History Slavery

Compromise of 1850

Agreement designed to ease tensions caused by the expansion of slavery into western territories

Fugitive Slave Act

Law that provided for harsh treatment for escaped slaves and for those who helped them

Uncle Tom's Cabin

a novel published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 which portrayed slavery as brutal and immoral

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to choose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.

Dred Scott Decision

A Missouri slave sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S, Supreme Court decided he couldn't sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen.

Republican Party

Political party that believed in the non-expansion of slavery & consisted of Whigs, N. Democrats, & Free-Soilers in defiance to the Slave Powers

John Brown's Raid

In 1859, a militant abolitionist seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry. He planned to end slavery by massacring slave owners and freeing their slaves. He was captured and executed.

Election of 1860

Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery. As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.

Secede

to formally withdraw from the union- the Southern States did this and it triggered the Civil War

Fort Sumter

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

Henry Clay

United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states and the Compromise of 1850

John C. Calhoun

(1830s-40s) Leader of the Fugitive Slave Law, which forced the cooperation of Northern states in returning escaped slaves to the south. He also argued on the floor of the senate that slavery was needed in the south.

Stephen Douglas

Illinois Senator, who introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and popularized the idea of popular sovereignty.

Abraham Lincoln

16th President; Illinois Senator who won the election of 1860 and led to Southern States to secede.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand"

Lincoln's quote concerning secession saying that a country that is divided can't accomplish much of anything

James Buchanan

The 15th President of the United States (1857-1861). He tried to maintain a balance between proslavery and antislavery factions, but his moderate views angered radicals in both North and South, and he was unable to forestall the secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860.

Union

The Northern States during the Civil War

Confederacy

the southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America