This issue divided the North and South more than any other and is considered the central cause of the Civil War.
What is slavery?
This 1850 law forced citizens to help capture escaped enslaved people.
What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
She helped hundreds of enslaved people escape using the Underground Railroad.
Who is Harriet Tubman?
This document outlined the government and constitution of the Confederacy.
What is the CSA Constitution?
This system treated enslaved people as property to be bought, sold, and owned rather than as human beings.
What is chattel slavery?
What term describes the growing divide between the North and South during the 1850s?
What is sectionalism?
This 1854 law allowed new territories to decide on slavery, leading to violent conflict.
What is the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
Her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin revealed the brutality of slavery to Northern readers.
Who is Harriet Beecher Stowe?
These states left the Union following Lincoln’s election.
What are the Confederate States of America (CSA)?
This political party, founded in the 1850s, opposed the spread of slavery into western territories.
What is the Republican Party?
This principle allowed settlers to vote on whether to allow slavery in new territories.
What is popular sovereignty?
This set of five bills in 1850 attempted to ease tensions between free and slave states.
What is the Compromise of 1850?
He was elected president in 1860, prompting Southern states to secede.
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
This 1850s conflict in Kansas was sparked by debates over slavery and led to bloodshed.
What is Bleeding Kansas?
Pro-slavery leaders tried to make Kansas a slave state with this disputed constitution.
What is the Lecompton Constitution?
This 1846 proposal aimed to ban slavery in all territory gained from Mexico after the war.
What is the Wilmot Proviso?
This 1857 Supreme Court ruling said enslaved people were property, not citizens.
What is Dred Scott v. Sandford?
This Confederate general led the Army of Northern Virginia and surrendered in 1865.
Who is Robert E. Lee?
This document, issued by Lincoln in 1863, freed enslaved people in Confederate-controlled areas.
What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
Northern states passed these laws to protect escaped enslaved people and resist the Fugitive Slave Act.
What are personal liberty laws?
This new political party, formed in 1848, opposed the expansion of slavery into western lands.
What is the Free-Soil Party?
This proposed 1861 amendment sought to permanently protect slavery in states where it already existed.
What is the Corwin Amendment?
This Union general captured Vicksburg and later became the leader of all Union armies.
Who is Ulysses S. Grant?
The first shots of the Civil War were fired here in April 1861.
What is Fort Sumter?
These pro-slavery Missourians crossed into Kansas to influence elections and intimidate anti-slavery settlers.
Who are Border Ruffians?