APUSH Unit 5.1 Vocab List

  • Popular Sovereignty: The idea that the people living in a territory should decide whether it allows slavery.

  • Republican Party: A political party founded in the 1850s to oppose the expansion of slavery.

  • "Conscience Whigs": Anti-slavery members of the Whig Party.

  • Free Soil Movement: A political movement opposing the expansion of slavery into western territories.

  • Compromise of 1850: A series of laws intended to settle disputes over slavery, including admitting California as a free state and enacting a stricter Fugitive Slave Act.

  • Fugitive Slave Act: A law that required the return of escaped slaves to their owners, even if they were found in free states.

  • Panic of 1857: An economic depression in the United States caused by the declining international economy and overexpansion of the domestic economy.

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act: A law that allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide on the legality of slavery through popular sovereignty.

  • Lecompton Constitution: A proposed pro-slavery constitution for Kansas, which was rejected in a territorial vote.

  • "Bleeding Kansas": A series of violent conflicts between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas.

  • Stephen Douglas: A U.S. senator who championed popular sovereignty and debated Abraham Lincoln.

  • Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Illinois Senate race, primarily about slavery.

  • Freeport Doctrine: Stephen Douglas's assertion that a territory could exclude slavery by refusing to adopt laws establishing it, despite the Dred Scott decision.

  • Know Nothing Party: A nativist political party that opposed immigration and Catholic influence.

  • Underground Railroad: A secret network that helped enslaved African Americans escape to free states and Canada.

  • Dred Scott v. Sandford: An 1857 Supreme Court case that ruled African Americans were not citizens and had no rights, and Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.

  • Sumner-Brooks Incident: An 1856 event where Senator Charles Sumner was beaten with a cane by Representative Preston Brooks on the Senate floor.

  • John Brown: An abolitionist who led violent attacks against pro-slavery forces, including the raid on Harpers Ferry.

  • Harpers Ferry Raid: John Brown's 1859 attempt to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin: An anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that heightened Northern opposition to slavery.

  • Impending Crisis of the South: A book by Hinton Helper that argued slavery was economically harmful to non-slaveholding Southern whites.

  • George Fitzhugh: A Southern writer who defended slavery and argued that it was beneficial for slaves.

  • Election of 1860: The presidential election in which Abraham Lincoln won, leading to Southern secession.

  • Fort Sumter: A federal fort in Charleston, South Carolina, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.

  • Union: The Northern states during the Civil War, which supported the federal government.

  • Confederacy: The Southern states that seceded from the Union to form their own nation during the Civil War.

  • Jefferson Davis: The President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

  • Border States: Slave states that did not secede from the Union during the Civil War, including Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.

  • Conscription: Mandatory enlistment in the armed forces, commonly known as the draft.

  • Greenbacks: Paper currency issued by the Union during the Civil War to finance the war effort.