| A | B |
|---|
| Wilmot Proviso | an 1846 proposal that outlawed slavery in any territory gained from the War with Mexico |
| Fre-Soil Party | a political party dedicated to stopping the expansion of slavery |
| Henry Clay | Senator from Kentucky who helped create the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and later crafted a plan to settle the California statehood problem |
| Daniel Webster | Senator from Massachusettes who supported the Compromise of 1850 in order to keep the Union together |
| Stephen A. Douglas | Senator from Illinois who believed that the people of each territory should decide whether or not to allow slavery |
| Compromise of 1850 | a series of Congressional laws intended to settle the major disagreements between free states and slave states |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | author of Uncle Tom's Cabin written because of her outrage with the Compromise of 1850 |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | a novel published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 that portrayed slavery as brutal and immoral |
| Fugitive Slave Act | an 1850 law to help slaveholders recapture runaway slaves |
| popular sovereignty | a government in which the people rule; a system which the residents vote to decide an issue |
| Kansas-Nebraska Act | an 1854 law that established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and gave their residents the right to decide whether to allow slavery |
| John Brown | an extreme abolitionist |
| Republican Party | the political party formed in 1854 by opponents of slavery in the territories |
| John C. Fremont | Republican nominated in 1856 and spoke in favor of admitting CA and KS as free states |
| James Buchanan | Democrat nominated to be president in 1856 whose goal was to maintain the Union |
| Dred Scott v. Sanford | an 1856 Supreme Court case in which a slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom because he had been taken to live in territories where slavery was illegal; the Court ruled against Scott |
| Roger B.Taney | Chief Justice in 1857 said Dred Scott was not a U.S. citizen and could not sue the U.S. courts and Scott was bound by the Missouri slave code |
| Abraham Lincoln | 1858 chosen by Illinois Republicans for U.S. Senate seat |
| Harpers Ferry | a federal arsenal in Virginia that was captured in 1859 during a slave revolt |
| platform | a statement of beliefs |
| secede | to withdraw |
| Confederate States of America | the confederation formed in 1861 by the Southern states after their secession from the Union |
| Jefferson Davis | president of the Confederacy |
| Crittenden Plan | a compromise introduced in 1861 that might have prevented secession |
