Key Vocabulary
Southern states wanted the right to do this to federal laws they thought were unfair, essentially declaring them void.
What is nullify?
She is famous for caring for wounded soldiers on the battlefield and founding the American Red Cross.
Who is Clara Barton?
This was the primary economic system of the South, which relied heavily on slave labor and cash crops like cotton.
What is the plantation system?
She was a famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad who risked her life to guide dozens of enslaved people to freedom.
Who is Harriet Tubman?
Eli Whitney invented this machine, which vastly accelerated the speed of separating seeds from cotton fiber.
What is the cotton gin?
This state became the very first to secede from the Union in 1860 immediately following the election of Abraham Lincoln.
What is South Carolina?
These reformers wanted an immediate and total end to slavery across the United States.
Who are abolitionists?
This Union general led a destructive "March to the Sea" from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, using total war tactics.
Who is William Tecumseh Sherman?
This 1820 agreement drew an imaginary line across the territories, revealing deep regional divisions over the expansion of slavery.
What is the Missouri Compromise?
These harsh and restrictive laws were passed by Southern states to tightly control the daily lives and movements of enslaved African Americans.
What are slave codes?
This is the specific effect the cotton gin had on the total number of slave states between 1790 and 1860.
What is it increased the number of slave states?
President Lincoln chose not to send extra troops or weapons to this federal fort because he feared a military show of force would push more Southern states to secede.
What is Fort Sumter?
To crack down on wartime dissent, both Lincoln and Davis suspended this constitutional right, which protects citizens from being jailed without a trial.
What is habeas corpus?
He served as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.
Who is Jefferson Davis?
This political idea meant that the people living in a territory—rather than Congress—would vote to decide whether to allow slavery.
What is popular sovereignty?
This 1852 anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe became a massive bestseller and persuaded millions of Northerners that slavery was morally wrong.
What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Because the cotton gin made agriculture so incredibly profitable, it had this negative effect on the growth of cities and factories in the South.
What is it slowed down the growth of cities and industries?
This wartime strategy, used by General Grant and General Sherman, aimed to completely destroy any crops, livestock, or property that could help the enemy fight.
What is total war?
This tax placed on foreign imported goods frustrated Southern states because it forced them to pay more for manufactured items.
What is a tariff?
This brilliant military strategist served as the main commander of all Confederate forces during the Civil War.
Who is Robert E. Lee?
This group of Northern dissenters spoke out aggressively against the Civil War and urged an immediate peace treaty with the South.
Who were the Copperheads?
This newspaper advertisement offering $150 for a runaway slave demonstrates that Southern slave owners legally viewed enslaved people as this.
What is property?
By the 1850s, seven-eighths of all newly arriving immigrants settled in this region of the country, where most manufacturing was located.
What is the North?
This major problem plagued Lincoln early in the war because so many of West Point's top graduates chose to fight for their home states in the Confederacy.
What is finding good generals?
Although African Americans living in the North were legally free, they still faced this unfair treatment based on their race.
What is discrimination?
He was the ultimate commander of the Union armies to whom Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House.
Who is Ulysses S. Grant?
This group of people was deeply outraged by a federal law passed in 1850 that required them to help capture runaway slaves.
Who were Northerners?
This abolitionist senator from Massachusetts was brutally beaten with a cane on the Senate floor after giving a fierce speech criticizing pro-slavery politicians.
Who is Charles Sumner?
This phrase was commonly used by Southerners to refer to the unique and deeply entrenched system of slavery in their region.
What is the "peculiar institution"?
This historic document issued by Abraham Lincoln declared that all slaves living in states still in rebellion against the Union were legally free.
What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
This term describes a strong feeling of pride, devotion, and loyalty to one's own country.
What is nationalism?
This Confederate general earned his famous nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run for standing firm against Union forces.
Who is Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson?
This belief held that the United States was destined by God to expand its territory across the entire North American continent to spread liberty.
What is Manifest Destiny?
This was the legal reality for skilled enslaved workers in the South regarding compensation for their grueling labor.
What is they were not paid for their labor?
This type of economic setup, dominant in the North, relied on machinery, factories, and paid wage laborers rather than large farms.
What is the factory (or industrial) system?
This was the primary reason Civil War battles resulted in such a staggeringly high number of casualties and deaths.
What is the use of new, deadlier technology (like advanced bullets/cannons) with old-fashioned military tactics?
If a law is passed that violates or goes against the rules laid out in the U.S. Constitution, it is declared this.
What is unconstitutional?
She served as the Superintendent of Army Nurses for the Union and was also a major reformer for mental health facilities.
Who is Dorothea Dix?
This South Carolina politician was a fierce defender of states' rights and championed the idea of nullification.
Who is John C. Calhoun?
This network of secret routes and safe houses helped thousands of enslaved people escape from the South to the free states and Canada.
What is the Underground Railroad?
This was the only major economic problem out of food shortages, weapons shortages, and inflation that the South did not struggle with heavily due to its advanced weaponry production.
What are weapons shortages?
This is the term for illegal trading or sneaking goods in or out of a country to avoid taxes or trade bans.
What is smuggling?
Lincoln appointed this general to command the Union armies after Bull Run, but frequently grew frustrated with how cautious and slow he was to fight.
Who is George McClellan?
This specific law passed in 1850 sparked massive protests in the North by making it a crime to assist runaway slaves.
What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
This congressman from South Carolina was the man who attacked Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in 1856.
Who is Preston Brooks?
At the very start of the war, this city was the primary geographic target for the Union army to capture, as it served as the Confederate capital.
What is Richmond, Virginia?