1.
Bleeding Kansas: A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.
2.
Brooks/Sumner: Brooks beat Sumner with a cane like a dog; Showed inflamed passions were at a dangerious/violent level, 1856 - Charles Sumner gave a two day speech on the Senate floor. He denounced the South for crimes against Kansas and singled out Senator Andrew Brooks of South Carolina for extra abuse. Brooks beat Sumner over the head with his cane, severely crippling him. Sumner was the first Republican martyr.
3.
California 1849: Inflow of thousands of miners to Northern California after news reports of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in January of 1848 had spread around the world by the end of that year. The onslaught of migrants prompted Californians to organize a government and apply for statehood in 1849.
4.
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty: 1850 - Treaty between U.S. and Great Britain agreeing that neither country would try to obtain exclusive rights to a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Abrogated by the U.S. in 1881.
5.
Compromise of 1850: Forestalled the Civil War by instating the Fugitive Slave Act , banning slave trade in DC, admitting California as a free state, splitting up the Texas territory, and instating popular sovereignty in the Mexican Cession
6.
Conscience Whigs: Opposed the US-MEX war from the beginning on moral grounds. Warned of a S conspiracy to add new slave states in the W, undermine the Jeffersonian ideal of a yeoman freeholder society and ensure permanent control of the fed govt by slaveholding Dems
7.
Constitutional Union Party: Also known as the "do-nothings" or "Old Gentlemen's" party; 1860 election; it was a middle of the road group that feared for the Union- consisted mostly of Whigs and Know-Nothings, met in Baltimore and nominated John Bell from Tennessee as candidate for presidency-the slogan for this candidate was "The Union, the Constitution, and the Enforcement of the laws."
8.
Crittenden Compromise: A last-ditch effort to resolve the secession crisis by compromise. It proposed to bar the government from intervening in the states' decision of slavery, to restore the Missouri Compromise, and to guarantee protection of slavery below the line. Lincoln rejected the proposal, causing the gateway to bloodshed to be open.
9.
Death of Whigs: Split over slavery, leaders died(Daniel Webster and Henry Clay), and didn't field a presidential candidate in 1856, but the Republicans were emerging in their place
10.
Dred Scott Decision: A Missouri slave sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S, Supreme Court decided he couldn't sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen.
11.
Free Soil Party: formed from the remnants of the Liberty Party in 1848; adopting a slogan of "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men," it opposed the spread of slavery into territories and supported homesteads, cheap postage, and internal improvements. It ran Martin Van Buren (1848) and John Hale (1852) for president and was absorbed into the Republican Party by 1856.
12.
Freeport Doctrine: Doctrine developed by Stephen Douglas that said the exclusion of slavery in a territory could be determined by the refusal of the voters to enact any laws that would protect slave property. It was unpopular with Southerners, and thus cost him the election.
13.
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850: Came from the Compromise of 1850; federal commissioners were appointed and given authority to issue warrants, gather, posses and force citizens to help catch runaway slaves
14.
Gadsen Purchase: 1853 - After the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgowas signed, the U.S. realized that it had accidentally left portions of the southwestern stagecoach routes to California as part of Mexico. James Gadsen, the U.S. Minister to Mexico, was instructed by President Pierce to draw up a treaty that would provide for the purchase of the territory through which the stage lines ran, along which the U.S. hoped to also eventually build a southern continental railroad. This territory makes up the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
15.
Harpers Ferry Raid: John Brown's scheme to invade the South with armed slaves, backed by sponsoring, northern abolitionists; seized the federal arsenal; Brown and remnants were caught by Robert E. Lee and the US Marines; Brown was hanged, Occurred in October of 1859. John Brown of Kansas attempted to create a major revolt among the slaves. He wanted to ride down the river and provide the slaves with arms from the North, but he failed to get the slaves organized. Brown was captured. The effects of Harper's Ferry Raid were as such: the South saw the act as one of treason and were encouraged to separate from the North, and Brown became a martyr to the northern abolitionist cause.
16.
Harriet Tubman: United States abolitionist born a slave on a plantation in Maryland and became a famous conductor on the Underground Railroad leading other slaves to freedom in the North (1820-1913)
17.
Jefferson Davis: Was an American politician who served as President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history from 1861 to 1865 during the American Civil War.
18.
John Brown: An abolitionist who attempted to lead a slave revolt by capturing Armories in southern territory and giving weapons to slaves, was hung in Harpers Ferry after capturing an Armory
19.
Kansas-Nebraska Act: This Act set up Kansas and Nebraska as states. Each state would use popular sovereignty to decide what to do about slavery. People who were proslavery and antislavery moved to Kansas, but some antislavery settlers were against the Act. This began guerrilla warfare.
20.
Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Lincoln said that slavery was a moral, a social and a political wrong. He did not suggest abolishing slavery where it already existed. He argued that only slavery should not be expanded. Lincoln thought that it was the national governments role to prevent the expansion of slavery. Douglas on the other hand thought that popular sovereignty was the best way to address the issue because it was the most democratic method to do.
21.
Ostend Manifesto: A declaration (1854) issued from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, France, and Spain, stating that the U.S. would be justified in seizing Cuba if Spain did not sell it to the U.S.
22.
Panic of 1857: A notable sudden collapse in the economy caused by over speculation in railroads and lands, false banking practices, and a break in the flow of European capital to American investments as a result of the Crimean War. Since it did not effect the South as bad as the North, they gained a sense of superiority.
23.
President Taylor: Whig president and war hero in the Mexican American War who supported the immediate annexation of California as a free state. Died in office and was succeeded by his VP Millard Fillmore.
24.
Republican Party: Party started by Jefferson; political philosophy believing in the public good, working for other people, and the common man; weak cent. gov.; strict construction; agrarian society; anti-debt; people located in Southern frontiers. When the Whig party died, the Republican party popped up in its place.
25.
Roger Taney: Chief Justice of the supreme court who wrote an opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that declared the Missouri compromise unconstitutional
26.
Stephen Douglas: Senator from Illinois who ran for president against Abraham Lincoln. Wrote the Kansas-Nebreaska Act and the Freeport Doctrine
27.
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1853 that highly influenced england's view on the American Deep South and slavery. a novel promoting abolition. intensified sectional conflict.
28.
Underground Railroad: A network of clandestine routes by which African slaves in the 19th century United States attempted to escape to free states, or as far north as Canada It allowed thousands of slaves to escape to freedom.
