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A secret network of routes and safe houses used by enslaved African Americans to escape to free states and Canada.
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A conflict between Mexico and Texan settlers, resulting in Texas becoming an independent republic.
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The belief that the United States was destined to expand across the North American continent.
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A failed proposal to ban slavery in territories acquired from Mexico during the Mexican-American War.
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An agreement between the U.S. and Britain that established the U.S.-Canada boundary in the Pacific Northwest.
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A conflict between the U.S. and Mexico over territory, resulting in U.S. acquisition of vast southwestern lands.
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The treaty that ended the Mexican-American War, ceding territories such as California and New Mexico to the U.S.
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A political party opposing the expansion of slavery into western territories.
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A package of laws designed to ease tensions between free and slave states, including the admission of California as a free state.
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Part of the Compromise of 1850, this law required citizens to assist in the capture of escaped enslaved people.
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A land purchase in which the U.S. bought territory from Mexico (present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico) to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.
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Allowed territories to decide the issue of slavery through popular sovereignty, leading to violence in “Bleeding Kansas.”
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Founded to oppose the expansion of slavery, it became a major political party in the U.S.
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A series of violent confrontations between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Kansas.
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A Supreme Court case ruling that African Americans were not U.S. citizens and could not sue in federal court.
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An armed abolitionist raid led by John Brown to incite a slave revolt by seizing a federal arsenal.
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Abraham Lincoln’s election as president, which led to the secession of Southern states.
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The site of the first shots of the Civil War, fired when Confederate forces attacked the Union garrison.
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An executive order by President Lincoln declaring freedom for slaves in Confederate states.
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A speech by President Lincoln emphasizing the principles of equality and the importance of preserving the Union.
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A military campaign led by General William T. Sherman that aimed to destroy Confederate resources in Georgia.
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A constitutional amendment that abolished slavery in the United States.
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A federal agency established to assist freed slaves and poor whites in the South during Reconstruction.
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A white supremacist organization that used violence to oppose Reconstruction and African American rights.
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An agricultural system where freed slaves and poor farmers rented land and paid a share of the crop as rent.
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Laws passed in Southern states to restrict the rights of freed African Americans.
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Laws that outlined the process for Southern states to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.
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Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., including former slaves, and provided equal protection under the law.
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Prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
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An agreement that ended Reconstruction by withdrawing federal troops from the South in exchange for resolving the disputed 1876 presidential election.