US History
Midterm Study Guide
1. What were the first two original political parties? What were their ideologies?
2. What well known men supported each of the original political parties? What groups/regions of people supported each of these parties?
3. Explain the terms of the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812.
4. What US purchase of land doubled the size of the United States?
5. What advice did President Washington offer to the new nation when he leaves office?
6. Explain the significance of Marbury vs. Madison.
7. What political party was George Washington associated with?
8. What group of people spearheaded the campaign for the US to go to war in 1812?
9. Define impressments.
10. How did Eli Whitney solidify the role of slaves in the south?
11. How did the XYZ affair force the US to disregard Washington’s farewell address?
12. What were the results of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804?
13. What is the Missouri Compromise?
14. Explain the court case Worchester vs. Georgia. How did Andrew Jackson feel about the ruling?
15. What was the Compromise of 1850?
16. What document ended the Mexican War and allowed the US to purchase California and the rest of the Southwestern territory?
17. What is the Webster-Ashburton Treaty?
18. Explain the Wilmot Proviso.
19. Who is Alex Toqueville? How did he feel about the United States and the choices they were making?
20. What events contributed to the growth of sectionalism in the United States?
21. Why did Henry Clay’s “American System” come under criticism in the south? 22. Describe Nat Turner’s Rebellion. How would a Virginian have felt about the rebellion? A northerner abolitionist?
23. The terms “corrupt bargain” and “tariff of abominations” are associated with the administration of which US president?
24. Explain the Second Great Awakening. How did it affect the United States?
25. How did the Union hope to defeat the South using the Anaconda Plan?
26. Why did events in Kansas turn violent?
27. What was the final event that convinced the south to secede from the Union?
28. What did the Freedmen’s Bureau accomplish?
29. What was the ruling in Dred Scott vs. Sanford?
30. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the first time what system of solving the slavery issue was used?
31. What advantage did the Confederacy have in the Civil War?
32. What was the phase of rebuilding called that took place after the Civil War?
33. Whose plan for Reconstruction was a forgiving plan designed to bind the nation together quickly?
34. What happened in the South as a result of the Black Codes?
35. Why did the Radical Republicans have a problem with Andrew Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction?
36. Why did Radical Republicans try to impeach Johnson?
37. What demands did the Farmers’ Alliance during the late 1800s?
38. What was the platform of the Populists?
39. What did people get when they paid their $10 registration fee to file for land through the Homestead Act?
40. Who was a self proclaimed prophet and polygamist who was murdered for his religious beliefs?
41. What is the significance of the Comstock Lode?
42. The nickname “The Sooner State” applies to which state, and for what reason? 43. The following quote might have been stated by whom and referred to whom? “They are darker than our own people, but they fight for the white man, they fight bravely. They are worthy adversaries.”
44. What battle was the last Native American victory?
45. Which law did Helen Hunt Jackson help inspire?
46. What was the significance of a golden spike driven in Promontory, Utah in 1869?
47. Explain the terms of the Dawes Act. Was it successful?
48. Which candidate ran for the Republican party in 1896? Who was his running mate and what was his running mate’s platform?
49. What is laissez-faire economics?
50. Define monopoly.
51. What is vertical integration?
52. What is Social Darwinism? How does it apply to businesses?
53. What new technique for making steel allowed Carnegie’s business to succeed?
54. Describe urban life at the turn of the century.
55. Explain techniques used by unions and factory owners to settle differences.
56. What monopoly was the reason for the establishment of the Sherman Antitrust Act?
57. What business practices of John D. Rockefeller drew criticism?
58. Why does Mark Twain name the era of big industry the Gilded Age?
59. Who were the progressives? What did they call for?
60. What progressive idea led to the formation of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act?
61. What court case led to the legal doctrine endorsing “separate but equal” facilities for African Americans?
62. What were the Jim Crow laws?
63. Explain the following quote by Booker T. Washington, “it is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important tat we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges.”
64. What progressive reforms did President Taft pass? 65. What was the Progressive period?
66. In what areas were progressives calling for reforms in the late 19th and early 20th century?
67. What was a muckraker?
68. Who was Carrie Nation?
69. What amendment gave women the right to vote?
70. What is Robert Lafollette known for?
71. Who was the leader of the Tammany Hall political machine?