According to the decision of Gibbons v. Ogden, which branch of government would
regulate interstate commerce?
a. the executive branch
b. Congress
c. the Supreme Court
d. the individual states
e. the judicial branch
During the era of the European slave trade, West Africans __________.
a. were quite isolated from the rest of the world
b. had a simple, self-sufficient economy
c. had a single monolithic culture that covered most of the African continent
d. were increasingly being converted by Muslim missionaries
e. were united by a single language
Why did some immigrants resist the settlement house movement?
a. They did not trust organizations that were headed by women.
b. They felt that settlement houses kept them segregated from the rest of society.
c. They did not want their children educated by Americans.
d. They did not want other people to tell them how to live and act.
e. They believed that living in a settlement house would never get them out of poverty.
During World War II, the closest ally of the United States was __________.
a. the Soviet Union
b. Canada
c. France
d. Britain
e. China
How were the goals of Samuel Gompers and “Big Bill” Heywood similar?
a. Both men believed in opposing business owners to gain workers’ rights.
b. Both men believed in limiting entry into skilled crafts fields, so as to increase
competition and quality.
c. Both men believed in the workers’ rights to better wages and safer working
conditions.
d. Both men believed in socialist reforms that would give the laborers full ownership of
the means of production.
e. Both men believed in immigrant and unskilled workers’ rights to join unions and
advocate for equal wages, hours, and housing.
Why did the United States implement the Marshall Plan?
a. to strengthen the U.S. military and win the arms race
b. to prevent Civil War in China and stop the spread of communism
c. to placate Stalin and end the Cold War
d. to improve the Western European economy and stop the spread of communism
e. to convince the American public to engage in open war with the Soviet Union
The major significance of Jackson’s national bank veto message was that it
__________.
a. was the first veto made by Jackson
b. failed to explain the constitutional reasons for his decision
c. was the first one that went beyond strictly constitutional arguments
d. decisively ended the life of the national bank
e. was the first recorded presidential veto
In order to test the resolve of his American, British, and French opponents, in 1948
Stalin __________.
a. tested his first atom bomb
b. invaded China
c. invaded France
d. initiated a blockade of Berlin
e. began shooting down American planes over Germany
Why did people flee farms in the early 1900s?
a. Pests destroyed most crops across the South, and farmers fled debt.
b. People were attracted to the more modern, cosmopolitan life of the city and suburbs.
c. Drought destroyed most crops across the Midwest, and farmers fled debt.
d. Whites came to associate farming with Mexicans and African Americans.
e. New technology made tenant farming unnecessary and obsolete.
Opposition to President Tyler’s plan for the annexation of Texas primarily came from
__________.
a. northern antislavery Whigs
b. southern agricultural interests
c. New England merchants
d. Great Britain
e. railroad companies
The man who taught Virginians how to grow tobacco was __________.
a. Captain John Smith
b. Powhatan
c. John Rolfe
d. Sir Edwin Sandys
e. the Duke of Marlboro
The victory at __________ gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.
a. Gettysburg
b. Vicksburg
c. Richmond
d. Shiloh
e. Fredericksburg
What was a major difference between northern and southern schools?
a. More students attended school in the South.
b. All southern states had compulsory school attendance laws.
c. Few southern states had compulsory school attendance laws.
d. Northern states provided segregated school systems.
e. Southern schools provided better curricula.
__________ came to symbolize the triumph of democracy in the 1820s-1840s.
a. Henry Clay
b. John C. Calhoun
c. Daniel Webster
d. Martin Van Buren
e. Andrew Jackson
According to the principle of popular sovereignty, __________ would determine
whether a territory would have slavery.
a. Congress
b. territorial legislatures
c. settlers
d. the Supreme Court
e. the House of Representatives
How did the federal government react to the spread of Jim Crow laws in the late
nineteenth century?
a. The federal government sent in additional troops to enforce the Reconstruction
amendments.
b. Congress passed legislation to prevent political discrimination, but allowed social
discrimination to continue.
c. The federal government did not interfere because it was a states’ rights issue.
d. The laissez-faire attitude of the Republican presidents of the era prevented any
action.
e. The Supreme Court rulings supported a reduction in civil rights for blacks.
Which territory caused the most debate about the merits of the United States acquiring
an empire?
a. Guam
b. Hawaii
c. Puerto Rico
d. the Philippines
e. the Dominican Republic
During 1940-1941, President Roosevelt attempted to halt Japanese aggression in Asia
by __________.
a. applying economic pressure on Japan through a trade embargo
b. waging a clandestine, undeclared war against Japanese naval forces in the Pacific
c. signing mutual defense pacts with other Asian nations
d. securing legislation allowing him to send troops to China
e. sending troops to fight on Japanese soil
Why were New England colonists more likely to maintain English customs than those
who migrated to Virginia and Maryland?
a. The New England colonists came from higher social ranks than those in the other
colonies, and were more familiar with traditional English customs.
b. The New England colonists brought more English goods with them to America,
which helped keep the traditions alive.
c. The New England colonists tended to migrate as families and thus were able to keep
family and other traditions in the New World.
d. The New England colonists generally came to America as single men and women
and found that preserving their English customs comforted them.
e. The New England colonists were proud to be English, while the other colonists
wanted to reject their English traditions.
Canals in early nineteenth-century America __________.
a. linked the Atlantic coastal cities to the lakes and rivers of the interior
b. were very profitable
c. competed successfully with railroads
d. were financed through federal and state government funds
e. led to spectacular canal boat accidents that claimed many lives
Why did Populists not gain as many seats in Congress as they had expected to gain in
the 1894 election?
a. In the South, Democrats used fraud and violence to keep people from voting for
Populist candidates.
b. In the Midwest, discontented voters tended to vote for Democrats and not Populists.
c. The unemployed, who were big supporters of the Populists, did not vote as widely as
expected.
d. In the South, despite Populist support, more people ultimately voted Republican.
e. The Populist supporters in New England chose to vote Republican instead.
The idea that people could conduct their lives completely free of sin is called
__________.
a. perfectionism
b. abolitionism
c. temperance
d. acceptance
e. purification
Why did the Populists nominate Tom Watson for vice president in the 1896 election?
a. They felt that he was a stronger candidate than William Jennings Bryan.
b. They wanted a Republican vice president to balance the ticket with a Democratic
president.
c. Watson, unlike William Jennings Bryan, supported free coinage of silver, which the
Populists also supported.
d. They thought that Watson would ensure that voters would elect a Populist president.
e. They were endorsing the Democratic candidate for president and so wanted their own
candidate for vice president.
In the Pottawatomie Massacre, __________.
a. John Brown and his followers killed five Native Americans in a land dispute
b. a mob of angry settlers attacked and killed five escaped slaves
c. an escaped slave killed a family of five white settlers
d. John Brown killed eight abolitionists in Kansas
e. John Brown and his followers killed five proslavery settlers in cold blood
The Union general who replaced Winfield Scott as commander of Union forces was
__________.
a. Irvin McDowell
b. Joseph Hooker
c. Robert E. Lee
d. William Tecumseh Sherman
e. George McClellan
The development of profitable commercial agriculture resulted from __________.
a. improvements in agricultural technology
b. the population growth in the Midwestern states
c. rising need for agricultural products in the New England area
d. European demands for American agricultural products
e. generous government subsidies to encourage increased production
What does it mean that some Americans believed the United States had “continental
destiny”?
a. It means that some Americans believed that the United States should control all of the
North American continent.
b. It means that some Americans believed that the United States should expand from the
East coast to the West coast, controlling all the lands in between.
c. It means that some Americans believed that the United States should support Latin
American countries fighting for their independence.
d. It means that some Americans believed that the United States should join with
continental Europe to fight the British Empire.
e. It means that some Americans believed that the United States should join with the
continental European countries that opposed Latin American independence.
The Indian Reorganization Act __________.
a. supported sending youth to educational programs in nearby towns
b. granted political dependency to Indian tribes
c. encouraged a movement toward farming on tribal lands
d. stressed tribal unity and autonomy
e. reestablished the Indian Reservations, 47 years after the Dawes Act abolished them
Why did the Republic of Hawaii embarrass President Cleveland?
a. It showed the world that Cleveland was an imperialistic president who orchestrated
military coups to gain land.
b. It showed the world that Cleveland and the United States had an imperialist foreign
policy that contradicted their independence-minded domestic policy.
c. The Republic was his idea, and it failed when it was only a week old.
d. It showed that the American rebels in Hawaii did not respect President Cleveland’s
authority.
e. It showed that the small country of Hawaii was able to defeat the United States, an
embarrassment to America, which prided itself on its new world power status.
In December 1775, Parliament passed the ________, which declared war on American
international commerce.
a. Declaratory Act
b. Prohibitory Act
c. Commerce Act
d. Tea Act
e. Trade Act
The United States looked forward to __________ after its victory in World War II.
a. controlling postwar governments in Germany and Italy
b. breaking up the Soviet Union
c. seizing German resources
d. controlling western Europe
e. controlling the Pacific
The one American who, more than anyone else, symbolized the spirit of the
Enlightenment was __________.
a. Jonathan Edwards
b. George Washington
c. Cotton Mather
d. George Whitefield
e. Benjamin Franklin
What was a result of the congressional elections of 1866?
a. Johnson’s Reconstruction policies were vindicated at the polls.
b. The Radical Republicans lost ground.
c. Democrats gained control of Congress.
d. The results served as a referendum for the Fourteenth Amendment.
e. Johnson’s reelection campaign got a big boost.