HIUS 112: US Civil War — Midterm Exam Flashcard Study Guide

Exam-focused vocabulary flashcards covering the core legal, political, military, and diplomatic topics of HIUS 112: US Civil War Midterm.

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

A statute enacted under the Compromise of 1850 to appease Southern slaveholders; it denied accused runaways jury trials or the right to testify, assigned hearings to federal commissioners, and penalized citizens who refused to assist in renditions.

U.S. Commissioners (Fugitive Slave Law)

Federal adjudicators who received $\$10$ for returning an alleged runaway to slavery versus $\$5$ for setting them free; nationwide, just $4$ aggressive commissioners accounted for half of all renditions.

Black Vigilance Committees

Organized networks of Black activists and lawyers who utilized procedural delays in fugitive slave hearings, forcing legal costs to reach \750\text{–}\$1,450+$ and making the rendition of freedom seekers financially unviable.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Legislation promoted by Senator Stephen A. Douglas organizing territories under Popular Sovereignty and explicitly repealing the Missouri Compromise line of $36^\circ 30'$, causing the collapse of the Whig Party and the Second Party System.

Popular Sovereignty

The political doctrine stipulating that the legal status of slavery in a territory should be determined by the vote of its local territorial settlers.

Republican Party (1854)

A political party established in 1854 following the disintegration of the Whig Party, specifically founded to halt the territorial expansion of slavery.

Bleeding Kansas

Guerrilla warfare in Kansas Territory between Missouri proslavery 'border ruffians' backing the Lecompton Constitution and anti-slavery Free-Soilers involved in retaliatory raids under John Brown.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Supreme Court ruling delivered by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declaring that African Americans had no federal citizenship rights, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional under the 5th Amendment, and territorial bans on slavery prior to statehood were invalid.

Curtis Dissent

The dissenting opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford that refuted Taney's claims by documenting that free Black men possessed voting rights in several Northern states at the Founding.

Freeport Doctrine

Stephen A. Douglas's argument that territorial legislatures could effectively ban slavery by withholding local protective police regulations, an assertion that alienated Southern Democrats before the 1860 election.

The Wide Awakes

A Republican youth paramilitary marching organization founded in Hartford, CT (March 1860) whose members wore black oilcloth capes, carried flaming torches, and mobilized voters through disciplined infantry drill.

Free Labor Ideology

The Northern Republican economic and social philosophy emphasizing social mobility and the dignity of independent labor, contrasted against the aristocratic Southern 'Slave Power.'

Lincoln's First Inaugural Address (March 1861)

Address in which Lincoln declared the Union perpetual, designated secession as 'the essence of anarchy,' pledged to hold federal property, and reassured the Border States by disclaiming any constitutional power to interfere with slavery where it already existed.

Conciliation Strategy (Grimsley)

The initial Union military policy premised on the belief that white Southern civilians were latent Unionists; it required federal soldiers to respect Southern private property (including enslaved people) and refrain from harming non-combatants.

Corwin Amendment

A proposed constitutional amendment protecting slavery in existing states that was supported by Lincoln in March 1861 to prevent the secession of key Border States (MD, KY, MO, DE).

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Founding-era congressional legislation cited by Unionists and Lincoln as primary precedent that the Founders intended to contain slavery by explicitly banning it from new western territories.

King Cotton Strategy

The Confederate diplomatic doctrine assuming that European reliance on Southern raw cotton for textile mills would force Great Britain to recognize the Confederacy and break the Union naval blockade.

Trent Affair (November 1861)

A high-stakes diplomatic crisis triggered by the Union navy intercepting Confederate envoys aboard a British vessel, which was subsequently defused by Union diplomacy to avoid European intervention.

Battle of Antietam (September 1862)

A strategic military engagement in Maryland that halted Lee's invasion, providing Abraham Lincoln the political victory required to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and end British intervention prospects.

Dakota War of 1862

An armed conflict in Minnesota provoked by treaty land loss ($24\text{ million}$ acres), delayed gold annuity payments, starvation, and trader exploitation, sparked when $4$ Dakota men killed $5$ settlers near Acton.

Andrew Myrick

A trader whose dismissive statement to starving Dakota people ('Let them eat grass') symbolized commercial exploitation and intensified the grievances that sparked the Dakota War of 1862.

Mankato Executions (December 26, 1862)

The execution by hanging of $38$ Dakota men in Minnesota following the Dakota War of 1862, recognized as the largest mass execution in United States history.

1863 Abrogation Act and Dakota Removal Act

Federal wartime statutes that completely annulled previous treaties with the Dakota nation and mandated the forcible expulsion and internment of Dakota survivors at Crow Creek.

Black Colonization

The policy advocated by Lincoln between 1861 and 1862 promoting voluntary Black emigration to Central America or the Caribbean, adopted to comfort conservative whites and abandoned after Black resistance and military enlistment.

Île à Vache

A small island off the coast of Haiti that served as the location of an experimental colonization expedition backed by the Lincoln administration, which ended in total disaster.

United States Colored Troops (USCT)

The military branch comprising over $180{,}000+$ Black soldiers whose combat service led Lincoln to reject colonization and publicly advocate for Black citizenship and voting rights in April 1865.