1. When the war with Mexico ended in 1848, Congress had
a. voted to prohibit slavery in the territories that the United States had gained in the war.
b. voted to allow slavery in the territories that the United States had gained in the war.
c. extended the Missouri Compromise line.
d. not resolved the status of slavery in the territories that the United States had gained in the war.
The answer is d. When the war with Mexico broke out in 1846, national legislators recognized that it would lead to new U.S. territories and proposed a variety of different plans for dealing with the question of slavery in them. However, by the time the war ended two years later, Congress had made no headway in solving the issue, although sectional tensions had been heightened.
2. Some Northerners were opposed to the extension of slavery into the land gained from the war with Mexico because they
a. felt that it would dishonor Mexican–American War veterans.
b. feared that the issue would allow Whigs to pick up votes.
c. worried about slave uprisings occurring out west, where the white population was much smaller.
d. were hostile to blacks and wanted to reserve new lands for whites.
The answer is d. Coming out against slavery did not necessarily preclude racist sentiments. Some white Northerners wanted to ban the spread of slavery because they were prejudiced against blacks and wanted new western lands to be preserved for white settlement. Other northern voters in the 1840s and 1850s did not want slavery to expand because of their fear of increased southern political power. Northerners realized that new slave territories would eventually become new slave states and increase the power of slaveholding interests in the national government.
3. In the debate over the Wilmot Proviso, Senator John C. Calhoun contended that Congress did not have the authority to ban slavery in the territories because
a. the Constitution gave that authority to the judicial branch.
b. the Constitution explicitly forbade Congress to make laws for the territories.
c. of the conditions laid down by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
d. Congress could not deprive any state of equal rights in the territories.
The answer is d. Calhoun argued that the territories constituted the “joint and common property” of the states. Congress did not have the right to deprive any state of equal rights in any territory, including the right of a state’s citizens to migrate with their property, including slaves, to a territory.
4. The most attractive aspect of Senator Lewis Cass’s doctrine of popular sovereignty was that it
a. relied on a national vote to determine the issue of slavery in the territories.
b. was ambiguous about the moment at which the fate of slavery would be decided.
c. gave Congress ultimate decision–making power with regard to the fate of slavery in the territories.
d. was opposed by southern congressmen.
The answer is b. Because popular sovereignty—by which the settlers in a territory would decide for themselves the fate of slavery—did not establish precisely when the residents of a territory would decide the issue of slavery, both northern and southern politicians were able to sell the plan to their constituents. Northern supporters claimed that the decision on slavery could be made as soon as the first territorial legislature assembled, thus making it possible to ban slavery almost before a single slave could even arrive in the area. Southern supporters claimed that the issue could be determined only when settlers drew up a constitution and applied for statehood, thus giving slavery a chance to become entrenched.
5. The issue that undermined the Compromise of 1850 was
a. California statehood.
b. runaway slaves in New England.
c. the assumption of Texan debts.
d. the ending of the slave trade in Washington, D.C.
The answer is b. The Compromise of 1850 had included the Fugitive Slave Act, a new and more stringent law for returning fugitive slaves to their owners. Although the measure did not receive much attention when the Compromise was being debated, brutal enforcement of the law brought the horrors of the slave system into the North.
6. In the 1830s, northern states began to provide fugitive slaves with protection from their owners by means of
a. personal liberty laws.
b. state–run freemen’s bureaus.
c. publicly funded transit to Canada.
d. laws preventing slaveholders from entering free states.
The answer is a. A 1793 federal law that allowed slave owners to enter other states to recapture their slave property offended many Northerners, who saw it as a license to kidnap free blacks. They responded by passing “personal liberty laws” that gave fugitives some protection.
7. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed the seizure of an alleged slave after a slaveholder
a. had produced at least two witnesses who could identify the runaway as his.
b. paid a substantial fee to the court.
c. provided physical evidence of ownership.
d. appeared before an appointed commissioner and swore the slave was his.
The answer is d. Southerners had been angered by northern resistance to returning fugitive slaves to their owners and insisted that any comprehensive settlement of sectional differences include a stronger fugitive slave law. The measure, passed in 1850 as part of the Compromise, made it quite easy for a slave owner to claim an alleged runaway slave as his property by requiring only that the slaveholder swear to his ownership before a court–appointed commissioner.
8. Northern sentiment against slavery was crystallized in part by the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
a. which proved to have considerable influence in spite of its very limited sales.
b. a factual history of the Legree plantation in Louisiana.
c. a novel about plantation life written by a northern white woman.
d. a firsthand account of slave life written by a former slave.
The answer is c. Harriet Beecher Stowe, a free white northerner who had never been to a plantation, wrote the best–selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life among the Lowly (1852), which sold more than 300,000 copies in its first year. Stowe’s book portrayed kind, courageous slaves who suffered at the hands of fiendish slave owners. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was celebrated in the North as a literary triumph and helped to crystallize northern sentiment against the southern slave system.
9. The most crucial result of the 1854 Kansas–Nebraska Act was that it
a. boosted the strength of the Whig Party.
b. helped the popularity of the Democratic Party in the North.
c. made Kansas into a slave state.
d. realigned the nation’s two major political parties.
The answer is d. The Kansas–Nebraska Act had the effect of undermining the old party system, in which the Whigs and the Democrats had organized and channeled political conflict and put a damper on sectionalism. In the wake of the Kansas–Nebraska controversy, the old national parties were replaced by two sectional parties.
10. The new political party system of the 1850s
a. was defined by the split between easterners and westerners.
b. muffled moral issues such as slavery.
c. made political compromise difficult.
d. encouraged political compromise.
The answer is c. With the rise of what one critic labeled “geographic” parties, ideological and policy differences between the North and the South were sharpened, and moral issues such as slavery were brought to the forefront of political debate. However, this had the disadvantage of thwarting political compromise and promoting political polarization.
11. The Whig Party’s showing in the presidential election of 1852 demonstrated that it
a. did not need southern support to win elections.
b. was placating its southern wing at the expense of its northern wing.
c. needed to find better candidates.
d. no longer had strong national support.
The answer is d. The disintegration of the Whig Party began during the Mexican–American War; Whig president Zachary Taylor’s support for the entrance of California into the Union as a free state hastened the party’s decline. By 1852, it was evident that the party could not please both its southern and northern wings. In that presidential election, Whig candidate General Winfield Scott carried only four states.
12. In the 1850s, the Democrats remained relatively united by
;a. ejecting antislavery party members.
b. refusing to discuss the issue of slavery.
c. supporting popular sovereignty.
d. championing a free–soil West.
The answer is c. The decline and collapse of the Whig Party left the Democrats as the only national party. To avoid collapsing themselves, the Democrats embraced the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which many Democrats, regardless of region, could support. However, the application of popular sovereignty to the Nebraska Territory divided northern Democrats and undermined the party’s popularity in the free states.
13. In 1855, popular sovereignty in Kansas led
a. President Franklin Pierce to intercede on behalf of antislavery forces in the state.
b. to a free–soil electoral victory.
c. to orderly elections that guaranteed the status of slavery.
d. to the formation of two rival governments.
The answer is d. Popular sovereignty supposedly rested on orderly elections in which settlers determined the status of slavery in their territory. In Kansas Territory, the elections turned into an opportunity for widespread fraud as both proslavery and antislavery settlers attempted to manipulate the outcome. Proslavery settlers were joined by thousands of Missourians who illegally voted in the early elections and formed a radically proslavery legislature. Outraged free–soil settlers elected their own legislature and enacted a different set of laws.
14. South Carolina representative Preston Brooks’s attack on Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner had the effect of
a. cooling northern denunciations of slavery.
b. ruining Sumner’s political career.
c. ending Brooks’s political career.
d. giving the Republican Party a symbol of southern villainy.
The answer is d. When Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner into unconsciousness, he increased his popularity among his constituents, who responded to Brooks’s resignation from the House by reelecting him. However, the attack was interpreted differently in the North, and Republicans used it to symbolize the violent nature of the South’s “civilization.”
15. Dred Scott based his claim to freedom on
a. the immorality of the slave system.
b. his travels and residences in free areas.
c. the fact that he had purchased his freedom.
d. his master’s intention of freeing him.
The answer is b. Dred Scott, a slave, sued for his freedom in court after his master took him to Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, both of which were closed to slavery. He argued that living in a free state and then a free territory had made both him and his family free and that they retained that status even after being returned to the slave state of Missouri.
16. In its 1857 decision in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court ruled that
a. blacks were not citizens of the United States.
b. travel in free territories did not make slaves free.
c. Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories.
d. all of the above.
The answer is d. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney loathed Republicans and the idea of racial equality and used the Dred Scott case to reinforce his own prejudices. His ruling reflected an extreme proslavery stance and ranged far beyond the simple issue of whether Dred Scott was free.
17. Before the 1850s, Southerners had used the threat of secession as a ploy to
a. reinforce southern nationalism.
b. encourage foreign investment in the South.
c. destroy the Union.
d. gain concessions within the Union.
The answer is d. Prior to the 1850s, Southerners talked about secession when they wanted to get political concessions within the existing Union. During the 1850s, however, developments shattered Southerners’ belief that they could remain a part of the United States and still protect slavery; the new circumstances meant that the talk of secession became more and more serious.
18. Most Northerners believed that John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, was
a. undertaken in the name of a bad cause.
b. a good idea but poorly executed.
c. a lawless act of unwarranted violence.
d. a justifiable attack on the slave system.
The answer is c. Some abolitionist Northerners felt that Brown was a hero, and some even endorsed his cause of slave rebellion. Still, the majority argued that, while they supported Brown’s cause, his antislavery ideals did not excuse the violence of his approach. This did not placate Southerners, who increasingly refused to distinguish between moderate and radical Northerners.
19. In 1860, moderate Southern Democrats abandoned the Democratic Party and formed the Constitutional Union Party to support
a. the Constitution and the Union.
b. the abolition of slavery.
c. the extension of popular sovereignty.
d. a federal slave code for the territories.
The answer is a. After stomping out of the Democratic Party convention in April 1860, southern Democrats reconvened on their own, nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for president, and approved a platform with a federal slave code. Southern moderates refused to support Breckinridge and formed the Constitutional Union Party to provide voters with a Unionist choice. The group approved a vague resolution pledging “to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution. . .the Union. . .and the Enforcement of the Laws.” They nominated former senator John Bell of Tennessee as their presidential candidate.
20. Republican Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election in 1860 because
a. his votes were concentrated in the free states, which held a majority of electoral votes.
b. his opposition was splintered.
c. he promised to end slavery.
d. New Jersey’s electoral votes were split between Lincoln and Douglas, putting Lincoln over the edge.
The correct answer is a. On November 6, 1860, Lincoln swept all of the eighteen free states except New Jersey, which split its votes between him and Douglas. Lincoln won only 39 percent of the popular vote, but he won in the electoral college with 180 votes. Lincoln won because his votes were concentrated in the free states, which contained a majority of electoral votes.
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