Chapter 17-18 Unit 5 Flashcards
What were the Fire-Eaters?
Southern politicians who strongly supported slavery and even wanted the South to break away from the U.S.
What is Popular Sovereignty?
The idea that people in a territory should vote on whether to allow slavery.
What was the Free Soil Party?
A political party that wanted to stop the spread of slavery into new territories.
What was the California Gold Rush?
A rush of people to California in 1849 to find gold, which increased the population and caused debates over slavery.
What was the Underground Railroad?
A secret network that helped enslaved people escape to free states or Canada.
What was the Compromise of 1850?
A set of laws to settle slavery disputes, including letting California join as a free state and passing a strict Fugitive Slave Law.
What was the Fugitive Slave Law?
A law that forced people in the North to help return escaped enslaved people to the South.
What was the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
A law that let Kansas and Nebraska decide on slavery by popular sovereignty, leading to violence in Kansas.
What was Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
A famous book by Harriet Beecher Stowe that showed the horrors of slavery and increased anti-slavery feelings in the North.
What was Bleeding Kansas?
Violent fights between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups in Kansas over whether it would allow slavery.
What was Dred Scott v. Sanford?
A Supreme Court case that said African Americans weren’t citizens and Congress couldn’t stop slavery in territories.
What were the Lincoln-Douglas Debates?
Debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas about slavery and popular sovereignty.
What was the Freeport Doctrine?
Stephen Douglas’s idea that people could stop slavery in a territory by refusing to pass laws to support it.
What was Harpers Ferry?
An attack by abolitionist John Brown to start a slave rebellion. It failed, and Brown was executed.
What were the Crittenden Amendments?
A last-minute attempt to avoid the Civil War by protecting slavery in the South. It failed.
