General Terms
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MarcusAlvarez on November 16, 2009
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This set of flashcard includes a list of general terms regarding the civil war.
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34 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Conquered Territory Theory | The idea that Congress had the right to bring any state into the Union under the Northwest Ordinance. |
| Conscription | Compulsory enrollment of persons for military or naval service; draft; a compulsory contribution of money to a government during a time of war. |
| Copperheads | A group of Northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War, advocating peace and restoration of the Union even if slavery continued. |
| Cotton | A soft, white, downy substance consisting of the hairs or fibers attached to the seeds of plants, which is used in making fabrics, thread, wadding, etc. |
| Crittenden Compromise Proposal | The last-ditch effort to resolve the secession crisis of 1860-61 by political negotiation; proposed by Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden. |
| Desertion | An act of leaving military service or duty without the intention of returning. |
| Draft Riots (New York City) | In July of 1863, New Yorkers upset over the federal government's new Conscription Act rioted and looted the city for three days. Because of the traditional hostility of the American people toward compulsory military service, the federal government had relied, during the early stages of the war, on voluntary enlistment to obtain recruits for the Union armies. |
| Dred Scott Decision | The case before the court was that of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom. |
| Dred Scott v. Sanford | In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country's territories. |
| Election of 1856 | Brought a weak president to leadership in a badly divided nation. The Republicans ran their first presidential campaign in 1856. Mirroring the sectional feelings of the day, the Democrats were strong in the South, the Republicans in the North. |
| Election of 1860 | During the campaign, Lincoln ventured into the South where he preached the value of the Union. Lincoln's strength was confined to the populous Northern states, but he won a decisive victory in the Electoral College. However, he polled only about 40 percent of the popular vote. Douglas garnered an impressive popular vote, but barely made a showing in the electoral tally. |
| Election of 1864 | Lincoln's chances for reelection appeared dim for much of 1864. No president had won a second term since Andrew Jackson more than 30 years ago. More importantly, Lincoln was weakened by widespread criticism of his handling of the war. The Union had suffered a long string of disappointments and many faulted the president's strategy. Further, conservative forces in the North were outraged by the Emancipation Proclamation and feared its impact on the future of society. |
| Election of 1868 | General Ulysses Grant received a unanimous vote on the first ballot at the Republican convention. Grant's Democratic opponent was Horatio Seymour of New York. Grant did not campaign and made no promises. Seymour broke with tradition and campaigned actively in the North. |
| Election of 1872 | President Grant was renominated, without opposition, at the Republican convention at Philadelphia in June 1872. The Republican platform condemned racial and religious discrimination and called for granting women greater rights. President Grant's opponent was Horace Greeley of New York. He was first nominated by the "Liberal Republicans" who wished to protest the corruption of the Grant administration. The Democrats were in such disarray that they were unable to select a candidate and therefore endorsed Greeley. Greeley's campaign primarily on the theme of "more honest government". Most Americans still found Grant popular, and were convinced that he was not responsible for the corruption in his administration. Thus, they re-elected Grant. |
| Election of 1876 | Rutherford Hayes was nominated on the seventh ballot at a hotly contested Republican convention in 1876. The Republican platform called for the continued control of the South, civil service reform, and investigation of the effects of Oriental immigrations. The Democrats called for the end of reconstruction in the South, restriction of Oriental immigration and an end to land grants for railroads. In the end, returns in three states, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana were disputed. Tilden was one state short of victory. Congress appointed a congressional committee to investigate. The committee decided to award all the disputed votes to Hayes. Hayes, in return, however, promised to end reconstruction. Hayes became the next President. |
| Emancipation Proclamation | The proclamation issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in those territories still in rebellion against the Union. |
| Ford Theater | The theater in which Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. |
| Freedmen's Bureau | An agency of the War Department set up in 1865 to assist freed slaves in obtaining relief, land, jobs, fair treatment, and education. |
| Freeport Doctrine | Freeport Doctrine was Stephen Douglas's doctrine in 1858 that, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, slavery could be excluded from territories of the United States by local legislation |
| Free Soil Party | The Free-Soil Party (1848) developed in part from a political rivalry in New York State. The Democratic Party there consisted of contending factions: the Barnburners, who were strongly opposed to slavery, and the Hunkers, who were neutral or supportive of slavery. |
| Fugitive Slave Act (1850) | The Fugitive Slave Act was part of the group of laws referred to as the "Compromise of 1850." In this compromise, the antislavery advocates gained the admission of California as a free state, and the prohibition of slave-trading in the District of Columbia. The slavery party received concessions with regard to slaveholding in Texas and the passage of this law. Passage of this law was so hated by abolitionists, however, that its existence played a role in the end of slavery a little more than a dozen years later. This law also spurred the continued operation of the fabled Undergound Railroad. |
| Gadsen Purchase | A tract of 45,535 sq. mi. (117,935 sq. km), now contained in New Mexico and Arizona, purchased for $10,000,000 from Mexico in 1853, the treaty being negotiated by James Gadsden. |
| Guerilla Warfare | Sudden unexpected attacks carried out by an unofficial military group or groups that are trying to change the government by assaults on the armed forces. |
| Hampton Roads [Peace] Conference (1865) | President Lincoln meets with a delegation of Confederate officials to discuss a possible peace agreement. Lincoln refuses to grant the delegation any concessions, and the president departs for the north. The delegation underestimated Lincoln's resolve to make the end of slavery a necessary condition for any peace. After less than five hours, the conference ended and the delegation left with no concessions. The war continued for more than two months. |
| Harper's Ferry Raid (1859) | On October 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown and several followers seized the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. The actions of Brown's men brought national attention to the emotional divisions concerning slavery. |
| Homestead Act (1862) | A special act of Congress that made public lands in the West available to settlers without payment, usually in lots of 160 acres, to be used as farms. |
| "House Divided" Speech, Lincoln (1858) | At the Illinois Republican convention in Springfield, Abraham Lincoln kicked off his bid for the U.S. Senate with a speech that would come to be known as the "House Divided" speech. Referring to the court's decision which permitted Dred Scott to live in a free state and yet remain a slave, he said, "what Dred's Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free state of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free state." |
| Joint Committee on Reconstruction | A joint committee of the United States Congress that played a major role in Reconstruction. Led by Radical Republicans it was created to "inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either house of Congress." |
| Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) | The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. |
| "King Cotton" | Almost unanimously, Southerners believed they could use cotton to lure England and France into recognizing the Confederacy. Since the administration of Jefferson Davis wanted to avoid any appearance of international "blackmail," the Confederate Congress never formally approved an embargo, but state governments and private citizens voluntarily withheld the crop from the market in hopes of causing a "cotton famine" overseas. Theoretically, widespread shortages would shut down European mills, forcing governments to recognize and perhaps come to the military aid of the Confederacy, or to declare the Union blockade ineffective and disregard or break it in order to reopen Southern ports. The "King Cotton" mentality was seriously flawed, not the least in overestimating the value of "white gold." Europe's wait-and-see attitude hardened into unassailable neutrality after the Southern armies suffered reverses beginning at Gettysburg, and Davis and his supporters realized the cotton strategy had failed as a diplomatic tool. They had unwisely hoarded their one great asset and undermined their best chance of financing the war. |
| Know-Nothing Party | The Know-Nothing Party, also known as the American Party, was a prominent United States political party during the late 1840s and the early 1850s. As a result of the party's refusal to take a position on slavery, the Know-Nothing Party declined by the presidential election of 1860. The party did not run a candidate for president in this election, as many of its followers had joined the Republican Party. |
| Ku Klux Klan | a secret organization in the southern U.S., active for several years after the Civil War, which aimed to suppress the newly acquired powers of blacks and to oppose carpetbaggers from the North, and which was responsible for many lawless and violent proceedings; founded in 1915 and active in the southern and other parts of the U.S., directed against blacks, Catholics, Jews, and the foreign-born. |
| Lecompton Constitution (1857) | Instrument framed in Lecompton, Kan., by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War. Though it was rejected in a territorial election (January 1858), Pres. James Buchanan subsequently recommended statehood for Kansas under its provisions. Congress balked, and a compromise was offered calling for resubmission of the constitution to the territory's voters. Kansas again rejected it the following August and was admitted to the Union as a free state on Jan. 29, 1861. |
| Legal Tender Act (1862) | During the civil war, people had printed paper money (greenbacks) for the first time; signed by Abraham Lincoln. |
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