Review Questions

1. How might the Compromise of 1850 have eased sectional tensions?
2. Why did the Compromise of 1850 fail to achieve sectional peace?
3. Why did the Whig Party disintegrate in the 1850s?
4. Why did the Dred Scott decision strengthen northern suspicions of a Slave Power conspiracy?
5. Why were the states of the Lower and Upper South divided on the question of secession during the winter of 1860–61?