U.S. I - Ch. 18 Study Goals and Objectives - Sectional Struggle 1848-1854

Ch. 18 – Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1849-1854

Objectives

1.       Explain how the issue of slavery in the territories acquired from Mexico disrupted American politics from 1848-1850

2.       List the major terms of the Compromise of 1850 and indicated how this agreement attempted to deal with the issue of slavery.

3.       Describe how the Whig party disintegrated and disappeared because of its divisions over slavery.

4.       Describe how the Pierce administration engaged in various pro-Southern overseas and expansionist ventures

5.       Describe Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act and explain why it stirred the sectional controversy to new heights.

6.       Look up the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  Compare and contrast it to the Compromise of 1850.  State why sectional issues could not be compromised in 1820 and 1850, but not in 1854.

Study Questions:

1.       What was Compromise of 1850?  What urgent issues created the crisis leading up to it?

2.       How did the moral issues of the slavery debate affect American political parties?

3.       Why did the Whig party disappear, and why did the Free Soil and Republican parties come into being?

4.       Why were pro-slavery southerners so eager for the U.S. to expand in Nicaragua, Cuba, and elsewhere in the 1850s?

5.       What were the causes of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?  What were its consequences?