Unit 6-The Civil War
The Americas, Chapter 14-The Nation Divided (1846-1861)
Guided Reading Questions
Directions: Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper in your notebook.
Section 1-Growing Tensions Over Slavery (p. 482-485)
1. What was the Wilmot Proviso? Why was it proposed? What happened to it? (p. 482)
2. What was popular sovereignty? (p. 483)
3. Why was the Free Soil Party founded? (p. 483)
4. What were the main issues that led to Henry Clay’s proposed compromise in 1850? (pp.
484-485)
Section 2-Compromises Fail (pp. 486-491)
1. How did the Compromise of 1850 try to please both the North and the South? (p. 486)
2. Why was the Fugitive Slave Act the most controversial part of the Compromise of 1850?
(p. 487)
3. Why did Harriet Beecher Stowe write Uncle Tom’s Cabin? How did both southerners
and northerners react to the story? (p. 488)
4. Who was Stephen Douglas? How did his Kansas-Nebraska Act undo the Missouri
Compromise? (pp. 489-490)
5. Why and how did Kansas become “Bleeding Kansas” by 1855? What role did John
Brown play in Bleeding Kansas? (p. 490-491)
6. How did bloodshed reach the U.S. Senate? (p. 491)
Section 3-The Crisis Deepens (pp. 494-498)
1. What was the result of the election of 1856? (p. 494)
2. Who was Dred Scott? What was the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott v.
Sandford? (p. 495)
3. What were Chief Justice Roger Taney’s three conclusions in the Dred Scott decision? (p.
495)
4. How did both southerners and northerners react to the court’s decision? (p. 495)
5. In 1858 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas had a series of debates. What were each
man’s views of slavery? (p. 496-497)
6. What was John Brown’s goal in leading the raid on Harper’s Ferry? (p. 498)
Section 4-The Coming of the Civil War (pp. 409-503)
1. What was the outcome of the Election of 1860? (p. 499-500)
2. Why did Southern states secede from the union? (p. 501)
3. What were the Confederate States of America? Who was Jefferson Davis (p. 501)
4. How and why did the Civil War begin at Fort Sumter, South Carolina? (p. 501-503)