Chapter 15 Vocab

Front 1

Stephen Douglas

Back 1

leading democratic contender for the 1860 presidential nomination, but before he could mount a campaign for national office, he had to first win reelection to the Illinois seat he had held in the U.S senate for twelve years. he voted against allowing slavery in Kansas

Front 2

Abraham Lincoln

Back 2

Represented Illinois in the House of Representatives in the 1840's but had lost political support in 1848 because he had opposed the Mexican american war.Developing a prosperous Springfield law practice he had been an influential member of the Illinois Republican Party since its founding in 1856

Front 3

Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Back 3

Series of seven debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign during which Douglas and Lincoln staked out their differing opinions on the issue of slavery

Front 4

Walt Whitman

Back 4

poet who experimented with unrhymed and off-rhyme verse

Front 5

Henry David Thoreau

Back 5

published Walden in 1854. A pastoral celebration of his life at walden pond, in concord, Massachusetts, the essay was also a searching meditation on the cost to the individual of the loss of contact with nature that was a consequence of the market revolution.

Front 6

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Back 6

young Goodman Brown 1835
the scarlet letter 1850
the house of the seven gables 1851
Hawthorne brilliantly exposed the repressive and hypocritical aspects of puritan new england in the colonial period and the often impossible moral choices faced by individuals

Front 7

Herman Melville

Back 7

moby dick 1851
used the story of captain Ahab's obsessive search for the white whale to write a profound study of the nature of good and evil and the critique of american society in the 1850's

Front 8

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Back 8

uncle tom's cabin
about the greatest issue of the day slavery
combined the literary style of the then popular women's domestic novels with vivid details of slavery culled from firsthand accounts by northern abolitionists and escaped slaves

Front 9

Frederick Douglas

Back 9

narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas 1845
autobiography- told of his brutal life as a slave

Front 10

the compromise of 1850

Back 10

the four stage compromise that admitted California as a free state, allowed the residents of the new mexico and Utah territories to decide the slave issue for themselves, ended the slave trade in the district of columbia, and passed a new fugitive slave law to enforce the constitutional provision stating that a slave escaping into a free state will be given back to it's owner

Front 11

fugitive slave law of 1850

Back 11

enforced the constitutional provision stating that a slave escaping to a free state shall be returned back to the owner

Front 12

young america movement

Back 12

movement that began as a group of writers and politicians in the NY Democratic Party who believed in the democratic and nationalistic promise of “manifest destiny"  Goals were to conquer Central America and Cuba

Front 13

Harriet Jacobs

Back 13

escaped to the north after several years of hiding in the south. had white northern friends purchase her freedom from her southern owner

Front 14

franklin pierce

Back 14

from new Hampshire democrat
united on a platform pledging "faithful execution" of all parts of the compromise of 1850, including the fugitive slave laws.

Front 15

Ostend manifesto

Back 15

proclaimed the deep affinities between Cuba and America, was leaked and the Pierce administration repealed it

Front 16

commodore Matthew Perry

Back 16

was dispatched across the Pacific to Japan, which resulted in a commercial treaty that opened Japan (which was traditionally hostile to outsiders) to American trade in 1854

Front 17

kansas-nebraska act

Back 17

law passed in 1854 creating the Kansas and Nebraska territories but leaving the question of slavery open to residents, thereby repealing the Missouri compromise

Front 18

bleeding Kansas

Back 18

violence between pro and antislavery forces in Kansas territory after the passage of the Kansas Nebraska act in 1854

1.       Free-Soilers in Lawrence received weapons from eastern supporters in boxes marked “BOOKS”

2.       Border ruffians were already armed and called for reinforcements from the South

Burnings and killings were common and peaceful residents were forced to take refuge at military camps

Front 19

know- nothings

Back 19

Anti-immigrant party formed from the broken Whig Party and some dissatisfied Northern Democrats in 1854

When questioned about their beliefs, party members maintained secrecy by responding “I know nothing”

Won many northern state elections (ie. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania)

 By 1855, the party split based on differing sectional opinions regarding slavery

Front 20

lecompton constitution

Back 20

Proslavery draft written in 1857 by Kansas territorial delegates elected under questionable circumstances

It was rejected by two governors, supported by President Buchanan (he wanted to ensure southern Democratic support) , and decisively defeated by Congress (particularly Stephen Douglas; he believed it violated the principle of popular sovereignty and that the Kansas citizens were not represented properly due to fraudulent elections)

Front 21

panic of 1857

Back 21

Banking crisis that caused a credit crunch in the North; less severe in the South, where high cotton prices spurred a quick recovery

Front 22

harpers ferry

Back 22

a raid led by john brown on the federal arsenal in harpers ferry, Virginia 1859
failed in the sense that no slavery revolt occurred but it did plant the worry of a slave revolt in the mind of southerns and so the thought of succession was also planted.

Front 23

constitutional union party

Back 23

National party formed in 1860, mainly by former Whigs, that emphasized allegiance to the Union and strict enforcement of all national legislation

Front 24

Jefferson Davis

Back 24

Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was chose as President of the confederate states

In Davis’ Inaugural address, he stated that secession was a legal and acceptable course of action and the North should not get upset about it. It was simply progress.