Causes of the Civil War
Powerfully depicted the horrors of slavery, significantly influencing public opinion against the practice in the North, thus fueling the abolitionist movement and contributing to the growing tensions between the North and South that ultimately led to the war; many historians believe the book helped "lay the groundwork" for the Civil War by bringing the realities of slavery to the forefront of national conversation.
What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
The battle was the last time the Confederacy attempted a large-scale invasion of the North. The Union victory ended Lee's hopes of forcing a negotiated end to the war. After this July battle, the Confederacy could no longer sustain an offensive.
What is Gettysburg?
Composed of five statutes enacted in September. The acts called for the admission of California as a "free state," provided for a territorial government for Utah and New Mexico, established a boundary between Texas and the United States, called for the abolition of slave trade in Washington, DC, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act.
What is the Compromise of 1850?
The first Republican-elected president and only the second presidential candidate from that party. The first president not born in one of the original thirteen states. The tallest person to serve as president, at 6' 4". Served from 1861-1865.
What is Abraham Lincoln?
Also known as the Office or Dept. of Refugees and Abandoned Lands, was a federal agency that helped formerly enslaved people and impoverished whites in the post-Civil War South.
What is the Freedmen's Bureau?
"It being the true intent and meaning of this legislation not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State; nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way"
What is the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
"There are certain things we can only do together. There are certain things only a union can do. Only a union could harness the courage of our pioneers to settle the American west, which is why (President Abraham Lincoln) passed (this) giving a tract of land to anyone seeking a stake in our growing economy."
President Barack Obama, February 12, 2009
What is the Homestead Act?
Often referred to as the first “dark horse” president, he the last of the Jacksonians to sit in the White House, and the last strong president until the Civil War.
What is James K. Polk?
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
What is the 15th Amendment?
"A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution, may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing with its own citizens, as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them within its dominion, and by its laws. But that will not make him a citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State."
What is the Dred Scott decision?
The Union's campaign to take Vicksburg was part of this strategy to cut off trade to the Confederacy.
What is the Anaconda Plan?
Created by Union General Winfield Scott (Antietam, Gettysburg)
"In further vindication of our rights and defense of our territory, I invoke the prompt action of Congress to recognize the existence of the war, and to place at the disposition of the Executive the means of prosecuting the war with vigor, and thus hastening the restoration of peace.". . . . President James K. Polk
"For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation"...Ulysses S. Grant
What is the Mexican-American War?
The 15th President of the United States (1857-1861), served immediately prior to the American Civil War. He remains the only president to be elected from Pennsylvania and to remain a lifelong bachelor.
What is James Buchanan?
The act declared that all people born in the United States were citizens, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. The act gave the federal government more power to prosecute people who denied citizens rights. The act served as a precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868.
What is the Civil Rights Act of 1866?
"But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence."
- Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes (ME Rep.), 4/22/1820
What is the Missouri Compromise?
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this." 11/19/1863
What is the Gettysburg Address?
"Whereas certain portions of the line of boundary between the United States of America and the British Dominions in North America, described in the second article of the Treaty of Peace of 1783, have not yet been ascertained and determined, notwithstanding the repeated attempts which have been heretofore made for that purpose, and whereas it is now thought to be for the interest of both Parties, that, avoiding further discussion of their respective rights, arising in this respect under the said Treaty, they should agree on a conventional line in said portions of the said boundary, such as may be convenient to both Parties, with such equivalents and compensations, as are deemed just and reasonable."
What is the Webster-Ashburton Treaty?
An American military officer and politician, was the ninth President of the United States (1841), the oldest president to be elected at the time. On his 32nd day, he became the first to die in office, serving the shortest tenure in U.S. presidential history.
What is William Henry Harrison?
"For the first time in the history of our country, under the Constitution as it now is, a dispute exists with regard to the result of the election of the Chief Magistrate of the nation. It is understood that upon the disposition of disputes touching the electoral votes cast at the late election by one or more of the States depends the question whether one or the other of the candidates for the Presidency is to be the lawful Chief Magistrate."
What is the Compromise of 1877?
"Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."
What is the Wilmot Proviso?
This battle is the bloodiest day in American history, with 22,727 soldiers killed, wounded, or missing. Forced the Confederate Army to retreat, which prolonged the war and allowed the Union to eventually win. Most important, it gave President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which made the war's purpose broader to include ending slavery.
What is the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg)?
The Battle of Antietam took place on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, between Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union Major General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac.
"And they will have a right to independence–to self-government–to the possession of the homes conquered from the wilderness by their own labors and dangers, sufferings and sacrifices-a better and a truer right than the artificial tide of sovereignty in Mexico, a thousand miles distant, inheriting from Spain a title good only against those who have none better. Their right to independence will be the natural right of self-government belonging to any community strong enough to maintain it–distinct in position, origin and character, and free from any mutual obligations of membership of a common political body, binding it to others by the duty of loyalty and compact of public faith."
Who said it? HINT: The Manifest Destiny guy.
What is John O'Sullivan?
A general and national hero in the United States Army from the time of the Mexican-American War and the War of 1812, was elected the 12th U.S. President, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850. His son-in-law was another future president, Jefferson Davis.
What is Zachary Taylor?
This Tennessean has the distinction of having more bills overrode than any other president in US history with 15. This included the Reconstruction Act which outlined readmitting states, the terms of the 14th amendment, and the legal ramifications of former Confederates holding office. He was impeached for the Tenures of Office Act in 1867. The senate let him stay.
What is Andrew Johnson?