The Coming of the Civil War

What did the Kansas-Nebraska Act provide for?

• The new territories were able to decide for themselves, through voting, the issue of slavery

• The dividing line between slave holding and free states

• Return of escape slaves to their owner in the South

• It established the Underground Railroad

For what reason were the trials held under the Fugitive Slave Act unfair?

• accused escaped slaves could not give evidence to defend themselves

• judges were paid more to send the accused into slavery

• they were decided by juries made only of southern slaveholders

• the trials were held privately, behind closed doors

This court decision ruled that the slaves were not citizens, and therefore had no rights to sue in court. 

• Marbury v. Madison
• Plessey v. Ferguson
• Brown v. Board
• Dred Scott v. Sanford 

An increase in which of the following was the key part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to attract Southern support?

• Transportation in the South
  
• Popular sovereignty
  
• Fugitive Slave Act
  
• Representation in Congress
  

Why did slavery become more central to American politics between 1820 and 1850?

• Territorial expansion raised the question of whether new lands should be free or slave.
• Members of the abolitionist Republican Party, formed in 1844, insisted on debating slavery.
  
• President John Tyler’s antislavery policies cause a major proslavery backlash led by John C. Calhoun.
• As the 1848 Constitutional deadline for ending the African slave trade drew near, Americans became obsessed with s

As a result of the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852,

• calls for political compromise over the issue of slavery increased.
• the American Colonization Society began transporting ex-slaves back to Africa.
• the Underground Railroad was formed.
• abolitionism gained ground in the North.
  

What became the most controversial element of the Compromise of 1850?

• The admission of California as a free state
• The Fugitive Slave Act
  
• The banning of the slave trade in Washington, D.C.
• The potential opening up of Utah and New Mexico territories to slavery

Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820:

• the remaining Louisiana Purchase territory was divided into slave and free zones.
  
• Congress banned slavery in any new territory that might ever be added to the United States.
  
• Missouri agreed to gradual emancipation of slavery in exchange for admission to the Union.
• Ohio became a free state to balance the admission of Missouri as a slave state.
  

What was the dividing line for slave states and free states after the Missouri Compromise?

• The equator

• the prime meridian

• 36'30" line

• the 50 yard line

Bleeding Kansas was an example of

• the dangers of radical abolitionism

• the impracticality of popular sovereignty

• the selfishness of Stephen Douglas

• the instability of territorial governments