Ch. 18 Vocab Review

Notion that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery. Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by Northern abolitionists who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

• popular sovereignty

• poopuler sofraintee

• separation of powers

• checks and balances

Antislavery party in the 1848 and 1852 elections that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, arguing that the presence of slavery would limit opportunities for free laborers.

• Free Soil Party

• Republicans

• Democrats

• Whigs

Informal network of volunteers that helped runaway slaves escape from the South and reach free-soil Canada. Seeking to halt the flow of runaway slaves to the North, Southern planters and congressmen pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law.

• Underground Railroad

• Fugitive Slave Road

• Slave Network

• Escape Plan

Admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington D.C., and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law. Widely opposed in both the North and South, it did little to settle the escalating the escalating dispute over slavery.

• Compromise of 1850

• Tariff of 1842

• Missouri Compromise

• Fugitive Slave Law

Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, it set high penalties for anyone who aided escaped slaves and compelled all law enforcement officers to participate in retrieving runaways. Strengthened the antislavery cause in the North.

• Fugitive Slave Law

• Compromise of 1850

• Bleeding Kansas

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

Proposed that the issue of slavery be decided by popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska territories, thus revoking the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Stephen Douglass in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Compromise of 1850

• Gadsden Purchase

• Fugitive Slave Law

Acquired additional land from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.

• Gadsden Purchase

• Louisiana Purchase

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• The Great Triumvirate

Inflow of miners to Northern California after news reports of a luxury found at Sutter's Mill.

• California Gold Rush

• Sutter's Discovery

• San Fransisco 49ers

• Eureka!

War between Britain and China over trading rights.

• Opium War

• Chinese-Britain War

• Trade War

• The Great Tariff