Civil War Causes and Secession Flashcards

Grade 8 · Social Studies · Flashcards

Key terms and concepts for understanding what caused the Civil War and Southern secession.

Flashcards

Secession

The formal withdrawal of a state from the Union; 11 Southern states seceded 1860-1861

Confederate States of America

Government of the 11 seceding Southern states, led by President Jefferson Davis

Dred Scott Decision

1857 Supreme Court ruling that enslaved people were property with no legal rights or citizenship

Fort Sumter

South Carolina fort where Confederate forces fired on Union troops in April 1861, starting the Civil War

Missouri Compromise (1820)

Agreement that admitted Missouri as slave state, Maine as free state, and banned slavery north of 36°30'

Compromise of 1850

Deal that admitted California as free state but included a harsh Fugitive Slave Act

Fugitive Slave Act

Law requiring Northerners to help capture and return escaped enslaved people to the South

Uncle Tom's Cabin

1852 novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that turned millions of Northerners against slavery

States' Rights

Political principle that states should have authority over federal government in certain matters — used by the South to defend slavery

Harper's Ferry Raid

John Brown's 1859 attempt to start a slave uprising by seizing a federal arsenal in Virginia

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Law that allowed settlers in new territories to vote on whether to allow slavery, repealing the Missouri Compromise

Bleeding Kansas

Period of violent conflict in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the mid-1850s

Abolitionist

A person who wanted to end slavery entirely

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War

Abraham Lincoln

16th U.S. president whose 1860 election triggered Southern secession

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