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Uncle Tom's Cabin
an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe that went into the details of slavery in the South. This book caused a lot of backlash Southerns said the book was very misleading and some Southern mailmen refused to deliver it. Said to be one of the main causes of the Civil War -
Republican Party
First was born when antislavery leaders joined forces to oppose the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories by the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
Allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. Caused an outbreak of violence inside these territories. -
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Bleeding Kansas
When pro-slavery groups poured into Kansas to attempt to establish that territory as a slave state. This caused a series of violent civil confrontations in the United States between pro-slavery and anti slavery groups. Some people argue is the first battles of the Civil War. -
Brooks-Sumner lncident
Brooks's violent act was in response to a speech in which Sumner attacked the institution of slavery and pro-slavery Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Brooks entered the Senate chamber where Sumner was working at his desk and proceeded to strike Sumner over the head repeatedly with a gold-tipped cane. The cane shattered as Brooks rained blow after blow on the hapless Sumner, but Brooks could not be stopped. Only after being physically restrained by others did Brooks end the pummeling. -
Election 1856
In a three-way election, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican nominee John C. Frémont and American Party nominee Millard Fillmore. -
Dred Scott
A slave who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857. This case was also one of the factors that caused the civil war and brought up many question such as should the court decide moral issues and if the Missouri compromise of 1850 was constitutional which they deemed wasn't. -
LeCompton Constitution
a document framed in Lecompton, the Territorial Capital of Kansas, in 1857 by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War. -
House Divided Speech
A speech made by Abraham Lincoln to the Illinois Republican convention in 1858. In the speech, Lincoln noted that conflict between North and South over slavery was intensifying. Saying there was no room to compromise and that he was on the side of freedom. Saying "“A house divided against itself cannot stand." -
Lincoln Douglas Debates
A series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. They were addressing the problem that had divided the nation into two hostile camps and that threatened the continued existence of the Union. -
Harper's Ferry
An effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. This was one of the that ultimately led to the American Civil War. -
John Brown
An American abolitionist that advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. Know for acts such as the raid on Harper's Ferry and attack at Pottawatomie Creek. -
Election 1860
Abraham Lincoln had received more popular votes in the United States than any of the other candidates and had won a majority of the electoral votes. Southern states believed that Lincoln intended to eliminate or restrict slavery, and this was one of the causes of the American Civil War that followed. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order that. -
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Secession
the withdrawal of 11 slave states (states in which slaveholding was legal) from the Union during following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. On December 20, 1860, a special convention called in South Carolina unanimously passed an ordinance of secession. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana followed in January, and Texas voted to secede on February 1, 1861 -
Lincoln's 1" lnaugural Address
Lincoln promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery where it existed, and pledged to suspend the activities of the federal government temporarily in areas of hostility. He took a firm stance against secession and the seizure of federal property. He focused on reassuring the Southern states that the president would not try to strip them of their slaves and that he would try to find a way to help them secure slavery if it would make them happy