| A | B |
|---|
| Lewis Cass | Democratic presidential candidate in 1848, original proponent of the idea of "popular sovereignty" |
| Zachary Taylor | Whig president who nearly destroyed the Compromise of 1850 before he died in office |
| California | Acquired from Mexico in 1848 and admitted as a free state in 1850 without ever having been a territory |
| District of Columbia | Place where northerners tried but failed to get the federal government to abolish slavery but where the slave trade was ended by the Compromise of 1850 |
| Harriet Tubman' | Famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad who rescued more than three hundred slaves from bondage |
| Daniel Webster | Northern spokesman whose support for the Compromise of 1850 earned him the hatred of abolitionists |
| William Steward | New York senator who argued that the expansion of slavery was forbidden by a "higher law" |
| Utah and New Mexico | Organized as territories under the Compromise of 1850, with their decision of slavery left up to popular sovereignty |
| Franklin Pierce | Weak Democratic president whose prosouthern cabinet pushed aggressive expansions schemes |
| Winfield Scott | Military hero of the Mexican War who became the Whigs' last presidential candidate in 1852 |
| Nicaragua | Central American nation desired by proslavery expansionists in the 1850s |
| Matthew Perry | American naval commander who opened Japan to the West in 1854 |
| Matthew Perry | American naval commander who opened Japan to the West in 1854 |
| Cuba | Rich Spanish colony coveted by American proslavery expansionists in the 150s |
| Kansas and Nebraska | Organized as territories under Douglas's controversial law of 1854 that left their decision on slavery up to popular sovereignty |
| Stephen a. Douglas | Illinois politician who helped smooth over sectional conflict in 1850 but then reignited it in 1854 |
