“The Impending Crisis”
chapter 13 (Brinkley)
Pages 344 - 350
1. What was the concept of Manifest Destiny? How and why was such a slogan used to justify the expansion urge of the American people in the 1840s?
2. How did Texas become available for annexation? What prevented its immediate annexation?
3. What was the history of American interest in Oregon?
4. What were the characteristics of western migrants? What problems did they face? How were these overcome?
Pages 350 - 367
1. What were the goals of President Polk? How did he solve the Oregon question?
2. What tensions emerged in the Southwest that threatened to lead the United States into war with Mexico?
3. How did the American interest in California develop?
4. What was the Compromise of 1850? How was it passed?
5. How did the Compromise of 1850 differ from the Missouri Compromise?
6. How did the issue of a transcontinental railroad help to reopen the sectional controversy? Explain.
7. What were the “immediate, sweeping, and ominous consequences” of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
8. What were the origins of the Dred Scott case? What issues were involved, and what decision was handed down by the Court? How did the reaction to this case add to sectional tension?