Chapter 14

Front 1

Free Soil Party

Back 1

The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections

Front 2

Fugitive Slave Law

Back 2

The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850 It declared that all runaway slaves be brought back to their masters

Front 3

Harriet Tubman

Back 3

n African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War.

Front 4

Ostend Manifesto

Back 4

a document written in 1854 that described the rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain and implied the U.S. should declare war if Spain refused.

Front 5

Kansas Nebraska Act

Back 5

created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries.

Front 6

Wilmot Proviso

Back 6

one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed lands in south Texas and New Mexico east of the Rio Grande.

Front 7

William Lloyd Garrison

Back 7

a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United States.

Front 8

Frederick Douglas

Back 8

an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining renown for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. He became a major speaker for the cause of abolition.

Front 9

Popular Sovereignty

Back 9

the belief that the legitimacy of the state is created by the will or consent of its people, who are the source of all political power. It is closely associated to the social contract philosophers, among whom are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Front 10

Underground Railroad

Back 10

s to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists who aided the fugitives.

Front 11

Compromise of 1850

Back 11

an intricate package of five bills, passed in September 1850, defusing a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North that arose following the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The compromise, drafted by Whig Henry Clay and brokered by Democrat Stephen Douglas avoided secession or civil war at the time and quieted sectional conflict for four years.

Front 12

Dred Scott Decision

Back 12

a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants,[2] whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens.

Front 13

Panic of 1857

Back 13

a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and overexpansion of the domestic economy. Beginning in September of 1857, the financial downturn did not last long, however a proper recovery was not seen until the American Civil War.

Front 14

Uncle Toms Cabin

Back 14

an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman.[1]

Front 15

Bleeding Kansas

Back 15

a series of violent events, involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. state of Missouri roughly between 1854 and 1858. At the heart of the conflict was the question of whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free state or slave state.

Front 16

Crittenden Compromise

Back 16

an unsuccessful proposal by Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden to resolve the U.S. secession crisis of 1860–1861 by addressing the concerns that led the states in the Deep South of the United States to contemplate secession from the United States.

Front 17

Fort Sumter

Back 17

bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War.

Front 18

Jefferson Davis

Back 18

an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War; serving as the President for its entire history. A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce

Front 19

Anaconda Plan

Back 19

an outline strategy for subduing the seceding states in the American Civil War. Proposed by General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized the blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by the vociferous faction who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and who likened it to the coils of an anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name.

Front 20

Robert E. Lee

Back 20

a career United States Army officer and combat engineer. He became the commanding general of the Confederate army in the American Civil War and a postwar icon of the South's "lost cause". A top graduate of West Point, Lee distinguished himself as an exceptional soldier in the U.S. Army for 32 years. He is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War

Front 21

Ulysses S. Grant

Back 21

he 18th President of the United States (1869–1877) as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America.

Front 22

Iron Clads

Back 22

a steam-propelled warship in the early part of the second half of the 19th century, protected by iron or steel armor plates. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells

Front 23

Battle of Antietam

Back 23

fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000 casualties.

Front 24

Emancipation Proclamation

Back 24

an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War under his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with the rest freed as Union armies advanced. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced that he would issue a formal emancipation of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The actual order was signed and issued January 1, 1863;

Front 25

54th Regiment

Back 25

an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was one of the first official black units in the United States during the Civil War.

Front 26

Morril tariff act 1861

Back 26

an American protective tariff law adopted on March 2, 1861 during the Buchanan Administration and signed into law by President James Buchanan, a Democrat. The act is named after its sponsor, Representative Justin Morrill of Vermont, who drafted it with the advice of Pennsylvania economist Henry C. Carey. Passage was possible because many low-tariff Southerners had left Congress after their states declared their secession. The Morrill Tariff raised rates to protect and encourage industry and the high wages of industrial workers. It replaced the low Tariff of 1857, which was written to benefit the South

Front 27

Homestead Act 1862

Back 27

gave an applicant freehold title to up to 160 acres (65 hectares or one-fourth section) of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title.

Front 28

Pacific Railway Act 1862

Back 28

a series of acts of Congress that promoted the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the United States through authorizing the issuance of government bonds and the grants of land to railroad companies.

Front 29

National Bank Act 1863

Back 29

two United States federal laws that established a system of national charters for banks, the United States national banks. They encouraged development of a national currency based on bank holdings of U.S. Treasury securities, the so-called National Bank Notes ("greenbacks") and established the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as part of the Department of the Treasury and authorized the Comptroller to examine and regulate nationally-chartered banks. This was to establish a national security holding body for the existence of the monetary policy of the state.

Front 30

Battle of Vicksburg

Back 30

the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Front 31

Battle of Gettysburg

Back 31

ought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point.[8] Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.

Front 32

Copperheads

Back 32

a vocal group of Democrats in the Northern United States (see also Union (American Civil War)) who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. Republicans started calling anti-war Democrats "Copperheads," likening them to the poisonous snake. The Peace Democrats accepted the label, but for them the copper "head" was the likeness of Liberty, which they cut from copper pennies and proudly wore as badges. [1]

Front 33

New york draft riots 1863

Back 33

violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself.[4] President Abraham Lincoln sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops to control the city. The rioters were overwhelmingly working class men, resentful, among other reasons, because the draft unfairly affected them while sparing wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300.00 Commutation Fee to exclude themselves from its reach.[5][6]

Front 34

Appomattox

Back 34

fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was the final engagement of Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and one of the last battles of the American Civil War. Lee, having abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after the Siege of Petersburg, retreated west, hoping to join his army with the Confederate forces in North Carolina. Union forces pursued and cut off the Confederate retreat. Lee's final stand was at Appomattox Court House, where he launched an attack to break through the Union force to his front, but he assumed the Union force consisted entirely of cavalry. When he realized that the cavalry was backed up by two corps of Union infantry, he had no choice but to surrender.

Front 35

Trent Affair

Back 35

an international diplomatic incident that occurred during the American Civil War. On November 8, 1861, the USS San Jacinto, commanded by Union Captain Charles Wilkes, intercepted the British mail packet Trent and removed as contraband of war two Confederate diplomats, James Mason and John Slidell. The envoys were bound for Great Britain and France to press the Confederacy’s case for diplomatic recognition by Europe.

Front 36

Legal Tender Act 1862

Back 36

enacted to issue paper money to finance the Civil War without raising taxes. The paper money depreciated in terms of gold and became the subject of controversy, particularly because debts contracted earlier could be paid in this cheaper currency.