To withdraw from membership in a group.
Secede
A political party established in the United States in 1854 with the goal of keeping slavery out of western territories.
Republican Party
An ironclad warship used by the Confederate in an attempt to break the Union blockade.
Virginia (CSS)
Emancipation Proclamation
The speech made by President Lincoln in 1863 after the Battle of Gettysburg.
Gettysburg Address
A war between people of the same country.
Civil war
An 1854 law that established the territories of Nebraska and Kansas, giving the settlers of each territory the right of popular sovereignty to decide on the issue of slavery.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
An ironclad Union warship.
Monitor (USS)
The right not to be held in prison without first being charged with a specific crime.
Habeas corpus
To surround and blockade an enemy town or position with troops to force it to surrender.
Siege
One of two acts passed in 1793 and 1850 that provided for the capture and return of fugitive slaves.
Fugitive Slave Act
An 1857 Supreme Court case that brought into question the federal power over slavery on the territories.
Dredd Scott v. Sanford
A slave state that remained in the Union during the Civil War.
Border state
The first major battle of the Civil War fought in Virginia in 1861.
Battle of Bull Run
The failed Confederate charge during the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Pickett's Charge
Government by consent of the governed.
Popular sovereignty
A person who dies for his or her beliefs.
Martyr
Making it easy for something to happen.
Conducive
An 1862 Civil War battle in Tennessee that ended in a Union victory.
Battle of Shiloh
Battle of Gettysburg
An agreement, proposed in 1819 by Henry Clay, to keep the number of slave and free states equal.
Missouri Compromise
An agreement over slavery by which California joined the Union as a free state and a strict fugitive slave law was passed.
Compromise 1850
Agreeing or accepting something without arguing about it.
Acquiescence
An 1862 Civil War battle in Maryland.
Battle of Antietam
A court house, in a Virginia town, that was the site of the Confederate surrender in 1865.
Appomattox Court House