 28

What was a result of John Brown's raid?

A) Many of the participants in the raid escaped to the North, where they received heroes' welcomes.
B) The raid pushed the country toward civil war by intensifying feelings on both sides.
C) John Brown, since he was killed before fighting began, was largely forgotten.
D) Southerners began to accept the limitations of slavery.

Question 29

What did John Brown want to accomplish with his army during 1859?

A) to keep the United States together during the Civil War
B) to establish a separate, independent black nation within the United States
C) to bring Texas into the union
D) to invade the South and end slavery

Question 30

Regarding slavery, what was the significance of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

A) The Kansas-Nebraska Act had nothing to do with slavery.
B) The Kansas-Nebraska Act outlawed slavery in all remaining American territory.
C) It repealed the Missouri Compromise line, with the possibility that slavery would be allowed in areas it never had before.
D) It abolished slavery in the border states.

Question 31

Which of the following groups accepted the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case?

A) abolitionists
B) most whites in the North, especially in Massachusetts
C) white southerners
D) most settlers in the far west, since it had nothing to do with them

Question 32

Which of the following statements is true about the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin?

A) The book forced many northerners to understand the horrors of slavery.
B) It inspired little reaction in the South, since no one heard about it there.
C) The Uncle Tom character was a pawn and willing ally of whites against his fellow slaves.
D) Harriet Beecher Stowe actually had no knowledge of slavery, and had based the story solely on her imagination.

Question 33

What did Douglas try to accuse the Republicans of during the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

A) of favoring black people over whites and of favoring racial equality
B) of being racist
C) of favoring the South over their home state of Illinois
D) of not wanting to accept new territory into the United States

Question 34

What did the Supreme Court decide in the Dred Scott v. Sanford case regarding Scott's rights?

A) Slaves taken into free territory automatically became free.
B) Although blacks had some rights in America, given to them by the states, slaves did not have the right to begin a suit against a white man.
C) Black people (not just slaves) had no rights in America and therefore could not even bring a lawsuit.
D) Freeing slaves under any method was completely unconstitutional.

Question 35

Who supported John Brown's efforts financially?

A) Most white northerners donated some money.
B) a few wealthy abolitionist and black leaders
C) a few southerners who were sick of the troubles over slavery
D) a large portion of the African American "Forty Niners"

Question 36

What does the Sumner-Brooks incident tell us about the United States in 1856?

A) Violence would not go unpunished in Congress.
B) The South was beginning to turn against slavery.
C) The North valued the idea of free labor over the Fugitive Slave Act.
D) Slavery was becoming such a divisive issue that members of Congress, where all issues should be debated peacefully, were engaging in physical violence.

Question 37

Which of the following best characterizes Lincoln's ideas about race and slavery during the 1858 elections?

A) He was for the immediate abolition of slavery everywhere.
B) He thought that blacks and whites should have equal social and political rights.
C) He was a racist, and although he opposed slavery, he was not for the social equality of blacks and whites.
D) He was a racist and supported the institution of slavery at that time.

Question 38

Who wrote the anti-slavery novel entitled Uncle Tom's Cabin?

A) Frederick Douglass
B) William Lloyd Garrison
C) Harriet Beecher Stowe
D) David Walker

Question 39

How did "popular sovereignty" work in Kansas?

A) Popular sovereignty worked - Kansas came in free.
B) Kansas became "Bleeding Kansas," where both pro- and antislavery forces engaged in acts of violence and terrorism.
C) Popular sovereignty worked, although it took 50 years for Kansas to finally become a state.
D) Popular sovereignty was not accepted by the people of Kansas. They wanted to have slavery, not freedom, for blacks.

Question 40

Where did Stephen Douglas stand on the issue of slavery?

A) He was for popular sovereignty, and thought masters should be able to bring their slaves anywhere.
B) He thought that slavery should be abolished immediately.
C) He thought that blacks and white should have equal political and social rights.
D) He thought that all blacks should be shipped back to Africa as quickly as possible.

Question 41

What was Lincoln's reaction to the secession of the Confederate States of America?

A) He warned them that he would not permit them to leave.
B) He accepted their leaving, but immediately decided to free the slaves in the remaining states.
C) At first, startled by their suddenness, Lincoln did nothing.
D) All of these are correct.

Question 42

Which was the first state to secede?

Question 43

How did black people react to Abraham Lincoln as a presidential candidate?

A) They reacted with nearly universal support, as they knew he was going to abolish slavery.
B) Black people could not vote and therefore had no opinion about his candidacy.
C) Elite blacks favored him, since he seemed very intellectual, while poor blacks opposed him.
D) They reacted with either opposition or very reluctant support. They were dismayed by his racism and apparent support for slavery where it already existed.

Question 44

What was the Republicans' position on slavery during the 1860 election?

A) The Republicans would oppose slavery everywhere.
B) The Republicans were opposed to any expansion of slavery in the territories, but said they would not challenge it where it already existed.
C) The Republicans would ignore the issue of slavery, since it was so troublesome.
D) The Republicans would support the expansion of slavery anywhere.