US HISTORY COMMON EXAM War of 1812-Civil War
Student: ___________________________________________________________________________
1. Which of the following was NOT a feature of the phase of the Industrial Revolution that occurred in the early 1800s?
A. The rise of an American system of manufacturing based on machine tools and interchangeable parts
B. Manufacturing surpassing agriculture as the most important economic sector
C. Active government support for economic growth through both legislation and court rulings
D. The rise of an industrial labor force, initially mostly rural women
2. During the quarter-century after the War of 1812 ended, the most expansive force in the American economy was
A. Cotton production
B. Land sales
C. Textile manufacture
D. Canal construction
3. Which of the following proved to be the breakthrough necessary to push cotton production to the center of the American agricultural stage?
A. Extensive railroad development
B. Development of vast overseas markets
C. Federal subsidies of cotton production
D. Invention of the cotton gin
4. The Erie Canal
A. Was made financially feasible by the development of the steamboat
B. Connected the Hudson and Ohio rivers
C. Never repaid the original public investment, but stimulated migration and economic growth
D. Stimulated construction of other canals by other cities and states
5. The accelerating growth of a national market was due in large measure to the fact that the cost of ____________ dropped by 95% between 1825 and 1855.
A. Transportation on land
B. Construction
C. Imported goods
D. Borrowing money
6. Taken as a body of legal doctrine, the rulings of the Marshall Court
A. Enlarged federal power to an extraordinary degree
B. Expanded individual economic rights by limiting government's role in stimulating the economy
C. Protected minority groups against the abuse of power by majorities
D. Limited the rights of private property by expanding the powers of government
7. Which of the following is NOT an accurate statement concerning population trends in the 1820s and 1830s?
A. Population continued to grow rapidly
B. Natural increase accounted for virtually all of the country's population growth
C. Immigration accounted for most of the population increase
D. Western lands absorbed most of the population increase
8. What was the most basic reason so many Americans moved so much, especially to the new western lands?
A. Greater political freedom
B. Improved economic opportunity
C. More comfortable social relationships
D. A sense of providential destiny
9. For their work force, the factories at Lowell before 1845 depended upon
A. Children
B. Young women
C. Displaced farmers
D. Migrants
10. The factory system began in which industry?
A. Textiles
B. Shoemaking
C. Firearms
D. Iron production
11. To reconcile the fundamental tension between equality and opportunity, Americans in the final analysis committed to
A. Equality of opportunity
B. Political equality, but economic inequality
C. Political means to achieve the end of equal economic conditions
D. Equality of condition for native-born whites by denying opportunity to blacks, Indians and immigrants
12. Which of the following was NOT an important characteristic of politics in the Age of Jackson?
A. A dynamic expansion of Presidential power and leadership
B. Expanded political democracy and increased participation in politics
C. The acceptance of a party system as legitimate
D. End of the spoils system of filling public offices with political supporters
13. In the presidential election of 1824,
A. John Quincy Adams won re-election to a second term
B. The Whigs defeated the Democrats
C. The House of Representatives chose the president because no candidate received a majority of the popular vote
D. Andrew Jackson was chosen by the House of Representatives
14. Three major issues dominated Jackson's administration, all the result of the nation's rapid geographic and economic expansion. Which of the following is NOT one of these three issues?
A. Indian removal to the West
B. Controls on both slave and free black communities
C. The protective tariff
D. Money and banking issues
15. Which of the following statements best describes the attitude of Jacksonian Democrats toward slavery and blacks?
A. They strongly supported slavery as a positive good for all parts of the country
B. They accepted the institution of slavery in the South and opposed rights for free blacks in the North
C. They quietly encouraged the minority among their ranks who worked for the abolition of slavery
D. They took steps at the state level to improve the condition of blacks, but did not try to abolish slavery
16. Which of the following leaders advocated the idea of state nullification in order to oppose the tariff?
A. Andrew Jackson
B. Daniel Webster
C. John C. Calhoun
D. Henry Clay
17. Which of the following groups played a rather surprising role in the Whig campaign in 1840?
A. Free blacks
B. Women
C. Indians
D. None of these
18. Revivalism
A. Indicated a quest for social order and control in the new, fast-changing, competitive market economy
B. Indicated a desire for social and moral improvement of the new, fast-changing, mobile society
C. Indicated both a quest for social order and control and a desire for social and moral improvement in the new, fast-changing, competitive market economy
D. None of these are correct
19. The revivals spearheaded by Charles Finney during the Second Great Awakening upheld the doctrine that
A. Men and women were predestined to salvation or damnation
B. Salvation was available to all
C. Women should be religious leaders
D. Religion was a way to become wealthy
20. The ideal of domesticity
A. Held that women's sphere was the home and family
B. Was opposed by the revivalists
C. Held that the government should ignore foreign policy and focus on internal development
D. Stressed the father's spiritual leadership in the home
21. Evangelical black churches grew in the North even as they were being suppressed in the South after 1820. The most important of the new black independent churches was the
A. African Catholic Church of America
B. American Baptist Church for Blacks
C. African Methodist Episcopal Church
D. African-American Baptist Church
22. Romanticism
A. Came from Europe as part of the Enlightenment
B. Was incompatible with the doctrines of the revivals
C. Considered emotion as the source of truth
D. Was a uniquely American cultural movement
23. Transcendentalism
A. Was the theological foundation under girding the revivals of the Second Great Awakening
B. Was based on the ideas of Nathaniel Taylor
C. Rejected individualism in favor of utopian communalism
D. Sought to rise above reason through individualist spiritual communion with nature
24. Common to most reform movements was
A. Their unified and focused goals and strategies
B. A desire to withdraw from corrupt society and establish a model community
C. A pragmatic, anti-perfectionist spirit of orderly change
D. Both a desire for liberation and a desire for social control
25. The educational reform movement
A. Led to the establishment of high schools throughout the country
B. Was opposed by workers
C. Was most successful in the South
D. Argued that tax-supported public schools would promote equal opportunity
26. Seneca Falls, New York, was the site of
A. John Humphrey Noyes' utopian community
B. Charles Grandison Finney's greatest revival
C. The first major women's rights convention
D. Prudence Crandall's school for black girls
27. What was the essential conviction of abolitionists about slavery?
A. It was a necessary evil that finally needed to be eliminated
B. It was an economic drain on the emerging commercial economic system
C. It was a contradiction to the ideals embodied in the Constitution
D. It was a sin
28. The abolitionist movement split in 1840
A. Because of Garrison's support for black rights
B. Because of Weld's failure to win over Beecher and Finney
C. Over the issue of women's rights
D. Over the issue of mixing religion and politics
29. What reform effort suffered a temporary political defeat through the gag rule?
A. The antidrinking crusade
B. The abolitionist drive to petition Congress against slavery
C. The movement to improve prison conditions
D. Fourierism
30. Where was the black belt region of the South?
A. In central Alabama, in the heart of the deep South, where the rich soil was ideal for cotton
B. In the Tennessee river valley, where devastating flooding was frequent
C. Along the Gulf Coast, where the slave population was concentrated
D. In an arc from South Carolina to Mississippi, where in most counties blacks outnumbered whites
31. "Cotton was king in the Old South." Which of the following statements about cotton is true?
A. It was grown primarily in the Upper South
B. It was grown only by the larger slave owners
C. Cultivation migrated gradually westward to new agricultural frontiers
D. In the South, acreage planted with cotton exceeded acreage devoted to any other single crop
32. Which of the following crops were grown extensively in the Upper South?
A. Cotton
B. Rice
C. Wheat
D. Sugar
33. Which of the following was NOT true about slavery as a labor system?
A. Slavery was worth more in terms of investment than all the land in the South
B. As slavery spread into the Deep South, wealth and power became more equally shared among the various classes of white southerners
C. It was slavery that made possible the South's "mass production" of agriculture products for export
D. Only a minority of Southerners owned slaves
34. What was true about slavery as a labor system?
A. As the institution spread throughout the Deep South, a majority of white families came to own slaves
B. By the 1850s, the United States was the only remaining slaveholding society in the Americas
C. The gang and task systems were the two main ways of organizing slaves' work
D. The most arduous toil was done by field hands, who were all male
35. Manufacturing lagged in the South because
A. Whites believed slaves could not do industrial work
B. Slave owners lacked capital to invest in manufacturing
C. High profits from agriculture discouraged other possible investments
D. The South lacked a suitable white workforce, since immigrants settled in the North
36. Slave owners made up ____________ of the southern white population, but the true "planters of consequence," with at least 50 slaves, ____________.
A. The great majority; were found only in the older Tidewater region
B. About half; dominated politics
C. Roughly a quarter; made up less than 1 percent of the total white population
D. A small minority; constituted a majority of those slaveholders
37. The slave's diet
A. Led to malnutrition because of insufficient calorie intake
B. Was one of several reasons why life expectancy for slaves was lower than for whites
C. Was one of several reasons for a rate of population increase lower than that of whites
D. Would be obtained mostly from slave gardens, hunting and stealing
38. Nat Turner
A. Became a leading advocate of slavery as a "positive good"
B. Strongly defended humane treatment of slaves as the slave owners' paternalistic obligation
C. Led a slave revolt despite enjoying relatively humane treatment by his master
D. Was an escaped slave who returned to the South to lead other runaways to freedom
39. The most common form of slave resistance was
A. Theft
B. Refusal to work
C. Escape
D. Rebellion
40. The Virginia debate of 1832
A. Led to a resolution declaring slavery was a positive good
B. Caused the legislature to condemn slavery but adopt no program to deal with it
C. Led to the adoption of a program of gradual emancipation
D. Was the last significant attempt by white southerners to take action against slavery
41. Which of the following was NOT a United States territorial acquisitions in the 1840s?
A. Texas
B. Oregon south of the 49th parallel
C. The area between the Rockies and California
D. The area between the Rockies and the Missouri River
42. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny
A. Developed in the 1820s as a popular response to the Monroe Doctrine
B. Developed in the 1830s as a southern and western reaction against evangelical millennialism
C. Was used to recruit Americans to migrate to Texas to protect slavery and U.S. interests
D. Was used to justify U.S. expansion southward and westward
43. Manifest Destiny was a popular national creed, but there was a long-term cost. The sectional crisis of the 1850s was precipitated not only by the rising abolitionist movement in the North, but also by a question raised by expansion to the West:
A. Will the transcontinental railroad link the West to the North or to the South?
B. Will more southerners or northerners settle the West?
C. What will be the status of slavery in the new territories?
D. Will westerners tend to vote Democrat or Whig?
44. Texas was finally annexed
A. By treaty with Texas when John Tyler first forced the issue
B. By a joint resolution of Congress in early 1845
C. By joint resolution after Polk became president
D. By treaty with Mexico at the end of the Mexican War
45. Had it passed, the Wilmot Proviso would have
A. Divided Texas into five slave states
B. Prohibited slavery in any territory won from Mexico
C. Extended the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific
D. Given legal sanction to the doctrine of popular sovereignty
46. The doctrine of popular sovereignty was most closely associated with
A. Stephen A. Douglas
B. Daniel Webster
C. Zachary Taylor
D. David Wilmot
47. The final Compromise of 1850, originally introduced by Henry Clay as a single "Omnibus Bill," passed as five separate pieces of legislation. Which of the following was NOT included?
A. California was admitted as a free state
B. New Mexico was organized as a territory that could choose for itself whether to be slave or free
C. Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia
D. Provisions for capturing runaway slaves were strengthened
48. What was the Gadsden Purchase?
A. Acquisition of a strip of Mexican land as a railroad route
B. Payment to Britain to clear the last jointly held area in the Oregon Country
C. An offer to buy Cuba from Spain that was rejected by Congress
D. An agreement with Russia to obtain Alaska