1844-1877

The conflict over whether Kansas would be admitted to the Union as a free or slave state earned the name "Bleeding Kansas." What was the major event that started the violence?

Anti-slavery activist John Brown organized the murder of five proslavery settlers. Along with his four sons and a small group of followers, he murdered five proslavery settlers near Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas.

The Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress in 1868, stipulates that

Everyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen and entitled to equal protection under the law. The Fourteenth Amendment aimed to ensure that freed slaves people would enjoy the same rights and privileges of American citizenship.

In 1870, Mississippian Hiram Revels became a US Senator, occupying the seat recently vacated by Confederate president Jefferson Davis. What was unique about Revels?

He was the first African American Senator in US history. He was elected to the US Senate representing Mississippi.

Andrew Johnson, who ascended to the presidency after Lincoln's assassination, treated Southern states

Leniently; he pardoned many former Confederates and had their land restored, and he put a premium on states' rights. He also removed many Freedmen's Bureau employees that he thought were too sympathetic to African Americans in the South.

What was "popular sovereignty" in the context of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Popular sovereignty left it up to the citizens living in each territory to decide whether that territory would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. The two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, then had to decide if they would enter the Union as slave or free states.

On April 8, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse,

Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the Civil War. At first, Lee thought the Confederate soldiers would fight at Appomattox, but he realized he did not have the necessary troops and surrendered.

What did John Brown attempt to do at the federal armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia?

Steal weapons in order to arm enslaved people for a mass insurrection Brown attempted to steal weapons from a US arsenal to use in a massive slave revolt.

Why did Preston Brooks attack Charles Sumner with a cane on the Senate floor?

Sumner had insulted Brooks's elderly uncle in a vitriolic speech against proslavery advocates. Sumner's 1856 "Crime against Kansas" speech went much further than politics--he insulted Senator Brooks's elderly uncle, Senator Andrew Butler, by comparing slavery to prostitution

Which Reconstruction-era organization helped formerly-enslaved African Americans find lost family members, learn to read, and negotiate labor contracts?

The Freedmen's Bureau Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau in March of 1865 to help freed people achieve economic stability and secure political freedoms.

The Compromise of 1850 sought to settle disputes between north and south after the US acquired new territories in the Mexican-American War. It admitted California into the Union as a free state but also included a strict Fugitive Slave Law. What was the reaction to this compromise?

The angry reactions on both the northern and southern sides led to even more division in the US and continued to set the stage for the Civil War. The compromise acted as somewhat of a compromise in an otherwise white-hot sectional conflict.

The Free Soil Party was a political party mounted by

The antislavery movement, which worked to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories. The Free Soil Party nominated former president Martin Van Buren as a candidate. He ran on an antislavery platform of "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men."

What major political event leading up to the Civil War took place while James Buchanan was a lame duck president?

The seven states of the Deep South seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. He was one of the least popular presidents in American history due to his inaction as states began to secede from the Union.

The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 was a major turning point in the Civil War because

The victory of US forces ended the attempted Confederate invasion of the North. Despite Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee's exceptional military prowess, the North won this three-day-long battle.

What was one result of Nat Turner's rebellion, in which Turner organized a group of fellow slaves and killed 60 white people?

White Southerners created stricter laws to police slaves' behavior. These new legal codes established even more stringent limitations on enslaved peoples' daily lives.

William Lloyd Garrison created The Liberator, which was

an abolitionist newspaper. In the first issue of The Liberator, Garrison published an open letter, "To the Public," which called for the "immediate enfranchisement of our slave population."

The Underground Railroad was

an informal network of abolitionists and other advocates helping slaves escape to freedom. This network of people helped direct enslaved people to food and shelter, sending them to another "stop" of abolitionists awaiting their arrival.

The Emancipation Proclamation

freed all enslaved people living in territories then in rebellion against the United States. The Proclamation was distributed for public notice; oftentimes, US army officers read the document aloud to the former slaves who were accompanying the Union army in the South, informing them that they were officially free.

Implemented in states across the South after the Civil War, Black Codes

legally barred African Americans from voting, owning firearms, or traveling without a pass. Black codes attempted to economically disable freed slaves, forcing African Americans to continue to work on plantations and to remain subject to racial hierarchy within southern society.

Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster opposed the "Great Nullifier" John Calhoun, calling instead for

national unity. In his famous "Seventh of March" speech, Webster called for national unity, famously declaring that he spoke "not as a Massachusetts man, not as a Northern man, but as an American.

By repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which drew the horizontal line of slavery across the West along the 36 30' parallel, the Kansas-Nebraska Act

reopened the possibility of slavery to expand to new territories north of the Missouri Compromise line. The principle of popular sovereignty applied to the two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, allowing these soon-to-be states to determine their own policies on slavery.

The antislavery American Colonization Society planned to deal with the issue of slavery by

sending slaves to a colony on the west coast of Africa. Founded in 1817, the American Colonization Society set up a colony called Monrovia in present-day Liberia. By 1860, nearly 12,000 African Americans had returned to Africa.

The Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, which declared that black Americans were not US citizens, was ultimately overruled by

the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment enshrined the citizenship status of black Americans into the Constitution.

Abraham Lincoln, who was elected president in 1860, represented

the anti-slavery Republican Party. Lincoln's election codified the Republican Party as the party standing in firm opposition to the expansion of slavery.

White Southerners choosing to fire on Union-held Fort Sumter is considered to be

the official start of the Civil War. Confederate troops then occupied Fort Sumter for nearly four years, until the end of the Civil War.

Sherman's March to the Sea in the fall of 1864 was an early example of

total war designed to demoralize and deplete the cilivian resources of the enemy