Civil War Causes and Secession Quiz

Grade 8 · Social Studies · Quiz

Test your knowledge of the political and social tensions that led to the Civil War.

Questions

What was the Confederacy?
1. A Union military alliance
2. The government formed by seceding Southern states
3. A peace movement in the South
4. A Northern abolitionist group
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Answer: The government formed by seceding Southern states
The Confederate States of America was a separate government with its own president (Jefferson Davis), constitution, and military.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 permanently resolved the debate over slavery in new territories.
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Answer: False
The Missouri Compromise held for decades but was undermined by later events, including new territories and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
The 1857 Supreme Court case that ruled enslaved people had no legal rights was the ___ Decision.
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Answer: Dred Scott
Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that Dred Scott, an enslaved man, was property and had no right to sue — inflaming antislavery sentiment in the North.
Which book published in 1852 turned many Northerners against slavery?
1. Common Sense
2. The Liberator
3. Uncle Tom's Cabin
4. Democracy in America
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Answer: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel sold 300,000 copies in its first year and made the human cost of slavery undeniable to Northern readers.
By 1861, eleven Southern states had seceded from the Union.
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Answer: True
South Carolina seceded first in December 1860, and ten more states followed by June 1861, forming the Confederacy.
John Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry was intended to:
1. Capture Jefferson Davis
2. Start a slave uprising
3. Destroy a Confederate armory
4. Assassinate Abraham Lincoln
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Answer: Start a slave uprising
Brown hoped to seize the federal arsenal and arm enslaved people to revolt. The raid failed and he was captured, tried, and executed.
The Southern economy depended heavily on ___ labor to grow cash crops like cotton.
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Answer: enslaved
The plantation system required enormous amounts of labor. Southern slaveholders saw slavery as essential to their way of life and economic survival.
The Compromise of 1850 included which controversial provision?
1. Banning slavery in all territories
2. A strengthened Fugitive Slave Act
3. Freeing all enslaved people in border states
4. Allowing California to choose slavery
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Answer: A strengthened Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act required Northerners to help capture and return escaped enslaved people, outraging many in the North.
Abraham Lincoln wanted to immediately abolish slavery in all states when he was elected in 1860.
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Answer: False
Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories but did not call for immediate abolition in existing slave states during the 1860 campaign.
The Civil War officially began when Confederate forces attacked:
1. Washington D.C.
2. Fort Sumter
3. Fort McHenry
4. Gettysburg
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Answer: Fort Sumter
Confederate artillery bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. Lincoln called for troops, and the war was officially underway.

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