Civil War Study Guide Questions

Question 1

What is a Civil War?

Answer 1

A war between two different opinions in a country.

Question 2

What is Sectionalism?

Answer 2

Someone’s loyalty to one section of a country.

Question 3

What is an Abolitionist?

Answer 3

A person who is against slavery and wants to abolish it

Question 4

What was the Missouri Compromise?

Answer 4

When the government admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state

Question 5

What was the Compromise of 1850?

Answer 5

Called for California to be a free state and provided for a territorial government for Utah and New Mexico.

Question 6

How did the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 lead to the civil war?

Answer 6

They pushed the nation on ends for what to do about slavery.

Question 7

Fugitive slave act

Answer 7

A slave arrested had almost no legal rights. Anyone caught helping a slave would be jailed. No one agreed with this act.

Question 8

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” published

Answer 8

A novel that included stereotypes of slaves. Makes readers understand the lives of slaves.

Question 9

Kansas/Nebraska Act passed

Answer 9

People thought senators wanted Cuba to become a slave state and to expand their territory. The south wanted more land for slavery but the north didn’t.

Question 10

Raid On Lawrence, Kansas

Answer 10

North funded Lawrence with weapons after the raid while southerners sent slaves. People were at opposites about what to do with Kansas.

Question 11

Beating Of Senator Sumner

Answer 11

Showed how defensive the people were. Violence had taken over and people were divided by their disagreements.

Question 12

How did the events after the Compromise of 1850 pull the nation apart?

Answer 12

They established more tension between the confederacy and the union.

Question 13

Who was Dred Scott and what did he argue?

Answer 13

Dred Scott was a slave argued that he should be freed from slavery because he worked in Wisconsin territory when slavery was banned.

Question 14

What did the court decide about the Dred Scott case?

Answer 14

The court decided that Scott could not sue for his freedom because it was unconstitutional.

Question 15

How did the Dred Scott case lead to the Civil War?

Answer 15

Because it destroyed the agreement between slave and free states and created national anger.

Question 16

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the North and South at the start of the war?

Answer 16

The North was bigger, had a bigger population, and had lots of resources. The south had more knowledge of the terrain and the support of the civilian population

Question 17

Lincoln’s Inaugural Address

Answer 17

How Lincoln’s main goal was to keep the nation together at all costs including maintaining the southerner’s happiness.

Question 18

The Battle of Gettysburg

Answer 18

This involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war’s turning point. Broke the hope of the CSA becoming an independent nation.

Question 19

The Battle of Vicksburg

Answer 19

A Union victory that divided the Confederacy and cemented the reputation of Union General Ulysses S. Grant.

Question 20

The Gettysburg Address

Answer 20

Lincoln states how many soldiers gave their lives at Gettysburg so that the nation could live.

Question 21

The Emancipation Proclamation

Answer 21

This gave slaves their opportunity to free life in the United States.