Chapter Fourteen: The Sectional Crisis, 1846-1861

Practice Quiz:

1. The radical abolitionist ________ burned a copy of the Constitution to protest slavery.
a. William Lloyd Garrison
b. Abraham Lincoln
c. Henry Clay
d. David Wilmot

2. Why was it difficult for northern abolitionists to mount a legal attack against the institution of slavery in southern states?
a. Southern states generally had much better lawyers than northern states.
b. There was a serious lack of strong northern congressional leadership.
c. The Constitution protected state laws that allowed slavery.
d. Southern plantation owners donated heavily to northern political candidates.

3. During the 1840s, which statement was true of the majority northerners?
a. They disliked slavery and detested abolitionism.
b. They were fierce and loyal abolitionists.
c. They supported the institution of slavery.
d. They were apathetic about the slavery issue.

4. How did the acquisition of Texas, New Mexico, and California cause conflict in the United States?
a. The Constitution did not establish the status of slavery in future states, so whether or not those territories would allow slavery was hotly debated.
b. Citizens in those territories refused to pay taxes to a federal government that they did not support.
c. The Missouri Compromise mandated that those territories should be free, but the economies of the territories were already completely dependent on slavery.
d. Mexico kept claiming the territories even after they had been annexed to the United States.

5. The Free Soil movement supported the exclusion of slavery from the territories because
a. it believed in racial justice.
b. it believed in the immorality of slavery.
c. it feared the outbreak of slave insurrections in the territories.
d. of racial prejudice and fear of labor competition from freed slaves.

6. The Compromise of 1850
a. was authored by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky.
b. is more commonly know as “the Wilmot Proviso.”
c. prohibited slavery in the New Mexico territory.
d. temporarily made California a slave state.

7. The term “second-party system” describes
a. the splinter parties of the 1840s and 1850s.
b. the vigorous competition between Whigs and Democrats.
c. a total shift in American politics.
d. the political party not in power in government.

8. How did Democrats differ from Whigs over annexation and slavery in new territories?
a. Democrats endorsed expansion and a division of free and slave territories, while Whigs opposed annexation to avoid the slavery debate.
b. Democrats opposed annexation to avoid the slavery debate, while Whigs endorsed expansion and a division of free and slave territories.
c. Both Democrats and Whigs endorsed expansion, but Democrats wanted the new territories to allow slavery while the Whigs did not.
d. Neither party endorsed expansion, but if it was inevitable, the Whigs encouraged the spread of slavery while the Democrats did not.

9. Why was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 so vehemently opposed by northerners?
a. It permitted slavery in all the states west of the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
b. It permitted slavery in all the states east of the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
c. It permitted slavery in an area where it had previously been prohibited.
d. It made it much more difficult for escaped slaves to find freedom in the North.

10. Which describes an important result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
a. It had catastrophic effects on sectional harmony.
b. It revived support for an expansionist foreign policy.
c. It strengthened the political power of the Whig Party.
d. It never got the congressional support it needed for passage.

11. The growing division between North and South during the 1840s and 1850s
a. had reached an uneasy but peaceful stalemate by 1860.
b. was entirely expressed in legal, constitutional terms.
c. had little impact on the common man.
d. was increasingly seen in cultural and intellectual terms.

12. Which was the intended message of southern literature during the 1840s and 1850s?
a. that genteel southern civilization was superior to greedy northern culture
b. that southerners should reevaluate their dependency on slavery
c. that southerners should try to change their culture to be more like northerners
d. that southerners should maintain slavery but dismantle the plantation system

13. What was Abraham Lincoln’s position on slavery in his debates with Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Senate race?
a. He favored abolishing slavery in all the states and territories.
b. He favored allowing slavery in newly acquired territories.
c. He favored restricting slavery to the states where the Constitution protected it.
d. He favored using popular sovereignty to decide the slavery issue in new territories.

14. John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, involved
a. white and black men seizing a federal arsenal in an unsuccessful attempt to start an uprising against slavery.
b. a slave rebellion that resulted in the deaths of 18 whites and all of the slaves.
c. a group of white men raiding a southern abolitionist office and killing five white and black anti-slavery protestors.
d. the massacre of five proslavery settlers in cold blood.

15. How did southerners react to Lincoln’s victory in the presidential election of 1860?
a. They celebrated the end of sectionalist tensions that plagued the nation.
b. They were optimistic that Lincoln would preserve their interests.
c. They redoubled their efforts to win the next congressional election.
d. They launched a movement to secede from the Union.

16. What do most modern historians believe was the underlying cause of the breakup of the Union?
a. religious leaders promising salvation or damnation to each side.
b. politicians and agitators stirring public opinion into a frenzy.
c. ideological differences over the morality and utility of slavery.
d. a clash of economic interests between agrarian and industrialized regions.