Pre Civil War Vocabulary

Abolitionist

A person who works to end slavery.

Border State

Slave state that remained in the Union during the Civil War.

Civil War

The period of warfare between the Confederate States of America (1861-1865) and the United States over the issues of states' rights and slavery.

Compromsie of 1850

Compromise that declared California free, and created the fugitive slave act.

Confederacy

Southern states that seceded from the United States (Union).

Cottonocracy

name for wealthy planters who made their money from cotton in the mid-1800s

Dred Scott Decision

1857 Supreme Court case that stated salves were not citizens and couldn't sue for their freedom.

Election of 1860

Abraham Lincoln's presidential win that pushed the southern states to secede. They believed Lincoln was an abolitionist and would abolish slavery.

Fugitive Slave Act

Law that punished anyone who aided runaway slaves and allowed slave owners in free states to find their runaways.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which increased support to abolitionist movement.

John Brown

Abolitionist who organized a failed attack at Harper's Ferry.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.

Missouri Compromise

1820 decision that permitted slavery south of the Missouri Compromise line and banned it north of the line. Missouri became a slave state and Maine a free state.

popular sovereignty

The vote of the people, not government decision.

Secede

To leave or withdraw. (The separation of the southern states from the United States).

Sectionalism

A strong devotion to your area of the country.

States Rights

the rights and powers held by individual US states rather than by the federal government.