civil war - harriet tubman

Though he died before the Civil War even began, John C. Calhoun was partly responsible for it. The Senator from South Carolina was the most powerful Southern voice in the government.

Calhoun was the leading proponent of slavery in the Senate. Previously, Southerners had argued that slavery was a "necessary evil." In a famous speech to the Senate, Calhoun argued that slavery was a "positive good."

Every pro-slavery argument is based in ignorance and racism, but none more than the argument that Africans were savages and that by living in America they were at least living in a civilized society.

Calhoun and others angrily pointed out that while Northerners were yelling about the treatment of slaves, they were treating their own workers terribly. For example, young girls in textile mills in New England worked twelve-hour days under awful conditions.

Which best describes John C. Calhoun’s attitude towards slavery?

• Slavery was a necessary evil.

• Slavery was a good for everyone involved.

• Slavery was worse than work in textile mills.

• Slavery should be abolished.

In 1856 Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner delivered a raucous, rowdy anti-slavery speech in the Senate. He accused South Carolina senator Andrew Butler of taking "a mistress...who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight--I mean, the harlot, Slavery!"

Representative Preston Brooks, also from South Carolina, decided to defend Butler's honor. That evening, he went to the Senate and found Sumner doing paperwork. Brooks snuck up behind him and beat Senator Sumner with the metal tip of his cane, for a minute or more, until Sumner was bleeding. In the days that followed, both men became heroes in their respective regions.

Who or what was Senator Butler’s “mistress,” according to Senator Sumner?

• a female slave

• Representative Preston Brooks

• slavery itself

• another senator’s wife

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Maryland around 1820. She escaped to the North in 1849, but she immediately returned to the South to help other slaves escape. Doing this was no easy task. Tubman used the Underground Railroad, which was neither a railroad nor actually underground. It was a loose network of individuals and houses sympathetic to the abolitionist cause. These people would house the escaped slaves and send them on to the next "station," so slaves could gradually make their way north.

Tubman's work became even more dangerous after Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. This act required citizens of any state, slave or free, to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves. Tubman also served for the Union during the Civil War. She worked as a spy behind Confederate lines.

Which of these best describes the relationship between Harriet Tubman and the Union Army?

• Tubman was a Union spy.

• Tubman was an officer in the Union Army.

• Tubman was a slave in the Confederate Army.

• Tubman was a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Abraham Lincoln ran for president in 1860. The newly powerful Republicans in the North organized behind him, and he won the presidency without carrying a single Southern state. A month after Lincoln's victory, South Carolina voted to secede from the US. Soon, nine more states did the same. Southern states left the Union in spite of the fact that Lincoln had promised that he would not interfere with slavery in the South. He said, however, that he would forbid slavery in new territories.

The Civil War was first over keeping the Union together. Only later did it become a war about ending slavery. Lincoln was aware that most Northerners wouldn't fight to free slaves. However, they would fight to keep America united. In 1863, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Confederacy and weakened the Southern economy. It also drummed up European support for the Union. Britain and France soon pledged their support.

Which statement would President Lincoln most likely agree with?

• Southerners won’t fight to keep the Union together.

• Northerners will fight to end slavery.

• Northerners would fight to keep America united.

• The Civil War was not about keeping the nation together.

The Union had a series of inept generals who lost battles and failed to follow Lincoln's orders. One of the exceptions was General Ulysses S. Grant. He led successful offensives at Vicksburg and along the Mississippi River. Another successful Union general was William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman’s famous March to the Sea across Georgia and through Atlanta ravaged and destroyed the land. As Sherman himself noted, "we devoured the land."

One of the most important men of the Confederacy was Robert E. Lee. He was a brilliant general who won a series of battles in which his troops were vastly outnumbered. Stonewall Jackson was a leader of Confederate troops under Lee. Jefferson Davis was president of the Confederacy for the duration of the Civil War. Davis failed to create a position for a general-in-chief to coordinate strategy until 1865. Some argue that this cost the Confederacy the war.

According to the text, what do some people believe was the reason the South lost the Civil War?

• Robert E. Lee was an inept general.

• President Jefferson Davis did not appoint a general-in-chief.

• The Unions march to the sea destroyed the South.

• General Ulysses S. Grant was an exceptional general.