A device that used electric signals to send messages

A system of dots and dashes that represent the alphabet

A new development or invention

To change significantly

Connected many cities. One line linked the cities of New York and Buffalo. Another connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Builders connected these eastern lines to lines being built farther west in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. By 1860, the they formed a network that united the Midwest and the East.

Mechanical reaper, before this invention, farmers had harvested grain with handheld cutting tools. It greatly increased the amount of crop a farmer could harvest. Because farmers could harvest more wheat, they could plant more of it. Growing wheat became profitable. Raising wheat became and would remain the main economic activity on the Midwestern prairies.

Group of workers with the same trade, or skill

A work stoppage by employees as a protest against an employer

An unfair opinion not based on facts

Unfair treatment

An extreme shortage of food

Person opposed to immigration

Group of people who live in the same area

An official authority to do something

A measure of how much a worker can produce with a given amount of time and effort

The trade of enslaved people among states of the United States

To prepare

Result

Farmer who owns a small farm

Plantation manager

An African American religious folk song

Law in a Southern state that controlled enslaved people

A system of cooperation to aid and house enslaved people who had escaped

The ability to read and write

Covered several thousand acres. In addition to the land they owned, owners measured their wealth by the number of enslaved people they had. In 1860 only about 4 percent of slaveholders held 20 or more enslaved workers. Earning profit was the main goal for owners of large plantations. To make a profit, they needed to bring in more money than they spent.

Religious meeting

Community based on a vision of the perfect society

Drinking little or no alcohol

State-supported school for training high school graduates to become teachers

Refusing to obey laws considered unjust

Speech meant to provide information, similar to what a teacher presents

Person who sought the end of slavery in the United States in the early 1800s

Plan to send free African Americans to Africa to start new lives. The society raised money to send free African Americans out of the country. Some went to the west coast of Africa, where the society acquired land for a colony. The first settlers arrived in Liberia ("place of freedom") in 1822. In 1847 Liberia declared itself an independent republic.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was another writer who made a major impact on the public's opinion of slavery. Her book portrayed slavery as a cruel and brutal system. Some people, however, strongly opposed the book and its message. Sale of the book was banned in the South.

Massachusetts abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison had a great influence on the antislavery movement. In 1831 he started this newspaper.

The best-known African American abolitionist. Born into slavery in Maryland, Douglass escaped in 1838. He settled first in Massachusetts. He traveled widely to speak at abolitionist meetings. He even appeared at events in London and the West Indies. He was a powerful speaker who often moved listeners to tears. He also edited the antislavery newspaper North Star.

"I was born a slave in Ulster County, New York," Isabella Baumfree began when she told her story to audiences. After a childhood and youth filled with hardship, she escaped in 1826. Then, she officially gained her freedom in 1827 when New York banned slavery. Baumfree later settled in New York City with her two youngest children.

The right to vote

The teaching of males and females together

Modeled on the Declaration of Independence. Just as Thomas Jefferson had in 1776, women are announcing the need for revolutionary change based on a claim of basic rights. These resolutions called for an end to laws that discriminated against women. They also demanded that women be allowed to enter the all-male world of trades, professions, and businesses. The most controversial issue, however, was the call for woman suffrage, or the right to vote in elections.

Helped organize the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. About 300 people, including 40 men, attended. Insisted the resolutions include a demand for woman suffrage.

The daughter of a Quaker abolitionist. She called for equal pay and college training for women, and coeducation. She also organized the country's first women's temperance association, the Daughters of Temperance. She met Elizabeth Cady Stanton at a temperance meeting in 1851. They became lifelong friends and partners in the struggle for women's rights and suffrage.

Skillful

An agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions.

Person who is running away from legal authority

To withdraw or break away from a nation or organization

Armed pro-slavery supporter who crossed the border from Missouri to vote in Kansas

Conflict between citizens of the same country

To control

Proposal would ban slavery in any lands the United States might acquire from Mexico. Southerners protested. They wanted the new territory to remain open to slavery. Neither bill passed, but both caused heated debate.

Those who opposed slavery left their parties and formed this party

Suggested a compromise. California would be a free state, but other new territories would have no limits on slavery. In addition, the slave trade, but not slavery itself, would be illegal in Washington, D.C. Clay also pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law.

Senator of South Carolina who offered another idea, saying that neither Congress nor any territorial government could ban slavery from a territory or regulate it.

Senator from Illinois that divided Henry Clay's plan into parts, each to be voted on separately. In the end, Congress passed his plan the Compromise of 1850. Author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. Furthermore, California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial government was created in Utah.

Anyone who helped a fugitive could be fined or imprisoned.

Letting the voters in each territory vote on whether to allow slavery. The people are the source of all government power. Stephen A Douglas's popular sovereignty came to mean a particular method for deciding the question of slavery in a place.

It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.

A place to store weapons and military equipment

A person who dies for a cause

Unlike the Republicans, almost three-fourths of the Democratic candidates from free states lost in this election

Election was divided along rigid sectional lines. Buchanan took all Southern states except Maryland. Frémont won 11 of the 16 free states but did not get any electoral votes from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. With 174 electoral votes compared to 114 for Frémont and 8 for Fillmore, Buchanan won.

Antislavery Whigs and Democrats joined with Free-Soilers to form this party. One of the party's major goals was the banning of slavery in new territories.

This party endorsed the idea of popular sovereignty.

President from the Democratic Party, from Pennsylvania. He was a diplomat and former member of Congress. He tried to appeal to Southern whites.

Or Know-Nothings, grew quickly between 1853 and 1856 by attacking immigrants. Party was also divided over the issue of the Kansas- Nebraska Act. When the Know-Nothings refused to call for a repeal of the act, many Northern supporters left the party.

Dred Scott was still an enslaved person. As such, he was not a citizen and had no right to bring a lawsuit. Taney wrote that living on free soil did not make Scott free. A slave was property. The Fifth Amendment prohibited the taking of property without "due process."

Republican President, won the election of 1860, said that he could not allow secession and that "the Union of these States is perpetual [forever]." He vowed to hold federal property in the South, including a number of forts and military installations, and to enforce the laws of the United States.

Debated seven times. The face-offs took place in Illinois cities and villages during August, September, and October of 1858. Thousands of spectators came to the debates. Newspapers provided wide coverage. The main topic, or subject of discussion, was slavery. Douglas replied that voters could exclude slavery by refusing to pass laws that protected the rights of slaveholders. Douglas’s response, which became known as the Freeport Doctrine, satisfied antislavery followers, but it cost Douglas support in the South. Douglas claimed that Lincoln wanted African Americans to be fully equal to whites. Lincoln denied this. Still, Lincoln insisted that African Americans should enjoy rights and freedoms.

On October 16, 1859, the abolitionist John Brown led a group on a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His target was a federal arsenal, a storage site for weapons. Brown hoped to arm enslaved African Americans and start a revolt against slaveholders. Abolitionists had paid for the raid. Local citizens and federal troops defeated Brown's raid. Tried and convicted of treason and murder, Brown received a death sentence. John Brown's death rallied abolitionists. When white Southerners learned of Brown's abolitionist ties, their fears of a great Northern conspiracy against them were confirmed. The nation was on the brink of disaster.

Withdrawal

The idea that states should have all powers that the Constitution does not give to the federal government or forbid to the states

In this presidential election, the big question was whether the Union would continue to exist. Regional differences divided the nation. Northern Democrats supported popular sovereignty. They nominated Stephen Douglas. Southern Democrats vowed to uphold slavery. Their candidate was John C. Breckinridge. Moderates from the North and South formed the Constitutional Union Party. The Constitutional Unionists took no position on slavery. They chose John Bell as their candidate. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. They wanted to leave slavery alone where it existed—but also to ban it in the territories.

Moderates from the North and South formed this political party. They took no position on slavery.

To refuse to accept

To provide an explanation for

By February 1861, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia had joined South Carolina and seceded. Delegates from these states met to form a new nation.

President of the Confederate States of America.

Jefferson Davis ordered his forces to attack this Fort before the Union supplies could arrive. Confederate guns opened fire on April 12, 1861. Facing a hopeless situation, the Union surrendered the fort on April 14. Despite heavy bombardment, no one had died.