Chapter 13 Study Guide

Who questioned President Polk's right to declare war by introducing a resolution to Congress requesting that the president specify the precise spot where blood had first been shed?

Abraham Lincoln.

With the Gadsden Purchase, whose territory increased in size?

Arizona.

During his debate with Abraham Lincoln in Freeport, Illinois, Stephen Douglas:

insisted that popular sovereignty was compatible with the Dred Scott decision.

When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821:

its Indian population was relatively large compared to its non-Indian population.

American settlement in Texas in the 1820s and 1830s:

led Stephen Austin to demand more autonomy from Mexican officials.

On matters related to citizenship, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Dred Scott that:

only white persons could be U.S. citizens.

In 1846, Congressman David Wilmot proposed to:

prohibit slavery from all territory acquired from Mexico.

The Lecompton Constitution was the:

proslavery constitution proposed for Kansas.

The opponents of the Compromise of 1850:

received a boost from President Zachary Taylor.

In the 1850s, Tennessee-born William Walker became famous for:

seeking to establish himself as ruler of a slaveholding Nicaragua.

Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren rejected adding Texas to the United States because:

the presence of slaves there would reignite the issue of slavery, and they preferred to avoid it.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the United States gained the most territory through:

wars with Mexico.

The Republican Party founded in the 1850s strongly endorsed the same policy about slavery in the territories that ________ had begun advocating in 1846.

David Wilmot

Who was responsible for the 1856 Pottawatomie Creek Massacre in Kansas and led the raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859?

John Brown.

Which event sparked Abraham Lincoln's reentry into politics?

Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Analyzing the maneuvering of Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln around Fort Sumter, who was superior?

Lincoln made the South look like the aggressor.

In 1854, the Know-Nothings won all the congressional races as well as the governorship in:

Massachusetts.

Which American naval officer negotiated a treaty that opened two Japanese ports to U.S. ships in 1854?

Matthew Perry.

From 1848 to 1860, most of the railroad construction was in which region?

Midwest.

When "Fifty-four forty or fight" did not result in gaining all of the Pacific Northwest, who most likely would have been the angriest?

Northern Democrats.

"Fifty-four forty or fight" referred to demands for American control of:

Oregon.

What happened under the constitution of independent Texas?

People of color had had more freedoms and rights when Mexico previously controlled Texas.

One aspect of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 provided for what?

Protection of large Mexican landowners in California.

The California gold rush turned ________ into perhaps the world's most diverse city.

San Francisco

For the South in the 1830s, making the Texas territory part of the United States could potentially be most beneficial in what way?

Several slave states could be created out of Texas.

In 1860, which state became the first to pass an ordinance of secession and declare itself separated from the Union?

South Carolina.

In the 1860 election, who was the presidential candidate to have significant support in all parts of the country?

Stephen Douglas.

Why did slavery become more central to American politics in the 1840s?

Territorial expansion raised the question of whether new lands should be free or slave.

What was a key provision of the Compromise of 1850?

The New Mexico and Utah Territories would use popular sovereignty to decide about slavery.

Which 1854 document called for the United States to seize Cuba?

The Ostend Manifesto.

What was ironic about the Fugitive Slave Act?

The South promoted states' rights, but with this law agreed to strong federal action.

Which of the following is an example of the political impact of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

The Whig Party collapsed, and many disgruntled northerners joined the new Republican Party.

The Wilmot Proviso, admission of California into the Union, and the Missouri Compromise focused on what?

The extension of slavery was a volatile issue.

The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates took place during the campaign for:

U.S. senator from Illinois in 1858.

The caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks:

actually helped the new Republican Party.

Stephen Douglas's motivation for introducing the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to:

boost efforts to build a transcontinental railroad.

The Dred Scott decision of the U.S. Supreme Court:

declared that Congress could not ban slavery from territories.

The Free Soil Party:

demonstrated that antislavery sentiment had spread far beyond abolitionist ranks.

During the Mexican War:

for the first time, U.S. troops occupied a foreign capital.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850:

gave new powers to federal officers to override local law enforcement.

When Democrats demanded the "reannexation" of Texas in 1844, they:

implied that Texas had once been part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase.

Why was the extension of slavery significant politically?

Both the North and South wanted to control the Senate.

What distinguished John Brown from other abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass?

Brown emphasized violence in freeing slaves.

Until the 1870s, who in essence controlled the territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande?

Comanches.

The American Civil War began in April 1861, when:

Confederate forces fired upon and captured Fort Sumter.

Winning the Mexican War did what in regard to trade for the United States?

Gaining valuable trade ports tripled trade with China by 1860.

Who wrote On Civil Disobedience as a response to the U.S. war with Mexico?

Henry David Thoreau.

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, what view did Stephen Douglas take?

If each state, slave or free, worried only about its own status, then there should be harmony.

In 1821, the opening of the Santa Fe Trail between Santa Fe and ________ led to a reorientation of New Mexico's commerce from the rest of Mexico to the United States.

Independence, Missouri,

Why did Mississippi politician Jefferson Davis object in the 1850s to the original design of the Statue of Freedom that now adorns the U.S. Capitol dome?

Its use of an ancient Roman liberty cap on "Freedom" raised a touchy matter about slaves' longing for freedom.