Antebellum America
This 1820 legislation admitted Missouri as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and banned slavery north of the 36°30' parallel in the Louisiana Territory.
What is the Missouri Compromise?
This 1848 treaty ended the Mexican-American War and resulted in the United States acquiring California and New Mexico.
What is the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
This 1850 legislative package included the controversial Fugitive Slave Law and California's admission as a free state.
What is the Compromise of 1850?
The attack on this federal installation in Charleston Harbor marked the official beginning of the Civil War.
What is Fort Sumter?
This political faction supported strong federal protections for African American civil rights during Reconstruction.
Who are the Radical Republicans?
This controversial 1824 political event involved Henry Clay throwing his support behind John Quincy Adams in the presidential election.
What is the "corrupt bargain"?
This California event led to rapid population growth and pushed the territory toward statehood in 1850.
What is the Gold Rush?
This principle, championed by Stephen Douglas allowed territorial residents to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery.
What is Popular Sovereignty?
This 1863 document freed slaves in Confederate-held territories but not in the border states that remained loyal to the Union.
What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
This agricultural system emerged after the Civil War, allowing landowners to provide land, tools, and housing to former slaves in exchange for a share of the crop.
What is sharecropping?
This controversial doctrine expressed the belief that America was destined to expand across the North American continent.
What is Manifest Destiny?
This 1862 legislation provided 160 acres of public land to qualifying settlers who would live on and develop the land.
What is the Homestead Act?
This 1857 Supreme Court ruling declared that slaves were not U.S. citizens and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
What is the Dred Scott decision?
This Union military strategy involved a naval blockade and control of the Mississippi River to strangle the Confederacy.
What is the Anaconda Plan?
This post-Civil War economic movement advocated for Southern industrial development and agricultural diversification.
What is the "New South" movement?
This 1832-33 constitutional crisis arose when South Carolina attempted to declare federal tariffs null and void within state borders.
What is the Nullification Crisis?
This transportation achievement completed in 1869 led to national economic integration and accelerated Western settlement.
What is the Transcontinental Railroad?
Abraham Lincoln held this position on slavery during his 1860 presidential campaign.
What is opposition to slavery's expansion (but not immediate abolition)?
This three-day battle in July 1863 was the bloodiest of the Civil War and is considered a major turning point.
What is the Battle of Gettysburg?
This 1877 political agreement led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and effectively ended Reconstruction.
What is the Compromise of 1877?
This 1852 antislavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe became a bestseller and heightened Northern opposition to slavery.
What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
This 1887 legislation aimed to assimilate Native Americans by breaking up tribal lands into individual allotments.
What is the Dawes Act?
This November 1860 event triggered the secession of Southern states from the Union.
What is Lincoln's election?
This September 1862 battle resulted in the heaviest casualties in a single day and gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
What is the Battle of Antietam?
This social theory was used to justify laissez-faire capitalism and limited government intervention in economic affairs after the Civil War.
What is Social Darwinism?