CHAPTER REVIEW

Rapid Review Guide

To achieve the perfect 5, you should be able to explain the following:

• The concept of manifest destiny spurred American expansion into Texas and the far West.

• American settlers much more loyal to the United States than to Mexico entered Texas in large numbers and encouraged Texas to break away from Mexico and eventually become an American state.

• The issue of slavery and slavery in the territories came to dominate American political debate more and more in the 1840s and 1850s.

• California entered the Union as a free state under the Missouri Compromise, upsetting the balance between free and slave states and intensifying the conflict between them.

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act created violence in these territories as they “decided” on whether they would be slave or free; both abolitionists and pro-slavery forces shipped in supporters to help sway the elections in these territories.

• The Dred Scott decision only intensified tensions between the North and the South.

• The election of I860 was seen as an insult to many in the South, and after its results were announced, the secession of Southern states from the Union was inevitable.

Time Line

1836: Texas territory repels against Mexico; independent republic of Texas created

1841: Beginning of expansion into Oregon territory

1844: James K. Polk elected president

1845: Texas becomes a state of the United States

1846: Oregon Treaty with Britain gives most of Oregon to United States War with Mexico begins Wilmont Proviso passed

1848: Gold discovered in California; beginning of California gold rush Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Formation of Free-Soil party Zachary Taylor elected president

1850: Passage of Compromise of 1850

1852: Franklin Pierce elected president

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe published

1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act passed

Formation of the Republican party

1856: Democrat James Buchanan elected president “Bleeding Kansas”

1857: Dred Scott decision announced

1858: Lincoln-Douglas debates

Freeport Doctrine issued by Stephen Douglas

1859: Harper’s Ferry rail of John Brown

1860: Abraham Lincoln elected president

South Carolina secedes from the Union (December)

Review Questions

1. Northerners approved all of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850 except

A. the section of the document concerning slavery in California

B. the section of the document concerning the Fugitive Slave Law

C. the section of the treaty on slave trading in Washington, DC

D. the section of the document concerning slavery in New Mexico

E. the section of the document concerning slavery in Utah

(Correct Answer: B. In the Compromise of 1850, provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law were made tougher. California was to enter the Union as a free state, the residents of New Mexico and Utah could decided if they wanted to be slave or free, and slaving trading was outlawed in Washington, DC.)

2. During the presidential election of 1860

A. the Democratic party had split and ran two candidates

B. the new president was someone that almost no one in the South had voted for

C. support for the Constitutional Union party demonstrated that ex-Whigs were not satisfied with cither the Democratic or the Republican party

D. the issue of the future of slavery in the territories was a major issue

E. All of the above

(Correct Answer: E. All of the factors mentioned concerning the 1860 election are true.)

3. According to the concept of manifest destiny

A. it was primarily economic factors that caused Americans to expand westward

B. it was primarily political factors that caused Americans to expand westward

C. the desires of the American military did much to force westward expansion

D. westward expansion was the fulfillment of America’s destiny

E. overpopulation on the eastern seaboard forced westward expansion

(Correct Answer: D. The concept of manifest destiny stated that social, political, and social factors all came together to encourage western expansion, and that western expansion was actually “God’s plan” for America.)

4. American settlers first came to Mexico in the early 1830s 

A. to avenge the attack on the Alamo

B. for religious reasons; most that came were devout Catholics

C. for political reasons; most that came were disenchanted with American policy toward Native Americans

D. out of personal loyalty to Davey Crockett or Jim Bowie

E. because they could receive a large plot of land for next to nothing

(Correct Answer: E. Settlers who came and became Mexican citizens and Catholics could receive very large plots of land for almost nothing. The incident at the Alamo did not occur until 1836.)

5. The political party of the era that supported nativist policies was the

A. Liberty party

B. Free-Soil party

C. Democratic party

D. Know-Nothing party

E. Whig party

(Correct Answer: D. The Know-Nothing party, a popular party in the early 1850s, supported a number of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic policies.)