1. How had the U.S. changed in the 72 years from Washington to Lincoln?
a. It had become a pulsing, burgeoning world economic power whose lands stretched over the entire continent.
2. Who invented the cotton gin? How did the cotton gin change the country?
a. Eli Whitney
b. It started the Industrial Revolution in the North, while the South remained an Agrarian/slave-based economy.
3. Discuss the differences between the North and South by 1860. Why was it two cultures with two ideologies?
a. North:
i. 1/8 of the population was foreign-born. Europeans started migrating over to escape the famines and political turmoil. They came to America because they were drawn to the myth of unlimited wealth and endless possibility.
b. South:
i. The South wasn’t advancing like the North was so their overall population was growing as fast. The slave population however increased immensely from about 700,000 slaves in 1790 to 3.5 million slaves in 1860.
4. What did future President Grant have to say about the Mexican-American War?
a. It was “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation”.
5. How did the U.S. start the Mexican-American War? What did Zachary Taylor do to start the War?
a. President Polk sent General Zachary Taylor into territory that both the Mexicans and Americans thought was theirs. After months of negotiating to purchase Texas, Polk sent Taylor further into the undisputed territory to the banks of the Rio Grande.
b. Polk had Taylor cross the river and when a US soldier was found dead and some Mexicans attacked a US patrol, Polk told Congress that a war had been started.
6. What did Henry David Thoreau do to protest the Mexican-American War? How did this protest change the world?
a. He refused to pay poll taxes because they were used to finance the war. He then spent a night and jail.
b. After the war he wrote an essay/lecture that would later be known as ‘Civil Disobedience’.
i. This essay/lecture would go on to influence Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhi’s interpretation went on to inspire Martin Luther King.
7. Who was Frederick Douglas? Why was he important?
a. He was an escaped slave that bashed on the war through his own newspaper. He was able to escape because of the Underground Railroad, which was purposely vague in his autobiography because he didn’t want to danger those who aided his journey.
b. During the Civil War, he became an advisor for Lincoln. He recruited soldiers for the Union cause and lobbied for their equal pay. After the war, he accepted numerous government appointments and eventually became the ambassador to Haiti.
8. What was the Underground Railroad? Where did it run?
a. The Underground Railroad was a loose network of persons who thought that every freed slave marked a victory in the war against slavery. The railroad ran from the South northward through Philadelphia and New York towards freedom in Canada and the Northeast.
9. Who was Harriet Tubman? Why is she important?
a. She was born a Maryland slave who made her way to freedom in 1849 only to immediately return to the South to help other slaves escape. She made some 19 trips herself and helped at least 300 slaves to freedom.
b. During the Civil War she served with Union troops as a cook and as a spy behind Confederate lines.
10. What was the Compromise of 1850? What bills came out of it?
a. It was a compromise that would hopefully settle the dispute between the new territories and the economy change of the California Gold Rush
b. Bills
i. Fugitive Slave Act
1. Provided federal jurisdiction to assist slave owners in the recovery of escaped slaves
ii. California was admitted as a free state
iii. New Mexico and Utah were organized without restrictions on slavery
iv. Texas, also unrestricted as to slavery, had its boundaries set and received $10 million for the land that came to be New Mexico
v. The slave trade (but not slavery itself) was abolished in the District of Columbia
11. Why was Uncle Tom’s Cabin important?
a. It showed that slaves had feelings and were mothers, fathers, son, daughters, sisters, and brothers too; there were actual people too.
b. Made the Americans realize the injustices that slaves had to go through
12. What were Lincoln’s words to Stowe about the book?
a. Lincoln gave Stowe credit for writing the book that started the war.
b. “So you’re the little woman that wrote the book that made this Great War.”
13. What was the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
a. The compromise was that they had popular soverenty but that makes people go to state to vote for what they want
14. Why was Kansas bloody?
a. Kansas was where the first battlefield for the civil war was
i. When pro-slaves fighters attacked the town of Lawrence
15. What did John Brown do in Kansas?
a. He attacked a pro-slavery town on Pottawatomie Creek, slaughtering five settlers.
16. What was the Dred Scott case? What was the outcome?
a. Dred Scott was a slave whose master joined the army as a surgeon and Scott followed him. When Scott’s master, Dr. Emerson, died, Dred Scott sued for his freedom, because he had lived in places where slavery was illegal, he was technically free. The case went to the Missouri Supreme Court, and Scott and his family were denied their freedom.
17. How did John Brown have a sense of humor?
a. When President Buchanan put a $250 bounty on Brown’s head, John put a $2.50 bounty on Buchanan’s head.
18. What was John Brown’s plan when he attacked Harper’s Ferry?
a. He was going to take over the arsenal, he had hoped that other slaves would come and fight with him and they would free slaves as they went south. No one showed up and is captured by the Captain.
18/18
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