Period 5: Sectional Crisis

Question 1

a society in which the institution of slavery affected all aspects of life; most white southerners did not own slaves though

Answer 1

slave society

Question 2

Old South “nobles”; owned large mansions and plantations; feared government intrusion into their slave practice and poor whites taking local control.

Answer 2

republican aristocracy

Question 3

mid-level slaveholders with six to 20 slaves; as a group owned around 40% of southern slaves; pursued other careers such as artisans and lawyers

Answer 3

middling lawyer planters

Question 4

owned one to five slaves and a few hundred acres of land at most; most remained in this class

Answer 4

small freeholders

Question 5

propertyless whites; the majority of southern society; subjugated to remain in this low status by slaveholders

Answer 5

poor freemen

Question 6

between 1821 and 1835; led by the Austins; slavery and cotton expansion

Answer 6

Settlement of Texas

Question 7

1836; slavery abolished by Mexico; the Alamo; Battle of San Jacinto

Answer 7

Texas War of Independence

Question 8

1836-1845; President Van Buren refused annexation, fearing a war with Mexico; thus this period

Answer 8

Republic of Texas

Question 9

devised by Christian slaves in the Chesapeake, spreading to the South; a result of the domestic slave trade; a general idea that blacks were “Children of God”

Answer 9

black Protestantism

Question 10

common in the rice-growing regions of S. Carolina; slaves were assigned daily tasks to complete and allowed to do as they wished after completion

Answer 10

task system

Question 11

coined by John O’Sullivan; rhetoric that Anglo-American cultural and racial superiority would expand across the continent, moving westward

Answer 11

Manifest Destiny

Question 12

the route that led from Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley

Answer 12

Oregon Trail

Question 13

elite Mexican ranchers; primary link to the American economy

Answer 13

Californios

Question 14

a system devoted to raising livestock; allowed Plains Indians groups to thrive prior to the Civil War

Answer 14

pastoral system

Question 15

James K. Polk’s campaign slogan in 1844; called for American sovereignty over the Oregon Territory

Answer 15

“Fifty-four forty or fight!”

Question 16

annexing Texas; seizure of San Francisco Bay; invasion of Mexican territories; Rio Grande dispute

Answer 16

Polk’s Expansionist Program

Question 17

the short-lived government in California to fight a rebellion against Mexico in 1846

Answer 17

Bear Flag Republic

Question 18

lands taken by the United States after the war with Mexico, 1846-48; modern-day California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas

Answer 18

Mexican cession

Question 19

Whig politicians that opposed the war with Mexico on moral grounds; argued the war expanded control of the federal government

Answer 19

“conscience” Whigs

Question 20

proposal to ban slavery in any territories gained from the war with Mexico; supported by Whigs and antislavery Democrats; a divided Congress did not pass it

Answer 20

Wilmot Proviso

Question 21

the argument made by abolitionists, free soilers, and Republicans prior to 1861; southern slaveholders were using their representative advantage to demand proslavery policies

Answer 21

“slave power” conspiracy

Question 22

political opposition of slavery’s expansion; new party in 1848; gained support from white farmers; promoted Jeffersonian ideals

Answer 22

free soil movement

Question 23

a principle that ultimate power lies in the hands of the electorate; plan promoted by Democrats to allow settlers in new territories to determine its status as free or slave

Answer 23

popular sovereignty

Question 24

laws that were meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories; California joins as a free state; a new Fugitive Slave Act is instituted

Answer 24

Compromise of 1850

Question 25

response to the new Fugitive Slave Act by northern states; guaranteed all residents, including alleged escapees from slavery to a jury trial

Answer 25

personal liberty laws

Question 26

urging President Pierce to seize Cuba for the purpose of expanding slavery; when exposed, Whigs, northern Democrats, and Free Soilers forced its cancellation

Answer 26

Ostend Manifesto

Question 27

the process of gradually bringing an entire family to another country through the emigration of a single-family member to start

Answer 27

chain migration

Question 28

hostility towards immigrants; in the antebellum period, was mostly anti-Catholic and anti-Irish

Answer 28

nativism

Question 29

a political group that opposed Irish/German immigration; wanted literacy testing for voting; primarily drew former Southern Whigs, leading to that party’s collapse

Answer 29

“Know-Nothing” Party

Question 30

1854 law that divided Indian Territory; repealed the 1850 Missouri Compromise; left new territories to decide the issue of slavery

Answer 30

Kansas-Nebraska Act (definition)

Question 31

1854 law; expansion of slavery was not solidified, as violent conflicts erupted between pro- and anti-slavery groups; “Bleeding Kansas”

Answer 31

Kansas-Nebraska Act (effects)

Question 32

1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional; slave that traveled into free territories did not make him free; denied the federal government the right to exclude slavery; slaves were not citizens

Answer 32

Dred Scott decision

Question 33

part of the 1858 Senate race between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas; propelled Lincoln to national prominence

Answer 33

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Question 34

abolitionist who led a free-state militia; after a failed attack on Harper’s Ferry, was hanged; became a martyr for the abolitionist movement

Answer 34

John Brown

Question 35

winning only 39% of the popular vote, Lincoln manages to win 180 electoral votes; final straw to the southern secession

Answer 35

Election of 1860

Question 36

the period following Lincoln’s election in which southern states left the union

Answer 36

Secession Winter