SparkNotes: The Civil War 1850

1. What did the Wilmot Proviso do?

(A) Banned slavery in the Mexican Cession

(B) Overturned the Missouri Compromise of 1820

(C) Opened Kansas to slaveholding settlers

(D) Applied the doctrine of popular sovereignty to settlement of the West

2. Why was the election of 1848 significant?

(A) It marked the first time a Whig won the presidency

(B) It was the first election in which Southern Whigs voted with Southern Democrats

(C) The Free-Soilers diverted enough votes from the Democrats to let Taylor win

(D) Americans overwhelmingly voted for popular sovereignty in the territories

3. All of the following were components of the Compromise of 1850 except

(A) A new Fugitive Slave Law was passed

(B) Slavery was banned in Washington, D.C.

(C) Popular sovereignty would determine the future of slavery in the territories

(D) California was admitted as a free state

4. All of the following steeled Northern public opinion against the South except

(A) The Kansas-Nebraska Act

(B) The Wilmot Proviso

(C) Uncle Tom's Cabin

(D) The Fugitive Slave Law

5. Where did Franklin Pierce and his Southern expansionist supporters acquire new territory?

(A) Cuba

(B) Nicaragua

(C) Mexico

(D) Japan

6. Pierce's administration is best described as

(A) Abolitionist and expansionist

(B) Proslavery but conciliatory

(C) Conciliatory and abolitionist

(D) Expansionist and proslavery

7. Why did the Kansas-Nebraska Act anger Americans in the North?

(A) It effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise

(B) It split both the Whig and Democratic Parties

(C) It led to shocking violence in Kansas

(D) It contradicted Southern concessions made in the Compromise of 1850

8. Who were the “border ruffians”?

(A) Ambivalent Americans living in the border states during the Civil War

(B) Proslavery Marylanders who attacked federal troops marching to Washington, D.C., in 1861

(C) Proslavery Missourians who rushed to Kansas after Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act

(D) British troops stationed in Canada who threatened Lincoln with war over the Trent Affair

9. Why did Stephen Douglas push the Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress in 1854?

(A) He wanted a northern transcontinental railroad to terminate in Chicago

(B) He wanted to resolve the slavery debate

(C) He wanted to increase his stature within the Democratic Party

(D) All of the above

10. John Brown's Pottawatomie Massacre

(A) Was hailed as an abolitionist victory in the North

(B) Began the Bleeding Kansas crisis

(C) Was denounced by most Northerners but lauded by Republicans

(D) All of the above

11. All of the following were consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act except

(A) The breakup of both the Whig and Democratic Parties

(B) The effective repeal of the Missouri Compromise

(C) The Bleeding Kansas crisis

(D) The Wilmot Proviso

12. The 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford decision prompted

(A) South Carolina to threaten secession

(B) John Brown to kill five proslavery whites in the Pottawatomie Massacre

(C) Border ruffians to burn Lawrence, Kansas

(D) Stephen Douglas to announce the Freeport Doctrine

13. Roger Taney declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional on the grounds that

(A) Blacks could not sue in federal courts because they were not citizens

(B) Popular sovereignty was illegal

(C) The federal government could not restrict the movement of private property

(D) Slavery was illegal in both the North and South

14. What statement best describes President James Buchanan's position?

(A) He supported the South because of his dependency on Southern Democrats

(B) He supported Northern Democrats in the face of increasing opposition in the South

(C) He took no stand on the slavery issue in order to get reelected

(D) He tacitly supported Northern Free-Soilers in exchange for votes

15. All of the following were true about the election of 1860 except

(A) It was primarily a sectional election

(B) No candidate received a majority of the popular vote

(C) Lincoln threatened to invade the South after he won

(D) The Democratic Party split after failing to nominate a single candidate

16. What did Lincoln do in his first inaugural address?

(A) Threatened to invade the South if the state legislature refused to retract their vote to secede

(B) Threatened to emancipate all the slaves in the South if more states seceded

(C) Professed his friendship for the South and said he would ignore South Carolina's illegal secession

(D) Said he would forgive the South if it emancipated all its slaves

17. In terms of structure, the Confederate government was similar in many ways to

(A) The Union government

(B) The U.S. government under the Articles of Confederation

(C) Britain's parliament

(D) The Second Continental Congress

18. What did John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry demonstrate?

(A) That Southern slaves were not ready to rebel

(B) That Republicans were secretly backing slave insurrections

(C) That the Compromise of 1850 had failed

(D) That Northern and Southern opinions on slavery were irreconcilable

19. What did Stephen Douglas's Freeport Doctrine challenge?

(A) The Dred Scott v. Sanford decision

(B) The Wilmot Proviso

(C) The Compromise of 1850

(D) Popular sovereignty

20. Stephen Douglas rejected the Lecompton Constitution on the grounds that

(A) Admitting Kansas as a slave state would violate the Missouri Compromise

(B) Admitting Kansas as a slave state would destroy the sectional balance in the Senate

(C) Kansas could not be admitted without Nebraska

(D) Its drafters had been elected illegitimately

21. What did champions of popular sovereignty believe?

(A) That states should have the final say over the federal government when interpreting the Constitution

(B) That more people, including women and free blacks, should be given the right to vote

(C) That each territory should determine whether it became a free or slave state

(D) That presidents and senators should be directly elected by the people

22. What did Harriet Tubman and other Underground Railroad “conductors” defy?

(A) The Fugitive Slave Law

(B) The Wilmot Proviso

(C) The Tallmadge Amendment

(D) Popular sovereignty

23. Why were the Lincoln-Douglas debates significant in Lincoln's political career?

(A) They won him the Illinois Senate race

(B) They boosted him to national prominence

(C) They ridiculed the untouchable Stephen Douglas

(D) All of the above

24. The seizure of Fort Sumter

(A) Shattered Confederate morale

(B) Convinced Britain to construct the Laird rams

(C) Made Southerners believe the war would be over quickly

(D) Convinced Lincoln to fire General McClellan

25. Why did Southern Democrats refuse to support Stephen Douglas in the election of 1860?

(A) They disagreed with his popular sovereignty platform

(B) He chose a former Free-Soil Party Northerner as his running mate

(C) The South wanted to secede while Douglas wanted to remain in the Union

(D) He had rejected the Lecompton Constitution

26. Britain and the Union almost went to war over

(A) The Laird rams

(B) The Trent Affair

(C) The Alabama

(D) All of the above

27. Which of the following was one reason the border states were so important to the Union?

(A) They would have doubled Confederate manufacturing capabilities had they seceded

(B) The provided Lincoln with the votes he needed to win the election of 1864

(C) They formed an impenetrable defensive shield for the North

(D) The provided the North with slave labor

28. Lincoln was different from Davis in that he

(A) Had more leadership experience prior to the war

(B) Had a knack for understanding and using public opinion to his advantage

(C) Never violated the Constitution

(D) Was unable to control the central government well

29. Which of the following states was not a border state?

(A) Kentucky

(B) Maryland

(C) Missouri

(D) Ohio

30. What did the Legal Tender Act do?

(A) Caused the Panic of 1857

(B) Drastically inflated commodity prices in the South

(C) Stabilized the Northern economy

(D) Caused the collapse of the national banking system

31. Why was Britain not as dependent on Southern cotton as the Confederacy had believed?

(A) Britain's economy was shifting away from textile manufacturing

(B) Cotton could also be obtained from Egypt and India

(C) Manufacturers could use wool just as easily as cotton

(D) Most Britons were morally opposed to slavery

32. The Richmond Bread Riots were the result of

(A) Hyperinflation

(B) The collapse of the Southern economy

(C) The North's total warfare tactics

(D) All of the above

33. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?

(A) Freed all slaves in the North and South

(B) Freed slaves in secessionist states

(C) Freed only slaves in the border states

(D) Freed all Southern slaves who volunteered for the Union army

34. William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea

(A) Was a classic example of total warfare

(B) Was a classic example of limited warfare

(C) Forced Robert E. Lee to surrender

(D) Caused the collapse of the Confederate government in Richmond

35. The Union victory at Antietam was significant because

(A) It convinced Britain not to forge an alliance with the South

(B) It gave Lincoln the opportunity to fire George McClellan

(C) It gave Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation

(D) All of the above

36. The Battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg

(A) Boosted Confederate morale

(B) Nearly convinced France to extend diplomatic recognition to the South

(C) Were the major turning point in the war

(D) Justified Peace Democrats' criticism of Lincoln and the war

37. Which of the following actions by Lincoln violated the Constitution?

(A) His order of a naval blockade of the South

(B) His increase of the size of the U.S. Army

(C) His authorization of illegal voting methods in the border states

(D) All of the above

38. Why did Lincoln suspend the writ of habeas corpus?

(A) To restrict freedom of the press

(B) To enable Confederate sympathizers to be arrested without being formally charged

(C) To emancipate slaves in Washington, D.C.

(D) To increase the size of the U.S. Army

39. The National Banking Act

(A) Made it easier to obtain cheap credit

(B) Caused a brief financial panic

(C) Gave Congress unprecedented control over the economy

(D) Curbed rampant inflation in the North

40. What did George McClellan and other Peace Democrats want?

(A) To punish the South for causing the Civil War

(B) To end the war and let the South go

(C) To make Kansas a slave state

(D) To fight only a limited war, not a total war, against the South

41. Why did Jefferson Davis request the Hampton Roads Conference with the North?

(A) He knew the Confederacy was doomed

(B) He knew the North was growing weaker and weaker

(C) He wanted to claim that he had tried to make peace with the North

(D) He objected to the North's tactics of total warfare

42. All of the following were Confederate strengths going into the Civil War except

(A) Superior military commanders

(B) The fact that it would be fighting a defensive war

(C) A larger population and army

(D) An extensive manufacturing base

43. Toward the end of the war, many poorer whites in the South felt

(A) That they were willing to die for the honor of the South

(B) Angry that they were fighting a rich man's war

(C) That they were close to victory

(D) That Robert E. Lee had failed them

44. All of the following were Northern strengths going into the war except

(A) Superior military commanders

(B) A stable and internationally recognized government

(C) A larger population and army

(D) An industrial economy

45. The Confederacy collapsed at the end of the war for all of the following reasons except

(A) Hyperinflation

(B) Class struggles

(C) Massive slave uprisings

(D) The federal government's inability to maintain control over the states

46. Lincoln's primary objective during the war was

(A) To free the slaves

(B) To restore the Union

(C) To uphold federal authority over the states

(D) All of the above

47. What did Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin do?

(A) Prompted South Carolina to secede from the Union

(B) Turned many ambivalent Northerners into abolitionists

(C) Convinced many Northerners that reconciliation was possible

(D) Criticized Lincoln for the war

48. The First Battle of Bull Run

(A) Convinced Northerners the war would be over quickly

(B) Convinced Southerners the war would be over quickly

(C) Convinced the North and the South the war would be over quickly

(D) Convinced the North and the South the war would be long and bloody

49. The Battle of Shiloh

(A) Convinced Northerners the war would be long and bloody

(B) Convinced Southerners the war would be long and bloody

(C) Convinced both the North and the South the war would be long and bloody

(D) Convinced the South the war would be over quickly

50. Who won the presidential election of 1864?

(A) James Buchanan

(B) Andrew Johnson

(C) Ulysses S. Grant

(D) Abraham Lincoln

The Civil War 1850–1865

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