Causes of the Civil War
This act required citizens to return escaped enslaved people to their owners.
What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
This plan aimed to blockade Southern ports and control the Mississippi River.
What is the Anaconda Plan?
He was president during the Civil War.
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
This action taken by Southern states involved formally leaving the Union in response to growing tensions over slavery.
What is Secession?
This era followed the Civil War and focused on rebuilding the South, integrating formerly enslaved people into society, and redefining citizenship and civil rights in the United States.
What is Reconstruction?
These tests were used to prevent African Americans from voting by requiring them to pass difficult exams—often unfairly administered—even though the 15th Amendment guaranteed voting rights.
What are literacy tests?
This group used violence to suppress African American rights.
Who is the Ku Klux Klan?
This concept emphasized loyalty to one’s region over the nation.
What is Sectionalism?
This battle marked the official start of the Civil War.
What is the Battle of Fort Sumter?
He led a raid on Harpers Ferry to incite a slave rebellion.
Who is John Brown?
This election led directly to Southern secession.
What is the Election of 1860 (aka, the election of Abraham Lincoln)?
This amendment abolished slavery.
What is the 13th Amendment?
These fees were required to vote and were used to disenfranchise African Americans and poor whites during and after Reconstruction, despite constitutional protections.
What are Poll Taxes?
This group wanted harsh penalties for the South and pushed for full citizenship and voting rights for African Americans.
Who are the Radical Republicans?
This principle allowed settlers in new territories to vote on whether to allow slavery, leading to violent conflict in the Western Territories.
What is Popular Sovereignty?
This proclamation freed enslaved people in Confederate states.
What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
He was a former enslaved person who used powerful speeches and writings to advocate for emancipation and equal rights, influencing Lincoln’s policies during the Civil War.
Who is Frederick Douglass?
The group of states that formally seceded from the Union formed this new country.
What is the Confederate States of America?
This amendment granted citizenship and equal protection under the law.
What is the 14th Amendment?
This post-Civil War labor system kept many formerly enslaved people economically dependent by tying them to land owned by others in exchange for a share of the crops—often leading to cycles of debt and poverty.
What is Sharecropping?
He became president after Lincoln and clashed with Congress over Reconstruction policy before they brought articles of impeachment against him.
Who is Andrew Johnson?
Some say the Civil War really started here, as violent clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers occurred first in this U.S. Territory.
What is “Bleeding Kansas”?
This speech honored fallen soldiers and redefined the purpose of the war.
What is the Gettysburg Address?
He was Chief Justice in the Dred Scott decision.
Who is Roger Taney?
This 1857 Supreme Court decision ruled that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in U.S. territories, inflaming sectional tensions.
What is Dred Scott v. Sandford?
This amendment granted voting rights regardless of race.
What is the 15th Amendment?
This system attempted to recreate the structures of slavery by using sharecropping arrangements to trap workers in cycles of debt, tying them to the land and forcing them to labor for landowners.
What is Debt Peonage?
This was a derogatory term for Northerners who moved South during Reconstruction for political or economic reasons.
Who are Carpetbaggers?
This compromise attempted to balance free and slave states by stating that any new states formed north of the 36°30′ line would be free states and any formed south of that line would be slave states
What is the Compromise of 1850 (aka Missouri Compromise)?
This side had distinct advantages over the other, including a larger population, more factories, extensive railroad networks, and a strong navy.
What is the Union (aka, the North)?
He was a Confederate general and key military leader.
Who is Robert E. Lee?
This massive infrastructure project connected the East and West, but debates over its route and the expansion of slavery into new territories along the way deepened sectional divisions.
What is the Transcontinental Railroad?
This organization helped formerly enslaved people transition to freedom.
What is the Freedmen’s Bureau?
This compromise officially ended Reconstruction.
What is the Compromise of 1877 (aka, the Hayes Compromise)?
This president took office after a disputed election and agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South as part of a compromise, effectively ending Reconstruction.
Who is Rutherford B. Hayes?
This 1854 legislation overturned the Missouri Compromise and opened new territories to the possibility of slavery, intensifying sectional tensions.
What is the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
This battle was the turning point of the Civil War as it closed off the possibility of Confederate invasion in the North and marked a major shift in momentum toward Union Victory.
What is the Battle of Gettysburg?
He was a Union general who later became president.
Who is Ulysses S. Grant?
These laws were passed in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War to limit the rights and freedoms of formerly enslaved people, especially in areas like labor and movement—distinct from later segregation laws.
What are Black Codes?
Congress was able to pass this Act that paved the way for the 15th Amendment, but only because they had kicked the Democrats out of the government so there were far fewer people to vote against it.
What is the Civil Rights Act of 1866?
These laws were enacted after Reconstruction to enforce racial segregation in public and private life, solidifying white supremacy in the South for decades—distinct from earlier efforts to control freedmen’s labor.
What are Jim Crow Laws?
This group of Southern leaders aimed to restore white supremacy and dismantle Reconstruction reforms, regaining control of state governments after federal troops withdrew.
Who are the Redeemers?