APUSH Chapter 13 Key Terms

Wilmot Proviso

1846 proposal that outlawed slavery in any territory gained from the War with Mexico

Popular Sovereignty

A government in which the people rule by their own choices.

Fugitive Slave Act

A law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves; allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders

Compromise of 1850

(1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries, (4) federal assumption of Texas debt, (5) slave trade abolished in DC, and (6) new fugitive slave law; advocated by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas

Haitian Revolution

A major influence of the Latin American revolutions because of its successfulness; the only successful slave revolt in history; it is led by Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

A novel published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 which portrayed slavery as brutal and immoral

Bleeding Kansas

A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.

Whig Party

An American political party formed in the 1830s to oppose President Andrew Jackson and the Democrats, stood for protective tariffs, national banking, and federal aid for internal improvements

John Brown

An abolitionist who attempted to lead a slave revolt by capturing Armories in southern territory and giving weapons to slaves, was hung in Harpers Ferry after capturing an Armory

Frederick Douglass

Escaped slave and great black abolitionist who fought to end slavery through political action

Secession

Formal withdrawal of states or regions from a nation

Election of 1860

Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery. As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.

Democratic Party

One of the two major U.S political party;founded in 1828 by Andrew Jackson to support a decentralized government and state's rights

Republican Party

Political party that believed in the non-expansion of slavery & consisted of Whigs, N. Democrats, & Free-Soilers in defiance to the Slave Powers

Charles Sumner

Radical Republican against the slave power who insults Andrew Butler and subsequently gets caned by Preston Brooks

Stephen Douglas

Senator from Illinois who ran for president against Abraham Lincoln. Wrote the Kansas-Nebreaska Act and the Freeport Doctrine

Scott v. Sandford

The 1857 Supreme Court decision ruling that a slave who had escaped to a free state enjoyed no rights as a citizen and that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

a law that allowed voters in Kansas and Nebraska to choose whether to allow slavery

Free Soil Party

a political party formed in 1848 to oppose the extension of slavery into U.S. territories

Missouri Compromise

an agreement in 1820 between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States concerning the extension of slavery into new territories