Ap United States History Unit 5

13th Amendment

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the United States, except as a punishment for a crime

14th amendment

Reconstruction-era constitutional amendment ratified in 1868 that granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and guaranteed them equal protection and due process under the law

15th amendment

prohibits denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous servitude.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is the 16th U.S. president whose 1860 election triggered Southern secession, leading the Union to victory in the Civil War and redefining the conflict around emancipation and national unity

Anaconda Plan

Military strategy proposed by Union General Winfield Scott in 1861 to defeat the Confederacy through economic strangulation rather than large-scale, bloody battles

Andrew Johnson

17th U.S. president who clashed bitterly with Congress over Reconstruction policies and became the first president to be impeached

Appomattox Courthouse

Virginia village where Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865

Battle of Antietam

a pivotal Civil War engagement fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, that halted Confederate General Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North

Battle of Bull Run

The first major land battle of the American Civil War,resulting in a Confederate victory that shattered early illusions of a quick and easy Northern triumph.

Battle of Vicksburg

a decisive Union victory led by General Ulysses S. Grant that gave the North complete control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two.

Black Codes

restrictive laws passed by Southern state legislatures in 1865 and 1866, during Presidential Reconstruction, to maintain white supremacy and force freed African Americans into dependent, low-wage labor

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) to participate in politics, business, or reform

Charles Sumner

An anti-slavery abolitionist senator from Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans

Civil War Amendments

13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which abolished slavery, redefined national citizenship, and protected voting rights.

Compromise of 1850

A five-part package of laws passed by the U.S. Congress to temporarily defuse sectional tensions over the expansion of slavery into new territories acquired after the Mexican-American War

Compromise of 1877

Informal political deal that resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election by awarding the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South

Copperheads

anti-war, Northern Democrats during the American Civil War who wanted an immediate peace settlement and to restore the Union with slavery intact

Credit Mobilizer Scandal

A 1872 political and financial corruption case where Union Pacific Railroad insiders formed a fake construction company to overcharge for building the transcontinental railroad and bribed members of Congress with Cheap stock to avoid investigation

CSS Virginia

the first steam-powered ironclad warship utilized by the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.

Dred Scott V. Stanford

Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that African Americans were not citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in federal territories

Emancipation Proclamation

a wartime executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, that declared enslaved people free in areas actively rebelling against the United States

Fort Sumter

Federal fort in Charleston, South Carolina, where Confederate forces fired the opening shots of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861

Free-Soil Party

a short-lived American political party founded in 1848 that opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories acquired during the Mexican-American War

Freedmen’s Bureau

federal agency established by Congress in March 1865 to help formerly enslaved people and poor white refugees transition from slavery to freedom in the post-Civil War South.

Freeport Doctrine

Stephen A. Douglas's 1858 argument that a U.S. territory could exclude slavery by refusing to pass local laws and police regulations protecting slave property

Fugitive Slave Act

federal law passed as part of the Compromise of 1850 that required the capture and return of escaped enslaved people, even if they had reached free states.

Gettysburg

the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War and a decisive turning point that ended General Robert E. Lee's second and final invasion of the North

Greenbacks

paper currency issued by the U.S. government during the Civil War, named for the green ink used on the back

Harriet Beecher Stowe

American abolitionist and author who wrote the bestselling 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book opened Northern eyes to the sins of slavery, significantly boosted abolitionist sentiment, prevented British and French intervention on behalf of the Confederacy, and deeply angered the South—intensifying the sectional tensions that led to the Civil War.

Hinton Helper

A southern white abolitionist who wrote the 1857 anti-slavery book The Impending Crisis of the South.The book used statistics and economic data to argue that slavery hurt the economic development of the South and impoverished non-slaveholding white majorities by undercutting free labor.

Jefferson Davis

first and only president of the Confederate States of America (1861–1865) during the American Civil War.

Jim Crow Laws

state and local statutes that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised African Americans in the South, primarily emerging after the collapse of Reconstruction in 1877.

John Brown

Was a radical abolitionist who believed violence was necessary to end slavery, famously leading the Pottawatomie Massacre and the raid on Harper’s Ferry.

John Wilkes Booth

a prominent American stage actor and intense Confederate sympathizer who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 legislation by Stephen Douglas that organized the Kansas and Nebraska territories and allowed residents to decide on slavery through popular sovereignty.

Reconstruction

Post-Civil War era focused on reintegrating Confederate states into the Union, rebuilding the devastated Southern economy, and redefining citizenship and freedom for nearly 4 million formerly enslaved African Americans.

Redeemers

a coalition of conservative white Southern Democrats who sought to oust the Radical Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags and restore white supremacy in the South toward the end of the Reconstruction era

Robert E Lee

brilliant commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War.

Rutherford B Hayes

19th U.S. president whose disputed election in 1876 and subsequent Compromise of 1877 officially ended the Reconstruction Era

Scalawags

white Southerners who supported the Republican party and reconstruction party’s after the civil war

Sharecropping

A post-Civil War agricultural labor system where landless freed people and poor white farmers worked a plot of land for a landowner in exchange for a share of the harvest.Key Mechanics & C

Stephen Douglas

Illinois Democratic senator and powerful 1850s political leader who championed popular sovereignty—the idea that territorial settlers should vote on whether to allow slavery

Thaddeus Stephens

Radical Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania who championed the abolition of slavery, harsh punishment for the former Confederacy, and strong federal protection of civil rights for freedpeople

Thomas (stonewall) Jackson

Was a daring Confederate general and brilliant military tactician who served as General Robert E. Lee’s premier subordinate commander during the American Civil War.

Ulysses S Grant

commanding general of the Union Army who secured Northern victory through total war strategies and later served as the 18th U.S. President during Reconstruction

Underground Railroad

A secret, informal network of routes, safe houses, and abolitionist allies that helped enslaved African Americans escape from the South to free states and Canada.

USS Monitor

the Union's first ironclad warship during the American Civil War.

William T Sherman

Union general in the American Civil War best known for pioneering the strategy of total war to crush Confederate infrastructure and morale

Wilmot Provisio

1846 proposal by Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman David Wilmot to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico during the Mexican-American War.