Download Unit 8 ~ Events Leading to the Civil War

Events Leading to the Civil War Study Guide
Directions: On a separate sheet of paper, answer the following questions in short form.
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What four factors divided America and caused the development of increasingly greater sectional
tensions in the first half of the nineteenth century?
What was produced by the nation’s struggle to resolve its sectional issues?
Why did the admission of new states to the Union often cause a crisis during the decades before the
Civil War?
What war resulted from the United States’ failure to work out a settlement acceptable to both the
“free” North and the “slave” South?
In the first half of the nineteenth century, the United States became divided economically. What type
of economy did the Northern states develop and on what was it based?
What type of taxes did the Northern states favor?
What was the purpose of high protective tariffs?
Define the term protective tariffs.
What type of economy did the Southern states develop?
On what type of labor force did the South’s agricultural economy largely depend?
What was the South’s position on high protective tariffs?
Why did the South oppose high protective tariffs?
What effect did the economic divisions between North and South have on the American people?
Why did the sectional crises in the decades before the Civil War often relate to the number of “free
states” and “slave states”?
How did the conflict over slavery change as the United States expanded westward?
What movement grew in the North after 1830?
Who were the abolitionists?
Who was one of the most important abolitionist leaders?
What was The Liberator?
Who else became active in the abolitionist movement, and why did they do so?
Who was Harriet Beecher Stowe?
What effect did Uncle Tom’s Cabin have on the antislavery movement?
What two things did Southerners fear?
In what region did the abolitionist message receive a positive response?
What two slave rebellions occurred in Virginia?
Explain what happened in Gabriel’s Rebellion.
Explain what happened in Nat Turner’s Rebellion.
How did Southerners react to Nat Turner’s Rebellion?
What action did Southern state legislatures take in response to Nat Turner’s Rebellion?
Define the term slave codes.
After Nat Turner’s Rebellion, what happened to white Southerners who had held antislavery feelings?
How did the admission of new states during the first half of the nineteenth century lead to sectional
conflicts?
Who proposed the Missouri Compromise?
What were the three provisions of the Missouri Compromise?
Why was it important to Congress to keep the number of slave and free states equal?
What important event happened in California in 1849?
Why did California’s application for admission to the Union disrupt the sectional peace?
Who proposed the Compromise of 1850?
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39. Who has been called “the Great Compromiser” and why was he called that?
40. What were the four provisions of the Compromise of 1850?
41. What did it mean for the Compromise of 1850 to create the territories of New Mexico and Utah
without restrictions on slavery?
42. What was the purpose of the new fugitive slave law?
43. Which region hated the fugitive slave act, and why was this true?
44. Why did the fugitive slave law greatly increase sectional tensions?
45. Why did tension between the North and the South grow worse in 1854?
46. Who proposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill?
47. Define the term bill.
48. Define the term act.
49. What were the three provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
50. Define the term “popular sovereignty.”
51. What does it mean to repeal a law, and what law was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
52. How did the abolitionists and most Northerners view the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
53. What effect did the Kansas-Nebraska Act have on Kansas?
54. What were the two major results of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
55. What was the basic belief of the Republican Party?
56. What important decision did the Supreme Court hand down in 1857?
57. How did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott case?
58. Why did the Dred Scott decision enrage Northerners?
59. What part of the Compromise of 1850 did many Northerners hate?
60. What did the Fugitive Slave Act require?
61. What effect did the North’s increasing opposition to the spread of slavery have on Southerners?
62. In what type of rights did Southerners strongly believe?
63. What did Southerners argue states could do to laws passed by Congress?
64. What did it mean to nullify a law?
65. What other right did Southerners insist states possessed?
66. Define the term secede.
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