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U.S. History

Review Questions

U.S. HistoryReview Questions

Review Questions

1.

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

  1. preserving the Union
  2. ensuring the recapture of escaped enslaved people
  3. expanding slavery
  4. enlarging the state of Texas
2.

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

  1. the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act
  2. the admission of Kansas as a free state
  3. the admission of California as a free state
  4. 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?

  1. supporting Irish Catholic immigration
  2. encouraging the use of popular sovereignty to determine where slavery could exist
  3. promoting states’ rights
  4. halting the spread of slavery
5.

Border ruffians helped to ________.

  1. chase abolitionists out of Missouri
  2. elect a proslavery legislature in Kansas
  3. capture escaped enslaved people
  4. 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?

  1. the inherent inhumanity of slavery
  2. the cruelty of his enslaver
  3. the fact that he had lived in free states
  4. the fact that his family would be torn apart
8.

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

  1. Douglas was elected senator of Illinois.
  2. Lincoln’s national profile was raised.
  3. Citizens in both the North and South followed the debates closely.
  4. 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?

  1. to seize weapons to distribute to enslaved people for a massive uprising
  2. to hold as a military base against proslavery forces
  3. in revenge after the sacking of Lawrence
  4. to prevent southern states from seceding
11.

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

  1. the split between northern and southern Democrats
  2. the defeat of the Whig party
  3. Lincoln’s improved national standing after his senatorial debates with Stephen Douglas
  4. the Constitutional Union party’s further splintering the vote
12.

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

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