Vocabulary #3 - Madeline Gutierrez

Abolition

Abolition

Movement to end slavery

Anaconda Plan

Northern Civil War strategy to starve the South by blockading seaports and controlling the Mississippi River

1. Split the Confederate states in two

2. Seize Richmond

3. Blockade the coast (Atlantic and Gulf)

4. Fight a war of attrition(wearing the enemy down)

Battle of Gettysburg

The Turning Point Battle of the Civil War. With Jackson gone, this was Lee’s last attempt to invade the North. The Union Army defeated Lee’s troops and he retreated to the South.

Battle of Vicksburg

• Split the south in two because it gave the Union control of the Mississippi River(the last major Confederate stronghold).

• It was Put under siege by Grant for nearly two months.

• By the time they surrendered, civilians were eating horses, dogs, and rats.

• It was a huge victory for Grant that caused Lincoln to offer him command of the Union Army.

Carpetbaggers

A name for Northerners who went to the South to participate in and profit from Reconstruction. They went immediately after the Civil War, usually to gain political or other advantages from the disorganized situation in southern states.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Basically, a court case that decided that slaves would remain slaves in non-slave states and slaves could not sue because they were not citizens. In this court case:

• Scott was a slave taken from Missouri to a free state, who lived there and married a woman.

• The Court decided Scott was a slave (his owner’s property protected by the 5th Amendment) and not a citizen of the U.S.

• Therefore he had no right to sue

Emancipation Proclamation

Proclamation issued by Lincoln, freeing all slaves in areas still at war with the Union (Confederate States).

Fort Sumter

Federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; the confederate attack on the fort marked the start of the Civil War

14th Amendment

Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws

Fugitive Slave Act

A law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves; allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders

Homestead Act

Passed in 1862, it gave 160 acres of public land to any settler who would farm the land for five years. The settler would only have to pay a registration fee of $25.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

a law that allowed voters in Kansas and Nebraska to choose whether to allow slavery

Reconstruction

the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union

Scalawags

A name for Southerners (usually Republican) who participated in and supported Reconstruction; viewed as traitors to the South.

Seneca Falls Convention

the first national women's rights convention at which the Declaration of Sentiments was written

Sumner-Brooks Affair

Brooks (proslavery) attacked Sumner (anti-slavery) on the floor of the senate with a cane.

Temperance Movement

An organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption

Ten Percent Plan

Lincoln's plan that promised that when 10% of a state’s voters from 1860 took an oath of loyalty to the Union, the state could set up a new government and write a new state constitution. After abolishing slavery and providing their African Americans an education, they could regain representation in Congress.

Tenant Farming

System of farming in which a person rents land to farm from a planter

• They were usually former slaves or poor whites

  • They paid rent to the landowner and owned the crops they grew

• It led to a cycle of debt

  • They tended to have it a bit better than sharecroppers.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

It was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1853 and it highly influenced England's view on the American Deep South and slavery. It was fiction, but it inspired people to support the abolition of slavery.