pre-civil war quiz terms

Gadsden Purchase

Acquired additional land from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.

Free Soil party

Antislavery party in the 1848 and 1852 elections that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, arguing that the presence of slavery would limit opportunities for free laborers.

fire eaters

Southern nationalists characterized by unapologetic defenses of the South and slavery. Their radicalism and political brinksmanship won them attention and popularity among white Southerners.

popular sovereignity

Notion advanced before the Civil War that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery. Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by northern abolitionists, who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

California Gold rush

Inflow of thousands of miners to northern California after news reports of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in January of 1848 had spread around the world by the end of that year. The onslaught of migrants prompted Californians to organize a government and apply for statehood in 1849.

Underground railroad

Informal network of volunteers that helped runaway slaves escape from the South and reach free-soil Canada. Seeking to halt the flow of runaway slaves to the North, southern planters and congressmen pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law

Seventh of March speech

Daniel Webster’s impassioned address urging the North to support the Compromise of 1850. Webster argued that topography and climate would keep slavery from becoming entrenched in Mexican Cession territory and urged northerners to make all reasonable concessions to prevent disunion

Compromise of 1850

Admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington, D.C., and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law. Widely opposed in both the North and South, it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery.

Fugitive Slave Law

set high penalties for anyone who aided escaped slaves and compelled all law enforcement officers to participate in retrieving runaways. Strengthened the antislavery cause in the North.

Clayton Bulwer Treaty

Signed by Great Britain and the United States, it provided that the two nations would jointly protect the neutrality of Central America and that neither power would seek to fortify or exclusively control any future isthmian waterway. Later revoked by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, which gave the United States control of the Panama Canal.

Ostend Manifesto

Secret Franklin Pierce administration proposal to purchase or, that failing, to wrest militarily Cuba from Spain. Once leaked, it was quickly abandoned due to vehement opposition from the North.

Opium War

War between Britain and China over trading rights, particularly Britain’s desire to continue selling opium to Chinese traders. The resulting trade agreement prompted Americans to seek similar concessions from the Chinese.

Wanghia, Treaty of

and China, it assured the United States the same trading concessions granted to other powers, greatly expanding America’s trade with the Chinese.

Kanagawa, Treaty of

Ended Japan’s two-hundred-year period of economic isolation, establishing an American consulate in Japan and securing American coaling rights in Japanese ports.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Proposed that the issue of slavery be decided by popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, thus revoking the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Stephen Douglas in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

Uncle toms= cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery. It heightened northern support for abolition and escalated the sectional conflict.

The Impending Crisis of the South

Antislavery tract, written by white southerner Hinton R. Helper, arguing that nonslaveholding whites actually suffered most in a slave economy.

New England Emigrant Aid company

Organization created to facilitate the migration of free laborers to Kansas in order to prevent the establishment of slavery in the territory.

Lecompton Constituion

Proposed Kansas constitution, whose ratification was unfairly rigged so as to guarantee slavery in the territory. Initially ratified by proslavery forces, it was later voted down when Congress required that the entire constitution be put up for a vote.

Bleeding Kansas

Civil war in Kansas over the issue of slavery in the territory, fought intermittently until 1861, when it merged with the wider national Civil War.

Dred Scott vs Sanford

Supreme Court decision that extended federal protection to slavery by ruling that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory. Also declared that slaves, as property, were not citizens of the United States.

panic of 1837

Financial crash brought on by gold-fueled inflation, overspeculation, and excess grain production. Raised calls in the North for higher tariffs and for free homesteads on western public lands.

Tariff of 1857

Lowered duties on imports in response to a high Treasury surplus and pressure from southern farmers.

Lincoln Douglas debates

Series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the U.S. Senate race in Illinois. Douglas won the election, but Lincoln gained national prominence and emerged as the leading candidate for the 1860 Republican nomination.c

Freeport question

Question that asked whether the court or the people decide the future of slavery in the territories

Freeport doctrine

Declared that since slavery could not exist without laws to protect it, territorial legsilautres would have the say on the slavery question. Argued by Stepehn Douglas

Harpers Ferry

federal arsenal in Virginia seized by John Brown in 1859. Alarmed southeerners who elieved that Northerners shared Browns extermism

Consittuonal Union party

Formed by moderate Whigs and KNow nothings in effort to elect a compromise candidate and remove sectional crisis

Crittenden Amendments

Failed constituon amendements that would have given fedral protection for slavery in alll territores

Conffederate States of America

Government established after seven southern states secded from the Union

Whig party

Whig Party formed out of the National Republican Party, the leaders of which were John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. They were nationalists, supported internal improvements and moral reforms, and desired gradual westward expansion in congruence with economic growth and modernization.

Elelfction of 1860

Lincoln elected presdident