Master_FC

Question 1

Define

Market Revolution

Answer 1

Transformation of the U.S. economy in the early 1800s from small-scale local production to a national market connected by transportation and communication networks.

Created regional specialization (North–industry, South–cotton, West–grain) and intensified political conflict over slavery expansion.

Question 2

Explain

Transportation Revolution

Answer 2

Massive expansion of turnpikes, steamboats, canals, and railroads that reorganized how goods and people moved across the U.S.

Lowered shipping costs by up to 90%, unified regional markets, and made westward expansion economically viable.

Question 3

Identify

Erie Canal

Answer 3

A 363-mile canal (completed 1825) linking the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and Atlantic trade.

Turned NYC into the nation’s commercial capital and accelerated northern economic dominance.

Question 4

Describe

Telegraph

Answer 4

Samuel F. B. Morse’s 1844 invention sending electrical messages over wires, making long-distance communication nearly instant.

Enabled coordination of railroad schedules, markets, and news — tightening national economic integration.

Question 5

Explain

Lowell Mills

Answer 5

Early industrial textile mills in Massachusetts employing mostly young women who lived in company boardinghouses.

Showed the shift from home production to factory labor and demonstrated gendered early industrial workforce patterns.

Question 6

Define

Gang System

Answer 6

Plantation labor system where enslaved people worked in groups under constant supervision from overseers and drivers.

Produced maximum output on cotton plantations; represented the industrial discipline of slavery.

Question 7

Define

Task System

Answer 7

Labor system on rice/coastal plantations where enslaved people completed a set list of daily tasks before earning limited free time.

Allowed some autonomy, enabling cultural survival and family/community life despite bondage.

Question 8

Identify

Slave Family Life

Answer 8

Enslaved families created kinship networks despite being denied legal marriage or parental rights; children inherited status from their mothers.

Family served as emotional resistance, preserving humanity under a system built to destroy it.

Question 9

Explain

Hush Arbors

Answer 9

Secret forest worship meetings where enslaved people practiced Christianity outside white supervision, blending African and Christian traditions.

Reinforced beliefs in spiritual equality and liberation; strengthened cultural identity and unity.

Question 10

Describe

Silent Sabotage

Answer 10

Day-to-day resistance by enslaved people such as working slowly, damaging tools, feigning illness, or “accidentally” destroying crops.

Undermined plantation efficiency and asserted human agency without open rebellion.

Question 11

Identify

American Colonization Society

Answer 11

Organization founded in 1816 promoting gradual emancipation and the relocation of free Blacks to Liberia.

Reflected white fears about free Black communities more than concern for enslaved people; failed as a large-scale solution.

Question 12

Describe

Abolitionist Movement

Answer 12

Reform movement demanding immediate emancipation of all enslaved people without owner compensation.

David Walker and Garrison used moral arguments to redefine slavery as a national sin requiring urgent action.

Question 13

Identify

Nat Turner’s Rebellion

Answer 13

A slave uprising in 1831 led by preacher Nat Turner, resulting in ~60 white deaths before suppression.

Provoked harsh new slave codes, literacy bans, and intensified Southern fear of rebellion.

Question 14

Define

Manifest Destiny

Answer 14

Belief that the United States had a divine mission to expand westward across North America.

Justified the Mexican War, annexation of Texas, and new conflicts over slavery expansion.

Question 15

Explain

Texas Revolution

Answer 15

Armed conflict where American settlers in Texas rebelled against Mexican authority (1835–1836).

Produced the independent Texas Republic and laid groundwork for U.S. annexation and war with Mexico.

Question 16

Identify

Lone Star Republic

Answer 16

Independent nation of Texas (1836–1845) after revolution against Mexico.

Its annexation reignited political battles over slavery and territorial expansion.

Question 17

Explain

James K. Polk

Answer 17

Expansionist president who campaigned on acquiring Oregon, lowering tariffs, restoring the treasury, and expanding west.

Oversaw the Mexican–American War and achieved dramatic territorial expansion for the U.S.

Question 18

Define

Mexican–American War

Answer 18

War sparked by the U.S. annexation of Texas and contested borders (1846–1848).

Resulted in massive land gains but reopened the explosive question of slavery in the territories.

Question 19

Identify

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Answer 19

Treaty ending the Mexican–American War; Mexico ceded the Southwest to the U.S. for $15 million.

Set off major political crisis over whether new lands would be slave or free.

Question 20

Explain

Compromise of 1850

Answer 20

Package of five bills admitting CA as a free state, granting UT/NM popular sovereignty, settling Texas debt, ending DC slave trade, and strengthening fugitive slave laws.

Created a temporary truce but the Fugitive Slave Act radicalized the North and deepened sectional anger.

Question 21

Explain

Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854)

Answer 21

Stephen Douglas’s bill letting settlers vote on slavery and overturning 34 years of the Missouri Compromise.

Ignited national outrage; Whigs collapsed; Republicans formed to stop expansion of slavery.

Question 22

Describe

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 22

Period of open warfare as armed proslavery “Border Ruffians” and antislavery settlers battled over Kansas’s status.

Proved Congress lost control of the slavery issue; preview of Civil War violence.

Question 23

Explain

Slave Power Conspiracy

Answer 23

Northern belief that slaveholders manipulated the federal government to protect and spread slavery nationwide.

Fueled Republican identity and distrust of national institutions.

Question 24

Identify

Evidence for Slave Power Conspiracy

Answer 24

Southern presidencies, gag rule on antislavery petitions, Kansas voter fraud, and proslavery Supreme Court rulings.

Strengthened Northern belief that democracy was compromised and only political confrontation could stop the spread of slavery.

Question 25

# Describe Black Republican Conspiracy

Answer 25

Southern fear that Republicans intended racial equality, slave rebellions, and federal destruction of the Southern way of life. | Became ideological fuel for secession after Lincoln’s election.

Question 26

# Explain Why Southerners Feared “Black Republicans”

Answer 26

Viewed Republicans as agents of racial chaos who would free slaves, arm them, and overturn white supremacy. | Harpers Ferry confirmed these fears; moderates joined secessionists.

Question 27

# Identify Edmund Ruffin

Answer 27

Fire-Eater who preached white supremacy and warned that Republicans would spark slave uprisings. | Represented extremist Southern nationalism; symbol of uncompromising secessionist ideology.

Question 28

# Explain John Brown’s Raid (1859)

Answer 28

Militant abolitionist effort to seize weapons at Harpers Ferry to launch a slave rebellion. | Convinced South that antislavery radicals intended racial violence; made compromise nearly impossible.

Question 29

# Describe Sumner–Brooks Incident

Answer 29

Congressman Brooks caned Senator Sumner after a speech attacking slaveholders and mocking Andrew Butler. | Demonstrated collapse of political civility; South honored Brooks, North saw it as proof of Slave Power brutality.

Question 30

# Identify Slave Power in Bleeding Kansas

Answer 30

Proslavery Missourians crossed into Kansas to forcibly install a proslavery government through fraudulent votes. | Northern outrage anchored Republican commitment to halting slavery expansion.

Question 31

# Describe Lincoln’s Republican Platform (1860)

Answer 31

Opposed the expansion of slavery but pledged not to interfere with it where it already existed. | Southern leaders saw this as the beginning of slavery’s long-term death and chose secession.

Question 32

# Identify Election of 1860

Answer 32

Four-way presidential race fractured by sectionalism; Lincoln won with a purely Northern vote. | Convinced South it had lost political power permanently; immediate trigger for secession.

Question 33

# Explain Secession (1860–1861)

Answer 33

Southern argument that because states created the Union, they retained the right to leave it. | South Carolina led; Deep South followed within weeks, forming the Confederacy.

Question 34

# Describe Confederate States of America

Answer 34

Government formed by seceded states with a constitution protecting slavery forever and Jefferson Davis as president. | Represented a deliberate break from American nationalism; ensured conflict with the Union.

Question 35

# Identify Fort Sumter

Answer 35

Federal fort in Charleston Harbor where Confederate forces opened fire in April 1861. | First shots of Civil War; rallied Northern public opinion in favor of war.

Question 36

# Explain Anaconda Plan

Answer 36

Union strategy to blockade Southern ports, control the Mississippi, and isolate Confederate armies. | Long-term pressure weakened Confederate supplies, mobility, and diplomacy.

Question 37

# Describe Union Strengths

Answer 37

North held advantages in manpower, factories, railroads, food production, navy, and treasury. | Allowed the Union to outlast the Confederacy and wage total war by 1864.

Question 38

# Identify Lack of Confederate Nationalism

Answer 38

Many Southerners opposed secession; enslaved people resisted; border states refused to join Confederacy. | Internal disunity made mass mobilization and long-term resistance difficult.

Question 39

# Explain Jefferson Davis’s Leadership

Answer 39

Overly rigid, poor communicator, frequently clashed with governors and generals; lacked Lincoln’s adaptability. | Political dysfunction undermined coordination of war resources and strategy.

Question 40

# Describe Antietam (Sept 1862)

Answer 40

Bloodiest single day; Union halted Lee’s invasion, gaining a crucial strategic advantage. | Prevented British intervention and gave Lincoln momentum to issue Emanci

Question 41

# Identify Special Order No. 191

Answer 41

Lee’s lost campaign plans discovered by Union troops wrapped around cigars. | Gave McClellan rare intelligence superiority; shaped outcome of Antietam.

Question 42

# Explain Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

Answer 42

Freed enslaved people in Confederate states and allowed Black men to join the Union Army. | Changed meaning of the war; weakened Southern labor system; boosted Union manpower.

Question 43

# Identify Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863)

Answer 43

Major Union victory stopping Lee’s second northern invasion; high casualties on both sides. | Turning point; Confederacy never regained offensive capacity.

Question 44

# Describe Gettysburg Address

Answer 44

Lincoln reframed nationhood, grounding the war in equality, liberty, and a national rebirth. | Shifted the U.S. from a collection of states to a unified nation with shared purpose.

Question 45

# Identify 13th Amendment (1865)

Answer 45

Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery everywhere in the United States. | Permanent legal destruction of slavery, completing the war’s moral transformation.