2011 U.S. History Fall Semester Exam Study Guide
1. Based on context clues and your knowledge of colonial history, what is the original source of this
excerpt? __________________________________________________________________________
We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James ...
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of
our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these
presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and of one another; convenant and combine
ourselves together into a civil body politic ... to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws
... as shall be thought ... convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due
submission and obedience.
2. The battles fought at Lexington and Concord are often characterized as “the shot heard round the
world” because those conflicts began the fight that led to the creation of the ________________
________________ and inspired ________________ elsewhere.
3. John Jay believed the Articles of Confederation needed changes that would “Let Congress legislate.
Let others execute. Let others judge.” Jay’s words express what constitutional principle?
______________________________
4. The development of the U.S. Constitution represented a response to the political problems Americans
faced prior to independence, because the economic powers of the national government were
___________________, and the rights of individuals were ______________________.
5. President Washington urged ratification of the Bill of Rights to strengthen the rights of individuals.
Other politicians supported ratification of the Bill of Rights, because it calmed the fears of people
who believed the federal _______________________ had been given too much power.
6. Which president was the subject of this 1826 obituary? _____________________________________
Late President of the United States, one of the ablest and most efficient advocates and supporters of
the Revolution, an original signer of the Declaration of Independence, a patriot and statesman, whose
career was full of honor, whose life, services, talents, and virtues, were the pride and glory of the
nation, expired at his residence in Quincy, Massachusetts, on the 4th day of July, at the advanced age
of 92.
7. The outcome of the War of 1812 was advantageous to Americans, because the British defeat in the
Battle of New Orleans boosted American _________________________.
8. When steamboats were first introduced, some potential customers were reluctant to travel on them,
because boilers posed a danger of catastrophic ______________________.
9. What issue is most closely associated with abolitionists? ____________________________________
10. Which nineteenth-century social reformer is best known for working to improve treatment of people
with mental illnesses? ______________________________________________________________
11. Which memorable statement is associated with the Texas Revolution? _________________________
12. According to Americans who opposed it, the 1846 war with Mexico was principally caused by
President Polk’s _____________________ policies and calculated provocation of
______________________.
13. What conceptual breakthrough, used by Eli Whitney to produce rifles and the cotton gin, was vital to
the First Industrial Revolution in the United States? ________________________________________
14. The implication of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford was that Congress could do
nothing about ____________ in the territories.
15. This excerpt from a letter to a New Hampshire newspaper editor was written by a frontier woman in
1855:
Scenes have been enacted in the Territory, within a few months past, and lawless ruffianism,
perpetrated on peaceable, unoffending citizens, sufficient to rouse the spirit of ‘76, in the breast of
every freeman; and it is aroused. Military companies are forming, and though we may be accounted
feeble in regard to numerical strength, compared with the hordes that may flock here from Missouri,
the “battle is not always to the strong,” and truth and justice will eventually triumph.
What was the context of the events the writer described?____________________________________
16. What was the main goal of the American Colonization Society?
_________________________________________________________________________________
17. The statement that best describes the regional economic difference during the mid-19th century is that
the North specialized in ____________ goods, and the South specialized in _______________.
18. At the Democratic National Convention of 1860, the issue that split the Democratic Party was slavery
in new ________________.
19. The practice of assisting escaped slaves to reach safety is associated with what nineteenth-century
social activist? _________________________________________________________________
20. With the statement, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” President Lincoln directly
addressed what issue? ________________________________________
21. The Emancipation Proclamation affected the course of the Civil War by extending the North’s war
aims to include ___________________.
22. From earliest to latest, place the following events in chronological order:
Kansas-Nebraska Act; Missouri Compromise; South Carolina secession; John Brown’s raid
23. Northern states had what distinct advantage over the Southern states at the onset of the Civil War?
_________________________________________________________________________________
24. The goal of the Anaconda Plan during the Civil War was to prevent the flow of supplies to the South
through a __________________ of land and sea.
25. In response to Horace Greeley’s criticism that he was not doing enough to assist slaves in the South,
President Lincoln wrote:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by
freeing all the slaves I would do it; ... I have here stated by purpose according to my view of official
duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could
be free.
By making this statement, what was Lincoln trying to say?
_________________________________________________________________________________
26. Which of the following would have been most likely to support the Confederate cause during the
Civil War?
a. A New York carpetbagger
c.
An Alabama cotton farmer
b. A Virginia abolitionist
d.
An Ohio Copperhead
27. President Lincoln’s stated goal throughout the Civil War was to _____________ the Union.
28. The main significance of the Fourteenth Amendment in U.S. political history is that it promised equal
legal ______________ to former slaves.
29. On which matter did the Wade-Davis Bill contrast most significantly with President Lincoln’s
reconstruction plan?
____________________________________________________________________
30. Although the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified nearly a century and half ago, the aspects of the
amendment that have enduring significance are _____________________ and
_______________________ clauses.
31. To support the claim that the Fifteenth Amendment failed to fulfill its promise for nearly a century,
what convincing evidence would a historian most likely cite?
a.
Athletic opportunities were still unequal for blacks and whites.
b.
Public schools were still segregated.
c.
Employment practices were still racially discriminatory.
d.
Voting rights were still denied.
32. During 1850-1900, which group was most adversely affected by the spread of mining boomtowns?
________________________________________
33. Which quotation was associated with the forced assimilation of American Indians at the Carlisle
Indian Industrial School?
“We all wore white man’s clothes and ate white man’s food.”
“Our labor symbolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the
evening.”
c.
“Humility and charity are the only credentials for admission.”
d.
“It never enters our heads that we can offend anyone by the expression of love.”
The massacre at Wounded Knee represented the culmination of the U.S. government’s military
operations against _____________ peoples.
A researcher seeking primary source material on the massacre at Wounded Knee would likely
consider which of the following to be the most authentic and authoritative evidence on the topic?
a.
The highest-ranked results of an online search
b.
A public radio interview of a notable historian
c.
The textbook for a high school U.S. history course
d.
A letter describing an eyewitness account
The issue that dominated congressional deliberations over the admission of Texas as a state was the
expansion of _____________________.
At first, ranchers saw barbed wire as a threat because it kept their herds from _________________
freely.
Under the Homestead Act, homesteaders could gain title to the land by planting it for __________
years.
One approach to farming the Great Plains was “dry farming,” in which farmers selected crops that
could withstand long periods without _________________.
The Dawes Act attempted to help Native Americans by selling _________________ and building a
_______________ of money for them.
Wheat had an advantage on the Great Plains, because it could withstand ________________ better
than other crops.
The army encouraged white hunters to kill buffalo to force Native Americans onto
__________________.
The confrontation at Wounded Knee occurred because the chief’s followers continued to perform a
_________________.
a.
b.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
Which of the following answer choices offers the best reason to explain the change shown on
the graph?
a.
implementation of the Dawes Plan
b.
the Battle at Little Big Horn
c.
growing popularity of the Ghost Dance
d.
a dramatic decline in the buffalo population