The 1850s

Bleeding Kansas

100

This is the principle in which the people in a territory can determine for themselves if their region becomes a free or slave state.

What is popular sovereignty?

200

This was an event in which the abolitionist John Brown and his sons targeted and killed five border ruffians with long swords

What is the Pottawatomie (Creek) Massacre?

300

The pro-slavery constitution that border ruffians and settlers attempted to establish as the government model for the Kansas Territory

What is the Lecompton Constitution

400

This Kansas city was attacked by border ruffians in 1856

What is Lawrence, Kansas?

500

The rival anti-slavery government was established in this city during "Bleeding Kansas"

What is Topeka, Kansas?

Important People

100

Made a name for himself by challenging Stephen Douglas for his Senate seat in 1858; he lost but was able to run for President in 1860 and won!

Who is Abraham Lincoln?

200

Enslaved man who sued for his freedom, kicking off a 10 year journey through the courts which ended when the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution did not extend citizenship to people of African-American/Black descent.

Who is Dred Scott?

300

"The Little Giant", helped pass the Compromise of 1850 but was most notorious for creating the Kansas-Nebraska Act which tore the North and South further apart from each other over the issue of slavery

Who is Stephen Douglas?

400

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court- a former Jackson man who notoriously wrote the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision in 1857.

Who is Roger Taney?

500

This President died early in his first term, but not before proclaiming he would veto the Compromise of 1850 if it ever made it across his desk

Who is Zachary Taylor?

Political Parties

100

The party of Andrew Jackson- supported slavery, westward expansion, and the interconnection of the two

What is the Democratic Party

200

Secret anti-immigrant party that came about in the 1840s/1850s due to their hardline stance against non-native-born citizens

What are the Know-Nothings?

300

This party established itself in protest of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Not entirely an abolitionist party but adopted an anti-slavery stance.

What is the Republican Party?

400

This party supported the Wilmot Proviso and land rights exclusively for White non-slaveholding settlers who were moving out West

What are the Free-Soilers?

500

This was the party of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster that formed in the 1830s in opposition to Andrew Jackson. When they fail to catch up on the growing issue of slavery, they dissolve as a party in the early 1850s.

What is the Whig Party?

Sectionalism

100

Pride and preference for one's own part of the country rather than the country as a whole.

What is sectionalism?

200

In the pre-Civil War era, the only ones in the South who typically were slaveholders

What are the wealthy planters/plantation owners?

300

This terrible event lasted for much of Buchanan's presidency, only further convincing the South that their regional ag/slave-based economy was superior to the North's industrial economy.

What was the Panic of 1857? 

400

Term for anyone who engaged in an unauthorized military expedition in a foreign country with the intent on overthrowing that country's government (example: William Walker & Nicaragua)

What is a filibuster?

500

Term for the accusation held among certain Northerners that the South wanted to expand slavery across the United States and beyond

What is the "slave power conspiracy"?

Important Laws

100

Forced Northern states to assist Southerners and the federal government in tracking down runaways escaping to freedom in the North

What was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850?

200

Started out as a package bill addressing westward expansion, popular sovereignty, slavery, and the slave trade before Douglas broke it into multiple bills which the Senate passed and President Fillmore signed into law. Really angered people on both sectional sides.

What was the Compromise of 1850?

300

Left the two namesake territories to decide by popular sovereignty for themselves if slavery were to exist there or not

What is the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

400

Did not pass into law but proposed that slavery be forbidden in any territories acquired from Mexico coming out of the Mexican-American War

What is the Wilmot Proviso?

500

These were laws passed by Northern states meant to protect Northerners from false arrests as "runaway slaves"

What are personal liberty laws?