Vocab
A person who wanted to abolish (get rid of) slavery.
Abolitionist
The belief that the power of the states should be greater than the power of the federal government.
States' Rights
The first shots of the Civil War were fired here in South Carolina.
Battle of Fort Sumter
Laws passed in the South during Reconstruction that greatly limited the freedom and rights of African Americans.
Black Codes
A constitutional amendment that gave African American men the right to vote. Women could not vote until 1920.
15th Amendment
Allowed voters in Kansas and Nebraska to choose whether to allow slavery. It led to violence. This was known as the:
Kansas-Nebraska Act
To formally withdraw (leave) the Union (United States).
Secede/ Secession
A Union victory in Pennsylvania that turned the tide of the war against the Confederates.
Battle of Gettysburg
A constitutional amendment that outlawed (banned) slavery.
13th Amendment
An order issued by President Lincoln that freed all of the enslaved people in the Confederate states.
Emancipation Proclamation
Northerners who came to the South during Reconstruction to make a profit off of destruction from the Civil War.
Carpetbaggers
Part of the Compromise of 1850. If an enslaved person escaped to the North they could be captured and returned to the South.
Fugitive Slave Law
Union war strategy where they wanted to blockade the South, control the Mississippi River, and capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
Anaconda Plan
A constitutional amendment giving citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, except for Native Americans.
14th Amendment
A book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe about the horrors of slavery. This novel divided the nation.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
A system used on Southern farms after the Civil War where former enslaved people now worked freely on land owned by someone else. Although legal, it kept many former enslaved people in debt.
Sharecropping
An enslaved person who sued for his freedom. The Supreme Court ruled that enslaved people were not citizens and could not sue. They also said that Congress could not ban slavery.
Dred Scott
Virginia town where Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant.
Appomattox Court House
An agreement to settle the disputed presidential election of 1876. Part of the compromise required federal troops to vacate (leave) the Southern states they occupied.
Compromise of 1877
Broke up Indian reservation lands to sell to farmers in an attempt to assimilate natives; greatly reduced native holdings.
Dawes Act
An agency established by Congress in 1865 to help former enslaved people find jobs, housing, clothes, food, and access to education.
Freedmen's Bureau
Radical abolitionist raids Harpers Ferry, Va. to try and start a slave rebellion. Captured & hanged. Martyr & hero for the abolitionist cause.
John Brown
A six week blockade that made the Confederates surrender; it represented a second turning point of the war.
Siege of Vicksburg
Once 10% of voters from a former Confederate state took an oath of loyalty to the United States, they could form a new state government and come back to the United States.
Lincoln's 10% Plan
Harsh reconstruction plan imposed on the south by Radical Republicans to force southern states to change their old ways & comply with new amendments.
Radical Reconstruction