Legal Battles and "Slave Power"
The enslaved man who sued for his freedom in 1846 on the grounds that he had lived in free territory.
Who was Dred Scott?
The series of seven historical debates held in 1858 between candidates for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.
What were the Lincoln-Douglas Debates?
The radical abolitionist who led a raid on a federal arsenal in 1859 to spark a slave insurrection.
Who was John Brown?
The winning candidate of the 1860 Presidential election who did not even appear on the ballot in 10 Southern states.
Who was Abraham Lincoln?
The first state to officially secede from the Union on December 20, 1860.
What was South Carolina?
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the majority opinion in the 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Who was Roger Taney?
The Democratic incumbent who won the 1858 Illinois Senate race but alienated Southern Democrats in the process.
Who was Stephen Douglas?
The location in Virginia where the federal arsenal was attacked by John Brown's followers.
What was Harpers Ferry?
The 1860 political party that took no stance on slavery, focusing solely on the Constitution and the "Union of the States."
What was the Constitutional Union Party?
The Mississippi senator who was chosen as the President of the Confederate States of America.
Who was Jefferson Davis?
The legal ruling in the Dred Scott case stating that African Americans (free or enslaved) could never be this under the Constitution.
What are citizens?
The Republican Party's primary ideological stance during the 1858 and 1860 campaigns regarding the status of slavery in the West.
What was Non-Extension (or stopping the expansion of slavery)?
Another Radical Abolitionist who was a former slave; wrote “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and “Three kinds of abolitionists.” (Ideologically agreed with John Brown that slavery should be immediately and fully abolished.)
Who was Frederick Douglass?
The Northern Republican candidate's main rival among Southern voters, who ran as the candidate for the Southern Democrats.
Who was John C. Breckinridge?
The last-ditch 1860 attempt at compromise that proposed constitutional amendments to protect slavery forever; it was rejected by Lincoln.
What was the Crittenden Compromise?
The long-standing 1820 agreement that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional because it interfered with the 5th Amendment's protection of property.
What was the Missouri Compromise?
The famous 1858 speech where Lincoln stated that the government could not endure permanently "half slave and half free."
What was the House Divided Speech?
The term used by Southerners to describe the "threat" they believed John Brown and Republican "Black Republicans" posed to their social order.
What was a Slave Insurrection?
The reason Lincoln was able to win the election despite getting only 40% of the popular vote and carrying only Northern states.
What is Electoral Weight (or the North's larger population)?
The city in Alabama that served as the first capital of the Confederacy before it was moved to Richmond, Virginia.
What was Montgomery?
The territorial principle of democracy that the Supreme Court overruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which was also central to the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854).
What is popular sovereignty?
The doctrine proposed by Stephen Douglas suggesting that territorial legislatures could still exclude slavery by refusing to pass police regulations to protect it.
What was the Freeport Doctrine?
The status John Brown achieved in the eyes of many Northerners after his trial and execution.
What is a Martyr?
The issue that split Northern and Southern Democrats in the 1860 election.
What was a federal slave code (to protect slavery in the territories after Dred Scott)?
The official documents passed by state conventions to formally withdraw their states from the United States.
What were Ordinances of Secession?