PMA 1 Content Focus Flash Cards

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Sectionalism

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Economic and cultural differences between the North and South that escalated the political division leading up to the Civil War. The North was industrial and used paid labor, while the South was agricultural and used enslaved labor.

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Popular Sovereignty

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A concept that allowed people of a state or territory to vote on whether or not they wanted to allow slavery in their state or territory.

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States' Rights

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The right for individual states to make their own laws. Southern states believed they had the right to maintain slavery and that the federal government didn’t have the power to abolish it.

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Dred Scott Decision

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A Supreme Court decision before the Civil War that established that a freed slave living in a free state was not allowed the same rights as an American citizen.

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Compromise

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An agreement between two or more groups where each side has to give up a little of what they want. Failure to follow these compromises is considered a cause of the war.

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Missouri Compromise

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Missouri was allowed to become a state as a slave state, but Maine was admitted as a free state. It established that states above Missouri could not be slave states in the future.

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Compromise of 1850

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California entered as a free state, and new territories could use popular sovereignty to decide on slavery. It also created the Fugitive Slave Law.

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Kansas-Nebraska Act

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Allowed both states to use popular sovereignty to decide on the issue of slavery, even though Nebraska is north of Missouri. This is considered one of the causes of the war.

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Abolish

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To ban.

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Abolition Movement

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A pre-Civil War movement that pushed to get rid of slavery. Famous abolitionists include Frederick Douglass, William Garrison, Harriet Tubman, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.