Union In Peril

The third political party that spawned and greatly influenced US politics during the 1850s in their opposition to the extension of slavery in the western territories.

A faction of the Whig Party in Massachusetts noted for their moral opposition to slavery and as opponents of the conservative �Cotton� Whigs who dominated the state party.

The radical faction of the New York state Democratic Party in the mid 19th

opposed expansion of public debt, power of large corporations, extension of

derived from those who would burn barns to rid of rat infestation.

The belief that the legitimacy of the state is created by the will or consent of the its people, who are the source of political power.

An intricate package of five bills, passed in September 1850, defusing a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North that arose following the Mexican War.

An American politician who lost to Abraham Lincoln, in the President election of 1860 as a Northern Democratic Party nominee.

The thirteenth president of the United States, the last member of the Whig Party to hold office, and assumed presidency after Zachary Taylor�s death as vice president.

A clause of the U.S. Constitution that guaranteed the right of a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave.

An informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century slaves in the U.S. to escape to free states with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause.

An African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and made thirteen missions to rescue slaves through the Underground Railroad.

An American abolitionist and author who was known for her novel Uncle Tom�s Cabin(1852) that depicted life for African Americans under slavery.

A Southern American critic of slavery during the 1850s who published a book �The Impending Crisis of the South� who argued that slavery hurt the economic prospects of non-slaveholders in the South, and to the growth of the entire South.

An American social theorist who published racial and slavery based sociological theories in the antebellum era � that slaves need the economic and social protections of slavery.

The fourteenth President of the United States, a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies.

The creation of the territories Kansas and Nebraska, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed settlers to decided whether to have slavery or not within the territories.

A movement and society between the 1840s and 1850s empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants.

Emerging in the 1850s, they combated the threat of slavery�s extension to the territories and promoted vigorous modernization of the economy.

The fifteenth President of the United States, tried to destroy the sectional party and growing schism in the country.

A series of violent events, involving anti-slavery Free Staters and pro-slavery Border Ruffians that took place in Kansas Territory over the debate whether Kansas should enter the Union as a free state of slave state.

A transportation company set up to transport emigrants to Kansas Territory to shift the balance of power so that Free States rather than slaveholders would decide whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state.

A radical abolitionist from the United States, who advocated and practice armed insurrection as means to abolish slavery for good � led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

On May 22, 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks severely beat Senator Charles Sumner in the senate chambers.

The second of the four proposed constitutions for the state of Kansas, as a written response to the anti-slavery position of the Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates.

A Supreme Court Case that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens.

The fifth Chief of Justice of the United States, delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling that African Americans were considered of inferior order and unfit to associate with the white race.

The sixteenth President of the United States who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the U.S.

A series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, a Republican and Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat, for an Illinois seat in the US Senate.

An address given by Abraham Lincoln on June 16, 1858 in Springfield, Illinois, upon accepting the Illinois Republican Party�s nomination as state�s senator.

Stephen Douglas�s answer to Lincoln�s question, explaining that slavery could only exist where there was a slave code, and that a state did not pass necessary laws to protect slavery, then slavery should not exist there.

John Brown�s armed slave revolt by seizing a US Arsenal at Harper Ferry in Virginia in 1859, but was defeated by a detachment of US Marines.

Abraham Lincoln won the election defeating Stephan A. Douglas with electoral vote and popular vote, and his main issue was to preach the value of the Union throughout the whole nation.

The act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity.

An unsuccessful proposal by Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden to resolve the US secession crisis by addressing the concerns that led the states in the South to contemplate secession from the US.