Two Different Worlds (Root Causes & Economies)
While the North developed factories, railroads, and industrial cities, this was the primary driver of the South's economy.
What is agriculture (or farming / cash crops)?
Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, this northern district was admitted as a free state to keep the balance in the Senate.
Answer: What is Maine?
Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 bestselling novel opened Northern eyes to the human brutality of chattel slavery.
Answer: What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
On December 20, 1860, this state became the very first to pass an ordinance of secession and break away from the Union.
Answer: What is South Carolina?
Known as the "Moses of her people," this conductor made repeated dangerous trips along the Underground Railroad.
Answer: Who is Harriet Tubman?
The largest troop surrender of the Civil War took place at a simple yeoman farmhouse located near this modern North Carolina city.
Answer: What is Durham (Durham Station)?
Eli Whitney's 1793 invention inadvertently deepened the South's dependence on enslaved labor by speeding up seed removal.
Answer: What is the cotton gin?
The Missouri Compromise drew an east-west boundary through the Louisiana Territory along this famous line of latitude.
Answer: What is 36°30′ North?
Stephen A. Douglas championed this doctrine, allowing settlers in incoming territories to vote on whether to permit slavery.
Answer: What is popular sovereignty?
The first military shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861, at this brick fortification in Charleston Harbor.
Answer: What is Fort Sumter?
Born into bondage in Maryland, this brilliant orator and autobiographer published The North Star newspaper.
Answer: Who is Frederick Douglass?
This Union general, famous for his march across Georgia and the Carolinas, negotiated the historic surrender in April 1865.
Answer: Who is General William Tecumseh Sherman?
This term describes intense loyalty to one’s specific region or state rather than to the nation as a whole.
Answer: What is sectionalism?
The Compromise of 1850 admitted this Pacific territory as a free state following its massive gold rush.
Answer: What is California?
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise line sparked violent border warfare in 1854–1859, earning the territory this grim nickname.
Answer: What is "Bleeding Kansas"?
He served as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.
Answer: Who is Jefferson Davis?
This fiery Boston editor and publisher of The Liberator demanded the immediate, unconditional abolition of slavery.
Answer: Who is William Lloyd Garrison?
This Confederate general surrendered all remaining Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida at Bennett Place.
Answer: Who is General Joseph E. Johnston?
Southern political leaders frequently argued for this constitutional concept, claiming individual states held supreme authority over federal laws.
Answer: What are states' rights?
As part of the Compromise of 1850, slave trading (though not the ownership of enslaved people) was officially banned in this jurisdiction.
Answer: What is Washington, D.C. (the District of Columbia)?
In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that this enslaved man was property with no constitutional standing to sue for his freedom.
Answer: Who is Dred Scott?
Following the firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, North Carolina joined this wave of four Upper South states to secede.
Answer: What is the second wave of secession?
This formerly enslaved woman delivered her legendary "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the 1851 Ohio Women's Rights Convention.
Answer: Who is Sojourner Truth?
James and Nancy Bennett made their quiet living on their Durham farm producing corn, wheat, oats, and this specialty leaf crop.
Answer: What is bright leaf tobacco (or tobacco)?
Because the North wanted to protect domestic manufacturing, it favored these taxes on foreign imports that Southern planters strongly opposed.
Answer: What are protective tariffs?
This controversial component of the Compromise of 1850 legally required citizens nationwide to assist in capturing and returning freedom seekers.
Answer: What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
Abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the federal arsenal in this Virginia town in 1859, hoping to arm an uprising.
Answer: What is Harpers Ferry?
This US Army major commanded the federal garrison defending Fort Sumter before being forced to surrender under heavy bombardment.
Answer: Who is Major Robert Anderson?
In 1831, this enslaved preacher led a major armed rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, shaking the entire South.
Answer: Who is Nat Turner?
Exactly 89,270 soldiers surrendered at Bennett Place, making it significantly larger than Robert E. Lee's famous surrender here just days earlier.
Answer: What is Appomattox Court House?
This dominant cash crop was so central to Southern wealth and foreign trade policy that leaders often proclaimed it "King."
Answer: What is cotton ("King Cotton")?
Known as the "Great Compromiser," this Kentucky statesman crafted both the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850.
Answer: Who is Henry Clay?
In an 1858 Senate campaign speech, Abraham Lincoln famously quoted scripture warning that this entity "cannot stand."
Answer: What is "a house divided against itself"?
Before shifting its government to Richmond, Virginia, the Confederacy established its initial capital city here.
Answer: What is Montgomery, Alabama?
These two Quaker-raised sisters from Charleston, South Carolina, became prominent Southern-born voices against slavery and for women's rights.
Answer: Who are Sarah and Angelina Grimké?
On April 17, 1865, just as negotiations began at Bennett Place, Sherman received a telegraph announcing this national tragedy.
Answer: What is the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln?