Chapter 18 Terms and Definitions
- Compromise of 1850
A package of laws that admitted California as a free state, organized the rest of the Mexican Cession under popular sovereignty, and imposed a stronger fugitive slave law.
- Popular Sovereignty
The doctrine that settlers in a territory should decide for themselves whether to permit slavery.
- Fugitive Slave Law (1850)
A harsh law denying accused runaways a jury trial and requiring northern citizens to assist in their capture, which provoked intense northern backlash.
- Stephen A. Douglas
Illinois senator known as the "Little Giant" who engineered passage of both the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
- Franklin Pierce
Democratic president (1853–1857) who pursued an expansionist "Young America" foreign policy and signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
- Ostend Manifesto
A leaked 1854 proposal to seize or purchase Cuba from Spain, which embarrassed the Pierce administration and fed northern "slave power" fears.
- Kansas-Nebraska Act
An 1854 law organizing the Kansas and Nebraska territories under popular sovereignty and repealing the Missouri Compromise's ban on slavery there.
- Bleeding Kansas
The violent conflict between proslavery and antislavery settlers in Kansas Territory following the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
- Border Ruffians
Proslavery Missourians who crossed into Kansas to influence elections and violence, including the sacking of Lawrence in 1856.
- John Brown
Radical abolitionist who led the Pottawatomie Massacre in Kansas in retaliation for proslavery violence.
- Republican Party
The new political party formed in 1854 from antislavery Whigs, Free-Soilers, and northern Democrats, dedicated to stopping slavery's expansion.
- Know-Nothing Party
A nativist political party that rose alongside the Republicans in the 1850s, reflecting the collapse of the old party system.