Ch 13, Surge to the Pacific

1.    What happed to the Donner party’s two Indian guides in the last ditch effort by a group of seventeen to reach California?

2.    Identify two of four ways that traders undermined the ability of Western Indians to resist white incursions?

3.    Identify one of two factors were responsible for the nearly 70,000 Indian deaths in California between the years of 1849 and 1859?

4.    Identify two events that encouraged most families to emigrate West?

5.    What was meant by the slogan manifest destiny?

6.    For what two reasons did the Spanish government welcome Americans to settle Texas?

7.    Identify two of five ways that the Mexican government sought to reassert its authority over Texas.

8.    What order did Sam Houston make when learning that Santa Anna's goal was to recapture San Antonio?

9.    What British activities in the Pacific Northwest alarmed American diplomats that they would establish sovereignty over the region?

10. Under what slogan did expansionists seek the annexation of the entire Oregon Territory in 1846?

11.    In what way was the confining of Joseph Smith and his brother to a jail cell for their protection inadequate?

12.    Over what practice did many Americans accused the Mormon Church of corrupting moral values?

13.    In what was the underlying cause of the Mexican war?

14.    According to critics, Polk deliberately provoked war by doing what?

15.    Why did opponents of slavery condemn the war?

16.    In what way is the Bear Flag Rebellion most notably enshrined in California? (not in your book)

17.    What Whig congressman from Illinois in denouncing the war was branded as a "Benedict Arnold" of his district by his constituents and was denied renomination by his own party?

18.    What was primarily responsible for roughly 90% of the U.S. causalities in the Mexican war?

19.    While some ultra-expansionists called for the complete annexation of Mexico, why did Southerners, like John C. Calhoun, call for U.S. withdrawal to the Rio Grande?

20.    What was the most significant consequence of the Mexican war?

21.    For what reason did northerners believe that the South had precipitated the war with Mexico?

22.    Why did the question of slavery in the western territories weaken the party system?

23.    What in the Wilmot Proviso to a war appropriation bill contributed sectionalism?

24.    What beliefs did the Free Soil Party advance that further contributed to sectionalism?

25.    What did President Polk announce in Congress that suddenly made the question of slavery inescapably important?

Quiz: Ch 14, The House Divided

26. What was responsible for making slavery's expansion an unavoidable political issue?

27. What two factors were responsible for dimming the chances of compromise over the slavery issue?

28. What two options did Southern leaders believe to be the only way to perpetuate slavery in the future?

29. IDENTIY one of two proposals that had been advanced as possible compromises to extending slavery in the West and EXPLAIN how the proposal would determine the status of slavery in the West.

30. For what reason did slave opponent Daniel Webster tell the North that they could be generous in permitting slavery in the Western territories?

31. What happened in July of 1850 that revived the possibility of compromise over the slavery issue?

32. What was the most divisive element in the Compromise of 1850?

33. How did eight Northern states attempt to invalidate the fugitive slave Law?

34. What publication in 1852 was the single most powerful attack on slavery ever written?

35. What two issues were responsible for the disintegration of the two-party system?

36. Identify one factor that contributed to the rise of anti-Catholicism in the 1850s?

37. The rise in anti-Catholic sentiment eventually culminated into what violence?

38. Identify one thing upon which Americans focused in an effort to turn their attention away from the politics of slavery.

39. For what reason was Franklin Pierce unable to ignore the slavery question while pursuing his aggressive foreign policy program?

40. What did Northern Free-Soilers fear that caused a fury over the passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act?

41. In what way did the Kansas Nebraska act bring about a dramatic realignment of the two-party system?

42. Identify three ideological groups contained within the Republican Party in 1854.

43. What action to Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina take against Charles Sumner in an attempt to avenge the insult to his state made Sumner's speech?

44. What action did abolitionists John Brown take at Pottawatomie Creek in response to the "sack of Lawrence" and the attack on Sumner?

45. In what way did the outcome of the election of 1856 show how polarized the nation had become?

46. Identify two of three reasons as to why the Dred Scott decision was a gross political miscalculation in solving the slavery controversy?

47. According to Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, what two things would happen if Northerners allowed slavery to spread unchecked?

48. What was John Brown's long-range goal in raiding a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry?

49. How did John Brown plan to start a slave revolt in Virginia?

50. Who led a detachment of U.S. marines that eventually stormed the armory and captured John Brown?