Social Sciences and History / Unit 1 SSH 0032 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Henry Clay's Three Compromises
The idea
Sample question one names the compromises of eighteen twenty, eighteen thirty-three and eighteen fifty and asks who authored them. The key is Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser. In eighteen twenty the deadlock was Missouri; the package paired a slave state with a free one and drew a line. In eighteen thirty-three it was South Carolina's nullification of the tariff; the package lowered rates over time while the state withdrew its ordinance. In eighteen fifty it was the Mexican Cession; the package admitted California free, organized the rest under popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade in Washington, and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act.
In practice
The distractors will be men present at one crisis but not all three. Calhoun stood on the other side of nullification. Douglas passed the eighteen fifty bills after Clay stepped aside, but he was not in Congress in eighteen twenty. Jackson faced nullification down but authored no compromise. Webster spoke for the eighteen fifty package and was absent from the first. Only Clay appears at all three, and only he as the broker. Answer B.
Where people slip
The course's record: the anchor credits Clay only with leading the eighteen fifty effort; his authorship of eighteen twenty and eighteen thirty-three is stated by the witness, the American Yawp, chapters nine and thirteen. The exam's key stands on that reading, and the course says so.
Your place on the trail
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