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| A moderate, who introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and popularized the idea of popular sovereignty. |
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| The doctrine that stated that the people of a territory had the right to decide their own laws by voting. In the Kansas-Nebraska Act, popular sovereignty would decide whether a territory allowed slavery. |
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| According to the Missouri Compromise (1820), slavery was forbidden in the Louisiana territory north of the 36º30' N latitude. This was nullified by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. |
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| Election of 1856: Republican Party, Know-Nothing Party |
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Definition
| Democrat - James Buchanan (won by a narrow margin). Republican - John Fremont. Know- Nothing Party and Whig - Millard Fillmore. First election for the Republican Party. Know- Nothings opposed immigration and Catholic influence. They answered questions from outsiders about the party by saying "I know nothing". |
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Term
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| Also known as the Kansas Border War. Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, pro-slavery forces from Missouri, known as the Border Ruffians, crossed the border into Kansas and terrorized and murdered antislavery settlers. Antislavery sympathizers from Kansas carried out reprisal attacks, the most notorious of which was John Brown's 1856 attack on the settlement at Pottawatomie Creek. The war continued for four years before the antislavery forces won. The violence it generated helped percipitate the Civil War. |
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| 1855 - Where the pro-slavery /anti-slavery war in Kansas began ("Bleeding Kansas or Kansas Border War). |
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| During the Kansas border war, the New England Emigrant Aid Society sent rifles at the instigation of fervid abolitionists like the preacher Henry Beecher. These rifles became known as "Beecher's Bibles". |
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| In 1859, the militant abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry. He planned to end slavery by massacring slave owners and freeing their slaves. He was captured and executed. |
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| John Brown let a part of six in Kansas that killed 5 pro-slavery men. This helped make the Kansas border war a national issue. |
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| New England Emigrant Aid Company |
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Definition
| Promoted anti-slavery migration to Kansas. The movement encouraged 2600 people to move. |
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Term
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| 1856 - Charles Sumner gave a two day speech on the Senate floor. He denounced the South for crimes against Kansas and singled out Senator Andrew Brooks of South Carolina for extra abuse. Brooks beat Sumner over the head with his cane, severely crippling him. Sumner was the first Republican martyr. |
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| The pro-slavery constitution suggested for Kansas' admission to the union. It was rejected. |
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| A Missouri slave sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S, Supreme Court decided he couldn't sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen. |
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| Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (pronounced "Tawny") |
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Definition
| As chief justice, he wrote the important decision in the Dred Scott case, upholding police power of states and asserting the principle of social responsibility of private property. He was Southern and upheld the fugitive slave laws. |
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Term
| Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 during Illinois Senatorial campaign |
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Definition
| A series of seven debates. The two argued the important issues of the day like popular sovereignty, the Lecompton Constitution and the Dred Scott decision. Douglas won these debates, but Lincoln's position in these debates helped him beat Douglas in the 1860 presidential election. |
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| During the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Douglas said in his Freeport Doctrine that Congress couldn't force a territory to become a slave state against its will. |
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Term
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Definition
| Began with the failure of the Ohio Life Insurance Company and spread to the urban east. The depression affected the industrial east and the wheat belt more than the South. |
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Term
| George Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society |
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Definition
| The most influential propagandist in the decade before the Civil War. In his Sociology (1854), he said that the capitalism of the North was a failure. In another writing he argued that slavery was justified when compared to the cannibalistic approach of capitalism. Tried to justify slavery. |
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| Hinton Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South |
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Definition
| Hinton Helper of North Carolina spoke for poor, non-slave-owing Whites in his 1857 book, which as a violent attack on slavery. It wasn't written with sympathy for Blacks, who Helper despised, but with a belief that the economic system of the South was bringing ruin on the small farmer. |
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Term
| Lincoln's "House Divided" speech |
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Definition
| In his acceptance speech for his nomination to the Senate in June, 1858, Lincoln paraphrased from the Bible: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." He continued, "I do not believe this government can continue half slave and half free, I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do believe it will cease to be divided." |
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Term
| John Brown, Harper's Ferry Raid |
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Definition
| In 1859, the militant abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry. He planned to end slavery by massacring slave owners and freeing their slaves. He was captured and executed. |
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| Election of 1860: candidates, parties, issues |
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Definition
| Republican - Abraham Lincoln. Democrat - Stephan A. Douglas, John C. Breckenridge. Constitutional Union - John Bell. Issues were slavery in the territories (Lincoln opposed adding any new slave states). |
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Term
| Democratic Party Conventions: Baltimore, Charleston |
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Definition
| The Democratic Party split North and South. The Northern Democratic convention was held in Baltimore and the Southern in Charleston. Douglas was the Northern candidate and Breckenridge was the Southern (they disagreed on slavery). |
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| He was a moderate and wanted the union to stay together. After Southern states seceded from the Union, he urged the middle states to join the North. |
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| John Breckinridge (1821-1875) |
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Definition
| Nominated by pro-slavers who had seceded from the Democratic convention, he was strongly for slavery and states' rights. |
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Term
| Republican Party: 1860 platform, supporter, leaders |
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Definition
| 1860 platform: free soil principles, a protective tariff. Supporters: anti-slavers, business, agriculture. Leaders: William M. Seward, Carl Shulz. |
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Term
| Buchanan and the Secession Crisis |
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Definition
| After Lincoln was elected, but before he was inaugurated, seven Southern states seceded. Buchanan, the lame duck president, decided to leave the problem for Lincoln to take care of. |
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Term
| Crittenden Compromise proposal |
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Definition
| A desperate measure to prevent the Civil War, introduced by John Crittenden, Senator from Kentucky, in December 1860. The bill offered a Constitutional amendment recognizing slavery in the territories south of the 36º30' line, noninterference by Congress with existing slavery, and compensation to the owners of fugitive slaves. Republicans, on the advice of Lincoln, defeated it. |
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| States bordering the North: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. They were slave states, but did not secede. |
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Term
| South's advantages in the Civil War |
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Definition
| Large land areas with long coasts, could afford to lose battles, and could export cotton for money. They were fighting a defensive war and only needed to keep the North out of their states to win. Also had the nation's best military leaders, and most of the existing military equipment and supplies. |
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Term
| North's advantages in the Civil War |
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Definition
| Larger numbers of troops, superior navy, better transportation, overwhelming financial and industrial reserves to create munitions and supplies, which eventually outstripped the South's initial material advantage. |
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Term
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Definition
| Site of the opening engagement of the Civil War. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and had demanded that all federal property in the state be surrendered to state authorities. Major Robert Anderson concentrated his units at Fort Sumter, and, when Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, Sumter was one of only two forts in the South still under Union control. Learning that Lincoln planned to send supplies to reinforce the fort, on April 11, 1861, Confederate General Beauregard demanded Anderson's surrender, which was refused. On April 12, 1861, the Confederate Army began bombarding the fort, which surrendered on April 14, 1861. Congress declared war on the Confederacy the next day. |
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Term
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| At Bull Run, a creek, Confederate soldiers charged Union men who were en route to besiege Richmond. Union troops fled back to Washington. Confederates didn't realize their victory in time to follow up on it. First major battle of the Civil War - both sides were ill-prepared. |
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| First engagement ever between two iron-clad naval vessels. The two ships battled in a portion of the Cheasepeake Bay known as Hampton Roads for five hours on March 9, 1862, ending in a draw. Monitor - Union. Merrimac - Confederacy. Historians use the name of the original ship Merrimac on whose hull the Southern ironclad was constructed, even though the official Confederate name for their ship was the CSS Virginia. |
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Term
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| General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson were major leaders and generals for the Confederacy. Best military leaders in the Civil War. |
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Term
| Grant, McClellan, Sherman and Meade |
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Definition
| Union generals in the Civil War. |
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Term
| Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam, Appomattox |
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| Battle sites of the Civil War. Gettysburg - 90,000 soldiers under Meade vs. 76,000 under Lee, lasted three days and the North won. Vicksburg - besieged by Grant and surrendered after six months. Antietam - turning point of the war and a much-needed victory for Lincoln. Appomattox - Lee surrendered to Grant. |
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| Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens |
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Definition
| Davis was chosen as president of the Confederacy in 1861. Stephens was vice-president. |
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Definition
| Starting in 1862, the North began to blockade the Southern coast in an attempt to force the South to surrender. The Southern coast was so long that it could not be completely blockaded. |
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| Cotton was a cash crop and could be sold for large amounts of money. Wheat was mainly raised to feed farmers and their animals. The North had to choose which to grow. |
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| Lincoln believed that anti-war Northern Democrats harbored traitorous ideas and he labeled them "Copperheads", poisonous snakes waiting to get him. |
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| Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham |
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Definition
| An anti-war Democrat who criticized Lincoln as a dictator, called him "King Abraham". He was arrested and exiled to the South. |
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Term
| Suspension of habeas corpus |
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Definition
| Lincoln suspended this writ, which states that a person cannot be arrested without probable cause and must be informed of the charges against him and be given an opportunity to challenge them. Throughout the war, thousands were arrested for disloyal acts. Although the U.S. Supreme Court eventually held the suspension edict to be unconstitutional, by the time the Court acted the Civil War was nearly over. |
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Term
| Republican legislation passed in Congress after Southerners left: banking, tariff, homestead, transcontinental railroad |
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Definition
| With no Southerners to vote them down, the Northern Congressman passed all the bills they wanted to. Led to the industrial revolution in America. |
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Term
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Definition
| The poor were drafted disproportionately, and in New York in 1863, they rioted, killing at least 73 people. |
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Term
| Emancipation Proclamation |
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Definition
| September 22, 1862 - Lincoln freed all slaves in the states that had seceded, after the Northern victory at the Battle of Antietam. Lincoln had no power to enforce the law. |
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| Minister to Great Britain during the Civil War, he wanted to keep Britain from entering the war on the side of the South. |
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| Great Britain: Trent, Alabama, Laird rams, "Continuous Voyage" |
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Definition
| A Union frigate stopped the Trent, a British steamer and abducted two Confederate ambassadors aboard it. The Alabama was a British-made vessel and fought for the Confederacy, destroying over 60 Northern ships in 22 months. The Laird rams were ships specifically designed to break blockades; the English prevented them from being sold to the South. |
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Term
| Election of 1864: candidates, parties |
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Definition
| Lincoln ran against Democrat General McClellan. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes to 21, but the popular vote was much closer. (Lincoln had fired McClellan from his position in the war.) |
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| Financing of the war effort by North and South |
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Definition
| The North was much richer than the South, and financed the war through loans, treasury notes, taxes and duties on imported goods. The South had financial problems because they printed their Confederate notes without backing them with gold or silver. |
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