Period 5 Quiz 1

Members of the American (Know-Nothing) Party of the 1850s typically supported

• universal manhood suffrage

• restrictions on Catholics’ holding public office

• immediate abolition of slavery

• homesteads in the western territories

“I do not belong, said Mr. [Calhoun], to the school which holds that aggression is to be met by concession. . . . If we concede an inch, concession would follow concession—compromise would follow compromise, until our ranks would be so broken that effectual resistance would be impossible. . . .

“. . . A large portion of the Northern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would believe it to be an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continuance. . . .

“. . . Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union, I openly proclaim it—and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events. We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. . . . But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil—far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition.”

Source: South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun, speech in the United States Senate, 1837.

Which of the following resulted from arguments made by Southern politicians, such as the one in the excerpt, in the years prior to the Civil War?

• Slaveholders became more insistent that maintaining the slave system was essential to protecting the South and its way of life.

• Many people in the South who depended on the labor of enslaved people nevertheless became more willing to admit that slavery was a sin.

• Abolitionists scheduled numerous speaking tours throughout the South to counter proslavery attitudes like that expressed by Calhoun.

• Congress passed legislation guaranteeing slavery in the South to show that the slave system was not threatened.

“I do not belong, said Mr. [Calhoun], to the school which holds that aggression is to be met by concession. . . . If we concede an inch, concession would follow concession—compromise would follow compromise, until our ranks would be so broken that effectual resistance would be impossible. . . .

“. . . A large portion of the Northern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would believe it to be an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continuance. . . .

“. . . Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union, I openly proclaim it—and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events. We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. . . . But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil—far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition.”

Source: South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun, speech in the United States Senate, 1837.

The ideas expressed by John C. Calhoun and others who shared his views on slavery had which of the following effects on emerging abolitionist movements in the years leading up to the Civil War?

• Many abolitionist groups in the North began to question the accounts of harsh treatment described by escaped slaves who made it to freedom

• Arguments describing slavery as a “positive good” weakened the impact of abolitionist efforts to encourage White northerners to support emancipation

• As many people came to see slavery as part of the Southern way of life, attitudes on both sides of the slavery argument hardened so that political compromise became difficult

• Very few members of Congress accepted Calhoun’s “positive good” argument, and they became more open to passing laws limiting slaveholding and the internal slave trade

Historians have argued that all of the following were causes of the Civil War EXCEPT

• the clash of economic interests between agrarian and industrializing regions

• the actions of irresponsible politicians and agitators in the North and the South

• differences over the morality and future of slavery

• the growing power of poor Southern Whites who resisted planter dominance and sought to abolish slavery

“With regard to the northwestern States, to which the ordinance of 1787 was applied—Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan—no one now believes that any one of those States, if they thought proper to do it, has not just as much a right to introduce slavery within her borders as Virginia has a right to maintain the existence of slavery within hers.

“Then, if in this struggle of power and empire between the two classes of states a decision of California has taken place adverse to the wishes of the southern States, it is a decision not made by the General [federal] Government; it is a decision respecting which they cannot complain to the General Government. It is a decision made by California herself, and which California had incontestably a right to make under the Constitution of the United States. . . . The question of slavery, either of its introduction or interdiction, is silent as respects the action of this [federal] Government; and if it has been decided, it has been by a different body—by a different power—by California herself, who had a right to make that decision.”

Senator Henry Clay, speech in the United States Senate, 1850

The excerpt best reflects which of the following historical situations?

• Congressional leaders sought political compromise to resolve discord between the North and the South

• States in the Great Lakes region advocated to legalize slavery within their borders

• Senators appealed to the idea of American exceptionalism to encourage national unity

• The Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case reduced sectional conflict within the United States

The most controversial and divisive component of the Compromise of 1850 was the

• measure’s endorsement of popular sovereignty

• admittance of Missouri as a slave state and the establishment of the 36°30' line

• passage of a tougher national fugitive slave act

• admittance of Texas as a slave state

Which of the following statement about the Dred Scott decision is correct

• It recognized the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, but refused on technical grounds to free Scott

• It stated that Black people were not citizens of the United States

• It upheld the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise

• It upheld the principle of popular sovereignty

The United States Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) represented a departure from earlier practices in which of the following ways?

• It established the principle of judicial review, the practice in which the Supreme Court has the authority to evaluate whether laws are consistent with the Constitution

• It introduced the idea of popular sovereignty, the arrangement in which residents of a federal territory could vote whether that territory would allow slavery

• It expanded fugitive slave laws that permitted slaveholders to recover formerly enslaved people even if they had escaped to free states

• It held that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States

Which of the following factors best explains the territorial expansion of slavery in the middle of the nineteenth century?

• The belief in Manifest Destiny encouraged settlers to move to the West

• The Mexican-American War incorporated extensive new lands into the United States

• The rise of industry in the North created more demand for raw materials such as cotton

• The growing nativist movement sought to place restrictions on new immigrants

The ideology that supported the trend depicted in the map is most similar to the ideology that supported which of the following

• Opposition to the international slave trade

• Involvement in the Spanish-American War

• Participation in the First World War

• Isolationism prior to the Second World War