9.1/9.2
This concept allowed voters in a territory to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery.
popular sovereignty
This breakaway nation elected Jefferson Davis as its first president
Confederate States of America
Issued on January 1, 1863, this executive order declared that all enslaved people held in Confederate-controlled territories were free.
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln delivered this famous 273-word speech at the dedication of a national cemetery, framing the Civil War as a "new birth of freedom."
Gettysburg Address
the period from 1865 to 1877 when the federal government worked to reintegrate the seceded Southern states into the Union and establish legal and civil rights for four million newly freed African Americans
Reconstruction
This controversial 1850 law required citizens nationwide to assist in capturing escaped enslaved people under pain of fines or imprisonment.
Fugitive Slave Act
The victory of Abraham Lincoln in this four-way presidential contest directly triggered the secession of Southern states.
Election of 1860
Ratified in December 1865, this constitutional amendment permanently abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States.
13th Amendment
Fought in Pennsylvania in July 1863, this three-day engagement resulted in over 50,000 casualties and served as the bloodiest battle of the Civil War
This congressional faction favored harsh penalties for former Confederates and strong federal guarantees of civil rights for freed people.
Radical Republicans
Authored by Stephen Douglas in 1854, this law repealed the Missouri Compromise line and led to violent clashes known as "Bleeding Kansas."
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Confederate forces opened fire on this federal outpost in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, marking the start of the Civil War.
Fort Sumter
This general commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia from June 1862 until his surrender in April 1865.
Robert E. Lee
General Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant at this Virginia courthouse on April 9, 1865.
Appomattox Court House
Under this wartime proposal, a rebellious state could rejoin the Union once one-tenth of its 1860 voters pledged loyalty to the U.S.
Lincoln's 10% Plan
This piece of legislation admitted California as a free state and passed a stricter Fugitive Slave Act.
Compromise of 1850
Fought in Maryland in September 1862, this single bloodiest day in American history gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
Antietam
Abraham Lincoln was shot by this actor and Confederate sympathizer at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865.
John Wilkes Booth
General William Tecumseh Sherman used this military strategy during his "March to the Sea" to destroy both military targets and economic infrastructure.
Total War
Under this Southern agricultural system, landless farmers worked a landowner's fields in exchange for a portion of the harvest, often falling into cycle of debt.
Sharecropping
This senator was attacked by Preston Brooks on the Senate floor with a cane in 1856
Charles Sumner
In this 1857 ruling, the Supreme Court declared that African Americans were not U.S. citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in federal territories.
Dred Scott Decision
Led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, this pioneering African American Union regiment earned fame for its courageous assault on Fort Wagner
54th Massachusetts Regiment
General Grant's successful siege of this Mississippi fortress city on July 4, 1863, gave the Union complete control over the Mississippi River.
Vicksburg
This unwritten agreement awarded Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in exchange for withdrawing remaining federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction.
Compromise of 1877