Unit 5 Review Cards

Question 1

popular sovereignty

Answer 1

proposed by Stephen A. Douglas as part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act; would allow territories to decide if they would be free or slave states once admitted to the Union; overturned the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which said that no slavery would be allowed in the Louisiana Purchase territory (36 30’ line); overturned by the Dred Scott decision in 1857

Question 2

Underground Railroad

Answer 2

informal network of volunteers who helped moved slaves from the South to freedom in the North/Canada; Harriet Tubman was a conductor on the Underground Railroad and helped hundreds of people escape to freedom

Question 3

George B. McClellan

Answer 3

Union general during the Civil War; great at training and drilling his troops, but was overly cautious and always thought he was outnumbered in battle; ran against Lincoln in 1864 (lost)

Question 4

Stephen A. Douglas

Answer 4

Senator from Illinois; defeated Lincoln for the senate seat in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates; proposed the idea of popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories; ran as the Northern Democrat candidate in the 1860 election (lost to Lincoln)

Question 5

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Answer 5

author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a work of fiction about a slave family in the South; her book gained a lot of support for abolitionist movement, both in the US and in Europe.

Question 6

Border States

Answer 6

States that sat between the North and South during the Civil War; included Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Delaware; in some cases, like Maryland, President Lincoln used questionable methods to retain their loyalty (suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and jailed some state legislators there); offered advantages of large populations, large supply of materials/animals, manufacturing capacity and navigable rivers.

Question 7

Dred Scott Supreme Court Case (1857)

Answer 7

Dred Scott was a slave who was taken by his master into free territory; he sued for his freedom after his master’s death; Supreme Court decided that since he was a slave, he could not sue in a court of law (didn’t have citizenship rights), and furthermore that legislation like the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the concept of popular sovereignty were null and void since a slave was property and you could take property wherever you wanted and it would still be your property (basically, free and slave states weren’t a thing anymore, slavery could exist anywhere).

Question 8

Crittenden Compromise/Amendments (1860)

Answer 8

proposed as a way to appease South Carolina; if passed, it would have given federal protection for slavery in all territories south of 36 30’; Lincoln rejected the amendments because it would have allowed the expansion of slavery in the south

Question 9

Lecompton Constitution

Answer 9

proposed state constitution in Kansas that would allow slavery to exist in the state whether the state was a free state or a slave state; later voted down before Kansas was admitted to the Union (1861)

Question 10

Free Soil Party (Free Soilers)

Answer 10

Political party in 1848 and 1852 elections; opposed the extension of slavery into the territories because they felt it would limit the opportunities for free laborers.

Question 11

Compromise of 1850

Answer 11

compromise between the North and South in regards to slavery; CA admitted to the Union as a free state, Utah and NM territories opened to popular sovereignty; ended the slave trade in Washington DC; more strict Fugitive Slave Law

Question 12

Freedmen’s Bureau

Answer 12

Created to aid newly freed slaves; provided food, clothing, medical care, education and legal support; hated by Johnson during Reconstruction

Question 13

Andrew Johnson

Answer 13

Abraham Lincoln’s VP for his 2nd term, he was added to the ticket to appeal to the pro-Union southerners; took over the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination; first US president to be impeached over his decision to fire Sec of War, Edwin Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office Act of 1867 (Stanton acted as an informant in Johnson’s Cabinet for radical Republicans in the Senate). Took a lenient stance towards former southern rebels, which angered many within Congress.

Question 14

Civil War Amendments

Answer 14

13th Amendment - freed the slaves
14th Amendment - granted former slaves citizenship status
15th Amendment - gave former male slaves the right to vote

Question 15

Battle of Bull Run

Answer 15

Fought between the North and South in Manassas, VA; initially the Union forces did well, but then were routed and ran all the way back to Washington, DC for a Confederate victory; showed northerners that this would not be an easy victory

Question 16

Battle of Gettysburg

Answer 16

Major turning point in the eastern theater of the Civil War (July, 1863); fought in Gettysburg, PA; 3 day battle won by the Union; marked the last Confederate offensive of the war

Question 17

Battle of Vicksburg

Answer 17

Major turning point in the western theater of the Civil War (ended in July, 1863); Union forces under the command of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant were able to lay siege over the town of Vicksburg, MS; controlling Vicksburg allowed the Union army to control the Mississippi River and begin enacting the Anaconda Plan

Question 18

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 18

would overturn the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by possibly allowing slavery over the 36 30’ line; popular sovereignty would be used to determine the free/slave state status of Kansas and Nebraska; proposed by Stephen A. Douglas to provide a potential northern route for a future transcontinental railroad

Question 19

Abraham Lincoln

Answer 19

Republican candidate in the 1860 election; ran on the non-extension of slavery; assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in April of 1865

Question 20

Black Codes

Answer 20

laws passed in the south to restrict the rights of newly freed African-Americans

Question 21

Ku Klux Klan

Answer 21

secret organization that used terror in the south post-Civil War; used terror to keep African-Americans from exercising voting and civil rights

Question 22

Battle of Antietam

Answer 22

bloodiest battle in the Civil War; Union used the draw they received (not a true victory, despite finding the Confederate battle plans prior to the battle) to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863

Question 23

Emancipation Proclamation

Answer 23

issued by Lincoln in January, 1863; freed the slaves in the states that were in rebellion, but not the border states; allowed freed African-Americans to join the military

Question 24

African-American contributions to the war effort

Answer 24

After Emancipation Proclamation was issued, many African-Americans joined segregated units with white officers; they saw heavy casualties and many were subject to tortured and killed if they were captured by Confederate regiments; joined to prove their manhood to both Union and Confederate armies

Question 25

Ft. Sumter

Answer 25

Ft in Charleston Harbor; southern troops attacked the Ft when Lincoln sent in a supply ship; first “battle” of the war

Question 26

Appomattox Court House

Answer 26

place where Robert E. Lee surrendered his army in April 1865

Question 27

10% Plan

Answer 27

Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction; viewed as lenient by Radical Republicans who wanted to see the south punished for their actions in causing the Civil War

Question 28

William T. Sherman

Answer 28

Union General who perfected the concept of “total war,” which targeted not just enemy troops, but also civilians in an effort to destroy the moral of the opposing side

Question 29

Ulysses S. Grant

Answer 29

Union general who won the siege of Vicksburg and then came east to be the commander of the main Union army; understood that the best way to win a war was to continually fight your enemy and wear them down in a war of attrition; accepted the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865

Question 30

Assassination of Lincoln

Answer 30

John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln in April, 1865 at Ford’s Theater; Booth tried to mastermind a complete gov’t collapse by having other target key members of the gov’t (Sec of State, VP), but only Lincoln was actually killed in the attack

Question 31

Manifest Destiny

Answer 31

1840s westward expansionist concept that stated God had ordained the growth of the US from the Atlantic to the Pacific

Question 32

Election of 1844

Answer 32

James K. Polk (D) vs. Henry Clay (Whig)

Major issues include: westward expansion, slavery in newly acquired territory and the annexation of Texas

Question 33

Mexican-America War (1846)

Answer 33

Manifest Destiny and the desire to annex Texas played major roles in starting the war, along with US soldiers crossing the boarder into Mexico and subsequently being killed by Mexican soldiers, the desire to receive payment for damages from the Mexican government on behalf of Texas residents and President Polk’s desire to acquire California from the Mexican government (he originally offered to by CA, but was turned down)

Question 34

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

Answer 34

ended the Mexican-American War; as part of the treaty, the US agreed to pay the Mexican government $15 million for the northern-most portion of Mexican territory - later the states of CA, AZ, NM and TX

Question 35

Wilmot Proviso

Answer 35

Proposal by David Wilmot in Congress; it would have prohibited slavery in any territory the US gained from Mexico in the Mexican-American War, but it was not passed in Congress