75. The Republican Party founded in the 1850s strongly endorsed the same policy about slavery in the territories that ________ had
begun advocating in 1846.
a. David Wilmot
b. Stephen Douglas
c. John C. Calhoun
d. Roger Taney
e. Henry Clay
76. Which statement is true regarding free labor ideology?
a. Free labor ideology glorified the South as the home of progress, opportunity, and freedom.
b. According to free labor ideology, economic independence was of limited importance to freedom.
c. Free labor ideology was most popular among poor southern whites.
d. Free labor and slavery could coexist peacefully for an unlimited amount of time.
e. According to free labor ideology, slavery must be kept out of the territories so that free laborers could move up to the status of
landowning farmers and independent craftsmen.
77. What argument was made by critics of the Dred Scott decision such as James McCune Smith and John McLean?
a. The Supreme Court could not be considered an impartial judge in this case because most of the justices were southerners.
b. Citizenship implied the right to keep and carry arms.
c. All free persons born on American soil were automatically citizens.
d. The Republican platform of restricting slavery’s expansion was unconstitutional.
e. The nation’s founders had never intended for black people to have the rights of citizens.
78. Republicans
a. were mostly abolitionists.
b. opposed the expansion of slavery.
c. opposed immigration.
d. opposed free labor ideology.
e. opposed industrialization.
79. The Republican free labor ideology
a. convinced northerners that Catholic immigrants posed a more significant threat than the southern slave power.
b. won Republicans significant support from non-slaveholders in the South in 1856.
c. owed its origins to Abraham Lincoln’s reemergence in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
d. accepted southerners’ point that slavery protected their liberty, but explained that the economic benefits of free labor
would outweigh the damage abolition would do to southern liberty.
e. suggested that free labor and slave labor were essentially incompatible.
80. The caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks
a. showed the extreme violence of which northern abolitionists were capable.
b. actually helped the new Republican Party.
c. was denounced by most southerners as barbaric.
d. occurred because Sumner praised the attack on Lawrence, Kansas.
e. was unusual because both men were proslavery Democrats.
81. On matters related to citizenship, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Dred Scott that
a. free African-Americans could vote.
b. anyone that a state considered to be a citizen was a U.S. citizen.
c. freeborn blacks were U.S. citizens, but those born into slavery and later freed could not be citizens.
d. citizenship was limited to males.
e. only white persons could be U.S. citizens.
82. In the Dred Scott decision, what was the primary reason given by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for refusing to consider
blacks American citizens?
a. Blacks had been considered inferior in America for more than a century, including by the founding fathers.
b. Blacks had been granted an inferior role in society by God.
c. Blacks were a dangerous class of people, lacking the moral restraint necessary for full political freedom.
d. Blacks lacked the intelligence necessary to vote and engage in politics.
e. Blacks did not hold a meaningful economic stake in the success of the American project.
83. What do Taney’s arguments regarding citizenship in the Dred Scott decision imply about the nature of citizenship?
a. It is an ancient ideal that can be traced back to the Roman Empire.
b. It is a God-given privilege afforded only to those who have demonstrated that they are worthy of it.
c. It can be both granted to and taken away from a person through legislative acts.
d. It is an evolving entity, destined to include a larger number of people as society changes.
e. It is a social construct defined by those whom it pertains to.
84. The Republican presidential candidate in 1856 was
a. John Breckinridge.
b. Abraham Lincoln.
c. Charles Sumner.
d. John Frémont.
e. James Buchanan.
85. Which represents Abraham Lincoln’s views on race in the 1850s?
a. Blacks and whites were intellectual equals.
b. Black men should have economic opportunities to better themselves.
c. Black men should be given the right to vote in Illinois.
d. Blacks should be given the same legal rights as whites.
e. Free blacks should be viewed as fundamentally different from slaves.
86. The Dred Scott decision of the U.S. Supreme Court
a. declared that Congress could not ban slavery from territories.
b. endorsed the free-soil policy of the Republicans.
c. backed the idea of popular sovereignty.
d. freed Dred and Harriet Scott.
e. extended the Missouri Compromise line to California.
87. Which statement is true about the effects and aftermath of the 1857 Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford?
a. The decision in effect declared the Republican plan to restrict slavery’s expansion unconstitutional.
b. President Buchanan declared that slavery was banned in all the territories.
c. Stephen Douglas praised the Court’s affirmation of the doctrine of popular sovereignty.
d. Dred Scott remained enslaved until his death.
e. All people born in the United States were declared citizens, regardless of race.
88. Which position was taken by Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates?
a. Local self-government was essential in order for American to truly be a free county.
b. Only the national government had the right to decide whether slavery was legal.
c. Blacks would eventually achieve the same rights as whites, but the time was not yet right.
d. Slavery was a moral wrong, but the government had no right to outlaw it.
e. Slavery needed to be extended to the West Coast to ensure the freedom of southerners.
89. The Lecompton Constitution was the
a. antislavery constitution adopted in Nebraska.
b. proslavery constitution proposed for Kansas.
c. pro-secession constitution of North Carolina.
d. Missouri constitution preferred by Abraham Lincoln.
e. compromise offered in 1861 to end the secession crisis.
90. Which event sparked Abraham Lincoln’s reentry into politics?
a. Compromise of 1850
b. Mexican-American War
c. Dred Scott decision
d. raid on Harpers Ferry
e. Kansas-Nebraska Act
91. The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates took place during the campaign for
a. U.S. president in 1856.
b. U.S. president in 1860.
c. governor of Illinois in 1858.
d. a congressional seat from Illinois in 1856.
e. U.S. senator from Illinois in 1858.
92. Who led the raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859?
a. Frederick Douglass
b. Joseph Lane
c. Robert E. Lee
d. Henry Ward Beecher
e. John Brown
93. How did John Brown differ from other abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison?
a. He opposed slavery on a purely secular (nonreligious) basis.
b. He was married to an ex-slave.
c. He was willing to take violent action to end slavery.
d. He deliberately modeled his speech and behavior on Jesus Christ.
e. He was the son of a prominent southern planter.
94. During his debate with Abraham Lincoln in Freeport, Illinois, Stephen Douglas
a. called for the free-soil principle to determine the status of slavery in the West.
b. denounced popular sovereignty as a fraud.
c. praised the temperance movement and other key social reforms.
d. insisted that popular sovereignty was compatible with the Dred Scott decision.
e. argued that slaveholders had a constitutional right to take their slaves anywhere.
95. What economic trend occurred in the South in the 1850s?
a. Many poor whites lost their land and were forced to serve as tenant farmers alongside slaves.
b. The high price of slaves and the deep debt incurred by many planters undermined the profitability of plantations.
c. Owners of northern textile factories became increasingly indebted to the planters they bought their cotton from.
d. More people became slave owners, while the average number of slaves owned by a single master decreased.
e. Manufacturing became a significant source of employment for free blacks.
96. Which statement is true regarding the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858?
a. Lincoln disagreed with Douglas’s view that whites were a superior race.
b. Douglas argued that there should be a national popular vote on the morality of slavery.
c. Lincoln believed that blacks as well as whites were entitled to the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of
Independence.
d. Lincoln argued for free western territories mainly so that free black people could find new homes and better conditions of life.
e. Lincoln argued that the Constitution would have to be amended to restrict slavery from the territories.
97. Which states did the Constitutional Unionist candidate John Bell win in the 1860 election?
a. all of the New England states
b. four states of the Lower South
c. Texas and Louisiana
d. three states of the Upper South
e. only Missouri
98. Which 1854 document called for the United States to seize Cuba?
a. the Monroe Doctrine
b. the Ostend Manifesto
c. the Wilmot Proviso
d. the Webster-Ashburton Treaty
e. the Frémont Manifesto
99. What do the authors of the 1850 “Letter to the Middletown Sentinel and Witness” claim to be more important than the Union?
a. the political rights of states
b. economic freedom and prosperity
c. individuals’ freedom to act according to their consciences
d. God’s will
e. local rights and local cultural values
100. How do the authors of the 1850 “Letter to the Middletown Sentinel and Witness” accord their opposition to the Fugitive Slave
Act with their claim that they “reverence law”?
a. by portraying the Fugitive Slave Act as so unjust that it cannot be a real law
b. by placing “God’s law” above the laws of mankind
c. by claiming that the Fugitive Slave Act was passed illegally
d. by placing their First Amendment rights to free expression above a “law of the moment”
e. by pointing out that the Fugitive Slave Act contradicts existing laws
101. In the 1850s, Tennessee-born William Walker became famous for
a. creating a utopian community in Northern California.
b. his proslavery novels that heightened sectionalism.
c. breeding the “Tennessee Walker,” a horse prominent in westward expansion.
d. seeking to establish himself as ruler of a slaveholding Nicaragua.
e. defying fellow whites in his native region and becoming a prominent abolitionist.
102. The Democratic Party split in 1860 over the question of whether to
a. renominate President James Buchanan for a second term.
b. protect slavery in the territories or allow popular sovereignty in them.
c. impeach Chief Justice Roger Taney for the Dred Scott decision.
d. endorse the acquisition of Cuba by the United States, thus increasing slave territory.
e. immediately bring Kansas and Nebraska into the Union as slave states.
103. What do the authors of South Carolina’s Declaration of the Immediate Causes of Secession present as the cause of their leaving
the Union?
a. the federal government’s refusal to respect states’ rights
b. the election of a president who received no votes from the southern states
c. the federal government’s refusal to endorse the Ostend Manifesto
d. the North’s increasing opposition to slavery
e. the Supreme Court’s hostility to the interests of slave owners
104. Who is identified as an “enemy” in Declaration of the Immediate Causes of Secession?
a. the federal government
b. abolitionists
c. northern politicians
d. Abraham Lincoln
e. slaves participating in rebellions
105. How did the Confederate Constitution differ from the federal Constitution?
a. It contained only two branches of government, the executive and the judicial.
b. It limited citizenship to those meeting property requirements.
c. It explicitly guaranteed the right to own slaves.
d. It did not allow for a presidential cabinet.
e. It did not include the office of vice president.
106. What key component of the 1860 Republican platform had never before been part of a major party’s platform?
a. There should be no national banking system.
b. Slavery should be abolished in the Upper South.
c. The government needed to protect industry with a tariff.
d. Federal money should be used to improve and extend transportation.
e. Slavery should not be extended into new states and territories.
107. In the 1860 election, who was the presidential candidate to have significant support in all parts of the country?
a. Abraham Lincoln
b. John Breckinridge
c. John Bell
d. Stephen Douglas
e. Will Seward
108. Why did the southern states secede from the Union and form the Confederacy?
a. They wanted to preserve slavery.
b. The Fugitive Slave Act violated popular sovereignty.
c. They wanted to protest the Dred Scott decision.
d. They supported Stephen Douglas in the 1860 election.
e. The majority of southern whites were slaveholders.
109. Which was a result of the 1861 attack on Fort Sumter?
a. Davis gained control of the most essential fort in the South.
b. Support for the Confederacy collapsed in South Carolina.
c. The Union army lost more than 3,000 soldiers.
d. Lincoln succeeded in making the South fire the first shot.
e. Virginia and North Carolina defected from the Confederacy.
110. In 1860, which state became the first to pass an ordinance of secession and declare itself separated from the Union?
a. Virginia
b. Kentucky
c. Georgia
d. South Carolina
e. Tennessee
111. During the secession winter of 1860–1861, who offered the most widely supported compromise plan in Congress, which allowed
the westward extension of the Missouri Compromise line?
a. Abraham Lincoln
b. John Crittenden
c. Jefferson Davis
d. Zachary Taylor
e. Andrew Johnson
112. Which statement is true about the Confederacy?
a. The cornerstone of the Confederacy was the racist belief that whites were racially superior and blacks’ natural condition was
to be enslaved.
b. The majority of whites in the Confederate states were slaveholders in 1860.
c. The majority of whites in the Confederate states believed in free labor ideology.
d. All whites in the Confederate states had supported secession.
e. Most poor whites in Confederate states believed they would achieve economic independence if slavery were abolished.
113. Which statement is true about the Confederacy?
a. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was drafted to be different in all ways from the U.S. Constitution.
b. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America explicitly guaranteed slave property in the states and in any newly
acquired territories.
c. Confederate leaders planned to return lands to Indian tribes within the Confederate states that had been seized by the United
States.
d. Confederate leaders opposed imperial expansion into Central America and the Caribbean.
e. Stephen Douglas became president of the Confederacy.
114. The American Civil War began in April 1861, when
a. Confederate forces fired upon and captured Fort Sumter.
b. U.S. naval vessels bombarded the city of Wilmington, North Carolina.
c. Confederate and Union cavalry clashed in disputed territory in Texas.
d. General William Sherman led Union soldiers on a devastating march through Georgia.
e. Confederate infantry attacked Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Matching
TEST 1
___ 1. Dred Scott
___ 2. Abraham Lincoln
___ 3. John Frémont
___ 4. Martin Van Buren
___ 5. John Brown
___ 6. William Walker
___ 7. Henry David Thoreau
___ 8. John Breckinridge
___ 9. Stephen Douglas
___ 10. Henry Clay
___ 11. Preston Brooks
___ 12. David Wilmot
a. On Civil Disobedience
b. 1848 Free Soil presidential candidate
c. author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
d. tried to attach bill to ban slavery to war declaration
e. author of the Compromise of 1850
f. caned Charles Sumner
g. a slave who sued for his freedom
h. led a raid on Harpers Ferry
i. 1860 Republican presidential candidate
j. 1860 southern Democratic presidential candidate
k. 1856 Republican presidential candidate
l. filibustering
TEST 2
___ 1. manifest destiny
___ 2. Wilmot Proviso
___ 3. Kansas-Nebraska Act
___ 4. Fugitive Slave Act
___ 5. Ostend Manifesto
___ 6. Free Soil Party
___ 7. Compromise of 1850
___ 8. Know-Nothing Party
___ 9. Tejanos
___ 10. Appeal of the Independent Democrats
___ 11. filibustering
___ 12. gold rush
a. issued by antislavery congressmen
b. suggested that the United States buy or seize Cuba
c. returned runaway slaves to their masters
d. America’s mission to settle the West
e. Texas settlers of Spanish or Mexican descent
f. sudden increase in California’s population
g. voided the Missouri Compromise
h. no slavery in land acquired by Mexico
i. expedition to Central America
j. opponents to the expansion of slavery
k. anti-immigrant political party
l. California’s entry into the Union as a free state
True/False
1. American settlement of Oregon began well before the United States and Great Britain divided the territory at the forty-ninth
parallel.
2. Actions taken by the Mexican government were significant factors in the creation of the Texas independence movement.
3. The Californios controlled the labor of Indian tribes.
4. Unlike most previous presidents, James Polk was not a slaveholder.
5. The issue of Texas annexation was hotly linked to slavery and affected the nominations of presidential candidates in the 1840s.
6. Landowners of Spanish heritage in California were forced to accept a new national identity after the Mexican-American War.
7. The Mexican War was the first American conflict to be fought primarily on foreign soil.
8. After Texas independence, the Tejanos lost rights and access to land.
9. The explosive population growth and competition for gold brought cooperation among California’s many racial and ethnic groups
as they worked together for wealth.
10. As it divided over the issue of slavery, the Catholic Church broke into northern and southern branches.
11. The revolutions of 1848 in Europe are indicative of a lasting democratic shift in western European societies.
12. The Wilmot Proviso never passed as a law.
13. The Free Soil idea in the West appealed to racist northerners who worried about competing against black laborers.
14. The Fugitive Slave Act provided for the return of runaway slaves to their owners.
15. The Appeal of the Independent Democrats was not a very effective piece of political persuasion.
16. The development of railroads and the economic integration of the Northeast and Northwest created the groundwork for the
political unification of the Republican Party.
17. Nativism emerged as a major political movement in 1854 with the sudden appearance of the Liberty Party.
18. Kansas was admitted to the United States as a slave state in 1858.
19. The free labor ideology assumed that free labor could not compete with slave labor and so slavery’s expansion had to be halted to
ensure freedom for the white laborer.
20. Prior to becoming president in 1857, James Buchanan did not have much political experience.
21. Abraham Lincoln’s early views on race and slavery were focused on increasing economic opportunities for free blacks.
22. Moderate Republicans like Abraham Lincoln supported the Dred Scott decision.
23. The Lincoln-Douglas debates, although considered significant in American political history, were sparsely attended.
24. John Brown perpetuated violence over the slavery issue in only Virginia.
25. The Ostend Manifesto suggested seizing all of Mexico, rather than just the Mexican Cession, during the Mexican War.
26. Abraham Lincoln’s discussion of slavery as a “dying institution” was the catalyst for the first seven states seceding from the
Union.
27. The slave states of the Upper South reacted more favorably to Lincoln’s election than did the slave states of the Lower South.
28. Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election without a single vote in ten southern states.
29. By the time Lincoln actually took the oath of office, seven states had already seceded from the Union.
Short Answer
Identify and give the historical significance of each of the following terms, events, and people in a paragraph or two.
1. Californios and Tejanos
2. “free labor” ideology
Essay
1. Did morality or economics dominate the debates over slavery in the 1850s? Explain the various arguments made for and
against the expansion of slavery. Who, if anyone, was arguing for abolition?
2. John O’Sullivan declared that race was the key to the history of nations and the rise and fall of empires. How accurate do you
think that statement was? Why?
3. What did Emerson mean by “Mexico will poison us”? Was he right? Why or why not?
4. Many Americans and immigrants from other lands believed California presented a magnificent opportunity for economic freedom
once gold was discovered. However, the boundaries of freedom were tightly drawn in California. Explain the expansions and limi-
tations of freedom there.
5. Analyze the arguments of the Free Soil Party. How did its members understand freedom? How did slavery fit into their platform?
6. Thinking back to previous chapters, fully explain how the forces of the market revolution heightened the tension between freedom
and slavery.
3. Identify the combination of issues and events that fueled the creation of the Republican Party in the 1850s.
7. Explain how the various parties reacted to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Be sure to discuss why the Whig Party failed, why the
Democratic Party split, and why the Republican Party started. How did each party view slavery and define freedom?
3. Identify the combination of issues and events that fueled the creation of the Republican Party in the 1850s.
8. Using the Lincoln-Douglas debates, explore how each man viewed freedom. What can their political debates tell us about Ameri-
can society on the eve of the Civil War?
9. Analyze Roger Taney’s decision in the Dred Scott case. How did the ruling mirror the sectional debates that had been occurring in
Congress? What consequences did the decision have on the liberties and freedoms of blacks in America?
10. Examine the aftermath of the Mexican War for Tejanos in the Texas borderland. What were the consequences for Mexicans, Indians,
slaves, and free blacks in the newly acquired areas of not only Texas but also New Mexico and California? Think back to Thomas Jeffer-
son’s idea of an “Empire of Liberty.” Did the newly acquired land from the Mexican War promote Jefferson’s idea, or as with the Louisi-
ana Purchase, was it an empire of liberty for only a few?
11. How do you explain why and when certain slave states seceded from the Union? Why did some slave states—Delaware, Ken-
tucky, Maryland, and Missouri—not secede from the Union?