Ap Us History: Unit 5: Key Terms: Chapter 17

Front 1

Bleeding Kansas (1856-1861)

Back 1

Civil war in Kansas over the issue of slavery in the territory, fought intermittently until 1861, when it merged with the wider national Civil War.

Front 2

Confederate States of America (1861-1865)

Back 2

Government established after seven Southern states seceded from the Union. Later joined by four more states from the Upper South.

Front 3

Constitutional Union party (1860)

Back 3

Formed by moderate Whigs and Know-Nothings in an effort to elect a compromise candidate and avert a sectional crisis.

Front 4

Crittenden amendments (1860)

Back 4

Proposed in an attempt to appease the South, the failed Constitutional amendments would have given federal protection for slavery in all territories south of 36°30’ where slavery was supported by popular sovereignty.

Front 5

Dred Scott v. Stanford (1857)

Back 5

Supreme Court decision that extended federal protection to slavery by ruling that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory. Also declared that slaves, as property, were not citizens of the United States.

Front 6

Freeport Doctrine (1858)

Back 6

Declared that since slavery could not exist without laws to protect it, territorial legislatures, not the Supreme Court, would have the final say on the slavery question. First argued by Stephen Douglass in 1858 in response to Abraham Lincoln’s “Freeport Question”.

Front 7

Freeport question (1858)

Back 7

Raised during one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates by Abraham Lincoln, who asked whether the Court or the people should decide the future of slavery in the territories.

Front 8

Harpers Ferry

Back 8

Federal arsenal in Virginia seized by abolitionist John Brown in 1859. Though Brown was later captured and executed, his raid alarmed Southerners who believed that Northerners shared in Brown’s extremism.

Front 9

Lecompton Constitution (1857)

Back 9

Proposed Kansas constitution, whose ratification was unfairly rigged so as to guarantee slavery in the territory. Initially ratified by proslavery forces, it was later voted down when Congress required that the entire constitution be put up for a vote.

Front 10

Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858)

Back 10

Series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass during the U.S. Senate race in Illinois. Douglass won the election but Lincoln gained national prominence and emerged as the leading candidate for the 1860 Republican nomination.

Front 11

New England Emigrant Aid Company (founded 1854)

Back 11

Organization created to facilitate the migration of free laborers to Kansas in order to prevent the establishment of slavery in the territory.

Front 12

panic of 1857

Back 12

Financial crash brought on by gold-fueled inflation, overspeculation and excess grain production. Raised calls in the North for higher tariffs and for free homesteads on western public lands.

Front 13

Tariff of 1857

Back 13

Lowered duties on imports in response to a high Treasury surplus and pressure from Southern farmers.

Front 14

The Impending Crisis of the South (1857)

Back 14

Antislavery tract, written by white Southerner Hinton R. Helper, arguing that nonslaveholding whites actually suffered most in a slave economy.

Front 15

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

Back 15

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery. It heightened Northern support for abolition and escalated the sectional conflict.