AQA A-LEVEL HISTORY 7042/2J [Component 2J America: A Nation Divided, c1845–1877 ]|QUESTIONS AND MARKING SCHEME MERGED|GRADED A+||

Section A Answer Question 01. Source A From a speech, ‘The Crime against Kansas’ made to Congress by Charles Sumner, a Senator for Massachusetts, 19 May 1856. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill has openly cleared the way for slavery. It can be presumed those who wrote the Bill intended it to be used to extend slavery into these Territories. This is the first stage in the crime against Kansas. The Bill is in every respect a swindle; a swindle of the North by the South, a crime against Kansas. What could not be accomplished peaceably is to be accomplished by force. The reptile monster that is slavery could not be quietly and securely hatched there in Kansas and so must be pushed into the Territory full-grown. All their efforts are devoted to the dismal work of forcing slavery on free soil in the name of Popular Sovereignty. Slavery is being forcibly introduced into Kansas, under the protection of a so-called law. But the North, stung by a sense of outrage and inspired by a noble cause, has promised to establish a supremacy of numbers there, in the name of freedom. 5 10 Source B From an article in ‘Atlas’, a Whig newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts, 28 May 1856. Charles Sumner, a Senator for Massachusetts, was yesterday brutally assaulted by a ruffian named Brooks, who represents South Carolina in the Lower House. Those who know Mr Sumner will readily believe that nothing in his conduct or conversation could have provoked such an outrage. It can only be explained as a demonstration of the problems caused by Kansas, which Mr Sumner had outlined in the Senate. So the reign of terror is now to be transferred from Kansas to Washington. The mouths of the representatives of the North are to be closed by knives, bludgeons and revolvers. The sooner we in the North understand this the better. If violence must come, we shall know how to defend ourselves. We hope, for the credit of our State, that every man in it will feel this outrage upon Mr Sumner as a personal indignity, and an insult to Massachusetts itself. We hope there will be such a spontaneous expression of opinion as will prevent any repetition of such an act. 5 10 3 IB/M/Jun23/7042/2J Turn over ► Source C From a letter to the editor of a Massachusetts newspaper, ‘The Hopkinson Patriot’, sent by Edward Fitch, 23 July 1856. Fitch had emigrated from the North to Kansas. It has been much quieter here in Kansas recently. Two or three men have been shot and killed for attending the Free State legislature, but such occurrences are so common here that they are hardly mentioned. Pro-Slavery men are determined to harass and trouble us by all means in their power. Federal troops are still encamped in different places, to disarm all parties of Free State men found gathered together. But I do not know of a single pro-Slavery group they have disarmed, while I am acquainted with many persons belonging to Free State groups who have been disarmed by them. The border ruffians and the pro-Slavery legislators have everything prepared for the passage of the Kansas Bill. They have driven out or imprisoned many of our men, and stopped men from Free States from entering the Territory. If the Bill passes, they have hundreds of men in Missouri, ready to move over the line into Kansas and become eligible to vote. 5 10 0 1 With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context, assess the value of these three sources to an historian studying the disputes over Kansas in the mid-1850