social studies civil war

Sectionalism

An exaggerated loyalty to a particular region of the country.

Henry Clay

US legislator known as the great compromiser. He made so many compromises.

Missouri Compromise (1820)

Compromise that allowed Missouri to enter as a slave state, while Maine entered as a free state. Added the 36’30’ line to determine future slave and free states.

Fugitive

A person on the run from authorities. (In the pre-Civil War period, usually referred to people who had escaped slavery).

Secede

To formally withdraw from a federal union.

Abstain (voting)

To refuse to vote.

Compromise of 1850

Five laws based on one of Henry Clay’s plans. It included making California a free state, New Mexico and Utah having no restriction on Slavery, the end of the slave trade in DC, and a stronger fugitive slave law.

The Fugitive Slave Act

A law enforcing strict penalties on those who helped runaway slaves.

Popular Sovereignty

Allowing the citizens of a territory to decide whether or not their new state would allow slavery.

Kansas Nebraska Act

A law that repealed the Missouri Compromise. It allowed for popular sovereignty to be used to determine whether there would be slavery in the Kansas and Nebraska territory.

Border Ruffians

Violent pro slavery supporters who crossed the border into a territory in order to influence its vote on slavery.

Bleeding Kansas

A name used to refer to a series of violent conflicts in the state of Kansas, over its future as a slave or a free state.

John Brown

A fervent abolitionist who believed he was chosen by God to end slavery. He led the disastrous raid on Harper’s Ferry.

Civil War

A war fought by the citizens within a single nation. The US Civil War was fought between the Northern and Southern States.

Charles Sumner

Anti-slavery Senator who was attacked by Preston Brooks.

Preston Brooks

Pro-slavery member of the House of Representatives who attacked Charles Sumner with a cane.

Republican Party

A new political party in the 1850s. They were Anti-slavery and generally popular in the North.

James Buchanan

President before Abraham Lincoln. Not effective at keeping the country united.

Dred Scott

An enslaved African American man who sued for his freedom in the Supreme Court. His loss meant that no territory had the right to prohibit slavery.

Stephen A. Douglas

A rival of Abraham Lincoln. Defeated him in the Illinois senate elections of 1858, after a series of famous debates, only to go on to lose to him when running for president.

Abraham Lincoln

16th president of the United States. Led during the Civil War

Arsenal

A collection of weapons.

Martyr

A person who dies for a great cause.

Confederate States of America

The new nation that the states that seceded from the US wanted to form.

Jefferson Davis

A senator from Mississippi chosen as president of the C.S.A.

States’ Rights

The rights of individual states, rather than the federal government.

Fort Sumter

A fort in the Charleston Harbor. The first shots of the Civil War were fired here.