Chapter 12

Question 1

What was the impact of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850?

Answer 1

Arousal of deeper hostilities between slave and free states

Question 2

What group of people was likely to make the trip west?

Answer 2

Poor families looking for opportunity

Question 3

A growing number of Northerners challenged the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 on the basis of the

Answer 3

federal government’s right to enforce the law.

Question 4

Why did the proslavery ruling in the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision backfire on the South?

Answer 4

It convinced Northerners of a proslavery conspiracy in the federal government.

Question 5

The Lecompton Constitution declared that Kansas

Answer 5

would be a slave state.

Question 6

In preparing their presidential ticket for the election of 1850, the Whigs hoped to

Answer 6

gain southern support while maintaining their northern base.

Question 7

Lincoln and the Republicans rejected John Crittenden’s proposal to save the nation from southern secession because it

Answer 7

protected and encouraged the expansion of slavery.

Question 8

Why was it challenging for election organizers to determine who had the right to vote on the Kansas referendum about slavery?

Answer 8

New people settled in the region daily hoping to influence the vote.

Question 9

Why did everyone in the North believe that southern secession was going to be a temporary, fleeting development?

Answer 9

The states to secede were economically limited and financially vulnerable.

Question 10

The Democratic Party was victorious in the 1852 presidential election, which

Answer 10

still left the party weak and somewhat fragile.

Question 11

How did the gold rush influence racialized gender roles in the region?

Answer 11

Indian and Mexican women became valued members of Anglo families and communities.

Question 12

According to the passage, what was the greatest danger faced by most Oregon Trail travelers, such as Elizabeth Smith Geer?

“It rains and snows. We start around the falls this morning with our wagons. We have five miles to go. I carry my babe and lead, or rather carry another, through snow, mud, and water almost to my knees. It is the worst road a team could possibly travel. I went ahead with my children and I was afraid to look behind me for fear of seeing the wagons overturn into the mud and water with everything in them. My children gave out with cold and fatigue and could not travel, and the boys had to unhitch the oxen and bring them and carry the children on to camp.”

Answer 12

The distance and the elements

Question 13

Abolitionists were cautious and not jubilant when Lincoln was elected president in 1860 because Lincoln

Answer 13

still supported slavery.

Question 14

The Ostend Manifesto, drafted by a group of U.S. foreign ministers, suggested that the United States

Answer 14

had the right to take by force any territory it desired.

Question 15

Under what circumstances did the greatest number of African Americans go to Texas, Missouri, and Kansas?

Answer 15

As slaves of white planters

Question 16

The introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 was the result of political maneuvering by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who

Answer 16

hoped to get support for his railroad from Southerners by enabling slavery in the West.

Question 17

The first white women who migrated west on the overland trails in the 1830s were

Answer 17

those accompanying their husbands.

Question 18

What development pushed the issue of slavery to the center of national debate?

Answer 18

The expansion westward

Question 19

All across the North, what groups lobbied against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850?

Answer 19

Both whites and blacks of varying backgrounds

Question 20

Why did so many Northerners ignore the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793?

Answer 20

Northerners resented the imposition of slaveholding values on their states.

Question 21

What popular book combined accounts from former slaves as well as tales gathered by abolitionist lecturers and writers to promote the abolitionist cause?

Answer 21

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Question 22

Where did the journey on the Oregon Trail begin for most overland pioneers?

Answer 22

St. Louis, Missouri

Question 23

What party emerged and stood against the expansion of slavery in the 1854 congressional elections?

Answer 23

Republican

Question 24

What effect did the execution of John Brown have on southern whites?

Answer 24

Brown’s execution did little to assure southern whites that the institution of slavery was safe.

Question 25

The small trading posts that opened up throughout the West in the mid-nineteenth century

Answer 25

inspired the settlement of communities nearby.

Question 26

Why did presidential candidate for the American Party Millard Fillmore receive so few votes in the election of 1856?

Answer 26

The strength of nativist sentiment was waning.

Question 27

In response to news of John Brown’s raid, capture, and execution, Quaker abolitionists

Answer 27

celebrated Brown for drawing attention to the cause of emancipation.

Question 28

What impact did the massive migration west in the mid-nineteenth century have on the national identity of the United States?

Answer 28

The United States became an expanding empire.

Question 29

Which southern state was the first to secede from the union in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s election as president in 1860?

Answer 29

South Carolina

Question 30

Why did opening up the Santa Fe Trail to commerce ultimately lead to the destruction of the Comanche empire?

Answer 30

One of the Comanche’s most crucial trading items, bison, was destroyed and greatly weakened the tribe economically.

Question 31

What was Lincoln’s position on the rights of free blacks during his 1858 senatorial campaign?

Answer 31

Economic opportunity but not social or political equality

Question 32

How did the gold rush affect the demographic makeup of California?

Answer 32

The Anglo-American population increased dramatically.

Question 33

How did “conductors” of the Underground Railroad coordinate efforts with one another from region to region?

Answer 33

They really didn’t coordinate together.

Question 34

Foreign officials pressured Congress to mediate the crisis triggered by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 on the basis

Answer 34

of the sheer violence of the institution of slavery.

Question 35

According to the passages, how do William Neill and Millard Fillmore differ in evaluating the role of bystanders in the controversy over the Fugitive Slave Act?

“Resolved, That the Fugitive Slave Bill, recently adopted by the United States Congress, puts in imminent jeopardy the lives and liberties of ourselves and our children; it deprives us of trial by jury, when seized by the infernal slavecatcher, and by high penalties forbids the assistance of those who would otherwise obey their heart-promptings in our behalf; in making it obligatory upon marshals to become bloodhounds in pursuit of human prey; leaving us no alternative. . . .” –William C. Neill

“Now, therefore, to the end that the authority of the laws may be maintained and those concerned in violating them brought to immediate and condign punishment, I have issued this my proclamation, calling on all well-disposed citizens to rally to the support of the laws of their country, and requiring and commanding all officers, civil and military, and all other persons, civil or military, who shall be found within the vicinity of this outrage, to be aiding and assisting by all means in their power in quelling this and other such combinations and assisting the marshal and his deputies in recapturing the above-mentioned prisoner; and I do especially direct that prosecutions be commenced against all persons who shall have made themselves aiders or abettors in or to this flagitious offense.” –Millard Fillmore

Answer 35

Neill believes that bystanders would naturally take the side of the fugitives, and the law is intended to deter them.

Question 36

Why does this banner for the Republican presidential ticket promise “Protection to American Industry?”

Answer 36

The Republican platform included a tariff to prevent foreign industrial competition.

Question 37

Because of John Brown’s raid, the Republican Party platform of 1860

Answer 37

distanced itself from the radical wing of abolition.

Question 38

As a result of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, slaveholders

Answer 38

intensified their hunt for fugitive slaves.

Question 39

What forced many Indian nations to settle in the northern half of the Louisiana Territory?

Answer 39

They were displaced by white American settlers again.

Question 40

When fugitive slave Anthony Burns was ordered removed from Boston and returned to his master in the South, why were hundreds of ordinary citizens agonized by the process and trying to stop it?

Answer 40

It made them realize how powerless they were over the federal government.

Question 41

Which groups populated the West in large numbers before American pioneers and other European immigrants began migrating westward?

Answer 41

Indians and Mexicans

Question 42

What political party attracted both ardent abolitionists and men whose only concern was keeping western territories open to free white men?

Answer 42

Republicans

Question 43

Why did the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn send “Beecher’s Bibles” to Kansas before the 1856 elections?

Answer 43

To promote self-defense of abolitionists

Question 44

What enabled the Republican Party to attract followers rapidly?

Answer 44

Their proposal for commercial development and internal improvements

Question 45

What conditions of westward expansion created a market for the jeans Levi Strauss invented in the 1850s?

Answer 45

The harsh weather and physical work environment

Question 46

What happened when the Democratic Party could not select a candidate at its convention for the election of 1860?

Answer 46

The Democrats split into northern and southern factions.

Question 47

What was a consequence of the United States’ new alliance with Japan under Pierce’s presidency?

Answer 47

Strained relations with China and Russia