Review Questions

1. What was President Zachary Taylor’s top priority as president?

preserving the Union
ensuring the recapture of escaped enslaved people
expanding slavery
enlarging the state of Texas

2. Which of the following was not a component of the Compromise of 1850?

the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act
the admission of Kansas as a free state
the admission of California as a free state
a ban on the slave trade in Washington, DC

3. Why did many in the North resist the Fugitive Slave Act?

4. Which of the following was a focus of the new Republican Party?

supporting Irish Catholic immigration
encouraging the use of popular sovereignty to determine where slavery could exist
promoting states’ rights
halting the spread of slavery

5. Border ruffians helped to ________.

chase abolitionists out of Missouri
elect a proslavery legislature in Kansas
capture escaped enslaved people
disseminate abolitionist literature in Kansas

6. How did the “Bleeding Kansas” incident change the face of antislavery advocacy?

7. On what grounds did Dred Scott sue for freedom?

the inherent inhumanity of slavery
the cruelty of his enslaver
the fact that he had lived in free states
the fact that his family would be torn apart

8. Which of the following was not a result of the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

Douglas was elected senator of Illinois.
Lincoln’s national profile was raised.
Citizens in both the North and South followed the debates closely.
Lincoln successfully defended the principle of popular sovereignty.

9. What are the main points of the Dred Scott decision?

10. Why did John Brown attack the armory at Harpers Ferry?

to seize weapons to distribute to enslaved people for a massive uprising
to hold as a military base against proslavery forces
in revenge after the sacking of Lawrence
to prevent southern states from seceding

11. Which of the following did not contribute to Lincoln’s victory in the election of 1860?

the split between northern and southern Democrats
the defeat of the Whig party
Lincoln’s improved national standing after his senatorial debates with Stephen Douglas
the Constitutional Union party’s further splintering the vote

12. What were southerners’ and northerners’ views of John Brown?