Civil War

Popular Sovereignty

What term refers to the notion that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery? Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by Northern abolitionists who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

Fugitive Slave Law

Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, it set high penalties for anyone who aided escaped slaves and compelled all law enforcement officers to participate in retrieving runaways. Strengthened the antislavery cause in the North.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

What was Harriet Beecher Stowe's widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery? It heightened Northern support for abolitions and escalated the sectional conflict.

Popular Sovereignty

In defending the Kansas-Nebraska Act, what did Stephen A. Douglas press for the American people to be able to do?

black codes and Jim Crow laws

What laws during Reconstruction might Frederick Douglas view as a "sham" or disgrace?

New York Draft Riots

Uprisings during the Civil War (1863), mostly of working-class Irish-Americans, in protest of the draft. Rioters were particularly incensed by the ability of the rich to hire substitutes or purchase exemptions.

Emancipation Proclamation

1863. Declared all slaves in rebelling states to be free but did not affect slavery in non-rebelling Border States. The Proclamation closed the door on possible compromise with the South and encouraged thousands of Southern slaves to flee to Union lines.

Sherman's March to the Sea

1864-1865. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive march through Georgia. An early instance of "total war", purposely targeting infrastructure and civilian property to diminish morale and undercut the Confederate War effort.

13th

Which amendment freed slaves?

Freedmans' Bureau

What was the organization created to aid emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support? 1865-1872

14th

Which amendment made "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" citizens of the nation?

Black Codes

Laws (from 1865 to 1866) passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated blacks, particularly with respect to negotiating labor contracts. Increased Northerners' criticisms of President Andrew Johnson's lenient Reconstruction policies.

KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

What was the violent, secret society founded in the mid-nineteenth century and revived during the 1920s? Its members, cloaked in sheets to conceal their identities, terrorized freedmen and sympathetic whites throughout the South after the Civil War.

15th

Which amendment allowed former slaves to vote?

Sharecropping

An agricultural system that emerged after the Civil War in which black and white farmers rented land and residences from a plantation owner in exchange for giving him a certain "share" of each year's crop. Sharecropping was the dominant form of southern agriculture after the Civil War, and landowners manipulated this system to keep tenants in perpetual debt and unable to leave their plantation.

Hayes-Tilden Election

The South conceded to let Hayes win the presidency because he agreed to pull out the troops.

Compromise of 1850

What admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington D.C., and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law? Widely opposed in both the North and South, it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery.

slavery

Frederick Douglas said "we still linger in the shadow and blight of an extinct institution." What institution was he referring to ?

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854. Proposed that the issue of slavery be decided by popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska territories, thus revoking the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Stephen Douglass in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

Homestead Act

1862. A federal law that gave settlers 160 acres of land for about $30 if they lived on it for five years and improved it by, for instance, building a house on it. The act helped make land accessible to hundreds of thousands of westward-moving settlers, but many people also found disappointment when their land was infertile or they saw speculators grabbing up the best land.

Gettysburg Address

1863. Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted speech, delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg battlefield. In the address, Lincoln framed the war as a means to uphold the values of liberty.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Which 1857 Supreme Court case denied Congress the power to regulate slavery in the territories?

Appomattox Court House

Where did Robert E. Lee surrender to Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865 after almost a year of brutal fighting throughout Virginia in the "Wilderness Campaign"?

admitting California as a free state

What did northerners consider as the most appealing part of the Compromise of 1850?

10% Reconstruction Plan

1863. Introduced by President Lincoln, it proposed that a state be readmitted to the Union once 10 percent of its voters had pledged loyalty to the United States and promised to honor emancipation of slaves.

Reconstruction Amendments

13th: Abolished slavery except for criminal punishment.

14th: Gave equal rights and government protection to all men.

15th: Secured suffrage for men.

Scott's living in a free territory had made him free

What was the basis of the Dred Scott court case?

Fugitive Slave Law

What did southerners consider the most appealing part of the Compromise of 1850? It's the only thing they got but the one thing that will tear apart the compromise.

Radical Republicans

What was the most liberal part of the Republican Party? Desired political, economic, and social equality for African Americans. Wanted harsh punishment for the South after the Civil War. Became much more powerful after Andrew Johnson's impeachment.

Emancipation Proclamation

During the Civil War, the North struggled to win battles. What political way did the North find to undermine the South?

Election of Lincoln

What 1860 event angered many people in the south who owned slaves because he wanted to end slavery? South Carolina was happy about this because now it had a reason to secede.

Anaconda Plan

Union war plan by Winfield Scott, called for blockade of southern coast, capture of Richmond, capture of the Mississippi River, and to take an army through heart of south.

Abolitionist Movement

What was the movement to end the practice of slavery within the entirety of the United States?

The American Party (The Know-Nothing Party)

(1840s-1850s) This political party carried anti-immigrant sentiments against the Catholic and the Irish and saw some electoral success.

Free-Soil Party

(1848) Which political party was dedicated to stopping the expansion of slavery into new territories?

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

(1848) The Mexican government gave up the area of Texas and offered to sell the provinces of California and New Mexico as a result of its defeat in the Mexican-American War.

South Carolina seceded

What was the immediate result of Lincoln's election in 1860?

Gadsden Purchase

(1853) Agreement w/ Mexico that gave the US parts of present-day New Mexico & Arizona in exchange for $10 million; all but completed the continental expansion envisioned by those who believed in Manifest Destiny.

supportive

How would Frederick Douglas have felt about the Emancipation Proclamation?

Bleeding Kansas

(1856-1861) A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

(1857) Which Supreme Court case that decided US Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in federal territories and slaves, as private property, could not be taken away without due process?

required ordinary citizens to report runaway slaves

Why did Northerners get so upset about the Fugitive Slave Law?

John Brown

(1859) Who hoped to start a rebellion against slaveholders by arming enslaved African Americans in Harper's Ferry, Virginia? He was quickly defeated by citizens and federal troops. He became a villain to southerners who now thought northerners would use violence to end slavery as well as a martyr to some northerners who saw him as someone who sacrificed himself for the ideal of freedom for all.

Gettysburg Address

What famous speech of Lincoln can be seen as a continuation of his beliefs about the relationship between slavery and the war after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation?

The Union/U.S. cannot be separated.

What was the main idea of Lincoln's First Inaugural Address (1861)?

Election of 1860

Which election set the stage for the American Civil War? Hardly more than a month following Lincoln's victory came declarations of secession by South Carolina and other states, which were rejected as illegal by outgoing President James Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln.

Civil Rights Act of 1867

(1867) Banned discrimination in public accommodations, prohibited discrimination in any federally assisted program, outlawed discrimination in most employment; enlarged federal powers to protect voting rights and to speed school desegregation.

westward expansion

What was the term Manifest Destiny first used to support?

Indians losing land, expansion, transportation technology

What elements are depicted in the painting?

Thirteenth Amendment

(1865) The constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude.

Fourteenth Amendment

(1868) Provided equal protection of the law to freed slaves. Representation for any state that withheld voting from African Americans would be reduced.

preserving the union

When Lincoln took office, what was his main goal?

Fifteenth Amendment

(1870) Prohibited any state from denying citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Compromise of 1877

(1877) It withdrew federal soldiers from their remaining position in the South, enacted federal legislation that would spur industrialization in the South, appointed Democrats to patronage positions in the south, appointed a Democrat to the president's cabinet, and allowed Rutherford B. Hayes to win the election. Marked the end of reconstruction.

It might become a slave state.

Why did some people worry about Texas being admitted to the United States?

Fugitive Slave Law

What part of the Compromise of 1850 did Northerners get most upset over?

Manifest Destiny

A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

elections

Lincoln believed this to be a protector of American freedom?

Texas Annexation

1845. Originally refused in 1837, as the U.S. Government believed that the annexation would lead to war with Mexico. Texas remained a sovereign nation. Annexed via a joint resolution through Congress, supported by President-elect Polk, and approved in 1845. Land from the Republic of Texas later became parts of NM, CO, OK, KS, and WY.

Republican Party

What political party was established by anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats, "free-soilers" and reformers from the Northwest? It was formed in order to keep slavery out of the territories.

Stephen A. Douglas

Which senator from Illinois ran for president against Abraham Lincoln and was a leading voice in the debates over slavery and its expansion before the Civil War? Wrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Freeport Doctrine.

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the United States saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865)

secession

What term refers to the formal withdrawal of states or regions from a nation?

habeas corpus

Petition requiring law enforcement officers to present detained individuals before the court to examine the legality of the arrest. Protects individuals from arbitrary state action. Suspended by Lincoln during the Civil War.

sectionalism

What term described the growing differences between the regions of the United States, especially the North and South, leading up to the Civil War?

Robert E. Lee

Confederate general who had opposed secession but did not believe the Union should be held together by force. Military genius whose aggressiveness made him a fearsome opponent throughout the Civil War.

Fort Sumter

Federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; the confederate attack on the fort marked the start of the Civil War.

Battle of Antietam

A battle near a sluggish little creek, it proved to be the bloodiest single day battle in American History with over 26,000 lives lost in that single day. Prevented an Confederate invasion of Maryland.

Battle of Vicksburg

Grant besieged the city from May 18 to July 4, 1863, until it surrendered, yielding command of the Mississippi River to the Union effectively splitting the South in two.

Battle of Gettysburg

A large battle in the American Civil War, took place in southern Pennsylvania from July 1 to July 3, 1863. Union General George G. Meade led an army of about 90,000 men to victory against General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army of about 75,000. Proved to be a significant turning point in the war because of the loss of about 1/3 of Lee's army.

Ulysses S. Grant

An American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Which Union General destroyed South during "march to the sea" from Atlanta to Savannah? It was an example of total war and "scorched-earth" military tactics.

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

Who the confederate general known for his fearlessness in leading rapid marches, bold flanking movements, and furious assaults? He earned his nickname at the battle of first bull run for standing courageously against union fire. During the battle of Chancellorsville his own men accidently mortally wounded him.

martial law

What term refers to rule by the army instead of the elected government (such as in the South as a result of the Military Reconstruction Act)?

emergency powers

Wide-ranging powers a president may exercise during times of crisis or those powers permitted the president by Congress for a limited time.

Radical Reconstruction

What name was given to the period when Congress, which was controlled by Republicans, took over Reconstruction efforts? When southerners balked at some of the more moderate reforms proposed, more radical republicans started to gain more power and pass more legislation.

Military Reconstruction Act

1867. Divided the South into five districts and placed them under military rule; required Southern States to ratify the 14th amendment; guaranteed freedmen the right to vote in convention to write new state constitutions

Freedmen's Bureau

What organization (turned government agency) run by the army to care for and protect southern Blacks after the Civil War, sometimes including settling them on confiscated confederate lands?

Election of 1876

What event ended reconstruction because neither candidate had an electoral majority? The Democrat Sam Tilden loses the election to Rutherford B Hayes, Republican, was elected, and then ended reconstruction as he secretly promised.

carpetbagger

What was the term for a northerner who went to the South immediately after the Civil War; especially one who tried to gain political advantage or other advantages from the disorganized situation in southern states (as viewed from the southern perspective)?

scalawag

What was the derogatory term for southerners who worked with the North to buy up land from desperate southerners? The term was sometimes used in a general way by southerners criticizing other southerners who had northern sympathies.

Frederick Douglass

Which escaped slave who spoke publicly for the abolitionist cause? He wrote his autobiography, depicting the harsh realities of Southern slavery. He also looked to politics to help abolish slavery.

Cotton Kingdom

Areas in the south where cotton farming developed because of the high demand for cotton and soon dominated the economy.

American Colonization Society

Created in 1817 and supported by some blacks and whites, its purpose was to transport African Americans back to Africa once they had been freed from slavery. Idea was based on the idea that whites and blacks could not live as equals in America, even if slavery were abolished.

John C. Calhoun

Which South Carolina senator argued for states' rights for the South? He asked for slavery to be left alone, slaves to be returned to the South, and state balance to be kept intact.

Underground Railroad

Secret system of safe houses along a route that led many slaves to freedom in the North and eventually Canada.

Roger Taney

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote an opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that declared the Missouri compromise unconstitutional, thereby legally preventing Congress from prohibiting slavery in new territories (and made Popular Sovereignty illegal).

Jefferson Davis

Who was president of the Confederate States of America prior to and during the Civil War?

self-determination

What term refers to the ability of a people/government to determine their own course or future using their own free will?

Pottawatomie Creek Massacre

In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence (Kansas) by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers killed five pro-slavery settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas.

Lincoln-Douglas

Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas to debates during the senatorial race of 1858 which became a public referendum on the issue of slavery.

Border States

Southern states that never chose secession and joined the Confederacy during the Civil War (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Deleware).

Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States, A Southerner form Tennessee, as V.P. when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote.

John Wilkes Booth

Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865?

George B. McClellan

Who was the first commander of the Army of the Potomac? He was well-known for being a master at training an army; was replaced several times by President Lincoln during the Civil War because of his timidness and sometimes outright refusal to send his army into battle.

Merrimack (the Virginia) v. Monitor

Which battle between for first "ironclad" naval vessels marked a new age in naval warfare?

Copperheads

What was the nickname for Northerners who were pro-Confederacy?

First Battle of Bull Run (Battle of Manassas)

What was the (July 1861) first major conflict of the Civil War. Southern victory led to overconfidence?