Secession
Decision by a state to leave the Union
Popular sovereignty
Idea that people living in a territory should make their own decisions, especially the decision to admit slavery
Personal liberty laws
Laws passed by Northern states forbidding the imprisonment of escaped slaves
Wilmot Proviso
Bill that would ban slavery in the territories acquired after the War with Mexico
Compromise of 1850
Series of measures that were intended to settle the disagreements between free states and slave states
Stephen A. Douglas
Senator from Illinois who worked to pass the Compromise of 1850
Millard Fillmore
13th president
Fugitive Slave Act
Law that provided for harsh treatment for escaped slaves and for those who helped them
Underground Railroad
Secret network of people who hid fugitive slaves who went north to freedom
Harriet Tubman
Famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Author of the antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Antislavery novel
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Law that split Nebraska into the territories of Nebraska and Kansas and allowed for popular sovereignty there
John Brown
Fierce opponent of slavery who led a raid that killed five proslavery people
Bleeding Kansas
Nickname given to the Kansas Territory because of the bloody violence there
Franklin Pierce
14th president
Know-Nothing Party
Political party formed to stop the influence of immigrants
Free-Soil Party
Political party formed to oppose extending slavery in the territories
Republican Party
Political party formed to oppose extending slavery in the territories
Horace Greeley
Newspaper editor who strongly supported the newly-formed Republican Party
John C. Fremont
Republican candidate in the 1856 presidential election
James Buchanan
15th president
Dred Scott
Slave who was briefly taken by his owner into free territory
Roger B. Taney
Chief Justice who wrote the ruling in the Dred Scott case
Abraham Lincoln
President during the Civil War
Freeport Doctrine
Idea that any territory could ban slavery by simply refusing to pass laws supporting it
Harpers Ferry
Location of federal arsenal that John Brown raided to get guns to arm slaves
Confederacy
Confederate States of America," formed in 1861 by the Southern states that seceded from the Union
Jefferson Davis
President of the Confederate States of America