| A | B |
|---|
| Abolition | The ending of the slave trade or of slavery. |
| Civil War | civil war in the United States between the North and the South; 1861-1865 |
| Suffrage | The right or chance to vote, express an opinion, or participate in a decision, especially in a democratic election. |
| Discrimination | Differential treatment of an individual or group to their disadvantage |
| Missouri Compromise | federal legislation balanced the desires of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it. |
| Sectionalism | Promoting the good of one region over that of the nation. |
| Free Soil Party | a political party in the United States from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party |
| Popular Sovereignty | Power belonging to the people. |
| Union | United States as a unified nation and the federal government, consisting primarily of the Northern states that fought against the Confederacy |
| Confederacy | the collection of American states that seceded from the United States in 1860–61, fought against the Union in the Civil War |
| Emancipation | The state of being freed |
| Secession | withdrawal from a political organization |
| Kansas Nebraska Act | 1854 law enabling popular sovereignty. |
| Dred Scott Decision | Supreme Court ruling denying citizenship to a slave |
| Fugitive Slave Act | southern slaveholders with legal weapons can capture slaves who had escaped to the free states |
| 13th Amendment | Abolished slavery |
| 14th Amendment | granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the US, including formerly enslaved people |
| 15th Amendment | prohibits states from denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" |
