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Abolition
The movement to end slavery. The movement began from the spiritual awakening after 1790. The movement emphasized individual responsibility for seeking salvation and insisted that people could improve themselves and society. -
The Liberator
The paper was wrote by William Lloyd Garrison who was the editor of an antislavery paper in 1828. The paper demanded immidiate emancipation of African Americans. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
The rebellion was led by Nat Turner and 50 other followers that attacked 4 plantations and killing about 60 whites. The rebellion frightened and outraged slave owners. Slave owners tightened restrictions on all African Americans to prevent them from plotting future insurrections. -
The North Star
The paper was written by Frederick Douglass, who escaped from bondage to become a critic of slavery. Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper named The North Star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Harriet Tubman
A conductor who helped fugitive slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. Born a slave in 1820 or 1821, she ran away from Maryland to Philadelphia after hearing a rumor that she was about to be sold. She made 19 trips and helped 300 slaves to freedom. -
Compromise of 1850
The compromise was first presented to congress by Henry Clay: allowing California to be admitted as a free state, in exchange, for a provision to allow the residence of New Mexico and Utah territories to vote for of against slavery. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The act didn't entitle alleged fugitive slaves, and anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. Some Northerners resisted the act by organizing "vigilance committees" to send endangered African Americans to Canada. -
Underground Railroad
A system of routes along which runaway slaves were helped to escape to Canada or to safe areas in free states. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
A novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe which stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. The book stirred Northern abolitionist to increase their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act, while Southerners criticize the book as an attack. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
A bill introduced by Senator Stephen A. Douglas that would divide the Kansas and Nebraska territory into two: Nebraska in the North and Kansas in the South. The bill would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories. -
Dread Scott v. Sandford
A case that was brought up by Dred Scott, a slave whose owner took him from the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court that living in the free states had made him a free man, but the Supreme Court ruled against him; saying Scott lacked any legal standing to sue in federal court because he was not a citizen, but a property of Sanford. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
Neither wanted slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it our. Douglas believed in popular sovereignty, while Lincoln believed that slavery was immoral, but didn't expect individuals to give up slavery unless Congress abolished slavery. Douglas won the Senate seat, but his response had widened the split in the Democratic Party, while Lincoln drew national attention and was viewed as an excellent candidate for the presidency in 1860. -
John Brown / Harpers Ferry
John lead a band of 21 white and black men into Harper Ferry, Virginia. His aim was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising, but no uprising occurred and troops put down the rebellion. -
Abraham Becomes President
The Republicans nominated Abraham, while the Democratic party was split over slavery. Lincoln emerged as the winner with less than half the popular vote and with no electoral votes from the south. He didn't appear in the ballot in many slave states due to their hostility towards him. -
Formation of the Confederacy
Lincoln's victory convinced Southerners that they had lost their political voice in the national government. South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by Mississippi and the other other Southern States joined, where they formed the Confederate States of America or the Confederacy under Jefferson Davis as its president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
One of the 4 Southern forts remaining in the Union hands. A fort on an island in Charleston Harbor that was neither abandon nor reinforced during the siege. As a result, the fort was lost to the Confederacy, but it united the North and increased the number of volunteers to serve the Union army. -
Battle of Bull Run
The first bloodshed on the battlefield. The battle was a seesaw affair where the Union army gained the upper hand in the morning, but the confederate reinforcements helped win the first Southern Victory, under General Thomas J. Jackson, in the afternoon. As a result, the Confederate morale soared, but its army was too tired to follow up their victory with an attack on Washington. Many Confederate soldiers left the army and returned home due to their confidence that the war was over. -
Battle of Antietam
The battle that begun with a Union corporal who found a copy of General Robert E. Lee's orders wrapped around some cigars. Under General George McClellan, he ordered his men to pursue Lee, where the 2 sides fought near a creek. The battle proved to be the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with more than 26,000 casualties. The next day McClellan did not pursue the Confederate Army into Virginia and was removed from command by Lincoln. -
Emancipation Proclamation
An executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln, freeing the slaves in all regions behind Confederate lines. It gave the war a moral purpose by turning the struggle into a fight to free the slaves and ended the Compromise of 1850. -
Conscription
The drafting of citizens for military service. In the North, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York City. -
Income Tax
A tax on earnings. The tax takes a specific percentage of an individual's income. As the Northern economy grew, Congress decided to help pay for the war by collecting the nation's first income tax. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The 3-day battle that produced staggering losses of 23,000 Union soldiers and 28,000 Confederate soldiers near the town of Gettysburg. The first day of the battle, 90,000 Union troops under the command of General George Meade had taken the field against 75,000 Confederates, led by General Lee. -
Gettysburg Address
A speech made by Abraham Lincoln to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. The address was 2 minutes long, but helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Grant shelled the city from both the river and land for several hours a day, forcing the city's residents to starve and reduced to eat dogs and mules until July 4. -
Sherman's March
A Union march led by William Tecumseh Sherman to burn down every house and destroy livestock and railroads in its path throughout Georgia to the sea. As a result, it lowered confederate moral and increased the Union's moral. -
Surrender at Appomattox
A court house in a Virginia town where Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. Under Lincoln's request, Grant paroled Lee's soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and 3 days' worth of rations. Officers were permitted to keep their side arms. -
Thirteenth Amendment
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution that has abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. The murder was a 26 year old actor and a Southern sympathizer who shot Lincoln behind his head during the third act of the British comedy. Lincoln would be the first president to be assassinated in U.S. History.
