Westward Expansion
The acquisition of which territory in 1803 nearly doubled the size of the United States?
Louisiana Purchase
What event caused many prospectors and immigrants to rush to California?
The Gold Rush of 1849
What major cash crop made up nearly 50% of all Southern exports?
Cotton
What concept did Stephen Douglas advocate for in the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
Popular Sovereignty
What event marked the start of the Civil War?
The firing on Fort Sumter
Who led the Mormons to establish a settlement near Salt Lake City?
Brigham Young
What resource’s near extinction greatly affected Native American life?
Buffalo
Why had slavery disappeared in the North by the Civil War?
The North had a more industrialized economy with less need for slavery.
What event increased Southern fears of a major slave uprising?
John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
What was the major advantage the South had in the Civil War?
Better generals at the outset of the war and fighting on the defensive.
What was the widely popular route taken by thousands of settlers heading west?
Oregon Trail
What was the Underground Railroad?
A system of secret routes and safe houses used to help enslaved people escape to freedom.
What was the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford?
That enslaved people were property and had no rights in court.
What term was used to describe the belief in the inevitability of American expansion?
Manifest Destiny
Who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book that gained widespread Northern support for ending slavery?
Harriet Beecher Stowe
What was the strategy of the Union to defeat the South?
A blockade and gradual invasion to restrict and suffocate the South into submission.
Which President made Manifest Destiny a major part of his campaign?
James K. Polk
What was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and why did it increase sectional tension?
It repealed the Missouri Compromise, allowing states above the compromise line to vote on slavery.
What election led to South Carolina’s secession from the Union?
Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860.