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Reading Questions – Unit One: Sectionalism and Politics

p. 47 – 64

1. What were the controversies emerging from the war with Mexico? (p. 47 – 52)

2. What were the positions that the following groups took regarding the territories gained from the Mexican War? Make sure you understand what the Wilmot Proviso was. (p. 51 – 58)

A. President Polk

B. David Wilmot and Northern Democrats

C. Those who believed in free soil

D. Southerners, esp. John C. Calhoun

E. Lewis Cass

3. Analyze why Zachary Taylor won the election of 1848. Explain who the groups were who joined together to form the Free-Soil Party and the impact they may have had on the election. (p. 58 – 63)

p. 78 – 91

4. What were personal liberty laws? (p. 78-9)

5. What did Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) determine? (p. 79)

6. What did the South want the North to do concerning their escaped slaves? What does this show about the South’s commitment to states’ rights? (p. 79 – 81)

7. What role did the federal government take concerning fugitive slaves? (p. 82 – 84)

8. What happened in the Battle of Christiana? (p. 84 – 85)

9. How did these famous episodes of slave escapes exacerbate tensions between the North and South? Why was unionism able to reassert itself? (p. 86)

10. What was the “Georgia Platform?” (p. 87)

11. Explain why McPherson says (on p. 87) that “Southern unionism…was a perishable commodity.”

Page 91 – 103

12. Why did the South have a sense of economic subordination? (p. 91 – 92)

13. What was De Bow’s vision of what the South could become and what evidence was there of its progress? (p. 93 – 96)

14. What explanations were there for why the South’s failure to industrialize and how does McPherson evaluate each of these explanations? (p. 96 – 102)

15. What were the arguments for and against reopening the international slave trade? (p. 102-3)

P. 103 – 116

16. Who were the filibusters? Identify the following. (p. 103 – 107 and 110-116)

a. Filibusters:

b. Narciso Lopez

c. John Quitman

d. William Walker (p. 110 – 116)

17. Who were the “Young Americans” and who was their leader? (p. 107)

18. How does the Gadsden Purchase fit into the move to expand slave territory? (p. 108)

19. What was the Ostend Manifesto and what happened with it? (p. 109 – 110)

P. 117 – 130

20. What was the role of slavery in the 1852 election? How did the parties change after that election? (p. 117 – 118)

21. What was the impact of the Anthony Burns affair? (p. 119 – 120)

22. Why did the Kansas-Nebraska Bill provoke a “hell of a storm”? Summarize the arguments on each side regarding the bill, including southerners, Stephen Douglas, and Abraham Lincoln. (p. 121 -129)

23. What were the political effects of the bill? (p. 129 – 130)

P. 130 – 144

24. What were the causes for the revival of nativism in the 1850s? (p. 130-134)

25. What policies did the Know Nothings support besides an opposition to immigration? (p. 135 – 136)

26. What was the relationship between the Know-Nothings and the Republican Party? Why did the Know-Nothing party eventually disintegrate? (p. 137 – 144)