Study Questions for Westward Expansion Test
1. What are the two key components of the Compromise of 1850, and how does one
of them violate the Missouri Compromise?
2. Define the Missouri Compromise. What changes did it make to the map of the US?
How did the compromise increase tension between North and South? What land did
Southerners begin to look to for expansion?
3. What was the Trail of Tears? What native people were impacted? How many of
them died? What caused the Trail of Tears?
4. What were Thomas Jefferson's goals for the Lewis and Clark expedition? Name at
least three.
5. Why did Henry David Thoreau's object to the Mexican-American War? How did he
show his objection? (In other words, what action did he take because of his beliefs?)
6. How does Andrew Jackson's State of the Union address in 1830 both describe and
establish America's attitude toward Native Americans during westward expansion?
Be able to use specific examples of Jackson’s language.
7. How and why does the Mexican-American War increase sectional tension between
the North and South? How much land did America gain as a result of the war?
8. Describe the philosophy of transcendentalism. How is it related to Romanticism?
9. What is the practice and theory of Civil Disobedience? Explain the following quote,
with historical context: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true
place for a just man is in prison.” --Henry David Thoreau
10. How did the Fugitive Slave Law and Compromise of 1850 increase tension
between north and South? How did abolitionists respond to the Law?
11. Define popular sovereignty as it applies to the Kansas Nebraska Act. How does
the Kansas Nebraska Act violate the Missouri Compromise?
12. What was the Free Soil Movement and what were the attitudes of Free Soilers to
slavery?
13. What was Bleeding Kansas? Explain some specific events caused the violence in
Kansas to escalate to such a degree?
14. Define/explain the term Manifest Destiny, and explain how it justified American
political decisions and actions during the period of 1820-1860.