1. How had the U.S. changed in the 72 years from Washington to Lincoln?
-Immigrants had come to the North creating a large population growth
-Slave population: 700,000 (1790) to 3,500,000 (1860)
2. Who invented the cotton gin? How did the cotton gin change the country?
-Eli Whitney
-It also creates an idea of mass production through interchangeable parts. This lead to guns, clocks, and locks.
3. Discuss the differences between the North and South by 1860. Why was it two cultures with two ideologies?
-The North had more immigrants and more people because of it. The economy was growing in the industry sector
-The South had a huge population boom in the form of slaves. White population wasn’t. The South’s economy was primarily agricultural.
4. What did the future President Grant say about the Mexican-American War?
-He said it the war was “of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation”. Ulysses S. Grant
5. How did the US start the Mexican-American War? What did Zachary Taylor do to start the war?
-The US sent 1,500 troops under the command of Zachary Taylor to the border of Texas/Mexico, which was then undefined territory and claimed it as America’s land. Then President Polk ordered Taylor to cross the Rio Grande. When it was discovered that an American soldier was dead and some Mexicans attacked an American patrol, Polk had all the fodder he needed to start a war.
6. What did Henry David Thoreau protest the Mexican-American War? How did this protest change the world?
-He didn’t pay his poll tax because it would go to the war and spent the night in jail.
-He wrote an essay/lecture after titled “Civil Disobedience”, It contained thoughts about individualism, government, and people’s roles in government. His writings influenced Mahatma Ghandi who in turn influence Martin Luther King Jr.
7. Who was Frederick Douglas? Why was he important?
-He was a black ex-slave who owned a newspaper called the North Star.
-He wrote and spoke very well against both the Mexican War and Slavery. His writings and speeches influenced many people during that time. During the Civil War he was an adviser to Lincoln and after he was an ambassador to Haiti.
8. What was the Underground Railroad? Where did it run?
-A loose coalition amongst people against slavery, they helped escaped slaves get to the North and to freedom by housing and sheltering them
-From the South, north through Philadelphia and New York, then onto Canada or the Northeast somewhere
9. Who was Harriet Tubman? Why is she important?
-She was an escaped slave who became a leader among the Underground Railroad. She was a “conductor” leading slaves from station (safe house) to station until they reached the North and freedom
-She personally made more than 19 trips into the South and led out at least 300 slaves. She also served as cook and a spy behind Confederate lines in the Civil War in later years
10. What was the Compromise of 1850? What bills came out of it?
-It was constructed to help save and preserve the Union by Henry Clay
-5 Bills came out of it
--California was admitted as a free state
--New Mexico and Utah were without restrictions on slavery
--Texas, also unrestricted slave-state, had it’s boundaries set and got $10 million for land that would become New Mexico
--The slave trade (but not slavery) was abolished in Washington DC
--The Fugitive Slave Act was put into order; it enabled slave owners to call upon the federal government for help in capturing their escaped slaves
11. Why was Uncle Tom's Cabin important?
-It personalized slavery in a way that the congressional and political arguments didn’t. This made it easier for everyday ordinary people to understand and sympathize with the slaves. The book became so wildly popular that it impacted the politics in coming years
12. What were Lincoln's words to Stowe about the book?
-“So you are the little lady that wrote the book that made this great war.”
13. What was the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
-It repealed the Missouri Compromise Act, thereby allowing the Kansas/Nebraska Territory to choose whether or not to hold slaves. It also ushered a popular –sovrenity. So the line for free states and slave holding states was demolished and chaos broke out.
14. Why was Kansas bloody?
-It was the scene of some of the first actual physical fighting between North and South.
15. What did John Brown do in Kansas?
-He attacked a pro-slavery town on Pottawatomie Creek, killing 5 settlers in the night
16. What was the Dred Scott case? What was the outcome?
-A man named Dred Scott sued for his freedom with the points that he had lived in free states and was therefore free, along with his wife and children. He had accompanied a army surgeon as an assistant and the surgeon died
-Outcome: slaves are property; The supreme Court was split and a former slave owner Roger Taney was the deciding factor, and he argued that black people weren’t even citizens, so Scott had no standing
17. How did John Brown have a sense of humor?
-He was rhetorical, and when a bounty was put on his head for $250 he returned in kind with a mocking amount of $2.50 on the president Buchannan's head.
18. What was John Brown's plan when he attacked Harper's Ferry?
-He was going to march South, arm the slaves who came to join him with weapons, and establish a republic in the Appalachians to wage war against the South.
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