Civil War Vocabulary

an unfair negative opinion formed about a group of people

• prejudice

• abolitionist

• Fugitive Slave Law

• sectionalism

a person who wanted to abolish, or end slavery in the United States

• prejudice

• abolitionist

• sectionalism

• states' rights

laws made by colonial planters that were designed to control the life of enslaved African Americans

• slave codes

• states' rights

• Fugitive Slave Law

• Dred Scott Decision

a system of secret routes used by slaves escaping the south to reach freedom in the north or Canada

• Underground Railroad

• Fugitive Slave Laws

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• sectionalism

a law passed by Congress in 1850 that required escaped slaves to be returned to their owners

• Fugitive Slave Law

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Missouri Compromise

• Dred Scott decision

a law passed in 1854 that allowed territories to decided whether to become free or slave states

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Fugitive Slave Law

• Missouri Compromise

• sectionalism

a Supreme Court decision in 1857 that ruled slaves were private property

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Fugitive Slave Law

• Missouri Compromise

• sectionalism

the belief that individual states should be allowed to make decisions about issues that concern them

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Fugitive Slave Law

• Missouri Compromise

• states' rights

being loyal to a section of one's country instead of to the country itself

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Fugitive Slave Law

• Missouri Compromise

• sectionalism

this individual was an enslaved African American who led a rebellion and was later captured and hung for it

• Nat Turner

• Frederick Douglass

• Elizabeth Jennings

• Harriet Tubman

• Dred Scott