Civil War Causes Vocabulary

United States Civil War Causes Vocabulary

This vocabulary is necessary for complete comprehension of the Causes of the U.S. Civil War and for any assessment.

states' rights	tariff	sectionalism	Harriet Beecher Stowe
The ideas that states, not federal government, should make final decisions that affect them.	tax on imported goods	It is the idea that individual communities of people, sharing a set of cultural, economic and geographic realities, create individuated sections and loyalties within a larger polity, and it existed long before and continued long after the Civil War. Sectionalism beliefs continue until World War II when the United States becomes more unified in its culture, economics, and politics.	an American abolitionist and author who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), depicting life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S. and Britain.
Civil War	abolitionist	Antebellum South	Underground Railroad
A war between people of the same country.	someone who joined the movement to abolish, or end slavery	The Pre-Civil War South of the United States	series of escape routes and hiding places to bring slaves out of the South
popular sovereignty	secede	Fugitive Slave Law	The Compromise of 1850 (The Great Compromise)
the right of people to make political decisions for themselves	To leave or withdraw	this law required that northern states forcibly returned escaped slaves to their owners	California enters as a a free state
Missouri Compromise	Lincoln-Douglas Debates	Uncle Tom's Cabin	John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry
"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 and all states North of the 36th parallel were free states and all South were slave states	1858 Senate Debate, Lincoln forced Douglas to debate issue of slavery, Douglas supported pop-sovereignty, Lincoln asserted that slavery should not spread to territories, Lincoln emerged as strong Republican candidate	written by harriet beecher stowe in 1853 that highly influenced New England's view on the American Deep South and slavery. a novel promoting abolition. intensified sectional conflict.	was an attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.
Bleeding Kansas	Kansas-Nebraska Act	King Cotton	assassination
This was a mini-Civil War fought in the Kansas territory between pro-slavery settlers & anti-slavery settlers.	This law (act) opened the Kansas & Nebraska territories to being possible slave states.	cotton and cotton-growing considered, in the Antebellum South, as a vital commodity, the major factor not only in the economy but also in politics.	murder of a public figure by surprise attack.
Dred Scott		Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott was a slave who served several masters before suing for his freedom. His case made it to the Supreme Court prior to the American Civil War		A Missouri slave (Dred Scott) sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S, Supreme Court decided in Dred Scot v. Sanford (1857) that he couldn't sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen. Chief Justice Taney decided: 1. Scott could not bring a case to court because as an enslaved African he was not a US citizen; 2. law considered slaves property and as such owners could move anywhere and still own his property; 3. Missouri Compromise was against the law; Congress did not have the power to decide where slavery could be allowed or not allowed.
John Brown
was a white abolitionist who took part in Bleeding Kansas and started an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.

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