Vocab
Secede
To leave or withdraw
Who was Jefferson Davis?
President of the Confederacy He was also a military officer with experience in the Mexican War and graduated a military academy called West Point.
civil war
A war between people of the same country.
Who was John Brown?
Abolitionist who believed and advocated for armed insurrection to end slavery.
Why was the Republican Party established in 1854?
The Republican Party was established in 1854 to keep slavery out of the western territories. However, they didn’t have the desire to fully end slavery.
Martial Law
rule by the army instead of the elected government
What were the strengths and weaknesses of Jefferson Davis?
Strengths:
-He was widely respected
Fought in the Mexican War
-Strong leader
-West Point graduate
-Served as Secretary of War
Weaknesses:
-Paranoid about military planning
-Argued with his advisors
-Secretive
-He would have preferred to actually serve in the army than be president
Popular Sovereignty
the right of the majority to govern themselves
What was the impact of the Dred Scott decision?
A black slave, had lived with his master for 5 years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by interested abolitionists, he sued for freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The ruling on the case was that He was a black slave and not a citizen, so he had no rights. THis ruling meant that enslaved African Americans would never find freedom in the United States and with the Fugitive SLave Act it meant no part of the U.S. will ever be free of slavery. This decision also further increased tensions between the North and the South.
What was the impact of the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
this book helped change the way Northerners thought and felt about slavery. This book made slavery a no longer ignorable issue in politics and the Congress. After reading this book, more and more northerners saw slavery as a moral problem facing Americans, growing the movement of abolitionism.
Missouri Compromise
Compromise over the issue of slavery in Missouri. It was decided Missouri entered as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state and all states North of the 36th parallel were free states and all South were slave states.
What were the strengths and weaknesses of Abraham Lincoln?
Strengths:
-Patient and strong leader
-Good humored man
-Fine war planner
-Well respected, easy to work with
Weaknesses:
-People doubted him
-Inexperienced in politics and military
-Hard time finding generals for the Union army
Abolitionist
Someone who believes in abolishing slavery
Why did northerners view the Kansas-Nebraska act as a betrayal?
Northerners viewed the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a betrayal because the Missouri Compromise had already banned slavery in Kansas and Nebraska because these territories were above the Missouri Compromise line.
Battle of Fort Sumter: Cause: The Confederacy wanted to take hold of the government buildings in the South. Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. After giving the Union a chance to surrender, they refused. The Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter, igniting the Civil War.
Effect: Enormous support for military action was called for both the North and the South. Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion. 4 more states seceded: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Free Soil Party
A political party dedicated to stopping the expansion of slavery
What did each side (North and South) believe in?
The North believed that slavery was a moral wrong and shouldn’t be allowed to expand into western territories, while the South believed that slavery should be allowed anywhere in the U.S. and that know one could get rid of slavery. Another disagreement between the North and the South was that the North believed that the states had no legal right to secede from the Union while the South believed the states could secede the Union and had the sovereign right. Both sides disagreed over the constitutionality of each others claims as well.
Republican Party
1854 - anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats, Free Soilers and reformers from the Northwest met and formed party in order to keep slavery out of the territories
Why did Missouri's application to join the Union as a slave state spark a crisis in Congress?
if Missouri joined the union as a slave state, that would disrupt the balance of the sectional divide which consisted of an equal number of slave and free states and give slave states an advantage in Congress
What was significant about the Free-Soil party and the fact that slavery was a political issue for the first time?
The Free-Soil Party’s main goal was to stop the spread of slavery into Western Territories. The Free-Soil party had made slavery a political issue for the first time. The Free-Soil Party had showed and demonstrated with its success that slavery had become a national issue.
Fugitive Slave Act
A law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves; allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders
What events sparked the start of the Civil War?
The cause of the Civil War included sectionalism between the North and the South, disagreement over the extension of slavery and slavery itself, claims over the states rights and the power to secede, and disagreement over the constitutionality of those claims.
Compromise of 1850
(1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries, (4)slave trade abolished in DC, and (5) new fugitive slave law
Kansas-Nebraska Act
1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.
Compare and contrast the views of Southerners and President Lincoln on the issues of state sovereignty and the right to secede from the Union
Southerners believed that slavery should be decided through popular sovereignty and through the process of voting. President Lincoln, however, thought that slavery was a moral, social, and political wrong and believed that the issue of slavery shouldn’t be treated as an unimportant question to be voted down or up. He believed that slavery should simply be banned in the western territories without popular sovereignty and voting. Also, the South believed that the states had the right to secede and that they could secede without any interference with the federal government. Lincoln, however, believed that the states had no right to secede from the Union. He believed that the constitution didn’t give the states the right to secede from the Union.