First Midterm Examination Study Guide

The first midterm will cover everything up to and including the lecture entitled, "Conciliation and Its Failure."

The examination will consist of two parts.  In Part I, you'll be asked to identify and give the significance of THREE out of FIVE possible terms.  This portion of the exam should take no more than twenty (20) minutes.  It's worth 100 points.  These are the terms we've covered so far:

Republican ideology
Market Revolution
democracy
Second Party System
racism
herrenvolk democracy
“free labor” ideology
Missouri Compromise, 1820
Nullification Crisis, 1831-1832
“gag rule”
manifest destiny
Wilmot Proviso
popular sovereignty
Stephen A. Douglas
Compromise (“Armistice”) of 1850
personal liberty laws
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)
nativism
Know Nothings (American Party)
Republican Party
“Slave Power Conspiracy”
filibusters
Ostend Manifesto
“Bleeding Kansas”
Dred Scott Decision, 1857
Lecompton Constitution, 1857
“Freeport Doctrine”
Harpers Ferry Raid
John Brown
immediate secessionists
cooperationists
“masterful inactivity”
Crittenden Compromise
Jefferson Davis
Fort Sumter
Winfield Scott
Anaconda Plan
“conciliatory policy”
First Manassas (Bull Run)
George B. McClellan
Ulysses S. Grant
Fort Donelson
Shiloh
Capture of New Orleans
Peninsula Campaign
Robert E. Lee
Seven Days’ Battles

In Part II, you'll be asked to write an essay on ONE out of THREE possible essay questions.  Here are five questions drawn from previous exams that will assist you.  Although the essay questions on the midterm examination you will take will NOT be the same, they will address the same themes as the questions below.  This portion of the exam should take no more than forty (40) minutes.  It's worth 150 points.

1.   Compare and contrast the impact of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and ABleeding Kansas@ on public opinion in the North and South.  What did Northerners see as the principal issues at stake?  How did the issues appear to Southerners?  Could this crisis have been defused without secession and civil war?  If so, how?  If not, why not? (For this essay, you=ll find the material in Perman, 31-63, especially helpful.)

 2.   Analyze the pros and cons of William H. Seward=s proposed policy of restraint toward the seceded states (Perman, 67-68).  Using that document, the Gilmer letter (Perman, 66-67), the Alexander H. Stephens speech (69-71), and the North Carolina Standard editorial, make a good, supported case for why President Abraham Lincoln should have adopted this policy.  Then, using the rest of AThe Secession Crisis@ section (Perman, 64-88), explain why Lincoln rejected it.  Had Lincoln embraced it, what, in your opinion, would have been the likely outcome?

 3.  Evaluate Union and Confederate grand strategy in 1861-1862.  In what ways did they reflect the political, social, economic, and geographic realities with which both sides had to contend?  What were the main strengths and shortcomings of these strategies?

4.  At the war’s outset, the Union pursued a conciliatory policy toward the Confederacy.  By late summer 1862 it had largely abandoned the policy.  Define the conciliatory policy, then explain the considerations that led the Union to adopt the policy and the developments that led to its abandonment.

5.    According to James M. McPherson's For Cause and Comrades, what were the key factors that motivated Union and Confederate soldiers to enlist in 1861?  (You'll find the introduction and chapters 1 and 2 of the book helpful here .)

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