14. THE HOUSE DIVIDED, 1846-1861
Who was Dred Scott, the plaintiff in the important Dred Scott v. Sandford case that came before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857?
A slave who claimed that his travels with his master to free states made him free
How did John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, affect the South?
It led some southern whites to conclude that many northerners wanted to end slavery with violence.
Why did Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), influence northern attitudes toward slavery?
It put forth a stirring moral indictment of slavery.
Why did Uncle Tom's Cabin solidify northern sentiment against slavery?
It was a novel about plantation life written by a northern white woman.
What was the key feature of the Lecompton constitution drafted by Kansans in 1857?
Its acceptance of slavery
How did northern states begin to provide fugitive slaves with protection from their owners during the 1830s?
Northern states passed personal liberty laws.
Why did many northerners oppose the extension of slavery into the land gained from the war with Mexico?
Northerners wanted to reserve new lands for free labor.
Agreement on which issue kept the Democrats relatively united in the 1850s?
Popular sovereignty
Why did half of the northern Democrats vote in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
They believed that popular sovereignty would make Nebraska free territory.
Why did the slave states of the Upper South initially reject secession?
They did not have as great a stake in slavery as the states in the Lower South.
How did Republicans respond to the Dred Scott ruling?
They issued a rebuttal to the decision based on the dissent of Justice Benjamin R. Curtis.
How did the Democratic Party manage to capture the presidency in the election of 1856 even though it had lost so many of its northern supporters?
They nominated James Buchanan who was a doughface.
How did more moderate southern Democrats respond to the choice of John C. Breckenridge as presidential nominee?
They organized the Constitutional Union Party.
Why did some southern Democrats decide to create the Constitutional Union Party during the presidential election of 1860?
They refused to support their party's nomination of John Breckinridge for president.
What happened in Kansas during the November 1854 elections as a result of popular sovereignty?
Two armed, rival governments formed.
What was the Whigs' strategy in the presidential election of 1848?
Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, a war hero and slave owner, and remained silent on the issue of slavery.
Which of the following describes Abraham Lincoln's vision for the U.S. territories?
Destinations for poor people seeking to improve their conditions
By what means did Stephen Douglas attempt to win an advantage over Abraham Lincoln during the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858?
Douglas called Lincoln an abolitionist and a proponent of black equality.
Which statement describes the Supreme Court's ruling in its 1857 Dred Scott decision?
Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States.
What did President Taylor do in 1849 that caused an uproar in Congress over the issue of slavery?
Encourage California and New Mexico to apply for statehood
According to the map, how many states and territories allowed slavery in 1854?
Fifteen
What group denounced Illinois senator Stephen Douglas in the spring of 1860?
Fire-eating southerners
Who, in addition to Harriet Beecher Stowe, published an influential indictment of slavery during the decades preceding the Civil War?
Frederick Douglass
What was the central message of the Know-Nothing Cartoon?
German and Irish immigrants were polluting American democracy.
Why did the Democrats nominate Franklin Pierce as their presidential candidate in 1852?
He sympathized with southerners' views.
What led Republicans to choose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for president in the election of 1860?
His moderate views on slavery, solid Republican credentials, and residence in the crucial state of Illinois led Republicans to nominate Abraham Lincoln.
On what grounds did Dred Scott base his claim to freedom in his 1857 Supreme Court case?
His travels and residences in free areas
How did the Mexican-American War affect American politics?
It divided the nation based on the issue of slavery in the territories.
In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln
reassured the South that he had no right to interfere with slavery where it existed.
The presidential election of 1856 revealed the
strength of the new Republican Party.
Southerners felt so much hostility toward the Republican Party during the presidential election of 1860 that
ten states refused to allow Lincoln's name to appear on the ballot.
Why did the Know-Nothing Party emerge in the 1850s?
An increase in immigration produced a nasty backlash among Protestant Americans.
Why did Protestant Americans organize a political party focused around the issue of Catholic immigrants?
Because they feared that Catholic immigrants were going to undermine American republicanism
Who did the Republicans nominate for the U.S. presidency in 1856?
John C. Frémont
After the Kansas-Nebraska Act, what were the prospects for increasing the amount of U.S. territory that permitted slavery?
Large territories in the West could have approved slavery through a popular vote.
Which U.S. senator proposed the popular sovereignty approach as a compromise solution to the issue of slavery in the U.S. territories in the mid-nineteenth century?
Lewis Cass
What aspect of the 1860 election influenced South Carolina's decision to secede?
Lincoln's popularity in the North, which divided the nation along sectional lines
The issue of slavery would be left up to popular sovereignty in which state or territory?
Nebraska Territory
What did the Free-Soil Party call for in its 1848 presidential platform?
No slavery in the western territories
Who were the "doughfaces" of the mid-nineteenth century?
Northern men who championed southern causes
What was the effect of South Carolina representative Preston Brooks's attack on Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner?
Republicans had a new symbol of southern villainy.
What did the Supreme Court rule in its 1857 decision in the Dred Scott case?
Scott had no claim to citizenship.
Why did fire-eating southerners insist that secession was necessary after Lincoln's victory in 1860?
Secessionists feared southerners could no longer defend slavery from within the Union.
By what means had some individual northerners been aiding runaway slaves before the 1850s?
Serving as conductors on the underground railroad
Which statement describes Stephen A. Douglas's argument in what became known as the Freeport Doctrine?
Settlers could ban slavery by not passing the laws necessary to protect slave property.
Women who joined the Republican Party focused on which two issues?
Slavery and women's suffrage
Why didn't the slave states of the Upper South vote for secession in the winter of 1860-1861?
Slavery was much less integral to those states' economies.
Which element of slavery formed the central theme of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Slavery's destructive impact on the family
What was the response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Southerners hated it, while northerners loved it.
In the mid-nineteenth century, what did most Americans believe the Constitution said about who had the power to decide about the existence of slavery in the United States?
State legislatures could establish or end slavery only within their own states.
What effect did the new party system have on politics during the 1850s?
Strict divisions made political compromise impossible.
What event convinced Abraham Lincoln that slaveholders were engaged in a conspiracy to nationalize slavery in the United States?
The Dred Scott decision
How did American politics change in the aftermath of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act?
The Whig Party disintegrated.
Why was the Whig candidate, General Winfield Scott of Virginia, so badly defeated in the election of 1852?
The Whig Party was hopelessly divided into northern and southern factions that could not unite behind him.
Which issue led to the Compromise of 1850?
The balance of power between the North and the South in Congress
Why did the Democratic Party lose its dominance in the free states after 1854?
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act alienated antislavery Democrats.
Most northerners believed that John Brown's 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, was a(n)
act of bloodshed and treason.
Abraham Lincoln's views on slavery in 1856 demonstrated that his views were
consistent with those that formed the basis of Republican ideology.
The presidential election of 1856 made it obvious that
the Republicans were a serious threat.
To stop Lincoln and the abolitionists, Alexander Stephens advised trusting in
the constitutional checks on the president.
In the 1840s and 1850s, the national debate about slavery was concerned with
the extent to which slavery should expand into areas where it did not previously exist.
According to William L. Harris, the United States was founded upon
the idea of white supremacy.
The Compromise of 1850 allowed
voters to decide on the issue of slavery in the Utah and New Mexico territories.
These documents demonstrate that pro- and anti-secessionists in the South were primarily divided over
what Lincoln would do once in office.
