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Popular Sovereignty
Popular Sovereignty: The principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who are the source of all political Power.
People Involved: John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rouseau -
Compromise of 1850
Compromise of 1850: This is a package of 5 separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican American War (1846-48). The 36' 30 Line was created due to the compromise. It was the most fair way to separate the two halfs of the US.
People involved: Henry Clay, Millard Fillmore, Stephen Douglas -
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe: She was an American abolitionist and author. She came from a famous religious family and is best known for her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. It depicts the harsh life for African Americans under slavery.
Poeple involved: Harriet Beecher Stowe, African American slaves, slave owners -
Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad: This is a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century enslaved people of African descent in the United States in efforts to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sypathetic to their cause. The people who had the safe house were feeding those who came through and nursed them back to health so they could continue their journey to freedom. These people were putting their lives at risk.
People: Harriet Tubman -
Wilmot Proviso
Wilmot Proviso: This is a law that was designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired as a result of the Mexcian American War (1846-48). Soon after the war began, President James K. Polk sought the appropriation of $2 million as part of a bill to negotiate the terms of a treaty. Although the measure was blocked in the southern-dominated Senate, it helped widen the growing sectional rift, and it inspired many politicians.
People involved: James K. Polk, James Buchanan, John C. Calhoun -
Radical Republicans
Radical Republicans: The radicals are a faction of American political figures in government within the Republican Party from before the Civil War (1854) until the end of reconstruction (1877). The Radical Republicans believed blacks were entitled to the same political rights and opportunities as whites. They also believed that the Confederate leaders should be punished for their roles in the Civil War.
People involved: Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Kansas-Nebraska Act: (10 Stat. 277) The act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty, whether they would allow slavery.
People involved: Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierre, Charles Sumner -
Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott Decision: This was involving an enslaved African American man in the United States who unsuccesfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott Decision".
People: Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Dred Scott and his family -
Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America: A confederation of majority secessionalist American States who strongly believed in sates rights and popular sovereignty. Were for slavery and fighting for states rights and the ability to have slaves. These confederate states were located in the southern part of the United States and they were fighting for the south in the Civil War.
People involved: Jefferson Davis (president at the time), Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnson -
Battle of Fort Sumter
Battle of Fort Sumter: The bombardment of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the US Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor.
People involved: General P.G.T. Bearegaurd, Major Robert Anderson -
Harper's Ferry
Harper's Ferry: This is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia. The Battle of Harpers Ferry was fought September 12–15, 1862, as part of the Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War. It was formerly Harper's Ferry with an apostrophe and that form continues to appear in some references.
People involved: John Brown, Robert E. Lee -
Reconstruction
Reconstruction: This is the time period the United States went through to rebuild and reconstruct the country after the Civil War. The Civil caused many problems for the United States economically politicallly and socially. The South was experiencing problems they had to deal with because they didnt have any slaves to help with the farm and keep the economy booming.
People involved: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Edwin M. Stanton, Ulysses S. Grant -
Sharecropping
Sharecropping: A system of agriculture in which a landowner allows for a tenant, who is a former slave and sombody who give up what he has produced for the owner. The owner of the land allows the tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land.
People involved: former slaves, farmers, former slave owners -
Freedmen's Bureau
Freedmen's Bureau: This is the United States Bureau of Refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands, popularly known as the Freedmen's Bureau. This was established in 1865 by congress to help former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the United States Civil War (1861-1865).
People involved: Oliver Otis Howard, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, KKK -
Carpetbagger
Carpetbagger: A political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connection. Somebody who lives in the North and agrees with the Southern views.
People involved: Northern citizens -
Black Codes
Black Codes: In the United States, the Black Codes were laws passed by southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws had the intent and the effect of restricted African American's freedom, and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. This led to terrible times of segregation and racism.
People involved: Andrew Johnson, Southen white people, KKK -
Civil Right's Act
Civil Rights Act: This Act granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the UNited States "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude". This caused a lot more problems but solved many. The white population was upset the African American men were getting the same rights because they thought they were not equal in any way.
People involved: Andrew Johnson, J.W. Forney, Edward McPherson, Clinton Lloyd -
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan: Vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party's reconstruction era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks.
People involved: Nathan Bedford Forrest -
14th Amendment
14th Amendment: This amendment granted citizenship to "all persons born or natualized in the U.S.-- including former slaves who have been recently freed". This amendment caused major problems becuase the white southerners hated the fact that they were treated the same as them. They didn't see them as equal to the white race, they saw them inferior.
People involved: John A. Bingham, Jacob Howard -
15th Amendment
15th Amendment: This amendment gave all men, including former African American slaves, the right to vote. This gave them more hope for the future and their respect in the United States. The problem was, not many African Americans could read or write so it was difficult for them to be politically involved. They were given more power.
People involved: Lyndon B. Johnson, Booker T. Washington -
Reparations
Reparations: The making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronges. The idea that some form of compensatory payment should be made to the descendants of Africans who had been enslaved by the Atlantic Slave Trade.
People involved: African American slaves -
Enforcement Acts
Enforcement Acts: Three bills passed by the united states congress between 1870 and 1871. They were criminal codes which protected African American's right to vote, to hold office, to serve of juries, and recieve equal protection of laws.
People involved: KKK -
Dawes Act
Dawes Act: This was adorpted by congress in 1887, authorized the President of the U.S. to survey American Indian Tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians.
People involved: American Indians, Americans
