VOCAB TEST #4

Question 1

Compromise of 1850

Answer 1

Laws passed in 1850 meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories; advocated by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas. (1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries and federal assumption of Texas debt, (4) slave trade abolished in DC, and (5) new fugitive slave law.

Question 2

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Answer 2

Part of the Compromise of 1850; gave federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves seeking shelter in free states

Question 3

Personal liberty laws

Answer 3

Law in Northern state forbidding the imprisonment of escaped slaves and other measures to protect Blacks in the North.

Question 4

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Answer 4

Best selling novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dramatized the brutality of slavery. Heightened Northern support for abolition and escalated the sectional conflict.

Question 5

Ostend Manifesto

Answer 5

An 1854 manifesto urging President Franklin to seize, through purchase or military action, the slave owning province of Cuba from Spain. Northern Democrats denounced this plan and it was scrapped.

Question 6

Transcontinental Railroad

Answer 6

Railroad connecting the west and east coasts of the United States; approved during the Civil War, completed in 1869.

Question 7

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 7

Law proposed by Senator Steven Douglas (Illinois) in 1854. Advocated popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska territories and repealed the Missouri Compromise. Douglas wanted to facilitate the building of the transcontinental railroad through central Illinois. Backfired as extreme abolitionists and pro-slavery settlers poured into Kansas to sway the vote. Led to “Bleeding Kansas” as violence erupted between pro/anti-slavery groups.

Question 8

Nativism

Answer 8

Anti-foreign sentiment that fueled anti-immigrant and immigration-restriction policies against Irish and Germans in the 1840s/1850s and against other ethnic immigrants in subsequent decades.

Question 9

Know-Nothing Party

Answer 9

Political party in the 1850’s that was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant.

Question 10

Republican Party

Answer 10

political party formed in 1854, formerly known as the Free-Soilers, this was the first sectional party. Only found support in North and West, not support in the South. Created as a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and attempted to keep slavery out of the territories.

Question 11

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 11

Term for the violent struggle between anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions over the status of slavery in Kansas.

Question 12

Lecompton Constitution

Answer 12

1857 proposed Kansas constitution, whose ratification was unfairly rigged so as to guarantee slavery in the territory. Initially ratified by pro-slavery forces, it was later voted down when Congress required that the entire constitution be put up for a vote.

Question 13

Sumner caning

Answer 13

The incident took place in 1856 when Congressman Preston Brooks (South Carolina) severely beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. The attack occurred in the Senate chamber, after Sumner gave a vitriolic speech, “The Crime Against Kansas”.

Question 14

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Answer 14

An enslaved Missouri man named Dred Scott sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory, made free territory by the Missouri Compromise, made him a free man.

Question 15

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Answer 15

A series of seven public debates during a campaign for US Senate seat from Illinois between Abraham Lincoln (Republican) and Senator Stephen Douglas (Democrat). The main issue discussed during the debates was slavery as it related to popular sovereignty in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Lecompton Constitution, and the Dred Scott decision. Douglas was victorious in the election but Lincoln’s debating skills and fine showing made him a national political figure and paved the way for his nomination as the Republican candidate in the 1860 presidential election.

Question 16

Dred Scott Decision

Answer 16

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott didn’t have the standing to sue in federal court because he was property and not a citizen (and furthermore, African Americans could not be US citizens). The decision also denied the federal government (Congress) the right to exclude slavery from the territories, overturning the Missouri Compromise.

Question 17

Freeport Doctrine

Answer 17

Doctrine devised by Stephen Douglas that said the exclusion of slavery in a territory could be determined by the refusal of the voters to enact any laws that would protect slave property. It was unpopular with Southerners and thus cost him the 1860 election.

Question 18

John Brown’s Raid

Answer 18

(1859) John Brown led a raid on the armory as Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. He aimed to start a slave rebellion against slaveholders by arming enslaved African Americans with the weapons captured from the armory. Brown and his compatriots were defeated by citizens and federal troops. Brown became a villain to southerners who believed northerners would use violence to end slavery; he became a martyr to some northerners.

Question 19

Fire-eaters

Answer 19

Extremist pro-slavery politicians from the South who urged separation of southern states into a new nation, which became known as the Confederate States of America.