| A | B |
|---|
| secede | withdraw formally from membership of a federal union, an alliance, or a political or religious organization |
| fugitive | a person who has escaped from a place or is in hiding, especially to avoid arrest or persecution |
| border ruffian | proslavery raiders who crossed into the Kansas Territory from Missouri during the mid-19th century to help ensure the territory entered the United States as a slave state |
| civil war | a war between citizens of the same country |
| Fugitive Slave Act | required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state |
| Kansas-Nebraska Act | repealed the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty |
| popular sovereignty | the principle that the leaders of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political legitimacy |
| Compromise of 1850 | a series of laws passed by the U.S. Congress in an effort to settle several outstanding issues regarding slavery. In particular, the North and South disagreed over whether slavery should be allowed in new states and territories |
| Free Soil Party | short-lived coalition political party in the United States active from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party. The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States |
| Republican Party | emerged as the main political rival of the then-dominant Democratic Party in the mid-1850s, and the two parties have dominated politics in the U.S. ever since |
| Dred Scott v. Sanford | a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens |
| martyr | a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs |
| arsenal | a collection of weapons and military equipment |
