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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Describe Lincoln's relationship with his ancestry.

2. Whom did Lincoln follow around through his home county?

3. Why did Lincoln have to hand over his earnings to his father?

4. What did Lincoln work on after the 1858 election?

5. When was Lincoln married?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Lincoln's legal practice bring him into questions of statewide or national importance?

2. Describe Lincoln's temperament as a politician.

3. What was popular sovereignty and what role did it play in the politics of the 1850s.

4. Describe the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

5. What did Lincoln do after he lost to Douglas?

6. How did Lincoln finally get married?

7. What was Lincoln's relationship with the image his supporters presented of him?

8. Describe Abraham Lincoln's period of aimlessness in Illinois.

9. How did Lincoln end up back in Springfield?

10. What positions did Lincoln take in his career as a Whig legislator?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Who were the power brokers behind Lincoln's Presidential nomination and his ultimate election? What coalitions and influences worked together to elect him? What were Lincoln's bases of support, and what did he and his advisers do to expand that base? Was Lincoln his own force in politics, or was he the face of a system that backed him.

Essay Topic 2

How would you characterize Donald's biography of Lincoln? What are Donald's methods of writing the biography of Lincoln, and what are the benefits and risks of that method? How well does Donald succeed in his undertaking? Is the reader left wanting more or deeper treatment of a topic? If so, what topic?

Essay Topic 3

Were England and France--both of which had outlawed slavery and slave trading--hypocritical in opposing Lincoln's blockade of the South during the Civil War? What interests were they speaking for when they complained about the war's impact? Did their arguments reconcile with their humanitarian stance with regard to slavery, and if so how?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 911 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample