question

In 1856, which antislavery senator was almost beaten to death on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Representative Preston Brooks?

answer

Charles Sumner

question

Harriet Beecher Stowe published her abolitionist novel ______ in 1852, and it was enormously successful.

answer

Uncle Tom's Cabin

question

How did Abraham Lincoln argue about slavery in his debates with Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Senate race?

answer

He favored restricting slavery to the states where the Constitution protected it.

question

What was true of most Northerners during the 1840s?

answer

They disliked slavery, but detested abolitionism.

question

What made the Compromise of 1850 so difficult to pass?

answer

President Taylor opposed the compromise, and congressmen kept granting key concessions to rival parties.

question

What were the different stands Democrats and Whigs took on annexation and slavery in new territories?

answer

Democrats endorsed expansion and a division of free and slave territories, while Whigs opposed annexation to avoid the slavery debate.

question

What made Northerners so opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854?

answer

It permitted slavery in an area where it had previously been prohibited.

question

How did the Republican Party manage to gain so much support in the 1850s?

answer

It wanted to prohibit slavery in the territories.

question

What was true about the sectional quarrel between North and South during the 1840s and 1850s?

answer

It was increasingly seen in cultural and intellectual terms.

question

What ultimately led to the Republican success in the election of 1860?

answer

Republicans were able to win decisively in the North.

question

In what area did the Wilmot Proviso propose to ban slavery?

answer

in territory acquired from Mexico

question

What was the difference between Northern and Southern evangelicalism in the mid-1800s?

answer

Northern evangelicalism focused on self-discipline and social reform; Southern evangelicalism focused on personal piety.

question

For the Northern Democrats, who would determine whether a territory would have slavery, per the principle of squatter sovereignty, or popular sovereignty as it was later called?

answer

settlers

question

Who was the "great pacificator" who established the Compromise of 1850?

answer

Henry Clay

question

Which part of the Compromise of 1850 was considered an outrageous piece of legislation?

answer

enactment of the new Fugitive Slave Law

question

In 1854, Stephen Douglas proposed a bill that would set up territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska on the basis of what?

answer

popular sovereignty

question

What did Ostend Manifesto of 1854 accuse the Pierce administration of doing?

answer

wanting to create a "Caribbean slave empire" by annexing Cuba

question

What was the main reason that many native-born Americans disliked Irish and German immigrants?

answer

because they were mostly Roman Catholic

question

What action took place after proslavery adherents raided Lawrence, the free-state capital of Kansas, in 1856?

answer

John Brown and his followers killed five proslavery settlers in cold blood.

question

The tension between ________ became virtually "irreconcilable" in the years between the elections of 1856 and 1860.

answer

Northerners and Southerners

question

Compromise of 1850

answer

Five federal laws that temporarily calmed the sectional crisis. The compromise made California a free state, ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law.

question

Fugitive Slave Law

answer

Passed in 1850, this federal law made it easier for slave owners to recapture runaway slaves; it also made it easier for kidnappers to take free blacks.

question

Kansas-Nebraska Act

answer

This 1854 act repealed the Missouri Compromise, split the Louisiana Purchase into two territories, and allowed its settlers to accept or reject slavery by popular sovereignty.

question

Ostend Manifesto

answer

Written by American diplomats in 1854, this secret memorandum urge acquiring Cuba by any means necessary. When it became public, northerners claimed it was a plot to extend slavery, and the manifesto was disavowed.

question

popular sovereignty

answer

The concept that the settlers of a newly organized territory had the right to decide whether to accept slavery.

question

Wilmot Proviso

answer

In 1846, shortly after outbreak of the Mexican-American War, Congressman David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced this amendment banning slavery in any lands won from Mexico.

question

Charles Sumner

answer

A fervent abolitionist and longtime senator from Massachusetts, he is remembered for being brutally caned on the floor of the Senate in 1856 and for leading the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction

question

Millard Fillmore

answer

He became the 13th president upon the death of Zachary Taylor and signed into law the Compromise of 1850, but failed to garner the Whig nomination in 1852.

question

Stephen A. Douglas

answer

A senator from Illinois, he helped assure passage of the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but is most noted for a series of debates on slavery with Abraham Lincoln during his successful re-election campaign of 1858.

question

Franklin Pierce

answer

A New England Democrat, he became the 14th president in 1853 and his shaky tenure was dominated by furor surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which he supported and which cost him the nomination for re-election.

question

James Buchanan

answer

A Pennsylvania Democrat, as the 15th president he proved incapable of steering the country through difficulties that included an economic panic, a growing sectional crisis and, during the final four months of his tenure, the secession of seven Southern states.

question

Harriet Beecher Stowe

answer

A member of a prominent family of religious leaders, this author's 1852 novel of slave life, Uncle Tom's Cabin, sold more than 300,000 copies within a year and swayed public opinion in the North to a more abolitionist position.

question

Dred Scott

answer

A Missouri slave, he sued on the grounds that a move into the Wisconsin Territory should have freed him. The 1857 Supreme Court ruling that bears his name found 1) that no African American could sue because they were not citizens, and 2) the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

question

Abraham Lincoln

answer

The 16th president and the first Republican to hold that office, his election prompted secession in the South and he led the nation through its Civil War in order to restore the Union, eliminating slavery in the process.

question

John Brown

answer

A radical abolitionist, he and his followers murdered five proslavery settlers in Kansas in 1856 and, three years later, staged a futile raid on the armory at Harper's Ferry, Va., for the purpose of igniting a guerrilla war. He was then hanged, ensuring his status as a martyr to abolitionism.

question

Hinton Rowan Helper

answer

Author of the 1857 book, The Impending Crisis of the South, which urged nonslaveholders in the South to resist planter domination and abolish slavery.

question

John Breckenridge

answer

Pro-slavery presidential candidate from Kentucky who was nominated by the Southern faction of the Democratic Party in 1860.

Chapter 14: The Sectional Crisis – Flashcards

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