Chapter 19 Study Guide

Harriet Beecher Stowe

"The little woman who wrote the book that made this great war" (the Civil War)

a

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin a. 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. was based on Stowe's extensive personal experience with slavery in the Deep South. e. portrayed black slaves as seething with anger and potential violence.

b

10. The crucial Freeport Question that Lincoln demanded that Douglas answer during their debates was whether a. secession from the Union was legal. b. the people of a territory could prohibit slavery in light of the Dred Scott decision c. Illinois should continue to prohibit slavery. d. Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave or a free state. e. Douglas still supported the brutal Fugitive Slave Law as part of the Compromise of 1850.

b

11. Southerners were particularly enraged by the John Brown affair because a. so many slaves had joined the insurrection. b. northerners' celebration of Brown as a martyr seemed to indicate their support for slave insurrection. c. Brown had used vicious language to describe southerners and their way of life. d. Brown escaped punishment by pleading insanity. e. prominent Republican leaders like William Seward and Abraham Lincoln expressed admiration for Brown.

c

12. In the campaign of 1860, the Democratic party a. tried to unite around the compromise popular sovereignty views of Stephen A. Douglas. b. campaigned on a platform of restoring the compromises of 1820 and 1850. c. split in two, with each faction nominating its own presidential candidate. d. threatened to support secession if the sectionally-based Republicans won the election. e. attempted to keep its militant fire-eating southern wing out of sight.

a

13. During the campaign of 1860, Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party a. opposed the expansion of slavery but did not threaten to attack slavery in the South. b. waged a national campaign to win votes in the South as well as the Midwest and the Northeast. c. promised, if elected, to seek peaceful, compensated abolition of slavery in the South. d. were forced to be cautious about limiting the expansion of slavery because of Stephen A. Douglas's threats to support secession. e. focused entirely on the slavery question.

b

14. Within two months after the election of Lincoln a. Northerners were mobilizing for a civil war. b. seven southern states had seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. c. all the slaveholding states had held conventions and passed secessionist resolutions. d. President Buchanan appealed for troops to put down the secessionist rebellion. e. the southern states had demanded a new constitutional convention to guarantee the future of slavery.

a

15. Lincoln rejected the proposed Crittenden Compromise primarily because a. it left open the possibility that slavery could expand south into Mexico, Central America, or the Caribbean. b. it permitted the further extension of slavery north of the line of 36° 30΄. c. it represented essentially the continuation of Douglas's popular sovereignty doctrine. d. the Supreme Court would probably have ruled it unconstitutional. e. it would have restored a permanent equal balance of slave and free states within the Union.

c

2. Hinton R. Helper's The Impending Crisis of the South contended that a. 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. e. wealthy plantation owners would eventually seek to enslave poor whites as well.

e

3. Southerners were especially enraged by abolitionists' funding of antislavery settlers in Kansas because a. proslavery settlers from Missouri could not receive the same kind of funding. b. such sponsored settlement would make a mockery of Douglas's popular sovereignty doctrine. c. the settlers included fanatical and violent abolitionists like John Brown. d. most ordinary westward-moving pioneers would be sympathetic to slavery. e. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska had seemed to imply that Kansas would become a slave state.

e

4. As submitted to Congress, the Lecompton Constitution was designed to a. 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. prohibit both antislavery New Englanders or proslavery Missourians from interference in Kansas politics. d. insure that the future of slavery would be determined according to Douglas's principle of popular sovereignty. e. bring Kansas into the Union, while making it impossible to prohibit slavery there.

a

5. The fanatical abolitionist John Brown made his first entry into violent antislavery politics by a. killing five proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. b. organizing a slave rebellion in Missouri. c. leading an armed raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. d. organizing an armed militia of blacks and whites to conduct escaped slaves to Canada. e. soliciting funds from abolitionists intellectuals in Massachusetts to finance a slave revolt.

b

6. Congressman Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death on the Senate floor because a. Sumner had helped to fund John Brown's violent activities in Kansas. b. Sumner had used abusive language to describe the South and a South Carolina senator. c. Sumner had personally blocked the admission of Kansas to the Union as a slave state. d. Sumner had threatened to kill Brooks if he had the opportunity. e. Democrats believed that Sumner would be a dangerous Republican candidate for president.

c

7. The election of 1856 was most noteworthy for a. Democrat James Buchanan's surprisingly easy victory over John Frémont. b. the support immigrants and Catholics gave to the American party. c. the dramatic rise of the Republican party. d. the absence of the slavery issue from the campaign. e. the strong showing of former president Millard Fillmore as the American party candidate.

c

8. In the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court a. avoided controversy by ruling that the slave Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court. b. ruled that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was unconstitutional. c. ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in any of the territories because slaves were private property of which owners could not be deprived. d. ruled that Dred Scott was still a slave because he had not filed suit until he had been returned to the slave state of Missouri. e. ruled that Dred Scott had to be freed because his owner had taken him into the free state of Illinois.

e

9. The financial and economic collapse of 1857 increased northern anger at the South's refusal to support a. banking regulation and development of a sound paper currency. b. a transcontinental railroad and transatlantic telegraph. c. publicly supported state universities. d. the admission of any more free states into the Union. e. higher tariffs and free western homesteads for farmers.

The Impeding Crisis of the South

A book by a southern writer that argued that slavery was most oppressive for poor whites

Crittenden Compromise

A last-ditch plan to save the Union by guaranteeing that slavery would be protected in territories lying south of the line of 36° 30΄

Confederate States of America

A new nation that proclaimed its independence in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861

Uncle Tom's Cabin

A powerful, evangelical antislavery novel that altered the course of American politics

Charles Sumner

Abolitionist senator whose verbal attack on the South provoked a physical assault that severely injured him

Know-Nothing Party

Anti-immigrant party headed by former president Millard Fillmore that competed with Republicans and Democrats in the election of 1856 (either official name or informal nickname)

Dred Scott

Black slave whose unsuccessful attempt to win his freedom deepened the sectional controversy

John C Breckenridge

Buchanan's vice president, nominated for president by breakaway southern Democrats in 1860

Dred Scott v Sanford

Controversial Supreme Court ruling that blacks had no civil or human rights and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories

Constitutional Union's Party

Newly formed, middle-of-the-road party of elderly politicians that sought compromise in 1860, but carried only three border states

Beecher's Bibles

Nickname for rifles paid for by New England abolitionists and brought to Kansas by antislavery pioneers

"lame duck"

Period between Lincoln's election and his inauguration, during which the ineffectual President Buchanan passively stood by as seven states seceded

Henry Ward Beecher

Preacher-abolitionist who funded weapons for antislavery pioneers in Kansas

John C Fremont

Romantic western hero and the first Republican candidate for president

Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas

Scene of militant abolitionist John Brown's massacre of proslavery men in 1856

Panic of 1857

Sharp economic decline that increased northern demands for a high tariff and convinced southerners that the North was economically vulnerable

Harper's Ferry, Virginia

Site of a federal arsenal where a militant abolitionist attempted to start a slave rebellion

Montgomery, Alabama

Site where seven seceding states united to declare their independence from the United States

Preston Brooks

Southern congressman whose bloody attack on a northern senator fueled sectional hatred

Hilton R Helper

Southern-born author whose book attacking slavery's effects on whites aroused northern opinion

Freeport Doctrine

Stephen Douglas's assertion in the Lincoln-Douglas debates that, despite the Dred Scott decision, the people of a territory could block slavery by refusing to pass legislation enforcing it

Bleeding Kansas

Term that described the prairie territory where a small-scale civil war between abolitionists and proslavery border ruffians erupted in 1856

Lecompton Constitution

Tricky proslavery document designed to bring Kansas into the Union; blocked by Stephen A. Douglas

James Buchanan

Weak Democratic president whose manipulation by proslavery forces divided his own party

Harper's Ferry

Western Virginia town where a violent abolitionist seized a federal arsenal in hopes of sparking a widespread slave rebellion

John Brown

Fanatical and bloody-minded abolitionist martyr admired in the North and hated in the South

Jefferson Davis

Former United States senator who, in 1861, became the president of what called itself a new nation

Election of 1860

Four-way race for the presidency that resulted in the election of a sectional minority president

Stephen A Douglas

Leading northern Democrat whose presidential hopes fell victim to the conflict over slavery