| A | B |
| Sectionalism | When one region is favored over the country as a whole |
| Popular Sovereignty | principle that would allow voters in a particular territory to decide whether to ban or permit slavery |
| Wilmot Proviso | Proposal to ban slavery in the Mexican Cession |
| Free-Soil Party | Political party formed in 1848 by antislavery northerners who left the Whig and Democratic parties because neither addressed the slavery issue |
| Henry Clay | The Great Compromiser |
| Daniel Webster | Opposed to slavery but in favor of Clay's plan because perserving the Union was more important than any regional differences |
| Compromise of 1850 | California entered as a free state; Mexican Cession organized as federal territory and used popular sovereignty to decide the slavery issue; Texas gave up land in return for payment of debts; end of slave trade -- not slavery-- in Wash., D.C.; new more effective slave law |
| Fugitive Slave Act | Allowed fugitive slaves to be arrested even in areas where slavery was illegal |
| Anthony Burns | Fugitive slave arrested in Boston and returned to slavery in Virginia |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | Powerful anti-slavery novel |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Pottawatomie Massacre | Abolitionist John Brown and seven other men murdered pro-slavery Kansans |
| Dred Scott Decision | Ruled that slaves could not bring cases to court because they were not citizens |
| Roger B. Taney | Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the majority decision on the Dred Scott case |
| Freeport Doctrine | Arguement by Stephen Douglas that stated that popular sovereignty would decide the slavery issue in states or territories |
| Secession | Act of formally withdrawing from a country |