US HIST 1301-Unit 4 Key Terms

the debate over slavery in the Mexican Cession

• an issue on whether or not to permit slavery into territories in the new land

• David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso

  • a proposal to ban slavery in any new territory acquired from Mexico

popular sovereignty

• most politicians chose to ignore the slavery issue to avoid losing half their support

• popular sovereignty stated that the sovereign people of a territory, should determine the status of slavery

discovery of gold in California and its bid for statehood—who went and why

• reignited the question of slavery

• adventurers poured in

• they were all seeking riches

things that threatened the balance of free and slave states

California wanted to enter the Union as a free state

Underground Railroad

• informal chain of antislavery homes

• it is estimated that 1,000 slaves were lost through the Underground Railroad

• led by Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman

• an American abolitionist and social activist

• escaped slavery

• made around 13 missions and rescued around 70 slaves

Stephen A. Douglas's plans for deciding the slavery question in the Kansas-Nebraska scheme

• both the north and south would make compromises

• the north would partially yield by passing a more feasible fugitive-slave law 

new Free Soil Party—why abolitionists supported it

• established by antislavery  forces in the north

• they were against slavery in the territories

• they also called for federal aid for internal improvements and free government homesteads for settlers

Fugitive Slave Act 

• passed by congress in 1850

• required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state

Manifest Destiny expansionists in the 1850s and their desire for Cuba

• after the Compromise of 1850 southerners sought new southern slave territory

• two American expeditions made failed attempts to invade and capture Cuba

• American diplomats composed the Ostend Manifesto, which declared the right for America to seize Cuba if Spain would not sell the island 

transcontinental railroad and why the southern route was best

• traveling to the new territories was long and difficult

• a transcontinental railroad was a clear solution

• there was only enough money for one route

• the southerners route was the best 

  • it was the easiest to build because of less mountains

  • it did not pass through unorganized territory and was easier for the military to defend

armed attack and partial burning of the Free Soil town of Lawrence 

• a small part of the in-migration was financed by antislavery organizations

• they sent around 2,000 people to disrupt southern efforts to populate the territory

• southerners felt betrayed because there was an unspoken understanding that kansas would be a slave state and nebraska a free state

• a proslavery gang then shot up and burned part of the free soil town of Lawrence

Lecompton Constitution

• introduced by proslavery forces who were in control of the territorial government in Kansas

• people could vote for the constitution “with slavery” or “without slavery”

• if slavery was voted against then the constitution would protect slaveholders already present

• proslavery forces approved the constitution with slavery

Failure of popular sovereignty in Kansas

• it failed due to the votes being stacked in favor of slavery

  • people had flooded in from Missouri so they could vote Kansas a slave state

  • therefore the vote that admitted Kansas a slave state was rigged

election of 1860

• Democrats met in Charlestown to elect a presidential candidate

  • Douglas was the leading candidate for the northern wing of the party

  • “Fire-eaters” called him a traitor because his stance challenged the Lecompton Constitution and supported the Freeport Doctrine

  • cotton states walked out and they didn’t have ⅔ support to nominate Douglas

• they met again in Baltimore 

  • the cotton states walked out again

  • the convention nominated Douglas

Abraham Lincoln

• 16th president 

• waged a civil war that preserved the union

• he ended slavery by issuing the emancipation proclamation 

• he was assassinated

why Secessionists supported leaving the Union

• they were alarmed by the tipping political balance against them

• they were dismayed by the new sectional republican party

• they were weary of 

  • free-soil criticism

  • abolitionist nagging

  • northern interference, like the Underground Railroad

John Brown

• dedicated to abolition 

• in 1856 he led followers to Pottawatomie Creek

  • they killed 5 men who were presumed to be proslavery

• his terrorism damaged the free-soil cause and brought retaliation from proslavery forces

The Raid at Harpers Ferry

• John Brown led 20 men and seized a federal armory at Harpers Ferry in western Virginia

  • 7 men were killed and 10 injured

• he believed the invasion would cause Virginia’s slaves to rise in  rebellion

• he then armed them and helped to establish a free black state as sanctuary

• he helped to raise thousands from abolitionists to help fund his plan

• slaves did not rise up

• Brown and his men were captured by the U.S. Marines

  • he was convicted of murder and treason

Dred Scott case

• Dred Scott was an enslaved black man

  • he lived with his master for 5 years in Illinois

  • Scott, with help from abolitionists, sued his master for his freedom on the basis that Illinois was free soil

• a prosouthern majority ruled that Scott was a black slave and not a citizen, therefore he could not sue in federal courts

• majority ruled that because a slave was private property they could be taken into any territory and be held a slave there

• Congress has no power to ban slavery from the territories, no matter what the territorial legislatures themselves may want

Secession of South Carolina after Lincoln’s election in 1860

• they were the first state to secede from the federal Union

• Lincoln’s election triggered cries of disunion across the slaveholding south

the government of the Confederate States of America

• South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas all succeeded from the union

• they created a government known as the Confederate States of America

Uncle Tom's Cabin

• published by Harriett Beecher Stowe

  • dismayed the Fugitive Slave Law

  • she wanted to awaken the north to slavery's wickedness

  • the novel focused on the inhumanity of slavery

• millions of copies were sold

• the novel won the sympathies of foreigners

Which states belonged to the North? The South? The Border States?

• North States

  • Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, California, Nevada, and Oregon

• South States

  • South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina

• Border States

  • Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware

the South's attack on Fort Sumter

• only 2 significant forts in the south were in federal possession

• supplies were going to run out and Lincoln announced that he would provision it

• after the resupply began South Carolina fired on the fort, which surrendered in 34 hours

• the attack aroused a will to fight in the north

• 4 more states joined the initial 7 in succession

Why northerners didn’t want to allow the southern states to secede

• they believed that secession was unlawful 

• they feared secession would cause the weakened government to descend into anarchy

Lincoln’s use of legally suspicious methods, including the declaration of martial law in Maryland and the deployment of Union soldiers in a local civil war in Missouri and suspension of habeas corpus

• he protected the brodern states with force

  • the declaration of martial law and sending troops into Maryland

• he suspended the writ of habeas corpus

  • anti-unionists could be summarily arrested and held without trial

  • he defied ruling by the chief justice that only Congress could set aside habeas corpus

Importance of the Border States—and which states belonged in this group

• the border states had more than half of the total white population of the confederacy

• if they would have joined the confederacy they would have doubled its manufacturing capacity and increase its supply of mules and horses by nearly half

• Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware

Five Civilized Tribes during the Civil War

• Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles

• they all joined the fellow slaveholders in the confederacy

Why people in Britain sided with the North

• many had read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and believed that the war could end slavery

• British held a large surplus of American cotton at the beginning of the war and over time they found other supplies while also relying on grain from the north

Why the South believed Britain would help them

they believed the cotton they provided to Europe would naturally ally their government to the confederacy

the Trent affair

• a Union warship stopped a British mail steamer, the Trent, and removed 2 Confederate diplomats

  • this outraged British leaders and they prepared to send troops to aid the south

  • Lincoln diffused the situation by releasing the prisoners

Jefferson Davis

• he sought to knit the secessionists states into an arranged central government

• he faced determined resistance from state governments

• he faced periodic threats of impeachment

Davis’s views on government and how it opposed states’ rights

he believed a country’s power rested in individual states and not a strong central government

Conscription (the draft of soldiers) by North and the South

• North

  • wealthy could hire substitutes or purchase an exemption

  • a draft riot in the Democratic stronghold of New York lasted for days and killed scores

  • Authorities sometimes offered bounties for enlistment

• South

  • wealthy could hire substitutes or purchase an exemption

  • slaveowners and overseers of 20+ slaves were exempt, causing resentment among the poor

the Homestead Act

granted free land to settlers willing to turn it into farms

Lincoln’s decisions at the beginning of the war to use quick military action to stop secession

• Lincoln’s strategy was to send 30,000 troops to attack a smaller Confederate army 30 miles southwest from Washington, at Bull Run 

• Would demonstrate the Union’s military power

• Could even lead to Confederate capital capture in Richmond which would quickly discredit secession and restore the Union

General Lee’s decision to invade the North (Maryland)

• After defeating McClellan at Richmond, Lee moved north and encountered a Union force under the command of General John Pope in the Second Battle of Bull Run (August 29-30, 1862).

  • Lee delivered a crushing defeat to Pope.

  • Emboldened, he thrust into Maryland, hoping further victory would attract foreign intervention and seduce the Border States to secede.

Battle of Antietam

• After hearing of Lee’s plan, Union soldiers were sent to stop them and they met at Antietam Creek

  • The battle at Antietam would be the bloodiest single day in the war, with 10,000 Confederate casualties and even more on the Union side.

  • Antietam was a draw militarily, but Lee withdrew across the Potomac River, while McClellan was relieved of duty for not pursuing him.

• Antietam was the “victory” Lincoln needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation.

13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution

• The Thirteenth Amendment, adopted in 1865, abolishes slavery or involuntary servitude except in punishment for a crime.

•  The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, defines all people born in the United States as citizens, requires due process of law, and requires equal protection to all people.

Emancipation Proclamation—who it freed, and where

• Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation declared “forever free” the slaves in those Confederate states still in rebellion.

  • Enslaved people in the loyal Border States were not affected, nor were those in specific, already conquered areas.

  • The only people immediately freed from slavery by the proclamation were a few thousand in Union occupied land along the coast of North and South Carolina.

Northern soldiers and what they thought about slavery

• grew more likely to support emancipation the longer they remained in the field

Black men enlisted in the Union army after the Emancipation Proclamation—why, and what they did

• Over 180,000 black men served

• Black soldiers had their hearts in a war that had become one against slavery.

  • War service also allowed Black soldiers to prove their manhood and strengthen their claim to full citizenship after the war.

  • 38,000 died in uniform, and if caught by Confederates many were put to death as slaves in revolt.

• The Confederacy did not enlist enslaved people as soldiers until a month before the war ended, though tens of thousands were forced into involuntary labor battalions.

Slave resistance during the Civil War

• refused to retreat with the slave owners

• sabotage

Battle of Gettysburg

• turning point of the Civil War

• Ended Confederates northern advance

• Gettysburg was the last real chance for the Confederates to win the war, though bloody fighting continued for two more years.

Importance of the Union victory at Vicksburg

• ensured Union control of the Mississippi River and cleaved the South in two.

• After Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Britain and France seized all pending plans to supply the Confederacy with warships, and the South’s hope for foreign aid was lost for good.

General William T. Sherman and “total warfare” to destroy civilian morale

• Sherman blazed a trail of destruction through Georgia 

  • Sherman’s 60,000 men burned buildings, tore up railroad rails and twisted them into pretzels, bayoneted family portraits, and looted manor houses.

  • The purpose was to destroy supplies destined for the Confederate army and weaken the morale of the men at the front by waging war on their homes

• Increased Confederate desertions, likely shortening the war

Union General Ulysses S. Grant's basic strategy in the Civil War

• assailing the enemy's armies simultaneously and directly

Results of the Civil War

• The Civil War confirmed the single political entity of the United States, 

• led to freedom for more than four million enslaved Americans

• established a more powerful and centralized federal government

• laid the foundation for America's emergence as a world power in the 20th century.

What Southerners believed after the war about their cause

• secession, not slavery, caused the war

• they were defeated militarily only because the union had overwhelming advantages in men and resources

• they were heroic and saintly

result of freedom for southern Black people at the end of the Civil War

• caused whole communities of Southern blacks from Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi to migrate westward to territories and states such as Kansas for better job opportunities

• came haltingly and unevenly in different parts of the conquered Confederacy.

the Freedmen’s Bureau 

An agency created by the government that helped and protected newly freed african americans find jobs, homes, education, and a better life

political controversy surrounding the Wade-Davis Bill and the readmission of the Confederate states to the Union

the deep differences between President Lincoln and Congress.

President Lincoln’s 10 percent plan for Reconstruction

program that would allow Confederate states to establish new state governments after 10 percent of their male population took loyalty oaths and the states recognized the permanent freedom of formerly enslaved people

President Johnson's plan for Reconstruction

• the plan called for granting amnesty and returning people's property if they pledged to be loyal to the United States.

• The Confederate states would be required to uphold the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery; swear loyalty to the Union; and pay off their war debt.

Black Codes

restricted black people's right to own property, conduct business, buy and lease land, and move freely through public spaces.

the fate of the defeated Confederate leaders after the war

after brief jail terms all were pardoned in 1868.

feminist leaders—why they were deeply disappointed with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments

• they granted voting rights to Black men but not women, excluded Black women from voting rights, and failed to define equal national citizenship

Ku Klux Klan

racist, anti-Semitic committed to extreme violence to achieve its goals of racial segregation and white supremacy.

Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson

• President Johnson was impeached because he fired an official who was protected under the Tenure of office Act and because the house felt he had brought the office of president into disgrace. 

• He was spared removal from office by one vote.