Causes of the Civil War

Question 1

Typical Southerner Values

Answer 1

1. Many Southerners had no wish to industrialise and urbanise
2. General Southern belief that old agrarian ways and values were better than Yankee materialism
3. More concerned about their personal, family and sectional honour than Northerners

Question 2

Typical Northerner Values

Answer 2

1. Generally better educated and more responsive to new ideas
2. Northerners saw Southerners as backward and out of touch with ‘modern’ ideas and ideals

Question 3

What year was Frederick Douglass born and when did he die?

Answer 3

1818 - 1895

Question 4

What was the name of his newspaper and when was it first published?

Answer 4

The North Star (1847)

Question 5

Who was Frederick Douglass?

Answer 5

The most famous and influential African American of his time

Question 6

When was John Brown’s Raid?

Answer 6

16th October 1859

Question 7

John Brown’s Raid

Answer 7

19 men left Maryland for Harper’s Ferry where they aimed to seize weapons, retreat to the Appalachians and spark a slave revolt. A few slaves were induced or compelled to join Brown and a number of hostages were taken.

A train pulled into Harper’s Ferry, shots were fired by one of Brown’s men and a black baggage master was killed. Brown took refuge in a fire-engine house and a 36-hour siege followed.

On 18th October, the fire house was stormed and Brown was captured with 6 of his men.

Question 8

Results of John Brown’s Raid

Answer 8

1. Brown was tried for treason and was executed on 2nd December 1859
2. Raised sectional tension
3. Suggested a future of slave revolts

Question 9

Who was Dred Scott?

Answer 9

A slave who had accompanied his owner to Illinois, then Wisconsin before returning to Missouri

Question 10

Dred Scott Case

Answer 10

In the 1840s, Scott went before the Missouri courts, claiming he was free on the grounds that he has resided in a free state and in a free territory

Question 11

When were the results of the Dred Scott case released?

Answer 11

March 1857

Question 12

What did the Dred Scott case decide?

Answer 12

1. Scott couldn’t sue because black Americans didn’t have the same rights as white citizens
2. Scott’s stay in Illinois didn’t make him free
3. Scott’s stay in Wisconsin made no difference because the 1820 Missouri Compromise was illegal

Question 13

Results of Dred Scott case

Answer 13

1. Northerners were horrified - further proof that Buchanan was involved in Slave Power Conspiracy
2. Many Northerners saw it as a chance to undermine the Republican Party and the concept of popular sovereignty

Question 14

Who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

Answer 14

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Question 15

When was Uncle Tom’s Cabin first published?

Answer 15

1851

Question 16

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Answer 16

1. A story published in weekly instalments in an anti-slavery newspaper that attacked slavery
2. Sold 2 million copies in 10 years

Question 17

Results of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Answer 17

The book aroused wide sympathy for slavery and probably pushed some northerners towards a more aggressively anti-slavery stance

Question 18

What did Clay offer in January 1850 as part of the 1850 Compromise?

Answer 18

1. California was to be admitted as a free state
2. Utah and New Mexico were to be organised as territories without mention of slavery
3. Slave-trading but not slavery itself should end in Washington DC
4. A more stringent Fugitive Slave Act should be passed to placate the South
5. Texas should surrender the disputed land to New Mexico and in return, Congress would assume the $10million public debt that Texas owed

Question 19

What was passed in September 1850 as the Compromise?

Answer 19

1. Statehood for California
2. Territorial status for Utah and New Mexico, allowing popular sovereignty
3. Resolution of the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute
4. Abolition of the slave trade in Washington
5. A new Fugitive Slave Act

Question 20

Results of the 1850 Compromise

Answer 20

Political leaders hailed the Compromise as a settlement of the issues that threatened to divide the nation

Question 21

Fugitive Slave Act

Answer 21

1. Authorised federal marshals to raise posses to pursue fugitives on northern soil - those who refused to join risked a $1000 fine
2. The law didn’t just target recent runaways but also those who had fled the South decades earlier

Question 22

When was the Kansas-Nebraska Act suggested?

Answer 22

January 1854

Question 23

Who proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Answer 23

Stephen Douglas

Question 24

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 24

1. It repealed the Missouri Compromise, introducing popular sovereignty instead
2. It divided the Nebraska territory into two; Kansas and Nebraska

Question 25

Results of Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 25

1. Slavery could now expand northwards
2. Proof to many Northerners that Slave Power Conspiracy was at work
3. Helped to revive North-South rivalry

Question 26

When was the Kansas-Nebraska Act approved?

Answer 26

May 1854

Question 27

When was Bleeding Kansas?

Answer 27

May 1856

Question 28

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 28

A pro-slavery posse, trying to arrest free-state leaders, ‘sacked’, the town of Lawrence. This event was magnified out of proportion by northern journalists who claimed that dozens of free-staters were killed (there were no casualties).

At Pottawatomie, John Brown murdered 5 pro-slavery settlers. Overnight, he became a northern hero.

Question 29

Results of Bleeding Kansas

Answer 29

1. Increase in tension
2. Lead to tit-for-tat killings in Kansas
3. Bleeding Kansas became a rallying cry for northerners opposed to what they perceived to be the Slave Power at work

Question 30

Abraham Lincoln

Answer 30

1809 - 1865

Question 31

When did Lincoln become President?

Answer 31

November 1860

Question 32

Why would Lincoln’s victory not spark a Southern secession?

Answer 32

1. Lincoln had promised that he wouldn’t interfere with slavery in those states where it existed
2. Even if Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery, his party didn’t control Congress
3. Secession would mean abandoning an enforceable Fugitive Slave Act: slaves would be able to flee to the North
4. Secession might lead to Civil War

Question 33

When did the first state secede?

Answer 33

South Carolina - 20th December 1860

Question 34

Doctrine of Nullification

Answer 34

Proclaimed the right of any state to overrule or modify any federal law deemed unconstitutional