US History - Unit 5 (Part 2)

California Crisis

California Crisis

California applied for statehood as a free state which would mess up the balance of slave states & non slave states

Free Soil Party

A minor political party that opposed the expansion of slavery that later merged into the Republican Party

Compromise of 1850

The agreement that California would become a free state, the Fugitive Slave Law passes, and Utah & New Mexico territories can decide if they wish to be free states or slave states

Fugitive Slave Law

Requires that slaves must be returned to their owners even if they escaped to a free state

Dred Scott Decision

Two slaves denied their freedom because the United States was still upholding slavery, blacks had no citizenship or rights in federal court, and the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional

Confederacy

Government formed by the southern states that seceded from the Union

Union

The region that remained with the original United States government during the Civil War

Border States

Five southern states that chose to stay in the Union

Abraham Lincoln

Union president during the Civil War

Jefferson Davis

Confederate president during the Civil War

Election of 1860

Abraham Lincoln vs. John Breckinridge & Lincoln wins

Battle of Fort Sumter

Union soldiers stuck in the south & when Lincoln sends supplies, South Carolina fires, beginning the Civil War

Siege of Vicksburg

Union forces surround Confederate troops until they surrender

Ulysses S. Grant

President at the end of reconstruction & commanding general on the Union side during the Civil War

Emancipation Proclamation of 1863

Declares that all slaves can be freed by Union army, the war begins to revolve around human rights, and 200,000 volunteers went to war

Battle of Gettysburg

Union stopped the Confederacy from invading Pennsylvania, convincing foreign countries to stay out of the war

One Drop Rule

Idea that one drop of African Ancestry meant they were “black”

Abolitionist Movement

Movement to end slavery & get racial equality

The Underground Railroad

A series of secret networks throughout the north & south to help enslaved people escape

William Still

“The Father of the Underground Railroad”

Sherman’s March to the Sea

Union soldiers march from Atlanta to Georgia, destroying everything in their path, leading to the Confederacy surrendering

Robert E. Lee

Confederate military general during the Civil War

John Wilkes Booth

Lincoln’s assassin

40 Acres & A Mule

The Union promised to distribute Confederate land to freed slaves

Juneteenth

Holiday celebrates Union troops arriving in Texas to free slaves

Reconstruction

The era after the Civil War where the country suffers the effects of the war while attempting to reconstruct

Radical Republicans

Fraction of the Republican Party that wanted to drag out reconstruction by reinventing the south & give blacks voting rights

Freedmen’s Bureau

Government agency formed to take care of southern war refugees/former slaves

Andrew Johnson

Lincoln’s Democratic vice president who took over after the assassination

Black codes

A series of laws passed in the south between 1865-1866 that were designed to restrict the rights of African Americans

13th Amendment

Declared slavery to be over except as punishment for a crime

The Ku Klux Klan

A secret social club that evolved into a terrorist organization that targeted minority racial, religious, and political groups

Nathan Forest

Leader of the KKK

WASPs

The group of people the KKK thought America should be safe for

Military Reconstruction Act

Divided the Confederacy into five districts with Union generals in charge of each

14th Amendment

Anyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen & has equal protection under laws

15th Amendment

The right to vote cannot “be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

Ku Klux Klan Act

Outlawed terrorist activities & allows the federal government to use force if necessary

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Made it a crime for owners of public accommodations (hotels, theaters, etc.) to discriminate based on race

Election of 1876

Samuel Tilden vs. Rutherford B. Hayes & Hayes wins

Compromise of 1876

Hayes becomes president in exchange for removing federal troops from south, ending the Reconstruction Era

Jim Crow Laws

Laws made to segregate based on race & recognize a racial hierarchy

Plessy vs. Ferguson

Supreme Court upholds segregation & rules that “separate but equal” is fair

Brown vs. Board of Education

Segregated education violated the 14th amendment because it doesn’t give students equal opportunities