Unit 4 Test Flashcards
American Anti-Slavery Society & Abolition Movement
Abolitionist society
American Colonization Society/movement
founded in 1817 for purpose of transporting blacks back to Africa, most blacks had no wish to do so because they were partially Americanized and by this time almost all slaves were native born African-Americans.
American Party (Know-Nothings)
a prominent United States political party during the late 1840s and the early 1850s. The American Party originated in 1849. Its members strongly opposed immigrants and followers of the Catholic Church.
Anaconda Plan
Plan for civil war proposed by general-in-chief Winfield Scott, which emphasized the blockade of Southernp ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River the cut the South in two, the plan would suffocate the South.
Antebellum
the period of increasing sectionalism that led up to the American Civil War.
Appomattox & the surrender
where the surrender of the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee To Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865.
Battle of Antietam
the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with almost 23,000 casualties. After this “win” for the North, Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation.
Battle of Bull Run/Manasas (First)
1st major battle of Civil War, and the Confederate’s victory. The battle is also known as the first Battle of Manassas. It shattered the North’s hopes of winning the war quickly., the first major land battle of the American Civil War
Battle of Gettysburg
A large battle in the American Civil War, took place in southern Pennsylvania from July 1 to July 3, 1863. The battle is named after the town on the battlefield. Union General George G. Meade led an army of about 90,000 men to victory against General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army of about 75,000.
Battle of Shiloh
bloody Civil War battle on the Tennessee-Mississippi border that resulted in the deaths of more than 23,000 soldiers and ended in a marginal Union victory.
Black Codes
imposed harsh labor contracts on African American workers, limited their mobility, and denied them access to many public facilities. They were a precursor to the Jim Crow laws that would persist for decades, reinforcing racial segregation and inequality in the South.
Black soldiers in Union army
served in artillery and infantry and performed all noncombat support functions that sustain an army, as well.
“Bleeding Kansas”
A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.
Bread riots in the South
events of civil unrest in the Confederacy during the American Civil War, perpetrated mostly by women in March and April 1863. During these riots, which occurred in cities throughout the South, hungry women and men invaded and looted various shops and stores.
Border states
slave states that did not secede from the Union when the Confederacy formed in 1860-1861. These states included Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Carpetbaggers
Northerners who moved South after the war, sometimes with all their possessions in a carpetbag, during Reconstruction.
Charles Sumner
American Politician and senator from Massachusetts. He was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and among the leaders of the Radical Republicans.
Chinese Immigration
Chinese immigrants first flocked to the United States in the 1850s, eager to escape the economic chaos in China and to try their luck at the California gold rush. When the Gold Rush ended, Chinese Americans were considered cheap labor.
Civil War
a limited war between Union forces seeking to preserve the Union and Confederate forces seeking to preserve their independence and domestic institutions.
Colfax Massacre
a white supremacist group killed at least 150 African American men in Colfax, Louisiana, after a disputed election.
Compromise of 1850
five laws passed in September of 1850 that dealt with the issue of slavery and territorial expansion.
Compromise of 1877 (aka Bargain of 1877)
a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election, pulled federal troops out of state politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era.
Confederate advantages in Civil War
- The Confederates can fight a defensive war because they don’t have to conquer the North, they have to not loose. If the north goes home, the Confederates win.
- They are more familiar with the terrain, CW is mostly fought in the south.
“Contraband”
something smuggled out of a country. Runaway slaves who often turned up in Union army camps were often coined as contraband during the civil war. Many of these slaves earned their freedom after the war.
Copperheads
a vocal group of Democrats in the Northern United States who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates.
Cotton economy (“King Cotton”)
Term used by Southern authors and orators before the Civil War to indicate the economic dominance of the Southern cotton industry, and that the North needed the South’s cotton.
Crittenden Compromise
A plan proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden for a constitutional amendment to protect slavery from federal interference in any state where it already existed and for the westward extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the California border.
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
series of resolutions issued at the end of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
The highly controversial 1857 Supreme Court decision that rejected the claim of a slave, who. argued that time spent with his owner in regions that barred slavery had made him a free man. It also declared that Congress lacked the right to regulate slavery in the territories.
Election of 1860
This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president. It was also the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state
Emancipation Proclamation
freed slaves in the rebellious and border states. The Union created African American units in the Army and Navy.
Enforcement Acts
three bills passed by the United States Congress between 1870 and 1871. They were criminal codes which protected African-Americans’ right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws.
Evolution of slavery 1800-1860
continued importation of new slaves from Africa and the Caribbean; and natural population growth, especially among American-born slaves, who lived longer lives and bore more children than African-born slaves.
Fort Sumter
South Carolina location where Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War in April of 1861, after Union forces attempted to provision the fort.
Frederick Douglass
An African-American social reformer, writer and statesmen. He escaped from slavery and became a leader of an abolitionist movement and became the most famous black abolitionist.
Freedmen’s Bureau
created by Congress in 1865 to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support.
Free Soil Party
A political party with the main purpose of stopping the expansion of slavery in western territories, arguing free men on free soil.
Fugitive Slave Act
a law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves; allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders
Gag rule
strict rule passed by pro-southern Congressmen in 1836 to prohibit all discussion of slavery in the House or Representatives. Free Soilers.
General U.S. Grant
The 18th president of the United States after graduating from West Point and being a successful military commander in the Civil War.
German immigration
Famine and political revolution in Europe led millions of Irish and German citizens to immigrate to America in the mid-nineteenth century.
Gettysburg Address
a speech given by Abraham Lincoln after the Battle of Gettysburg, in which he praised the bravery of Union soldiers and renewed his commitment to winning the Civil War
Gold Rush
the mass migration of Americans and others to California in search of gold, which was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in 1848
Homestead Act
The 1862 act that gave 160 acres of free western land to any applicant who occupied and improved the property.
Irish immigration
Scotch-Irish,” were pulled to America by the promise of land ownership and greater religious freedom.
Ironclads
wooden ships with metal armor were employed by both sides during the Civil War.
Jefferson Davis
An American statesman and politician who served as President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history from 1861 to 1865.
Jim Crow segregation
racial segregation, particularly in the American South. The Jim Crow South was the era during which local and state laws enforced the legal segregation of white and black citizens from the 1870s into the 1960s.
John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry
An attempt to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859.
Johnson’s impeachment
johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives for breaching the Tenure of Office Act. Acquitted by the Senate, he remained in office to serve out his term.
Juneteenth
the day of emancipation in Texas which is a traditional holiday among black Texans
Justifications for the slave system
the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy.
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders.
KKK & other terrorist organizations
the belief that white people are superior to others because of their race. Prior to the Civil War, racism and white supremacy had been common attitudes in both the North and the South.
Lecompton Constitution
Pro-slavery constitution that got voted in for Kansas after anti-slavery people boycotted the election, supported the existence of slavery in the proposed state and protected rights of slaveholders. It was rejected by Kansas, making Kansas an eventual free state.
Liberty Party
A minor political party that advocated abolition. It broke away from the Anti-Slavery Society because their approach was the view the Constitution and make slavery unconstitutional.
Lincoln’s assassination
Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., as the American Civil War was drawing to a close, just six days after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant and Union forces.
Nativism
the belief that native-born Americans are superior to foreigners
Nat Turner
Slave in Virginia who started a slave rebellion on August 21, 1831.
New York Draft Riots
a series of violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War.
Overseer
man in charge of managing slaves on a plantation. breakers. men charged to force strong-willed slaves into submission.
Panic of 1857
A notable sudden collapse in the economy caused by over speculation in railroads and lands, false banking practices, and a break in the flow of European capital to American investments as a result of the Crimean War.
Peninsula Campaign
the Union’s grand plan for victory early on in the war. The basis of this plan was to capture Richmond so as to stop the war as early as possible. Robert E. Lee.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
U.S. Supreme Court decision supporting the legality of Jim Crow laws that permitted or required separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites.
Popular sovereignty
The doctrine stating that the sovereign people of a territory should themselves determine the status of slavery within that territory.
Push vs. pull factors for immigrants
Conditions that draw people to another location are known as pull factors. These include economic opportunities, chance for better life, better education, and healthcare, etc.
“Redeemers”
Largely former slave owners who were the bitterest opponents of the Republican program in the South.
Republican Party
Republican Party was founded in the Northern United States by forces opposed to the expansion of slavery, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers. The Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party.
Sanitary Commission
government agency established in 1861 that trained nurses, collected medical supplies, and equipped hospitals in an effort the help the union army.
Scalawags
a derogatory name used by Southerners as a name for Southern whites who supported Reconstruction.
Seneca Falls Convention
Took place in upperstate New York in 1848. Women of all ages and even some men went to discuss the rights and conditions of women. There, they wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, which among other things, tried to get women the right to vote.
Sharecropping
A system of agriculture where a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on land.
Sherman’s March
Union General William Tecmseh Sherman’s destructive March through Georgia. An early instance of “Total war”, puposely targeting infrastucture and civialian property to diminish moral and undercut the confederate war effort.
Slaughterhouse cases
ruled that a citizen’s “privileges and immunities,” as protected by the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment against the states, were limited to those spelled out in the Constitution and did not include many rights given by the individual states.
Southern Democrats
Southern Democrats were mostly White men living in the South who believed in Jacksonian democracy. In the 19th century, they defended slavery in the United States, and promoted its expansion into the Western United States against the Free Soil opposition in the Northern United States.
Southern secession
When a state attempts to secede from, or leave, the nation it was once a part of.
Special Field Order 15
Military orders issued by General Sherman on January 16, 1865, that confiscated land along the Atlantic Coast in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to be settled by freed slaves and blacks.
Transcontinental Railroad
a continuous rail line constructed between Omaha, Nebraska and San Francisco Bay, California.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Harriet Beacher Stowe
An 1852 novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe documenting the fictional, though realistically inspired, account of a family of slaves in the deep south, criticizing the wickedness of slavery by demonstrating its terrible inhumanity through the eyes of its most common and deeply affected victims.
Underground Railroad
a secret network of antislavery northerners who illegally helped fugitive slaves escape to free states or Canada during the period before the American Civil War.
Union advantages in Civil War
The Union had a larger population (22 million people)
They had a stable federal government.
While the Confederacy had the strongest leaders, the Union had more good. leaders – Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, Philip Sheridan, George Thomas.
US v. Cruikshank
dealt with the prosecution of white supremacist individuals who were charged with violating the civil rights of African Americans during the Colfax Massacre of 1873 in Louisiana
Vagrancy Laws
criminalized many activities, such as vagrancy, that were used to arrest and detain African Americans and force them into involuntary labor.
William Lloyd Garrison and The Liberator
William Lloyd Garrison was an outspoken abolitionist. He published an anti-slavery newspaper called The Liberator. It called for freedom for all slaves immediately
Wilmot Proviso
proposed after the Mexican War that stated that neither slavery no involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any territory gained from Mexico.
Women’s Rights Movement
The main movement of the 20th century would be the suffrage movement, where American women campaigned for their right to vote.
13th Amendment
Constitutional amendment prohibiting all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude.
14th Amendment
granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.”
15th Amendment
prohibited any government in the US from denying a citizen the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”.
