Study Guide – Unit 5 – Sectionalism, Road to the Civil War, the Civil War and Reconstruction

 

Date Due

Assignment

Weds., Oct. 29

1. Read p. 382 - 391

2. Answer questions 1 – 4

Thurs., Oct. 30

Be prepared for the Debate on War with Mexico

Fri., Oct. 31

1. Read p. 392 - 398

2. Answer questions 5 – 6

3. Read Calhoun’s and Webster’s speech excerpts on the Compromise of 1850 and make margin notes about their main arguments.

Mon., Nov. 3

1. Read p. 398 - 406

2. Answer questions 7 - 9

Tues., Nov. 4

1. Read p. 406 - 410

2. Read the excerpts from the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and make margin notes on their major arguments.

3. Answer questions 10 - 11

Weds., Nov. 5

1. Topic Selection due for Research Paper

2. Watch the election returns

Thurs., Nov. 6

1. Read p. 412-418

2. Answer question 12

Fri., Nov. 7

 Read the excerpts on “Fort Sumter and why the war started.”  Make margin notes indicating the reasons for the start of the Civil War that each source gives.  Think about why different individuals would have different reasons. 

Weds., Nov. 12

1. Quiz on the material up to the outbreak of the war

2. Read p. 418 - 425

3. Answer questions 13 - 15

Thurs., Nov. 13

1. Read p. 426 - 432

2. Answer questions 16 and 17

Mon., Nov. 17

1. DBQ Due

2. Work on your bibliography

Tues., Nov. 18

1. Read 432 - 440

2. Answer questions 18 – 20

Weds., Nov. 19

1. Read the Gettysburg Address and take notes on what Lincoln says is the purpose of the war

2. Read Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and take notes on what Lincoln says was the cause of the war.  Not the rhetorical devices that he uses in both speeches.  These are two of the most famous speeches in American history.  Why?

Thurs., Nov. 20

1. Do a brain drain of everything you can think of from the colonial period through the Civil War that has to do with expansion.  Try to group your facts in chronological order.  Write as much as you can without looking at your book or notes, then go back and use both of those to add to your list.

2. Work on your bibliography

Fri., Nov. 21

1. Do your assigned presidential chart

2. Preliminary bibliography due

Mon., Nov. 24

Test

 

Reading Questions

 

1.

List the events leading to Texan independence. Make sure you understand item on your list.

2.

What was Manifest Destiny?

3.

Briefly summarize the issues and results of the election of 1844.

4.

List the events leading to and during the War with Mexico.  Make sure you understand items on your list.

5.

How did the War with Mexico exacerbate sectionalism?  What was the Wilmot Proviso?  What was the  appeal of the Free-Soil movement. The War’s effect on sectionalism is very important.  Make sure you understand it.

6.

Summarize the crisis of 1850 and the Compromise of 1850.  Make sure you know the elements of the Compromise.  Get a mental picture stored in your brains of the map on p. 399.

7.

Identify the role of each of the following in the conflicts of the period: Fugitive Slave Act, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Ostend Manifesto, Kansas-Nebraska Act, , John Brown, and Bleeding Kansas.

8.

The 1850s are a period of dynamic change in politics.  Summarize what was going on politically for each of the following parties.  What did these parties stand for and how did they fare in the 1850s? Whigs, Know-Nothing or American, and the Republican Party.

9.

Summarize the three main points of the Dred Scott decision. Why was this such a thunderclap in politics?

10.

In two columns, outline the arguments of both Douglas and Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates using both your textbook and the excerpts you were given. 

 

11.

Make a bullet-point list summarizing the 1860 election

 

12.

Make of a detailed list of the events between Lincoln’s victory in November, 1860 to the secession of AR, TN, NC, and VA

 

13.

What moves did the Union take to keep the border states (DE, MD, KY, and MO) in the Union?

 

14.

Using what you know now about how wars are fought, make a list of the advantages and disadvantages that each side would have in this war.

 

15.

Summarize the information on how each side mobilized for fighting the war.

 

16.

Summarize the information on how each side financed the war. Include a detailed list of the political plans that the Republicans enacted to sustain “the allegiance of many northerners to the Republican Party.”

 

17.

What did the Emancipation Proclamation actually say and what effect did it have on the war?

 

18.

What was the role of black soldiers in the war?

 

19.

Summarize the information on the election of 1864.

 

20.

What was the effect of Sherman’s March on both the war, the civilians and the slaves in the areas he marched through?

 

 

Identifications and Sectionalism and the Civil War

 

1.

Stephen Austin

26.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

51.

Anaconda Plan

2.

General Santa Anna

27.

Republican Party (1854)

52.

First Bull Run (Manassas)

3.

Alamo and Goliad

28.

American or Know-Nothing Party

53.

Ex Parte Merryman

4.

Battle of San Jacinto

29.

Lecompton Constitution

54.

Gen. George B. McClellan

5.

Sam Houston

30.

Bleeding Kansas

55.

Gen. Robert E. Lee

6.

Manifest Destiny

31.

Lawrence, KS

56.

Gen. Stonewall Jackson

7.

Oregon Boundary Dispute

32.

John Brown

57.

Monitor and the Merrimac

8.

Election of 1844

33.

The caning of Senator Charles Sumner

58.

Antietam

9.

James K. Polk

34.

James Buchanan

59.

Gen. Ulysses Grant

10.

Henry Clay

35.

John C. Fremont

60.

Conscription Act 1862

11.

Annexation of Texas

36.

Election of 1856

61.

Enrollment Act 1863

12.

Oregon Treaty of 1846

37.

Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)

62.

New York City Draft Riots

13.

Wilmot Proviso

38.

Roger B. Taney

63.

Dorothea Dix

14.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

39.

Abraham Lincoln

64.

Clara Barton

15.

Zachary Taylor

40.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

65.

Homestead Act of 1862

16.

Gold Rush

41.

Freeport Doctrine

66.

Emancipation Proclamation 1862

17.

John C. Calhoun

42.

Harpers Ferry

67.

Gettysburg

18.

Stephen A. Douglas

43.

Election of 1860

68.

Vicksburg

19.

popular sovereignty

44.

John C. Breckinridge

69.

Gen. William T. Sherman

20.

Compromise of 1850

45.

John Bell

70.

“March to the Sea”

21.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

46.

Montgomery Convention

71.

Clement Vallandingham

22.

Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

47.

Crittenden Compromise

72.

Copperheads or Peace Democrats

23.

Franklin Pierce

48.

Lincoln’s First Inaugural

73.

Election of 1864

24.

Gadsden Purchase

49.

Fort Sumter

74.

Appomattox

25.

Ostend Manifesto

50.

Jefferson Davis

 

 

 

Questions and Themes: Sectionalism, the Road to the Civil War, and the Civil War

 

Sectionalism and the Mexican War

 

o       How did the South, North, and the West differ as sections of the country in the antebellum years?

o       Why did Americans settle in Texas?  How did it become an independent country in 1836? Why did the U.S. wait until Tyler’s final days in office to annex Texas? What problems did the annexation of Texas bring to the country?

o       What were the countries that claimed the Oregon territory?  How was the dispute eventually settled?

o       In what ways did the concept of Manifest Destiny affect the foreign and domestic policies of the US in the years 1840-1850?

o       What were the arguments that both sides employed for and against going to war with Mexico?

o       What problems arose with the new territory gained in the Mexican Cession? How did the Mexican War exacerbate political and social tensions between the South and the North?

o       How did we acquire each region of the country in the continental United States?

 

The Road to the Civil War

 

o       What was the interaction among the slaves and between the slaves and the master on the plantation?  Approximately, how many southerners held slaves, and in reality, how important were the slaves to the southern economy?

o       How did southerners justify the institution of slavery? What were the responses of the abolitionists?

o       What role did territorial expansion play in the tensions leading to the Civil War?

o       How did the introduction of the Wilmot Proviso affect the North and the South?

o       Why was Congress able to pass the Compromise of 1850?  How did the Compromise affect the balance between the South and the North?

o       What was the impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin on both the North and the South?

o       What specific events and/or acts were associated with the widening breach between the North and South concerning the problems of slavery?  How did the events of the 1850s increase northern fears that slavery was going to spread to the new territories?

o       What were the political changes in this period?  What parties declined, emerged, and succeeded?  Whom did each party appeal to? How did issues in the 1850s impact these parties?

o       What was the impact of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

o       What were the constitutional implications of the Dred Scott decision?  What were the practical consequences?

o       What was the impact of the issues of the 1850s on the election of 1860?  What was the platform of each party in the election of 1860? What were the electoral results of the election?  Why did Lincoln win?

o       What was the relative importance of slavery and states’ rights as factors leading to the war?

 

The Civil War

 

o       What were the relative advantages and disadvantages of each side at the start of the war?  How did these strengths and weaknesses determine the strategy that each side took to fight the war?

o       What legislation did the Republican Party pass that was unrelated to the war? How did they impact the nation’s expansion westward?

o       How did each side finance the war?

o       What means did each side pursue in seeking foreign allies? Why did the Confederacy’s hope for European allies not materialize?

o       What were the key turning points in the war?

o       What did the Emancipation Proclamation do and not do for the slave population of the South? How did blacks contribute to the war effort?

o       How did each side curtail the rights of individual private citizens?

o       What impact did the war have on people’s daily lives during the war?  In what ways did women contribute to the war effort?

o       In what ways did the North’s goals in fighting the war change during the war?