Historical Junctures of the U.S. Civil War

Terms to Know

13th Amendment: Abolished slavery. First of three "Reconstruction Amendments" passed after Civil War (1865-70)
14th Amendment: (1) All persons born in the U.S. are citizens; (2) no person can be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; (3) no state can deprive a person of equal protection of the laws. Second of three "Reconstruction Amendments" passed after Civil War.
15th Amendment: States cannot deny any person the right to vote because of race. Third of three "Reconstruction Amendments" passed after Civil War. First Voting Rights Amendment
Abolitionism: The militant effort to do away with slavery. It had its roots in the North in the 1700s. It became a major issue in the 1830s and dominated politics after 1840. Congress became a battleground between pro and anti-slavery forces from the 1830's to the Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln:
Alamo: in 1835, Americans living in the Mexican state of Texas fomented a revolution. Mexico lost the conflict, but not before its troops defeated and killed a group of American rebels at the Alamo, a fort in San Antonio.
American Colonization Society: Founded in 1817, this abolitionist organization hoped to provide mechanism by which slavery could gradually be eliminated. The society advocated the relocation of free blacks (followed by freed slaves) to the African colony of Monrovia, present day Liberia.
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Johnson:
Anti-Mason Party: the first third party, the masons were a super-secret society that many upper class people were a part of. When William Morgan was rejected from the masons he built on the rising suspicion that the masons were secretly running the country to spread anti-mason propaganda and eventually form the party. Although this party was unsuccessful it is notable as the first party to hold a national convention.
Asylum:
Battle of Antietam: turning point of the war and a much-needed victory for Lincoln.
Battle of Atlanta,
Battle of Gettysburg: 90,000 soldiers under Meade vs. 76,000 under Lee, lasted three days and the North won.
Black Codes: laws passed by southern states immediately after the civil war in an effort to maintain the prewar social order. The codes attempted to tie freedmen to field work and prevent them from becoming equal to white southerners.
Bleeding Kansas: Also known as the Kansas Border War. Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, pro-slavery forces from Missouri, known as the Border Ruffians, crossed the border into Kansas and terrorized and murdered antislavery settlers. Antislavery sympathizers from Kansas carried out reprisal attacks, the most notorious of which was John Brown's 1856 attack on the settlement at Pottawatomie Creek. The war continued for four years before the antislavery forces won. The violence it generated helped percipitate the Civil War.
Bloomers:
Border States: States bordering the North: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. They were slave states, but did not secede.
California Gold Rush,
Carpetbaggers:
Charles Fourier,
Colonization,
Compromise of 1850: this series of five congressional statutes temporarily calmed the sectional crisis. Among other things, the compromise made California a free state, ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law.
Compromise Of 1877: Compromise struck during the contested Presidential election of 1876, in which Democrats accepted the election of Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the south and the ending of Reconstruction.
Conscription: The poor were drafted disproportionately, and in New York in 1863, they rioted, killing at least 73 people.
Cotton Embargo,
Cotton Gin: invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, this device for separating the seeds from the fibers of short-staple cotton enabled a slave to clean fifty times more cotton as by hand, which reduced production costs and gave new life to slavery in the South.
Credit Mobilier,

Crittenden Compromise: faced with the specter of secession and war, Congress tried and failed to resolve the sectional crisis in the months between Lincoln’s election and inauguration. The leading proposal, introduced by Kentucky Senator John Crittenden, would have extended the Missouri Compromise line west to the Pacific.
David Walker: A Boston free black man who published papers against slavery.
Defense,
Democracy,
Democratic Party,
Denmark Vesey: A mulatto who inspired a group of slaves to seize Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, but one of them betrayed him and he and his thirty-seven followers were hanged before the revolt started.
Doctrine of Nullification,
Dorothea Dix,
Dred Scott V. Sanford,
Election of 1824,
Election of 1840,
Election of 1844,
Election of 1860: Republican - Abraham Lincoln. Democrat - Stephan A. Douglas, John C. Breckenridge. Constitutional Union - John Bell. Issues were slavery in the territories (Lincoln opposed adding any new slave states).
Election of 1864: Lincoln ran against Democrat General McClellan. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes to 21, but the popular vote was much closer. (Lincoln had fired McClellan from his position in the war.)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Emancipation Proclamation: September 22, 1862 - Lincoln freed all slaves in the states that had seceded, after the Northern victory at the Battle of Antietam. Lincoln had no power to enforce the law.
Fifty-Four Forty or Fight:
First Battle of Bull Run: At Bull Run, a creek, Confederate soldiers charged Union men who were en route to besiege Richmond. Union troops fled back to Washington. Confederates didn't realize their victory in time to follow up on it.
Fort Sumter,
Frederick Douglas: A self-educated slave who escaped in 1838, Douglas became the best-known abolitionist speaker. He edited an anti-slavery weekly, the North Star.
Freedmen’s Bureau: agency established by Congress in March 1865 to provide freedmen with shelter, food, and medical aid and to help them establish schools and find employment. The bureau was dissolved in 1872.
Freeport Doctrine: During the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Douglas said in his Freeport Doctrine that Congress couldn't force a territory to become a slave state against its will.
Gabriel Prosser: A slave, he planned a revolt to make Virginia a state for Blacks. He organized about 1,000 slaves who met outside Richmond the night of August 30, 1800. They had planned to attack the city, but the roads leading to it were flooded. The attack was delayed and a slave owner found out about it. Twenty-five men were hanged, including Gabriel.
Gag Rule:
George Fitzhugh: The most influential propagandist in the decade before the Civil War. In his Sociology (1854), he said that the capitalism of the North was a failure. In another writing he argued that slavery was justified when compared to the cannibalistic approach of capitalism. Tried to justify slavery.
George Mcclellan,
Henry Clay: Clay helped heal the North/South rift by aiding passage of the Compromise of 1850, which served to delay the Civil War.
Henry David Thoreau,
Hinton Helper: Hinton Helper of North Carolina spoke for poor, non-slave-owing Whites in his 1857 book, which as a violent attack on slavery. It wasn't written with sympathy for Blacks, who Helper despised, but with a belief that the economic system of the South was bringing ruin on the small farmer.
Horace Mann, Indian Removal,
Ironclads,
J. D. B. Debow,
James Buchanon, Election of 1856,
James K Polk,
Jefferson Davis: Davis was chosen as president of the Confederacy in 1861.
John Brown’s Raid: In 1859, the militant abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry. He planned to end slavery by massacring slave owners and freeing their slaves. He was captured and executed.
John C Calhoun: Formerly Jackson's vice-president, later a South Carolina senator. He said the North should grant the South's demands and keep quiet about slavery to keep the peace. He was a spokesman for the South and states' rights.
John Quincy Adams,
John Wilkes Booth
Kansas-Nebraska Act: 1854 - This act repealed the Missouri Compromise and established a doctrine of congressional nonintervention in the territories. Popular sovereignty (vote of the people) would determine whether Kansas and Nebraska would be slave or free states.
King Cotton: Expression used by Southern authors and orators before the Civil War to indicate the economic dominance of the Southern cotton industry, and that the North needed the South's cotton. In a speech to the Senate in 1858, James Hammond declared, "You daren't make war against cotton! ...Cotton is king!".
Know Nothings:
Ku Klux Klan,
Lane Theological Seminary,
Lecompton Constitution: The pro-slavery constitution suggested for Kansas' admission to the union. It was rejected.
Liberty Party,
Liberty Party,
Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A series of seven debates. The two argued the important issues of the day like popular sovereignty, the Lecompton Constitution and the Dred Scott decision. Douglas won these debates, but Lincoln's position in these debates helped him beat Douglas in the 1860 presidential election. Logrolling,
Lord Palmerston,
Lyceum,
Manifest Destiny,
March to the Sea,
Martin Van Buren,
Mechanics Union of Trade Representatives
Mexican Cession,
Mexican-American War
Monitor,
Monster Institution:
Nat Turner,
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nativism,
New Harmony,
New York Draft Riot,
Nicholas Biddle,
Oneida Community,
Oregons,
Panic of 1837: a financial depression that lasted until the 1840s.
Panic of 1873,
Peninsular Campaign,
Planter,
Popular Sovereignty: The doctrine that stated that the people of a territory had the right to decide their own laws by voting. In the Kansas-Nebraska Act, popular sovereignty would decide whether a territory allowed slavery.
Positive Good:
Radical Reconstruction,
Radical Republicans,
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Redeemers,
Republic Of Texas,
Republican Party: A coalition of the Free Soil Party, the Know-Nothing Party and renegade Whigs merged in 1854 to form the Republican Party, a liberal, anti-slavery party. The party's Presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, captured one-third of the popular vote in the 1856 election.
Robert E. Lee: General Robert E. was a major leader and general for the Confederacy. One of the best military leader in the Civil War.
Rutherford Hayes,
Sam Houston,
Santa Anna,
Sarah and Angelina Grimke: Angelina and Sarah Grimke wrote and lectured vigorously on reform causes such as prison reform, the temperance movement, and the abolitionist movement.
Scalawags:
Second Bank of the United States,
Seneca Falls Convention,
Shakers,
Sharecropping,
Slave Power Conspiracy,
Sojourner Truth: United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate of the abolition of slavery and for the rights of women
Spoils System:
Steven Douglas,
Suspension of Habeas Corpus: Lincoln suspended this writ, which states that a person cannot be arrested without probable cause and must be informed of the charges against him and be given an opportunity to challenge them. Throughout the war, thousands were arrested for disloyal acts. Although the U.S. Supreme Court eventually held the suspension edict to be unconstitutional, by the time the Court acted the Civil War was nearly over.
Tariff of Abominations: an 1828 protective tariff or tax on imports, motivated by special interest groups. It resulted in a substantial increase in duties that angered many southern free traders.
Thaddeus Stevens,
Three Rs: Thurlow Weed,
Timothy Weld,
Total War, Trail Of Tears: in the winter of 1838-1839, the Cherokee were forced to evacuate their lands in Georgia and travel under military guard to present-day Oklahoma. Due to exposure and disease, roughly one –quarter of the sixteen thousand forced migrants died en route.
Ulysses Grant,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the abolitionist book, Uncle Tom's Cabin. It helped to crystallize the rift between the North and South. It has been called the greatest American propaganda novel ever written, and helped to bring about the Civil War.
Universal White Male Suffrage,
Virginia,
Wade-Davis Bill,
Whig Party: named for the British Whigs who opposed the king in the late 17th century-coalesced in the 1830s. The Whig party collapsed in the 1850s.
Whiskey Ring,
William Henry Harrison,
William Lloyd Garrison: A militant abolitionist, he came editor of the Boston publication, The Liberator, in 1831. Under his leadership, The Liberator gained national fame and notoriety due to his quotable and inflammatory language, attacking everything from slave holders to moderate abolitionists, and advocating northern secession.
William Seward,
William Sherman,
Wilmot Proviso,
Yeomen,
Young America,
Zachary Taylor: won many great victories but most notable for the W at Buena Vista

Essay Questions 1. How did the status of women change in the early 19th century? 2. How did religion in America change after the American Revolution? How did this impact American society? 3. How did American politics change between 1800 and 1840? Why did a second party system develop? 4. Describe the material conditions of slave life: life expectancy, housing, nutrition, clothing. How did slaves resist slavery? To what extent were slaves able to create a separate and distinct culture and identity? What role did religion serve for enslaved African Americans? How did slavery impact the slave family? How did slavery impact the South’s economy, education, and receptivity to change? Compare US slavery with slavery in Latin America. 5. Why did the American political party system collapse during the 1850s? What impact did this have on the outbreak of the Civil War? 6. Why did the North win the Civil War?