APUSH Chapter 19 Vocabulary and People

Dred Scot decision

(1857) Supreme Court case involving a slave who was taken by his master from Missouri a slave state to Illinois a free state. Scott sued for freedom for himself and his family stating that by residing in a free state he had ended his slavery. Buchanan meant for the case's decision to serve as the basis for the slavery issue. Judge Taney ruled that Scott did not have the right to citizenship, which we would need to be able to bring forth a suit. Ruled further that Missouri compromise was unconstitutional because congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories as slaves were proper. The decision would apply to all African Americans who were regarded without rights.

Charles Sumner

In 1856, he delivered a speech titled, "The Crime Against Kansas," condemning the proslavery men and referring insultingly to one of the best-liked members of the Senate, Andrew Butler from South Carolina. His speech incited Congressmen Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina to beat him with a cane on the floor of Congress until the cane broke

Pottawatomie Creek Massacre

May 1856. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavers John Brown led a band of abolitionist settlers and killed five settlers of Pottawatomie creek. This was one of the many bloody episodes in Kansas preceding the American Civil War, which came to be known collectively as Bleeding Kansas. Bleeding Kansas was due to the Missouri Compromise and Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Freeport Doctrine

Stephen Douglas's position that popular sovereignty took precedence over the Dred Scott decision was given this name.

Rodger Taney

The Chief Justice in the Dred Scott decision, he persuaded the rest of the Southern judges to go beyond dismissing the Scott case as a black who had no right to be represented in court

Dred Scot

a black slave who had lived with his master for five years in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory. After his owner had died, he, with the backing of abolitionists, sued the widow for his freedom. He claimed that by living on free soil for five years, he had established his residency and was thus a free man

Hinton R. Helper

a non-aristocratic white from North Carolina who hated both slavery and blacks, he was the author of The Impending Crisis of the South, in which he attempted to prove with various statistics that indirectly, the non-holding whites were the ones who suffered the most from the institution of slavery

Uncle Tom's Cabin

an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War" It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings. The impact attributed to the book is great, reinforced by a story that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln declared, "So this is the little lady who started this Great War."

The Impending Crisis of the South

book written by Hinton Rowan Helper, which he self-published in 1857. It was a strong attack on slavery as inefficient and a barrier to the economic advancement of whites. The book was widely distributed by Horace Greeley and other antislavery leaders, much to the vehement anger of the white Southern leaders.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

dismayed by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, this author was determined to awaken the North to the wickedness of slavery.

panic of 1857

financial panic in the United States caused from the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. With the failure of the Ohio life insurance and trust co. in New York and the over-speculation in railroads and lands the panic fueled sectional tensions as northerners blamed it on the low tariff policies of the southern dominated congress.

John Brown

radical abolitionist from US who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a mean to abolishing slavery for good. He led the Pottawatomie creek massacre in 1856. Was trialled to death and was hung. He also made a name of himself for the unsuccessful invasion at Harpers Ferry Virginia.

Bleeding Kansas

series of violent events involving anti-slavery Free states and pro slavery "border ruffian" elements took place in Kansas Territory. Between 1854 and 1858. Bleeding Kansas was a proxy war between north and south over slavery and during entire occurrence question as reappearing, "Would Kansas become a free or slave state?"

John Bell

the Constitutional Union party, fearing for the union in 1860, nominated this man for president.

John Crittenden

the Kentucky senator who proposed Constitutional amendments in December 1860 to try to prevent secession and war.

John C. Fremont

the Republican party's first chance at the presidency was in 1856 when they nominated this man.

American or Know-Nothing Party

the common name for the anti-foreign, nativist American party that nominated Millard Fillmore for president in 1856.

John C. Brechenridge

the man nominated for president in 1860 by the southern Democrats.

New England Immigrant Aid Society

the most famous of the anti-slavery organizations which sent 2,000 pioneers to Kansas in 1854 to forestall it from becoming a slave state.

James Buchanan

the president who hopelessly divided the only national party left in 1857 with his weak stand on the Kansas constitution

Lecompton Constitution

the second of four composed constitutions for the state of Kansas. The document was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates.

Harpers Ferry Raid

1859 was an attempt to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859. Brown's raid was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee. He originally asked Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to join him when he attacked the armory, but illness prevented Tubman from joining him and Douglass believed his plan would fail and did not join him for that reason.