Road to 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A law that repealed the Missouri Compromise.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 proslavery 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.

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.

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.