Political Disintegration

Question 1

Wilmot Proviso

Answer 1

Prohibition of slavery in any territories acquired from Mexico resulting from the Mexican War

• Free labor and free goods
• Hostility to black Americans- wanted to reserve new land for white men and their families
• Eventually failed in the Senate

Question 2

Compromise of 1850

Answer 2

Composed of 5 different bills

1. CA=free state
2. Trade of slaves abolished in DC
3. NM and UT would use popular sovereignty
4. Establishing border of NM and TX
5. Fugitive Slave Act
   * Consequences: delayed more serious sectional conflict, began discussion of secession

Question 3

Fugitive Slave Act

Answer 3

Law authorized slave owners to enter other states and recapture escaped slaves and compelled northerners to help catch runaways

• Northerners saw it as a threat to individual liberties
• Free black men were kidnapped and sold into slavery
• Underground Railroad became more popular
• Importance: enhanced the powers of southern slave-owners, radicalizing effect on northerners

Question 4

Personal Liberty Laws

Answer 4

Prohibited the use of state officials and institutions in the recovery of fugitive slaves

Question 5

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Answer 5

Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe which depicted slaves as “real human beings”

• Northerners felt compelled to help characters while southerners denounced it as slander
• Helped to crystallize Northern sentiment against slavery

Question 6

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 6

Organized KS and NE as slave or free based on popular sovereignty thus negating the MO Compromise

• Caused violence in KS
• Destroyed Whigs and created divisions in the Democratic Party

Question 7

Manifest Destiny

Answer 7

Territorial expansion of Americans westward

• Suggested that the US’ superior institutions and culture constituted a God-given right and obligation to spread American civilization across the continent
• Puritan utopianism and revolutionary republicanism
• Led to conflict with Native Americans

Question 8

Gadsden Purchase

Answer 8

US negotiated land purchase with Mexico resulting in the addition of land in AZ and NM
-Possibility of a trans-continental railroad- northern and southern divisiveness over where it should start