Q 01/05

Which state's panhandle exists because Texas gave up its land north of the Missouri Compromise line?

A) Nebraska

B) Oklahoma

C) Idaho

D) Florida

Answer · why

B) Oklahoma

Oklahoma gained its panhandle from a strip nobody governed. Texas, a slave state, ceded its claims above the line, and the leftover land sat for decad...

Q 02/05

Which free state joined the Union alongside slaveholding Missouri under the Missouri Compromise?

A) Illinois

B) Vermont

C) Maine

D) Indiana

Answer · why

C) Maine

Maine had been a district of Massachusetts until then. Southern lawmakers tied its statehood bill to Missouri's, so the free states could not gain a s...

Q 03/05

The Missouri Compromise banned slavery in western territories above which line of latitude?

A) 36°30′ north

B) 39°43′ north

C) 42° north

D) 49° north

Answer · why

A) 36°30′ north

36°30′ north also marked Missouri's own southern border, so the new slave state sat above the line as its single exception.

Q 04/05

Which House Speaker became the Great Compromiser after steering the Missouri bills through Congress?

A) Daniel Webster

B) John C. Calhoun

C) John Randolph

D) Henry Clay

Answer · why

D) Henry Clay

Henry Clay broke the deadlock by dividing the combined package into separate bills, so that each half could pass the House with a different majority.

Q 05/05

Which former president wrote that the Missouri crisis woke him like a fire bell in the night?

A) John Adams

B) James Madison

C) Thomas Jefferson

D) John Quincy Adams

Answer · why

C) Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, long retired, called the new dividing line the knell of the Union. He feared a border drawn on a moral principle would only cut deep...