civilisation - key figures

Abraham Lincoln

Republican president (1861-65). Free-soiler in 1858, becomes an abolitionist in 1863. Assassinated April 1865.

Andrew Johnson

Lincoln’s successor. Southern sympathizer, racist, pro-states’ rights. Sabotages Reconstruction. Impeached in 1868.

Stephen Douglas

Author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1864). Champion of “popular sovereignty.” Lincoln’s opponent in 1858.

Henry Clay

“The Great Compromiser.” Whig. Authored the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Compromise of 1850. Defended the American System.

Frederick Douglass

Former enslaved man, journalist (North Star). Symbol of the abolitionist struggle. Urged Black men to enlist as a path to citizenship.

William Lloyd Garrison

Founded the Liberator (1831). Called for immediate abolition. Strategy: moral persuasion, not violence.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Over a million copies sold. Galvanized antislavery opinion in the North.

John O’Sullivan

Democratic journalist. Coined the term “Manifest Destiny” in July 1845. Rhetoric of the chosen nation.

Solomon Northup

Free man kidnapped and enslaved in Louisiana for 12 years (1841-53). Author of a slave narrative. Film: 12 Years of a Slave.

Nat Turner

Led a slave revolt in Virginia (1831). 60 whites killed. Consequence: extreme hardening of pro-slavery laws.