Synthesize weeks 19-26 into one connected narrative of the sectional crisis, correctly sequencing major events and explaining at least one real connection between them.
This week closes out the unit that carried the nation from Manifest Destiny's confident expansion to the edge of civil war. Confidence in the nation's destiny to expand (week 19) led directly to a war with Mexico (week 20) that added huge new territory, including California just as gold was discovered there (week 21) -- growth that reopened the exact question the Missouri Compromise had tried to settle back in 1820: where would slavery be allowed to expand (week 22)?
Every attempt to compromise on that question in the 1850s backfired instead of resolving it (week 23), even as abolitionist voices grew louder and harder to ignore (week 24) and the Supreme Court's Dred Scott ruling closed off compromise as a legal option altogether, paving the way to Lincoln's election (week 25). Last week's timeline (week 26) connected all of it into one chain. This assessment asks you to hold the whole unit in your head at once: an era where territorial growth and the unresolved question of slavery collided again and again, with less room to compromise every time.
Mastery looks like: They can place the unit's major events in correct chronological order and explain at least one real connection between two or more of the weeks studied.
Common stumbles: Remembering each week's facts in isolation without seeing how territorial growth and the slavery question kept colliding, with less room to compromise each time.