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8.3 - The Civil War (Political Failures)

Terms in this set (18)

Charles Sumner
Senator from Massachusetts, abolitionist, and leader of the Radical Republicans who advocated for immediate abolition.
Constitutional Union Party
A political party that existed just before the start of the Civil War. They argued simply that the nation should stay together and ignore the question of slavery. They did not win, but their candidate John Bell won some votes in the election of 1860.
Dred Scott
A slave who sued for his freedom after being taken into the North. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court where he lost.
Jefferson Davis
President of the Confederacy. Usually regarded as an ineffective wartime leader.
Martyr
A hero who dies for a cause.
Preston Brooks
Senator from South Carolina who angrily beat Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate with his cane. He became a hero in the South.
Robert E. Lee
Brilliant general from Virginia who led the assault on John Brown at Harper's Ferry and later led the Confederate armies during the Civil War. His surrender to Ulysses S. Grant ended the war.
Roger Taney
The Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision.
A House Divided
This was a metaphor that Abraham Lincoln articulated during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. He said that the nation was like a house that could not stand if it was divided. He predicted that the country would either become all slave, or all free, but could not continue with slavery allowed in only the South.
Freeport Doctrine
Named for the town of Freeport, Illinois where Stephen Douglas articulated it in one of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, the Freeport Doctrine was Douglas's assertion that despite the Dred Scott decision, the people of new territories could still ban slavery on their own. His argument for popular sovereignty angered Democrats in the South and helped lead to a split in the party.
Popular Sovereignty
The idea that the residents of each territory should decide for themselves if they would join the Union as a free or slave state. Stephen Douglas supported this idea and it was the heart of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
The Better Angels of our Nature
A famous image invoked by President Lincoln at his first inaugural address when he called upon the nation to avoid war.
Dred Scott v. Sanford
A landmark Supreme Court case in 1857 in which Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that the federal government did not have the power to regulate slavery, effectively allowing slavery in all states, North and South, as well as the territories. The outcome of the case infuriated abolitionists who saw it as a major expansion of the power of slave owners over the federal government.
Fugitive Slave Act
A law passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. The Act was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a "slave power conspiracy" that was taking control of the federal government. It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
A series of famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during their campaign for the open Illinois senate seat in 1858. Lincoln, a Republican, and Douglas a Democrat drew national attention as they debated the future of slavery. Despite losing the election, the debates catapulted Lincoln to widespread fame and respect.
Confederacy
The Confederate States of America - the slave-holding states from the South that seceded.
Fort Sumter
Fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The Union controlled the fort at the start of the Civil War, and Confederate troops bombarded and took control of the fort. It was the first military action of the war.
Harper's Ferry
A small town in West Virginia and site of the federal arsenal that John Brown attacked.
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