5.8 - 5.12 Test Fall 2023: 1. The Issue Being Debated in The Two Excerpts Was Most Directly Resolved by The
5.8 - 5.12 Test Fall 2023: 1. The Issue Being Debated in The Two Excerpts Was Most Directly Resolved by The
5.8 - 5.12 Test Fall 2023: 1. The Issue Being Debated in The Two Excerpts Was Most Directly Resolved by The
“The slaves in the United States are treated with barbarous inhumanity; . . . they are overworked,
underfed, wretchedly clad and lodged, and have insufficient sleep. . . . They are often kept
confined in the stocks day and night for weeks together.”
“Slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world. . . . They
enjoy liberty because they are oppressed by neither care nor labor. . . . The women do little hard
work. . . . Men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more than nine hours a
day.”
1. The issue being debated in the two excerpts was most directly resolved by the
(A) passage of the Missouri Compromise
(B) election of Abraham Lincoln as president
(C) ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
(D) formation of the Populist Party
“Whether you are or are not, entitled to all the rights of citizenship in this country has long been
a matter of dispute to your prejudice. By enlisting in the service of your country at this trial hour,
and upholding the National Flag, you stop the mouths of traducers and win applause even from
the iron lips of ingratitude. Enlist and you make this your country in common with all other men
born in the country or out of it. . . .
He who fights the battles of America may claim America as his country—and have that claim
respected. Thus in defending your country now against rebels and traitors you are defending your
own liberty, honor, manhood and self-respect. . . .
. . . [H]istory shall record the names of heroes and martyrs who bravely answered the call of
patriotism and Liberty—against traitors, thieves and assassins—let it not be said that in the long
list of glory, composed of men of all nations—there appears the name of no colored man.”
4. Which of the following best explains Douglass’ point of view in the excerpt?
(A) African American enlistment would enable the Union Army to prevail in the Civil War.
(B) Once African American men enlisted, Northern White soldiers would accept them as
equals.
(C) Shared sacrifice would help advance African American men’s claims to United States
citizenship.
(D) Northern politicians overwhelmingly favored enlistment of African Americans in the
Union Army.
“[E]very principle from which America has acted in the course of their unhappy difficulties with
Great Britain pleads stronger than a thousand arguments in favor of your petitioners. They
therefore humbly beseech your honors to give this petition its due weight and consideration and
cause an act of the legislature to be passed whereby they may be restored to the enjoyments of
that which is the natural right of all men.”
7. Which of the following developments from the 1800s emerged from ideas most similar to
those expressed in the excerpt?
(A) Campaigns by moral reformers to promote temperance
(B) Efforts by American Indians to achieve political sovereignty through treaties with the
United States government
(C) The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
(D) The passage of legislation by southern states intended to nullify federal laws
9. Which of the following best describes the situation of freedom in the decade following the
Civil War?
(A) Each was given 40 acres of land and a mule by the Union government.
(B) All were immediately granted political equality by the Emancipation Proclamation.
(C) The majority entered sharecropping arrangements with former masters or other nearby
planters.
(D) They were required to pass a literacy test before being granted United States citizenship.
(E) They supported the passage of Black codes to ensure their economic and political rights.
10. Which of the following best explains the reason for the reconciliation described by Blight?
(A) Mass immigration from abroad and internal migration of African Americans reduced
racial tensions in the North and South.
(B) The federal government established a limited social welfare state that reduced regional
differences between the North and South.
(C) Efforts to change southern racial attitudes and culture ultimately failed because of the
South’s determined resistance and the North’s waning resolve.
(D) The theory of Social Darwinism encouraged political and business leaders to reduce
efforts to create racial equality in the South.
11. One key change immediately following the Civil War aimed at achieving the “racial justice”
that Blight describes was the
(A) establishment of a constitutional basis for citizenship and voting rights
(B) creation of new agencies to ensure racial integration in employment
(C) campaign by the federal government to eliminate poverty
(D) desegregation of the United States armed forces
13. When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued at the beginning of 1863, its immediate
effect was to
(A) end the Civil War
(B) abolish slavery
(C) free slaves held in the border states
(D) alienate Britain and France
(E) strengthen the moral cause of the Union
14. During the Civil War, the Republican Party passed legislation promoting economic
development concerning all of the following EXCEPT the
(A) granting of government subsidies to encourage the export of manufactured goods
(B) establishment of a high tariff to protect American industry from foreign competition
(C) organization of a national banking system to provide a uniform national currency
(D) provision of government loans and land grants to private companies to construct a
transcontinental railroad
(E) passage of the Homestead Act
15. The image most strongly supports the argument that Reconstruction
(A) led to the unfair punishment of White Southerners by the North
(B) encouraged large-scale rebellions by former slaves
(C) involved unconstitutional abuses of government power
(D) temporarily altered race relations in the South
16. The situation depicted in the image best serves as evidence of the
(A) expansion of federal power
(B) decline of an agrarian economy
(C) increase in sectional divisions
(D) institutionalization of racial segregation
17. During Reconstruction, which of the following was a change that took place in the South?
(A) Many African Americans found manufacturing employment.
(B) Many White Southerners supported African Americans’ rights.
(C) African Americans favored the Democratic Party.
(D) African Americans were able to exercise political rights.
“Frustrated at their inability to bring their states back to Democratic control, some southerners
turned to the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations, using terrorism to
eliminate opposition leaders and to strike fear into the hearts of rank-and-file Republicans, both
black and white. . . .
“[Violence] in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina exposed the impotence of
the Republican party in the South and the determination of Democrats to defeat their opponents
by any means necessary. The final triumph of the counterrevolution awaited the withdrawal of
northern Republican support from the so-called ‘carpetbag regimes’ in 1877. The inconsistency
of federal Reconstruction policy and the strength of southern resistance seem to have doomed the
Reconstruction experiment to inevitable collapse. Although Americans have often been loathe to
concede that violence may bring about [political] change, terrorism in the Reconstruction era was
instrumental in achieving the ends desired by its perpetrators.”
George C. Rable, historian, But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of
Reconstruction, published in 1984
“By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan . . . had become deeply entrenched in nearly every Southern state. .
. . In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the
planter class, and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy. . . .
“Adopted in 1870 and 1871, a series of Enforcement Acts embodied the Congressional response
to violence. . . . As violence persisted, Congress enacted a far more sweeping measure—the Ku
Klux Klan Act of April 1871. This for the first time designated certain crimes committed by
individuals as offenses punishable under federal law. . . . If states failed to act effectively against
them, [these offenses could] be prosecuted by federal district attorneys, and even lead to military
intervention. . . .
“Judged by the percentage of Klansmen actually indicted and convicted, the fruits of
‘enforcement’ seem small indeed, a few hundred men among the thousands guilty of heinous
crimes. But in terms of its larger purposes—restoring order, reinvigorating the morale of
Southern Republicans, and enabling blacks to exercise their rights as citizens—the policy proved
a success. . . . So ended the Reconstruction career of the Ku Klux Klan. . . . National power had
achieved what most Southern governments had been unable, and Southern white public opinion
unwilling, to accomplish: acquiescence in the rule of law.”
20. Based on their arguments in the excerpts, both Rable and Foner would most likely agree
with which of the following claims?
(A) The North achieved its aims for Reconstruction.
(B) Federal policy during Reconstruction was inconsistent.
(C) Southern resistance hindered Reconstruction.
(D) Republicans dominated the South after Reconstruction.
22. Which of the following is a similarity between Rable’s and Foner’s arguments in the
excerpts?
(A) Both highlight the use of federal force to uphold the Constitution.
(B) Both focus on many Southerners’ opposition to racial equality.
(C) Both discuss congressional legislation to protect African American suffrage.
(D) Both assert that Northerners cared little about the outcome of Reconstruction.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought
here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
25. In adopting the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress was primarily concerned with
(A) protecting the powers of the southern state governments established under Andrew
Johnson
(B) protecting legislation guaranteeing civil rights to former slaves
(C) ending slavery
(D) guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote
(E) establishing the Freedmen’s Bureau