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54th Massachusetts Regiment
One of the first African American units in the Union Army during the Civil War, celebrated for its bravery in the 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, which challenged racist doubts about Black soldiers’ courage and capability.
Anaconda Plan
The Union’s military strategy during the Civil War to blockade Southern ports and control the Mississippi River, cutting off Confederate supplies and trade to slowly “squeeze” the South into surrender.
Black Codes
Laws passed by Southern states after the Civil War to restrict the freedom and labor rights of African Americans, especially their labour choices, movement, and legal rights.
Bleeding Kansas (1854–1856)
A period of violent conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the Kansas Territory following the Kansas–Nebraska Act, symbolizing the growing sectional crisis before the Civil War.
Dred Scott Decision (1857)
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared African Americans were not citizens and that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories, intensifying sectional conflict before the Civil War.
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
A wartime order issued by President Lincoln that declared enslaved people in areas still in rebellion against the United States to be free, using war powers rather than a peacetime law, which shifted the war’s moral purpose.
Greenbacks
Paper money issued by the U.S. government during the Civil War to finance the war effort, not backed by gold or silver but by federal credit.
Hyperinflation
extremely rapid loss of a currency’s value
Impeachment
The process by which a legislative body formally charges a government official with misconduct; Johnson was the first U.S. president impeached.
Inflation
General increase in prices and fall in purchasing power.
Infrastructure
The fundamental physical and organizational structures, such as transportation, communication, and energy systems, needed for a society’s economy to function effectively.
Jefferson Davis
The President of the Confederate States of America (1861–1865), who led the South during the Civil War and symbolized the defense of states’ rights and slavery.
Judicial Review
The power of the Supreme Court to declare laws unconstitutional, used here to strike down the Missouri Compromise.
Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854)
19th-century U.S. legislation which allowed settlers in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery through popular sovereignty, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise and igniting the violent conflict known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
Missouri Compromise (1820)
An agreement admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while banning slavery north of latitude 36°30′ in the Louisiana Territory to maintain the balance between free and slave states.
Reconstruction
Government-led rebuilding of society and economy after a major crisis.
Secession
The formal withdrawal of a state from the Union.
U.S. Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
A law requiring that escaped enslaved people be returned to their enslavers, even if found in free states, and penalizing anyone who aided their escape, which expended federal enforcement and pressured Northerners to cooperate.
Underground Railroad
A secret network of routes and safe houses used by enslaved African Americans in the 19th century to escape from the South to freedom in the North or Canada, aided by abolitionists.