Chapter 14 Flashcards

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Kansas-Nebraska Act

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Created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands that would help the settlers settle in them, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries and to settle there. The initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to create opportunities for a Mideastern Transcontinental Railroad. It became problematic when popular sovereignty was written into the proposal. The act was designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.The act established that settlers could vote to decide whether to allow slavery, in the name of popular sovereignty or rule of the people. Douglas hoped that would ease relations between the North and the South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in its states. Instead, opponents denounced the law as a concession to the slave power of the South. The new Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged as the dominant force throughout the North.

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Know-Nothings

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Was a nativist American political movement of the 1840s and 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to Anglo-Saxon Protestant values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. Mainly active from 1854 to 1856, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, though its efforts met with little success. Membership was limited to Protestant males of British lineage over the age of twenty-one. There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class and entirely Protestant membership fragmented over the issue of slavery.The movement originated in New York in 1843 as the American Republican Party. It spread to other states as the Native American Party and became a national party in 1845. In 1855 it renamed itself the American Party.The origin of the "Know Nothing" term was in the semi-secret organization of the party. When a member was asked about its activities, he was supposed to reply, "I know nothing."

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John Brown

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Was a revolutionary abolitionist in the United States, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery for good. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. He was tried and executed for treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and conspiracy later that year. Brown has been called "the most controversial of all 19th-century Americans."Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the state of Virginia, the murder of five pro-slavery Southerners, and inciting a slave insurrection and was subsequently hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the Republican Party. Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the American Civil War.

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James Buchanan

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Was the 15th President of the United States (1857–1861). He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a life-long bachelor, and the last one born in the 18th century.Buchanan was a popular and experienced state politician and a successful attorney before his presidency. He represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives and later the Senate, and served as Minister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson. He also was Secretary of State under President James K. Polk. After turning down an offer for an appointment to the Supreme Court, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Minister to the United Kingdom, in which capacity he helped draft the controversial Ostend Manifesto.

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Dred Scott vs. Sanford

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Dred Scott v. Sandford was 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, whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens.

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Abe Lincoln

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Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination. As president, he led the country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis—the American Civil War—preserving the Union while ending slavery and promoting economic modernization.

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John Breckinridge

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John Cabell Breckinridge was an American lawyer and politician. He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Kentucky and was the 14th Vice President of the United States, to date the youngest vice president in U.S. history, inaugurated at age 36.

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John C Fremont

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John Charles Frémont was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States.

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Freeport Doctrine

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Was articulated by Stephen A. Douglas at the second of the Lincoln-Douglas debates on August 27, 1858, in Freeport, Illinois. Lincoln tried to force Douglas to choose between the principle of popular sovereignty proposed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the majority decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, which stated that slavery could not legally be excluded from U.S. territories (since Douglas professed great respect for Supreme Court decisions, and accused the Republicans of disrespecting the court, yet this aspect of the Dred Scott decision was contrary to Douglas' views and politically unpopular in Illinois). Instead of making a direct choice, Douglas' response stated that despite the court's ruling, slavery could be prevented from any territory by the refusal of the people living in that territory to pass laws favorable to slavery. Likewise, if the people of the territory supported slavery, legislation would provide for its continued existence.

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Impending Crisis of the South

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A book written by Hinton Rowan Helper, which he self-published in 1857. It was a strong attack on slavery as inefficient and a barrier to the economic advancement of whites. The book was widely distributed by Horace Greeley and other antislavery leaders, much to the vehement anger of the white Southern leaders.

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Lecompton Constitution

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The Lecompton Constitution was the second of four proposed constitutions for the state of Kansas. The document was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates. The territorial legislature, consisting mostly of slave-owners, met at the designated capital of Lecompton in September 1857 to produce a rival document. Free-state supporters, who comprised a large majority of actual settlers, boycotted the vote. Buchanan's appointee as territorial governor of Kansas, Robert J. Walker, although a strong defender of slavery, opposed the blatant injustice of the Constitution and resigned rather than implement it.This new constitution enshrined slavery in the proposed state and protected the rights of slaveholders. In addition, the constitution provided for a referendum that allowed voters the choice of allowing more

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Compromise of 1850

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Admitted California as a free state, Utah and NM with popular sovereignty, Texas compensated for losing New Mexico property by getting debts paid, strong Fugitive Slave Law, and a halt to the slave auctions and depots in D.C.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Published by Harriet Beecher Stowe that fixed in the northern mind the image of a slaveholder as a brutal Simon Legree. Portrayed slavery as threat to family and cult of domesticity

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Ostend Manifesto

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In October 1854, the American ministers to England, France, and Spain met in Ostend, Belgium, and drew up a memorandum for the administration urging acquisition of Cuba by any means necessary

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Preston Brooks

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a representative from South Carolina who attacked and beat Senator Charles Sumner during a Senate meeting. He attacked him for writing a speech that condemed the South for wanting to extend slavery to the Kansas territory. He badly hurt Sumner in this event.

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Squatter Sovereignty

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a representative from South Carolina who attacked and beat Senator Charles Sumner during a Senate meeting. He attacked him for writing a speech that condemed the South for wanting to extend slavery to the Kansas territory. He badly hurt Sumner in this event.

Squatter Sovereignty

this was a concept that became very popular in the 1850s because it allowed the settlers of the newly acquired territories to decide whether or not they wanted to have slavery in the new region.

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Fugitive Slave Law

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This law was a part of the compromise of 1850. It was an outrageous piece of legislation in that it denied suspect fugitive slaves a trial by jury, and the right to testify on their own behalf. It basically denied them basic constitutional rights. This power was greatly abused by Southerners during this time.

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Franklin Pierce

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Pierce was the Democratic candidate in the election of 1852. He ended up winning the election because he won a lot of Southern votes, and because people viewed the Democrats as the most promising supporters of the Compromise of 1850 during that time