American Pageant Ch 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle 1848 – 54

In order to maintain the two great political parties as vital bonds of national unity, party leaders

• decided to ban slavery from all United States territories.

• decided to allow slavery into all United States territories.

• avoided public discussion of slavery.

• worked to make third parties almost impossible.

The Wilmot Proviso, if adopted, would have

• acquired Cuba as a slave territory..

• . required California to enter the Union as a slave state.

• overturned the Fugitive Slave Law.

• prohibited slavery in any territory acquired in the Mexican War.

The debate over slavery in the Mexican Cession

• threatened to split national politics along North-South lines.

• nearly resulted in the return of the territory to Mexico.

• resulted in strong hostility to further expansionism.

• caused clashes between pro-slavery and antislavery settlers in California.

The Free Soil party of 1848 harbored many northerners who stood squarely against slavery in the territories primarily on the grounds that

• further expansion of slavery might break up the union.

• it destroyed the chances of free white workers to rise up from wage-earning dependence.

• slavery was a moral evil contrary to American principles.

• slave labor would be unproductive in the West.

According to the principle of popular sovereignty, the question of slavery in the territories would be determined by

• the people in any given territory

• congressional legislation.

• a Supreme Court decision.

• a national referendum by the Electoral College.

During the 1848 presidential election the two major parties stayed away from the issue of slavery and kept the focus of the presidential election campaign on

• Indian removal and homesteading in the midwest.

• the personalities of Senator Cass and General Taylor.

• further expansion into Cuba and Central America.

• the poor state of the economy and protective tariffs.

What event that threatened to destroy the longstanding balance of free and slave states in the United States Senate?

• proposed building of a southern transcontinental railroad.

• passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

• attempt to acquire Cuba as a slave state.

• discovery of gold in California and its bid for statehood.

Which of the following was not among the issues that concerned southerners in 1849-1850?

• The political balance in the Senate might tip against them.

• That there was a chance that a constitutional amendment would abolish slavery.

• The loss of runaway slaves through the Underground Railroad.

• That the admission of California as a free state might set a precedent for Utah and New Mexico to follow.

By 1850, the South was losing perhaps ____________ runaways a year out of its total of some 4 million slaves.

• 500

• 1,000

• 1,500

• 5,000

How did Harriet Tubman gained fame?

• By her writings as an African American antislavery novelist.

• As a vocal advocate of the Fugitive Slave Law.

• By urging white women to oppose slavery.

• By helping slaves to escape from the south to Canada.