Unit 5 SAQ (Slavery Between 1844-1865) Answers

3 min read•june 18, 2024

AP US History 🇺🇸

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APUSH Short Answer Question Answers for Slavery Between 1844-1865

👋 Welcome to the APUSH Unit 5 SAQ (Slavery Between 1844-1865) Answers. Have your responses handy as you go through the rubrics to see how you did!

⏱ Remember, the AP US History exam has a mixture of free-response questions and allotted times. For these types of questions, there will be 3 SAQs, and you will be given 40 minutes to complete the SAQ section. (This means you should give yourself ~13 minutes to go through each practice SAQ.)

Figure 1

Image courtesy of Library of Congress, 1856.

Questions with Answers & Rubric

(a) Describe ONE point of view about slavery expressed in the image above.

🏆 Successful answers would explain how:

Democratic politicians such as Stephen Douglas were looking to allow slavery to spread by incorporating popular sovereignty in the Louisiana Territory.
The new free-soil party created after the Mexican Cession was offended by the push to allow popular sovereignty in the territories of the Missouri Compromise.
The belief that the Democratic party wished to expand slavery in more territories such as Mexico and Cuba, causing more tension and deepening the sectionalist divide.
The belief that Buchanan’s party wished to allow the spread of slavery and supported its extension.

(b) Briefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development during the period 1844 to 1865 that led to the event depicted in the image above.

🏆 Successful answers would explain how:

The Mexican American War had ended and popular sovereignty was implemented during the time to settle disputes between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces.
Bleeding Kansas had left many dead as pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces clashed over the expansion of slavery in Kansas.
Following the Mexican American War, sectionalism over the spread of slavery began to heighten and new parties developed as a result.
The growing abolitionist movement opposed the spread of slavery and campaigned against its existence.
Southern states desired to add more slave states in order to maintain a balance in Congress.
The Compromise of 1850 had allowed popular sovereignty to exist in some newly gained territories and supporters of slavery pushed for that in the territories above the 36’30” line.

📄 Additional Resources:

Study Guide: Toward the Civil War & Reconstruction (1848-1877)

(c) Briefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development during the period 1844 to 1865 resulted from the event depicted in the image above.

🏆 Successful answers would explain how:

Abraham Lincoln led the Republican party following the event and would campaign against the spread of slavery in any new territories.
John Brown led a raid on Harper’s Ferry in an attempt to eliminate slavery in Virginia as a result of the movement to allow slavery to exist or spread.
Buchanan won the election of 1856 and tension over slavey continued to mount between Democrats, Free-Soliers and Republicans.
The Civil War would result following Lincoln’s election in 1860 and slavery would later be abolished.
The Dred Scott case occurred and prohibited any U.S. territory from preventing the existence of slavery.
The Whig party would soon collapse with many of its members supporting Democrats or Republicans.

Next Steps

🧠 Want to continue reinforcing your knowledge of Unit 5? Check out Unit 5 Trivia, either as a document or as a game.
⏭ Ready to move on to the next topic? Take a look at the collection of Unit 6 Resources.
📚 Want to review multiple units? Check out all of the APUSH SAQs, LEQs, and DBQs.