APUSH Unit 5.1 Vocab List

Popular Sovereignty

The idea that the people living in a territory should decide whether it allows slavery.

Republican Party

A political party founded in the 1850s to oppose the expansion of slavery.

Conscience Whigs

Anti-slavery members of the Whig Party.

Free Soil Movement

A political movement opposing the expansion of slavery into western territories.

Compromise of 1850

A series of laws intended to settle disputes over slavery, including admitting California as a free state.

Fugitive Slave Act

A law that required the return of escaped slaves to their owners, even if found in free states.

Panic of 1857

An economic depression in the United States caused by the declining international economy and overexpansion.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

A law allowing Kansas and Nebraska to decide on the legality of slavery through popular sovereignty.

Lecompton Constitution

A proposed pro-slavery constitution for Kansas, rejected in a territorial vote.

Bleeding Kansas

A series of violent conflicts between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas.

Stephen Douglas

A U.S. senator who championed popular sovereignty and debated Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

A series of debates primarily about slavery between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

Freeport Doctrine

Stephen Douglas's assertion that a territory could exclude slavery by refusing to adopt laws establishing it.

Know Nothing Party

A nativist political party that opposed immigration and Catholic influence.

Underground Railroad

A secret network that helped enslaved African Americans escape to free states and Canada.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

An 1857 Supreme Court case ruling African Americans were not citizens and Congress could not ban slavery.

Sumner-Brooks Incident

An 1856 event where Senator Charles Sumner was beaten by Representative Preston Brooks on the Senate floor.

John Brown

An abolitionist who led violent attacks against pro-slavery forces, including the Harpers Ferry raid.

Harpers Ferry Raid

John Brown's 1859 attempt to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

An anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that heightened Northern opposition to slavery.

Impending Crisis of the South

A book by Hinton Helper arguing that slavery was economically harmful to non-slaveholding Southern whites.

George Fitzhugh

A Southern writer defending slavery and arguing it was beneficial for slaves.

Election of 1860

The presidential election in which Abraham Lincoln won, leading to Southern secession.

Fort Sumter

A federal fort in Charleston, South Carolina, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.

Union

The Northern states during the Civil War, which supported the federal government.

Confederacy

The Southern states that seceded from the Union to form their own nation.

Jefferson Davis

The President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

Border States

Slave states that did not secede from the Union during the Civil War, including Delaware and Kentucky.

Conscription

Mandatory enlistment in the armed forces, commonly known as the draft.

Greenbacks

Paper currency issued by the Union during the Civil War to finance the war effort.