EOC Review: Causes of the Civil War

Before the Civil War, why did slavery expand in the South rather than in the North?

• the Constitution contained a clause that outlawed the importation of slaves into the Northern states

• Congress passed a law forbidding slavery in the North

• Northern states passed affirmative action legislation

• geographic conditions in the South encouraged the development of large plantations

The Louisiana Purchase had great geographic significance for the United States because it

• reduced British control of North America

• focused the United States on westward expansion

• extended United States control over Mexico

• decreased tensions with Native American Indians

Sectional differences developed in the United States largely because

• the Federal Government adopted a policy of neutrality

• economic conditions and interests in each region varied

• only northerners were represented at the Constitutional Convention

• early Presidents favored urban areas over rural areas

Before the Civil War, the principle of popular sovereignty was proposed as a means of

• allowing states to secede from the Union

• permitting voters to nullify federal laws

• deciding the legalization of slavery in a new state

• overturning unpopular decisions of the Supreme Court

The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) heightened the sectional crisis because it

• broke the Missouri Compromise

• repealed the Fugitive Slave Act

• made Kansas and Nebraska free states

• signaled acceptance of the principle of the Wilmot Proviso

In the 1850s, the phrase “Bleeding Kansas” was used to describe clashes between

• proslavery and antislavery groups

• Chinese and Irish railroad workers

• Spanish landowners and new American settlers

• Native American Indians and white settlers

Which statement best explains President Abraham Lincoln’s justification for the Civil War?

• as an abolitionist, President Lincoln wanted to end slavery in the United States

• President Lincoln wanted to keep the South economically dependent on the industrial North

• President Lincoln’s oath of office required him to defend and preserve the Union

• to keep the support of Great Britain and France, President Lincoln had to try to end slavery immediately.

In the 1850s, why did many runaway slaves go to Canada?

• they feared being drafted into the Northern army

• the Fugitive Slave Act kept them at risk in the United States

• more factory jobs were available in Canada

• northern abolitionists refused to help fugitive slaves

The basic constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War was the

• expansion of the president's war powers

• extension of the right to vote to all adults

• supremacy of the federal government over the states

• civil liberties of citizens during wartime

The institution of slavery was formally abolished in the United States by the

• Compromise of 1850

• Emancipation Proclamation of 1863

• creation of the Freedmen's Bureau in 1865

• ratification of the 13th amendment in 1865