8 Slavery and Sectional Conflict Free Online FlashCards

How did the cotton gin contribute to slavery’s expansion?

The cotton gin made short-staple cotton more profitable to process, encouraging plantation agriculture to spread across the Deep South.

Name several everyday forms of resistance by enslaved people.

Enslaved people resisted through everyday actions such as slowing work, preserving family and cultural traditions, learning, negotiating for autonomy, and escaping.

How did Free Soil advocates differ from abolitionists?

Many Free Soil advocates opposed slavery’s expansion into western territories but did not demand its immediate abolition where it already existed.

What did the Missouri Compromise of 1820 establish?

It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and prohibited slavery in much of the remaining Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36°30′.

What did popular sovereignty mean?

Popular sovereignty was the idea that settlers would decide whether slavery was allowed in a territory.

What did the Supreme Court decide in Dred Scott v. Sandford?

It ruled that Black people of African descent could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress lacked authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.

Why did Lincoln’s 1860 election alarm Southern secessionists?

Lincoln pledged to prevent slavery’s expansion, not to abolish it immediately where it already existed. Southern secessionists nevertheless saw his election as a threat to slavery’s future and political power.

What did the Emancipation Proclamation do—and not do?

Effective January 1, 1863, it declared enslaved people free in areas still in rebellion, but did not end slavery everywhere.

What role did the domestic slave trade play in slavery’s expansion?

Enslavers forcibly sold and transported hundreds of thousands of people from the Upper South to expanding cotton and sugar regions.

What were key provisions of the Compromise of 1850?

It admitted California as a free state, left slavery in Utah and New Mexico to local decision, ended the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act.

How did the Kansas-Nebraska Act affect the Missouri Compromise?

The act opened Kansas and Nebraska to popular sovereignty and effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise restriction north of latitude 36°30′.

What position on slavery did the newly formed Republican Party take?

The Republican Party opposed slavery’s extension into the territories.