Midterm Study Guide on Rise of Modern America

These flashcards cover key terms related to the rise of modern America, focusing on events leading up to and during the Civil War, the Reconstruction era, and early industrialization.

Missouri Compromise

An agreement allowing Maine to enter as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, outlawing slavery north of the 36, 30 line.

Free-Soil Party

A political party that represented ideals of Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men, focused on protecting the rights of white men to get jobs.

Wilmot Proviso

A proposal to outlaw slavery in all lands won from the Mexican War; it was not passed.

Popular Sovereignty

The principle allowing voters in new territories to decide whether to allow slavery.

Compromise of 1850

A series of agreements including California as a free state and allowing New Mexico and Utah to decide on slavery via popular sovereignty.

Fugitive Slave Act

A law that allowed Southerners to claim escaped slaves in the North without legal paperwork, increasing tensions between North and South.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Legislation that further escalated sectional conflict by allowing the possibility of slavery in territories previously free.

Dred Scott Case

A Supreme Court decision stating that Dred Scott, a slave, could not sue for freedom as he was considered property, not a person.

Emancipation Proclamation

An executive order issued by Lincoln after the Battle of Antietam that freed slaves in the Confederate States.

Anaconda Plan

The Union's strategy to surround and isolate the Confederacy, cutting off resources and communications.

Gettysburg Address

A speech by Lincoln promising a new birth of freedom and emphasizing the principles of human equality.

Literacy Test

Exams enforced to prevent African Americans from voting by requiring them to prove their reading skills.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws that enforced racial segregation and restricted the freedoms of African Americans.

Gospel of Wealth

The belief that the wealthy should use their fortunes to benefit society and help others.

JP Morgan

A finance capitalist known for wielding influence over various types of businesses.

Vicksburg

A pivotal Civil War battle that split the Confederacy in half and was crucial for Union control in the West.

Buffalo Soldier

African American regiments that served in the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars.

Sharecropping

A system where former slaves worked on plantations in debt to landowners, maintaining a cheap labor supply.

Crittenden’s Compromise

An unsuccessful proposal to prevent Civil War by prohibiting slavery north of a new Missouri Compromise line.

Clara Barton

Famous for her role as a nurse in the Civil War.  Started the American Red Cross after the Civil War.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” a best seller on the horrors of slavery.  Won many northerns over to the cause of slavery.  

Frederick Douglass

Former slave who was a famous African American reformer and national leader of the abolitionist movement.  

Jefferson Davis: 

President of the Confederacy. Was a West Point Graduate and Secretary of War before the Civil War.

Robert E. Lee: 

Commander of the Confederate Army.  Surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.