US History: Antebellum
Terms
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- Wilmot Proviso
- Amendment by northern democrat that forbade slavery in the Mexican Cession
- Dred Scott Decision
- Landmark court decision that ruled that slaves were property and antislavery laws were unconstitutional
- Preston Brooks
- Responsible for beating radical republican Charles Sumner with his cane
- Abolitionists
- These were Hinton Helper, Beecher Stowe, Tubman, Dwight Weld, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass (plural)
- 1856
- Election year: James Buchanan (untainted by compromise) v. Fremont (Republican war hero) v. Milliard Fillmore (Know-nothing)
- Shawnee Mission
- Name of pro-slavery government in Kansas
- Know-Nothing Party
- Anti-foreign political party that didn't do much. One of the first nativist "American" parties.
- Bleeding Kansas
- Term referring to bloodshed over popular sovereignty in a particular western territory
- Daniel Webster
- Senator who, originally pro-North, supported the Compromise of 1850 and subsequently lost favor from his constituency
- Confederate States of America
- When the states seceded, they formed this country
- Fugitive Slave Act
- Stringent set of laws that allows Southern slave-catchers to pursue slaves into the north.
- 1848
- Election year, Democrat Lewis Cass v. Whig Zachary Taylor (no experience) v. Free Soil Van Buren. Taylor wins
- Panic of 1857
- Economic downturn caused by overspeculation of western lands, railroads, gold in California, grain. Mostly affected northerners, who called for higher tariffs and free homesteads
- Lincoln-Douglas Debates
- Set of debates between Lincoln and Douglas that leads to the Freeport Doctrine and Douglas's win of the Senate position in Illinois
- Pottawamie Creek
- Site of anti-slavery kills of 5 pro-slavery men lead by John Brown
- Henry Clay
- Whig senator who helped make the Compromise of 1850
- Republican Party
- Political party that believed in the non-expansion of slavery and comprised of Whigs, Northern Democrats, and Free-Soilers, in defiance to the Slave Powers
- Crittenden Amendments
- Last ditch attempt to restore status quo at thirty-six thirty, too little too late
- Topeka
- Name of anti-slavery government in Kansas
- Sack of Lawrence
- Pro-slavery sack of anti-slavery town
- Uncle Tom's Cabin
- Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, it helped stirred northern abolitionist sentiment
- Charles Sumner
- Radical Republican against the slave power who insults Andrew Butler and subsequently gets caned by Preston Brooks
- William Seward
- Senator and Secretary of State who believed in a "higher law" above the constitution and was staunchly anti-slavery
- Personal Liberty Laws
- Bills enacted by northerners in response to the injustices of the Fugitive Slave Act
- Fort Sumner
- Site of the first open hostilities of the civil war, no casualties
- California Gold Rush
- Trigger by discovery at Sutter's Mill, leads to mass migration to California
- Kansas-Nebraska Act
- Creates the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and opens the slave issue to popular sovereignty
- South Carolina
- First state to secede from the Union
- Raid at Harper's Ferry
- Pre-Civil War skirmish in which John Brown attempts to incite a slave uprising by seizing arms. Due to lack of communication, nothing happens, and Brown is hanged (and martyred)
- Compromise of 1850
- Forestalled the Civil War by instating the Fugitive Slave Act , banning slave trade in DC, admitting California as a free state, splitting up the Texas territory, and instating popular sovereignty in the Mexican Cession
- Ostend Manifesto
- Southerners meet with Spain on sail of Cuba, Northern senators don't want it due to slave potential
- Stephen Douglas
- Senator from Illinois, author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Freeport Doctrine, argues in favor of popular sovereignty
- Freeport Doctrine
- Idea authored by Stephen Douglas that claimed slavery could only exist when popular sovereignty said so
- Zachary Taylor
- President. Former war hero during Mexican war,
- James Buchanan
- Antebellum president who claimed that secession was illegal but going to war was also illegal, indecisive
- John Calhoun
- Staunchly pro-slavery vice-president, engineering the Compromise of 1850 and helping further split the nations
- 1852
- Election Year, Democratic Franklin Pierce v. Whig Winfield Scott
- 1860
- Election year: Stephen Douglas (Northern Democrat) v. John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democrat) v. Abraham Lincoln (Republican) v. John Bill (Constitutional Union); South threaten to secede if Lincoln is elected
- Underground Railroad
- Clandestine network of abolitionists who aided the escape of slaves
- Impending Crisis
- By Hinton Helper, this book argued that slavery was harmful to whites who did not own slaves
- Lecompton Constitution
- Pro-slave constitution that got voted in for Kansas after anti-slavery people boycotted the election
- Jefferson Davis
- President of the Confederate States of America