Antebellum and Abolitionism
Missouri Compromise
"Compromise of 1820" over the issue of slavery in Missouri. It was decided Missouri entered as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state. It was also decided that all states North of the 36th parallel were free states and all South of it were slave states.
Frederick Douglass
(1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer, he escaped slavery and became a leading African American spokesman and writer. He published his biography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and founded the abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.
John C. Calhoun
(1830s-40s) Leader of the Fugitive Slave Law, which forced the cooperation of Northern states in returning escaped slaves to the south. He also argued on the floor of the senate that slavery was needed in the south and that society is supposed to have an upper ruling class that enjoys the profit of a working lower class.
Anthony Burns
(1834-1862) American enslaved African, he ran away and went to Boston, where he became a symbol of pro-abolitionism among Bostonians. However, Franklin Pierce had troops invade Boston and took . His arrest became the center of violent protests by northern opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act
Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo
(1848) treaty signed by the U.S. and Mexico that officially ended the Mexican-American War; Mexico had to give up much of its northern territory to the U.S (Mexican Cession); in exchange the U.S. gave Mexico $15 million and said that Mexicans living in the lands of the Mexican Cession would be protected.
Bleeding Kansas
(1856) a series of violent fights between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in Kansas who had moved to Kansas to try to influence the decision of whether or not Kansas would a slave state or a free state.
Frederick Jackson Turner
(1861 - 1932) He was an American historian in the early 20th century. He is best known for "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", where he stated that the spirit and success of the United States is directly tied to the country's westward expansion. According to Turner, the forging of the unique and rugged American identity occurred at the juncture between the civilization of settlement and the savagery of wilderness.
Douglas' Position in 1860 election
(ND) Popular sovereignty.
Breckinridge
(SD) Ran in election of 1860, slaves are property and can be taken anywhere.
Harriet Tubman
(c.1820-1913) American abolitionist who escaped slavery and assisted other enslaved Africans to escape; she is the most famous Underground Railroad conductor, leading 300+ peoples to freedom. Later in life, she was a spy for the North in the Civil War, and even later, supported women's suffrage.
President Polk
11th President of the United States (his expansionism led to the Mexican War and the annexation of California and much of the southwest (1795-1849).
William Lloyd Garrison
1805-1879. Prominent American abolitionist, journalist and social reformer. Editor of radical abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator", and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Gag Rule
1835 law passed by Southern congress which made it illegal to talk of abolition or anti-slavery arguments in Congress. So much for freedom of speech.
Wilmot Proviso
1846 proposal that would have outlawed slavery in any territory gained from the War with Mexico. It was defeated in the Senate. Created great bitterness between North and South and helped crystallize the conflict over the extension of slavery. Calhoun was against it, using compact theory.
Mexican Cession
1848. Awarded as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo after the Mexican American War. U.S. paid $15 million for 525,000 square miles.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.
Kansas Nebraska Act
1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty. Led to "Bleeding Kansas".
Crittenden Compromise
1860 - attempt to prevent Civil War by Senator Crittenden - offered a Constitutional amendment recognizing slavery in the territories south of the 36º30' line, non-interference by Congress with existing slavery, and compensation to the owners of fugitive slaves - it was defeated by Republicans
Denmark Vesey Conspiracy
35 hanged.
Adam Onis
5 million in Spanish debts paid by US to get Florida territory. Mexico breaks from Spain only s year later.
Abolitionism
A 19th century movement based on the sentiment that slavery should be abolished. Those that worked for abolitionism sought to end slavery. This did not mean that they also believed in racial equality. Some advocated for second class citizenship or removal of African Americans back to Africa. Garrison's 1833 American Anti-Slavery society marks the beginning of an organized effort to end slavery.
James K. Polk's Role in Manifest Destiny (plus more)
A Democratic candidate who goes down in history as possibly only one of the only presidents in American history to do absolutely everything he promised in his campaign - and all in only one term! He acquired the majority of the western US (Mexican Cession, Texas Annexation, Oregon Country), he lowered tariffs, and created the Independent Treasury.
Alamo
A Spanish mission converted into a fort, it was besieged by Mexican troops in 1836. The Texas garrison held out for thirteen days, but in the final battle, all of the Texans were killed by the larger Mexican force. Cries of "Remember the ___" rocked the tiny territory, and encouraged Texans to fight even harder against Mexico for independence. Remember that this battle was fought because the Texans wanted to use slavery and Mexico basically said "what the heck, guys, that's outlawed in Mexico and pretty immoral". Gets a whole lot less romantic that way, huh?
Popular sovereignty
A belief that ultimate power resides in the people.
Dred Scott
A black slave, had lived with his master for 5 years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by interested abolitionists, he sued for freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The ruling on the case was that he was a black slave and not a citizen, so he had no rights - a decision made by Chief Justice Roger Taney.
The Impending Crisis of the South
A book written by Hinton Helper. Helper hated both slavery and blacks and used this book to try to prove that non-slave owning whites were the ones who suffered the most from slavery. He was a complete racist, and was arguing how slavery hurt *whites*. Poor them, right?
Preston Brooks
A hot tempered Congressman of South Carolina took vengeance in his own hands. He beat Sumner with a cane until he was restrained by other Senators. He later resigned from his position, but was soon reelected because the South revered him as a hero.
Stephen Douglas
A moderate, who introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and popularized the idea of popular sovereignty. Ran against Lincoln and lost the Southern vote because of said views on popular sovereignty.
Manifest Destiny
A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific. God had given them this right, they argued - so why should they care if they had to start a war with the Mexicans to fulfill it?
The South and the Defense of Slavery
A paper by Oates that discusses the changes in the views of slavery by Southerners as time went on - initially, they were almost embarrassed by it, calling it a necessary evil. But when the Textile Revolution hit America and abolitionists got louder, said Southerners changed their tune and claimed that slavery helped Americans by holding the "wolf by its ears" - slavery helped preserve the white race and besides, wasn't it better to be a slave and to have a "kind" and "loving" environment as opposed to the free slave who, well, slaved away in Northern factories? Trick question - both situations were god awful.
Clotel
A story about Thomas Jeffersons' "mulatto" daughter. While it's true that Jefferson did have a child of mixed race, this story is actually fictional.
What effect did the Ostend Manifesto have?
Abolitionists and freesoilers become closer and started talking about a "slave conspiracy".
Conspiracy of Silence
Abolitionists claimed that the Constitution perpetrated this because it did not deal with the question of slavery. The reason that the Constitution didn't is because, when it needed to be ratified, the last thing the founding fathers wanted to do is to muddy up the vote by tossing the issue of slavery into the ring. They thought slavery would eventually die out, anyway.
William Still
African American abolitionist and author; 18th son of ex-slaves; wrote The Underground Railroad which chronicles how he helped 649 slaves escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad. These "chronicles" document the stories of these 649 slaves in great deal, telling us how the Railroad actually operated. Fun fact - he met his biological brother while writing this.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Allowed government officials to arrest any person accused of being a runaway slave; all that was needed to take away someone's freedoms was word of a white person; northerners required to help capture runaways if requested, suspects had no right to trial. Many Northern nations blatantly disobeyed this Act, intentionally passing contradictory state laws that were just a hair away from being full out nullification of this Act. Ironically, the South, practically the home of American nullification, complained about how the laws blatantly violated federal law.
Harriet Jacobs
Also known as Linda Brent. Her Incident's in the Life of Slave Girl highlight the sexual exploitation of women inherent in slavery. She hid for years in an attic in her free grandmother's store. It was long thought that this novel was fiction, but has been only recently been discovered that it is an autobiography of Jacobs' life.
Henry David Thoreau
American transcendentalist who was against a government that supported slavery. He wrote down his beliefs in Walden and many impassioned poems on the topic of slavery. He started the movement of civil-disobedience when he refused to pay the toll-tax to support him Mexican War.
The Liberator
An anti-slavery newspaper written by William Lloyd Garrison. It drew attention to abolition, both positive and negative, causing a war of words between supporters of slavery and those opposed.
Chief Justice Roger Taney
As chief justice, he wrote the important decision in the Dred Scott case, upholding police power of states and asserting the principle of social responsibility of private property. He was Southern and upheld the fugitive slave laws.
William Wells Brown
Black playwright who wrote an antislavery play and an antislavery novel called "Clotel".
compact theory
Claiming that the formation of the nation was through a compact by all of the states individually and that the national government is consequently a creation of the states
Spot Resolutions
Congressman Abraham Lincoln supported a proposition to find the exact spot where American troops were fired upon, suspecting that they had illegally crossed into Mexican territory.
American Anti Slavery Society
Founded in 1833 by William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists. Garrison burned the Constitution as a proslavery document. Argued for "no Union with slaveholders" until they repented for their sins by freeing their slaves. Their members wanted immediate emancipation and racial equality for African Americans.
Solomon Northrup
Free American lured to Wanshington DC from NY where he was captured and sold into slavery. Separated from his wife for 12 yrs. Twelve Years a Slave was written by him.
David Walker
He was a black abolitionist who called for the immediate emancipation of slaves. Exposed to many bloody sights as a child, such as witnessing a child forced to beat his mother to death, he was inspired to write the "Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World." It called for a bloody end to white supremacy. He believed that the only way to end slavery was for slaves to physically revolt.
Constitutional Unionists
Headed by John Bell - ignored the Slavery Issue in the election of 1860.
Results of Westwars Expansion
Helps cause civil war. Provides economic opportunity, and shaped for America an identity. However it also causes Latin American resentment, slavery problems, and pushing of the Indians.
Slave Codes
In 1661 a set of "codes" was made. It denied slaves basic fundamental rights, and gave their owners permission to treat them as they saw fit.
Gabriel Prosser
In 1800, he gathered 1000 rebellious slaves outside of Richmond; but 2 Africans gave the plot away, and the Virginia militia stymied the uprising before it could begin. He was executed along with 35 others.
Attack on Charles Sumner
In 1856, South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks severely beat Sumner to the point of breaking a cane over his head, leaving him on the floor of the Senate and escalating antebellum tensions. After years of therapy Sumner returned to the Senate as the war began. Sumner was a leading proponent of abolishing slavery to weaken the Confederacy.
Calhoun Resolutions
In making the proslavery response to the Wilmot Proviso, Senator John C. Calhoun argued that barring slavery in Mexican acquisitions would violate the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution by depriving slaveholding settlers of their property.
Cotton Gin
Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793. It removed seeds from cotton fibers. Now cotton could be processed quickly and cheaply. Results: more cotton is grown and more slaves are needed for more acres of cotton fields. Slavery does not die out, as the founding fathers predicted.
Louisiana Territory
Land from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains purchased from France for 15 million dollars. It doubled the size of the US at the time, getting more land than the US wanted.
Personal Liberty Laws
Laws passed by Northern states forbidding the imprisonment of escaped slaves - contradictory to federal laws that forced Northerners to turn in slaves.
Lincoln-Douglass Debates
Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas to a series of 7 debates. Though Douglas won the senate seat, these debates gave Lincoln fame (he argued that all peoples deserved natural rights) and helped him to later on win the presidency - this was because Douglass' belief in allowing territories to choose whether they would be slave or free states angered the South, who refused to vote for him and therefore split their vote.
Election of 1860
Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery (split into two sections: Democrats and Southern Democrats). As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.
36 30
Line designated as the future boundary between free and slave territories under the Missouri Compromise.
Compromise of 1850
Made by Daniel Webster. California wanted to join the Union, but if California was accepted the North would gain control of the Senate, and Southerners threatened to secede from the Union. This compromise set up California joining the Union as a free state, New Mexico and Utah use popular sovereignty to decide the question of slavery, slave trading is banned in the nation's capital, The Fugitive Slave Law is passed, and the border between Texas and New Mexico was set.
Romanticism
Mankind in naturally good, a difference from the Enlightenment period's thinking.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and ex-slave, Frederick Douglass. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States. Douglass wrote it because he as such a talented, educated black man that many believed that he had never been a slave to begin with.
Lone Star Republic
Nickname for Texas after it won independence from Mexico in 1836.
The Underground Railroad
No, it wasn't actually underground. No, it wasn't actually a railroad. It was a set of paths taken by runaway slaves to get to the free north or Canada (who was more than happy to take runaways - remember that England had abolished slavery thirty years beforehand. Kind of tells you something, doesn't it?). Slaves who lived on the border of Northern states were likely to run away. The further in a Southern state was, the less likely it was that a slave would run away.
Under the Crittenden compromise, would any amendment abolish slavery?
No.
The American Colonization Society
Organization founded in 1817 to transport American blacks back to Africa, Liberia to be specific.
The Northwest Ordinance
Passed by Jefferson, banned slavery in the old Northwest.
Free-soilers
People who opposed expansion of slavery into western territories. However, they considered slavery to be a "Southern issue" and didn't care about stopping it. Many Southern occurrences later into antebellum, however, turned a good amount of them into abolitionists.
Stono Rebellion
Plantations burned, 20 Whites killed, 20 rebels caught and decapitated.
NYC Slave Conspiracy
Plot to burn - 160 blacks and 20 whites arrested, 30 conspirators killed.
Independent Treasury
Polk had promised during the campaign to revive the now long dead ___ system, first enacted in 1840 during the presidency of Martin Van Buren but repealed only a year later by a Whig-dominated Congress. The act established independent treasury deposit offices separate from private or state banks to receive all government funds. The system was designed to be a long term replacement for both the Second Bank of the United States, which Jackson had "killed," and a remedy for the ensuing wild speculation resulting from Jackson's policies that contributed to the major depression of the late 1830s.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Powerful novel that made Americans aware of the harsh and inhumane conditions of slavery. It put the country on the road to civil war. The South banned it, claiming that nothing that occurred in the novel actually happened (then struggled to explain the autobiographies of former slaves), and the North became uncomfortably aware of the moral issues slavery posed. It is important to mention that Stowe went out of her way to make sure that the book did not attack the South! In fact, there is only one "evil" character in the book, and he actually originated from the North.
John Bell
Presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union Party. He drew votes away from the Democrats, helping Lincoln win.
Levi and Catherine Coffin
Quakers who helped more then 2,000 slaves escape to freedom by hiding them in their simple home.
Lincoln's Position in the election of 1860
Republican and free soiler - don't let slavery spread.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
She was an abolitionist and author of the famous antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Tariff Controversy of 1832-33
South Carolina Nullification crisis - the peoples of South Carolina threatened to cede from the Union after (rightfully) accusing the latest federal tax of specifically targeting them. It also showed the South that the North could force things onto them and that if the North continued to grow, it would outnumber the South in the Senate and the House of Representatives
Wage Slavery
Southerners claimed that their slavery was superior to this Northern type of slavery.
the Freeport Doctrine
Stephen Douglas's belief that the issue of slavery in the western territories should be determined by popular sovereignty.
the Controversy over Tariffs
Tariffs were the source of much economic/political debate. Tariffs were initially in place to protect American goods from international competition. Special interests began exploiting tariffs, making them a business tool. Revenues from the many tariffs gave the US treasury a surplus, thus, most politicians argues they only help the economy. Some farmers and economists argues for free trade. Republicans put tariffs at the top of their political agenda and took credit for economic growth. Democrats thought tariffs just caused unnecessary expense and kept out foreign goods while not protecting farmers. Democrats thought the govt should reduce revenues by cutting taxes and tariffs although they recognized the need for these things in moderation. Moreover, tariff policy was very different in the two parties.
Nat Turner's Rebellion
The last "successful" slave revolt, in the fact that Turner and co. actually managed to enact their plan, killing over forty whites in the process. After he was captured and killed, many vigilantes killed innocent blacks for "good measure".
Manumission
The releasing of a slave. When southerners reacted to abolitionism, they made this stricter and harder to do.
Why was the Mexican War started?
There was a dispute over the Southern border of Texas - Was it the Rio Grande or Nueces River? Polk starts it by sending troops to Rio Grande and basically goading Mexican soldiers in a fight. He then says that US blood has been sjed on US soil (remember the Spot Resolutions?)
The North Star
This antislavery journal was started in 1847 by Frederick Douglass.
Comvention of 1818
US/England border established at 49th parallel.
5th Amendment
Used to defend treating slaves as property; Taney argues you can't prevent people from bringing their property.
Slave Patrols
Vigilante groups that enforced discipline on slaves and apprehended runaway slaves seeking freedom.
John Brown
WHITE who supported violent uprising of slaves. Murdered five pro slavery settlers in the Kansas territory, raided a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
Mexican War
War declared by U.S. against Mexico over unpaid claims, "American blood on American soil."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Was an abolitionist who used his poetry and his money to further the cause of the anti-slavery movement. Wrote "Poems on Slavery" (very creative name) to help draw attention to the cruel and inhumane nature of slavery. The publication of these poems helped establish Longfellow as a known figure in the abolitionist cause.
John O Sullivan
Wrote an essay saying that American expansion was God's plan to spread democracy.
Ostend Manifesto
a declaration (1854) issued from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, France, and Spain, stating that the U.S. would be justified in seizing Cuba if Spain did not sell it to the U.S.
Whigs' Opposition to Mexican war
didn't want slavery to spread.
Oregon Territory
extended 49th parallel; Polk fights for this land, b along for California and Texas.
Slave Power conspiracy
the idea that the South was engaged in a conspiracy to extend slavery throughout the nation and thus to destroy the openness of northern capitalism and replace it with the closed, aristocratic system of the south, and the only solution was to fight the spread of slavery and extend the nation's democratic ideals to all sections of the country.