Pageant Chapter 19 – Flashcards
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American or Know-Nothing Party
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A party formed in the election of 1856 out of the ideas and concepts of the Order of the Star Spangled Banner. This group was primarily focused on antiforeignism and anti-Catholicism, which they saw as two factors to prevent the pollution of American society
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Beecher's Bibles
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The nickname given to the deadly new Sharps rifles that the New England Emigrant Aid Company supplied its representatives with in Kansas to fight for the abolitionist cause
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Bleeding Kansas
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A term describing the parairie territory where a small civil war in Kansas broke out in 1856.
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Bleeding Sumner
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The name given to the incident in Congress when Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina savagely beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts after Sumner had made a speech that spoke out against supporters of slavery in a derisive way. Sumner was repeatedly beaten on the head until the cane broke and thus suffered various neurological damages
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Charles Sumner
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In 1856, he delivered a speech titled, "The Crime Against Kansas," condemning the proslavery men and referring insultingly to one of the best-liked members of the Senate, Andrew Butler from South Carolina. His speech incited Congressmen Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina to beat him with a cane on the floor of Congress until the cane broke
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Confederate States of America
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A new nation formed by 7 states that seceeded from the Union and claimed independence. Its capital was in Birmingham, Alabama. When Abraham was running for president (got all north votes got none from west or south) and when he was elected they seceeded.
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Constitutional Union Party
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A middle-of-the road group who were primarily concerned with the continued preservation of the Union. This group was often derided as the "Do Nothing" or "Old Gentleman's party" and consisted mainly of former Whigs and Know-Nothings. In the presidential election of 1860, they nominated John Bell from Tennessee as a candidate who represented their compromise ideals
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Crittenden Compromise
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An amendment of Kentucky as an attempt to permanently settle the issue of slavery without a dividing of the Union. It proposed that the 36 60 line be used as the divide between slavery in the new territories. Lincoln rejected, feeling it would lead to wars of conquest in Latin America to extend slavery.
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Dred Scott
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a black slave who had lived with his master for five years in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory. After his owner had died, he, with the backing of abolitionists, sued the widow for his freedom. He claimed that by living on free soil for five years, he had established his residency and was thus a free man; he lost in Supreme Court 1857 case that ruled slaves could be taken into ANY territory. Outraged North.
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Freeport Doctrine
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A concept first espoused by Douglas in his debate with Lincoln at Freeport, Illinois. The idea was basically that no matter how the Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down
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Harper's Ferry Raid
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the last stand of John Brown. Was intended to be the beginning of a slave uprising that would eventually establish a free state for blacks. However, the slaves in the immediate area did not respond when Brown and his men seized control of the federal armory
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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A white abolitionist woman who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is said to have begun the Civil War.
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Hinton R. Helper
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a non-aristocratic white from North Carolina who hated both slavery and blacks, he was the author of The Impending Crisis of the South, in which he attempted to prove with various statistics that indirectly, the non-holding whites were the ones who suffered the most from the institution of slavery
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Impending Crisis of the South
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A book written by abolitionist Hinton Helper arguing that slavery mostly affected whites without slaves in a negative way. It caused unrest in the South- a factor in the later secession.
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James Buchanan
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A weak president who was often swayed by his Southern supporters after his election in 1856. He was not a particularly adept politician and his presidency was marred by the Dred Scott decision, Bleeding Kansas, and the panic of 1857. On the matter of Kansas, he unwisely chose to throw his support behind the Lecompton Constitution for the statehood of Kansas.
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Jefferson Davis
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The President of the Confederate States of America after those states seceded from the Union
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John Bell
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the presidential nominee for the Constitutional Union party in the election of 1860. The party itself looked to take a middle-of-the-road stance towards politics and thus nominated the compromise candidate of John Bell of Tennessee. , "The Union, the Constitution, and the Enforcement of the Laws."
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John Brown
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was believed to be insane, he was the controversial figure in the beginning stages of the battles within Kansas and the infamous raid on Harpers Ferry. He and his followers mutilated five bodies in retaliation against the Southern attack on Lawrence, believing God was leading him to free the slaves. Hung by the South, hero to abolitionists in the North
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John C. Breckinridge
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the nominee for the Southern Democrats in the election of 1860, he would eventually lose to Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election. The Southern Democrats split away from their Northern counterparts after they felt they could not support the Northerners' choice of Stephen Douglas for the presidency
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John C. Fremont
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a war hero in California during the Mexican American War, he was chosen as the Republican nominee in 1856. He was largely chosen for his lack of association with the Kansas issue, even though he had little to no political experience.
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Lecompton Constitution
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a document written up by proslavery forces in 1857 when Kansas applied for statehood. The abolitionist denomination had boycotted the convention as a protest but it had gone through and was now submitted to Congress. Buchanan supported the document under the influence of Southerners, but Douglas strongly opposed it, bringing about a division within the Democratic Party.
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Lincoln-Douglas Debates
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Political discussions between Lincoln and Douglas for a position in the Illinois Senate.
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New England Immigrant Aid Society
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the most famous of the antislavery organizations, this company sent two thousand people to the Kansas territory to combat the Southern influence there. Many of those who were dispatched to the Kansas territory carried deadly new breech-loading Sharps rifles, nicknamed "Beecher's Bibles" after the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher who had helped raise the money for their purchase. Thus, this society helped contribute to the growing crisis within Kansas that led to the territory's being labeled as "Bleeding Kansas.
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Panic of 1857
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financial crash had great psychological effects in a time of tension. The in-pouring of gold from California helped to inflate American currency while overspeculation also contributed to the crash. The Northerners took the blunt of the damage as the Southerners were still able to live off exporting cotton during this time. Northerners called for a higher tariff to increase duties during this time since a lower tariff was instituted right before the crash, leading some to believe that the tariff was the issue in the whole thing
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Pathfinder of the West
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John C. Fremont's nickname
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Pottawatomie Creek Massacre
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a retaliation attack by John Brown and his followers for the Southern attack on free-soil Lawrence, Kansas. "Old Brown" of Osawatomie claimed to be acting out of God's will and mutilated five bodies that are presumed to be those of proslaveryites
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Roger Taney
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The Chief Justice in the Dred Scott decision, he persuaded the rest of the Southern judges to go beyond dismissing the Scott case as a black who had no right to be represented in court
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self-determination
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the idea that each state or territory could determine for itself, the course of its political association. The idea came about from close interpretation of the Declaration of Independence
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South Carolina
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The first state to seceed from the Union.
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Stephen A. Douglas
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Author of Kansas-Nebraska Act, advocate of popular soveignty, Senator from Illinois; The leading northern Democrat whose presidential hopes failed because of the conflict over slavery.
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The Crime Against Kansas
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Speech written by Senator Charles Sumner that insulted the South, leading to vicious attack by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina
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Uncle Tom's Cabin
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A novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe showing the horrors of slavery. It was a proponent in beginning the Civil War and ending it.