Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan’s Presidency
Directions: Use 3-5 minutes to double check this subject’s Power School for your class grade and work listings verifying that all work is caught up. Read and heed embedded messages. Next, research your part of the following topics and figure out answers to the questions. Write your questions and detailed answers on lined paper or your notebook paper. These questions and related answers are required to be handed in, once the class discussion is completed. You are expected to use the time completely, be through and become knowledgeable. Write down any puzzles you have related to the material on your paper and bring them up during the class discussion. Warning: If you are found to be using your research time for other things, it will hurt your learning and grade. If you think or claim to be done, you are not! Once your assigned part is ready, then help others on your team or study the test resources from Mr. Spitzer’s web page for the upcoming test. No games, non-topic talk or other activities allowed during research time. The class will research as much as time allows before team sharing and whole class discussion. Since there is always more to learn, Mr. Spitzer encourages you to look into this topic more on your own time. Your class work grade includes: 1. Entire use of time while researching. 2. Answer questions & pay attention during team sharing. 3. Paying attention & participate during class discussion. 4. Turning in your readable questions & notes. Team members who do not do their share, provide hasty sloppy answers, disrupt others and use time ineffectively in the four grade aspects will be removed from the team and required to write out and turn in all answers on their own for the grade.
Topics to Research
Franklin Pierce
Election 1852 and Life in the White House
Kansas-Nebraska Act / Bleeding Kansas
John Brown in Kansas
Republican Party
Pierce foreign Policy
James Buchanan and 1856 election plus stand on Kansas
Lincoln-doublass Debates
Dred Scott
Lincoln Douglass Debate
John Brown at Harpers Ferry
Questions to be able to discuss
1. Who was Franklin Pierce and what were his roles in government/politics / military before becoming president? How did Pierce achieve the presidency?
2. Who were the candidates in the election of 1852? What were the campaign issues and slogans? List the popular vote and Electoral College vote count results for the election.
3. What were the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act? What did the passage of this Act do to the Compromise of 1850 agreement? Describe the consequences of the Acts passage.
4. Describe the events in “Bleeding Kansas” and in Nebraska in the efforts of both sides to win the vote for or against slavery. Relate at least two eyewitness accounts of the blood shed. In the end which way did Kansas and Nebraska vote?
5. What did John Brown do in Kansas? How many did he kill and relate the details of the killings. What is your opinion of John Brown?
6. Why was the Republican Party formed? Explain its stance on slavery. What was the stand of the Democratic and Whig party in 1854 about slavery? Why?
7. Why did Pierce support making the Gadsden Purchase? Explain the details of the treaty, the new border with Mexico and the cost of purchase.
8. Why did Pierce insist on the Senate approving the trade treaty with Japan in 1854? What benefit did the U.S. get from the treaty? What was the benefit to Japan?
9. Who was James Buchanan and what were his roles in government/politics before becoming president? How did Buchanan achieve the presidency?
10. Who were the candidates in the election of 1856? What were the campaign issues and slogans? List the popular vote and Electoral College vote count results for the election.
11. What was the issue in the Dred Scott case? What was the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case? Why did this decision arouse widespread opposition in the North?
12. What was James Buchanan stand on the Kansas question? How did this stand greatly anger the North? What did Congress do to Buchanan programs of enlarging the army and navy, building a Pacific Railroad, plus developing canals and roads across Panama and Nicaragua after the 1858 mid-term elections? What did Buchanan do to Congress effort to give free land homesteads to western settlers?
13. Describe John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry. What was Browns goal and how was he stopped? Who was the military leader who captured Brown? Where was Brown put on trial? What was the trial result and the end of the matter? How did the South react to Brown’s raid in their opinion of the North? How did the North react?
14. What were the Lincoln-Douglas debates? What office were the men running for? What was the position of each man about slavery in the territories? Write down and share with the class the quote from Abraham Lincoln about “a house divided against itself….” What does this quote mean?
15. After the 1860 election, while he was still president, what was Buchanan’s stand on the issue of secession? Explain in detail his stand and what he recommended be done to solve the issue short of war. How did Buchanan handle the South firing guns on the January 9, 1861 ship sent to relieve the pro-Union garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina?
Critical Thinking
16. Was the Civil War avoidable? Explain.
17. Buchanan has been called the worst president in U.S. history. Is this true? Give your recommendations on what he could have done different to avoid war.
18. Was John Brown a terrorist or a patriot for human freedom? Explain and support your answer.
19. It has been said the Dred Scott decision made the Civil War inevitable. If you were the Supreme Court, how would you have judged Dred Scott? Support your decision with parts of the Constitution. Would your decision have guaranteed war or avoided war.
20. Why did Stephen Douglass and his Kansas-Nebraska Act undermine the Compromise of 1850? Could the whole issue have been avoided? Explain.