CHAPTER 18 Renewing The Sectional Struggle, 1848 1854

CHAPTER 18Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854A. Checklist of Learning ObjectivesAfter mastering this chapter, you should be able to:1. Explain how the issue of slavery in the territories acquired from Mexico disrupted American politics from1848 to1850.2. Point out the major terms of the Compromise of 1850 and indicate how this agreement attempted todefuse the sectional crisis over slavery.3. Explain why the Fugitive Slave Law included in the Compromise of 1850 stirred moral outrage and fueledantislavery agitation in the North.4. Indicate how the Whig party’s disintegration over slavery signaled the end of nonsectional politicalparties.5. Describe how the Pierce administration, as well as private American adventurers, pursued numerousoverseas and expansionist ventures primarily designed to expand slavery.6. Describe Americans’ first ventures into China and Japan in the 1850s and their diplomatic, economic,cultural, and religious consequences.7. Describe the nature and purpose of Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act, and explain why it fiercely rekindledthe slavery controversy that the Compromise of 1850 had been designed to settle.B. Multiple ChoiceSelect the best answer and circle the corresponding letter.1. Popular sovereignty was the idea thata. the government of each new territory should be elected by the people.b. presidential candidates should be nominated by popular primaries rather than party conventions.c. the United States should assume popular control of the territory acquired from Mexico.d. the people of a territory should determine for themselves whether or not to permit slavery.2. In the election of 1848, the response of the Whig and Democratic parties to the rising controversy overslavery wasa. a strong proslavery stance by the Democrats and a strong antislavery stance by the Whigs.b. to attack the sectional divisiveness of the antislavery Free Soil party.c. an attempt to ignore the issue by shoving it out of sight.d. to promise to seek a sectional compromise no matter which party won the presidency.3. Rapid formation of an effective state government in California seemed especially urgent becausea. proslavery Californians were gaining effective control of the territory.b. of the threat that Mexico would reconquer the territory.c. of the need to provide state subsidies for a transcontinental railroad.d. there was no legal authority to suppress the violence and lawlessness that accompanied theCalifornia gold rush.4. The proposed direct admission of California into the Union, without passing through territorial status, wasdangerously controversial becausea. the territory was in a condition of complete lawlessness and anarchy.b. the Mexicans were threatening renewed warfare if California joined the Union.c. California’s admission as a free state would destroy the equal balance of slave and free states inthe U.S. Senate.d. southern California and northern California did not want to be part of the same state.

5. Southerners hated the Underground Railroad and demanded a stronger federal Fugitive Slave Lawespecially becausea. the numbers of runaway slaves had grown dramatically.b. they feared that railroad conductors might foment a slave rebellion.c. northern toleration of slave runaways reflected a moral judgment against slavery.d. the risk of uncaptured runaways was beginning to depress the price of slaves.6. Senator Daniel Webster’s fundamental view regarding the issue of slavery expansion into the West wasthata. new slave and free states should always be admitted in pairs so as to preserve the sectionalbalance.b. there was no need to legislate because climate and geography guaranteed that plantation slaverycould not exist in the West.c. lavery should be prohibited in the West but that the South could expand slavery into CentralAmerica and the Caribbean.d. the South should be permitted to expand slavery if it abandoned its demand for a Fugitive SlaveLaw.7. It appeared that the Compromise of 1850 would fail to be enacted into law whena. Senator John C. Calhoun agreed that the Compromise was the best solution available.b. President Zachary Taylor suddenly died and the new president Fillmore backed the Compromise.c. Senator William Seward stated that a higher law demanded preservation of the Union.d. Henry Clay persuaded President Taylor to reverse his opposition to the Compromise.8. Under the terms of the Compromise of 1850a. California was admitted to the Union as a free state, and the issue of slavery in Utah and NewMexico territories would be left up to popular sovereignty.b. California was admitted as a free state, and Utah and New Mexico as slave states.c. California, Utah, and New Mexico were kept as territories but with slavery prohibited.d. New Mexico and Texas were admitted as slave states and Utah and California as free states.9. The greatest winner in the Compromise of 1850 wasa. the North.b. the South.c. the Whig party.d. the border states.10. The most significant effect of the Fugitive Slave Law, passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, wasa. an end to slave escapes and the Underground Railroad.b. the extension of the Underground Railroad into Canada.c. a sharp rise in northern antislavery feeling.d. growing northern hostility to radical abolitionists.11. The conflict over slavery following the election of 1852 led shortly to thea. death of the Whig party.b. death of the Democratic party.c. death of the Republican party.d. rise of the Free Soil party.

12. Southerners seeking to expand the territory of slavery undertook filibustering military expeditions toacquirea. Canada and Alaska.b. Nicaragua and Cuba.c. Hawaii and Samoa.d. northern Mexico.13. The primary goal of the Treaty of Kanagawa , which Commodore Matthew Perry signed with Japan in1854, wasa. establishing a balance of power in East Asia.b. guaranteeing the territorial integrity of China.c. establishing American naval bases in Hawaii and Okinawa.d. opening Japan to American trade.14. The Gadsden Purchase was fundamentally designed toa. enable the United States to guarantee control of California.b. permit the construction of a transcontinental railroad along a southern route.c. block Mexican raids into Arizona and New Mexico.d. serve the political interests of Senator Stephen Douglas.15. Northerners especially resented Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act because ita. would encourage the building of a transcontinental railroad along the southern route.b. would make Douglas the leading Democratic candidate for the presidency.c. repealed the Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery in northern territories.d. would bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state.

CHAPTER 19Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854–1861A. Checklist of Learning ObjectivesAfter mastering this chapter, you should be able to:1. Enumerate the sequence of major crises, beginning with the Kansas-Nebraska Act that led up tosecession, and explain the significance of each event.2. Explain how and why the territory of bleeding Kansas became the scene of a dress rehearsal for the CivilWar.3. Trace the growing power of the Republican Party in the 1850s and the increasing domination of theDemocratic Party by its militantly proslavery wing.4. Explain how the Dred Scott decision and John Brown’s Harpers Ferry raid deepened sectional antagonism.5. Trace the rise of Lincoln as a Republican spokesman, and explain why his senatorial campaign debateswith Stephen Douglas made him a major national figure despite losing the election.6. Analyze the election of 1860, including the split in the Democratic Party, the four-way campaign, thesharp sectional divisions, and Lincoln’s northern-based minority victory.7. Describe the secession of seven southern states following Lincoln’s victory, the formation of theConfederacy, and the failure of the last compromise effort.B. Multiple ChoiceSelect the best answer and circle the corresponding letter.1. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabina. was strongly rooted in religiously based antislavery sentiments.b. argued that nonslaveholding whites suffered the most from slavery.c. helped northerners understand that southerners disliked the cruelty of slavery.d. portrayed black slaves as seething with anger and potential violence.2. Hinton R. Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South contended thata. the Founders had intended that slavery should eventually be eliminated.b. slavery was contrary to the religious values held by most Americans.c. slavery did great harm to the poor whites of the South.d. slavery violated the human rights of African Americans.3. Southerners were especially enraged by abolitionists’ funding of antislavery settlers in Kansas becausea. proslavery settlers from Missouri could not receive the same kind of funding.b. the settlers included fanatical and violent abolitionists like John Brown.c. most ordinary westward-moving pioneers would be sympathetic to slavery.d. Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska had seemed to imply that Kansas would become a slave state.4. As submitted to Congress, the Lecompton Constitution was designed toa. bring Kansas into the Union as a free state.b. bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state and Nebraska as a free state.c. insure that the future of slavery would be determined according to Douglas’s principle of popularsovereignty.d. bring Kansas into the Union, while making it impossible to prohibit slavery there.