Adv. U.S. I - Ch. 19 Study Guide and Study Questions

Horace Pippin, John Brown Going To His Hanging, 1942.

ADVANCED U.S. HISTORY I

Ch. 19  Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854- 1861

Study objectives:  Be able to: 

1.      Tell the sequence of major crises that led from the Kansas-Nebraska Act to secession.

2.      Explain how and why “bleeding Kansas” became a dress rehearsal for the Civil War

3.      Trace the growing power of the Republican Party in the 1850s and the increasing divisions of the Democrats

4.      Explain how the Dred Scott decision and Brown’s Harpers’ Ferry raid deepened antagonism between the North and the South

5.      Trace the rise of Lincoln as the leading advocate of the Republican doctrine of no expansion of slavery.

6.      Analyze the complex election of 1860 in relation to the crisis between the North and South

7.      Describe the movement toward secession, the formation of the Confederacy, and the failure of the Crittenden compromise effort.

Study Questions:

1.      Beginning with the Kansas Nebraska Act, what were the crisis events of the 1850s and how did each one help lead toward the Civil War?

2.      Name some violent incidents of the 1850s.  What role did violence play in the increasing conflict between the North and South?

3.      How did the political developments of the period 1854-1861 work to fragment the Democratic party and benefit the Republicans?

4.      Could the Crittenden Compromise or some other proposal have prevented or at least postponed the Civil War? Why was compromise successful in 1820 and 1850 but not in 1861?

5.      How did the North and the South each view the various crisis events of the 1850s?  Select 3 events, explain how they were viewed by the North and the South.  Why were their views so different?