A Nation Divided

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

Being loyal to your part of the country instead of the whole nation. In the 1800s the North built its economy on factories and paid workers. The South built its economy on plantations and enslaved workers. That difference pulled the two regions apart.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

The switch from making things by hand to making them with machines in factories. This happened fast in the North in the 1800s, and it changed the jobs people did and the places they lived.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

Cities grew quickly as people — including many immigrants — moved to the North for factory jobs. The cities were crowded and often unhealthy, but they gave the North more people, more power, and places where new ideas got argued over.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

Instead of working at home, workers came to one building where machines made goods faster and cheaper. Early factories ran on river water, and because the hours were long, workers lived nearby — which is how cities grew across the Northeast. Owners hired many women and children because they could pay them less.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

Cloth factories in Lowell, Massachusetts that hired mostly young women for 12-hour shifts at low pay. The "Lowell Girls" lived in boarding houses across the street and worked in loud, dirty, unsafe rooms, though many were proud to earn their own paycheck. It was one of the first organized factory workforces in America.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

A boat pushed along by a steam engine, invented in the early 1800s. It made river travel faster and more dependable. Farmers and factory owners could now ship goods much more easily. Rivers like the Mississippi began to tie far-apart parts of the country together.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

A 363-mile waterway dug between 1817 and 1825 to connect Lake Erie to the Hudson River, and so the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Shipping goods from the Midwest to East Coast cities got much cheaper and faster, which helped make New York City a trade center.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

The South’s economy was built on big farms growing cash crops like cotton and tobacco, worked by enslaved people. That tied Southern wealth directly to slavery. About 30% of Southern families enslaved people, and many of those held enough to count as plantations.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

The belief that a state can make its own laws without the federal government stepping in. It comes from the 10th Amendment (1791), which says anything the Constitution does not cover is left to the states. Southern states used this argument to defend slavery and, later, to claim they could leave the Union.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

A system in which people are owned as property. They are forced to work with no pay, no freedom, and no rights. In the United States it became the base of the Southern economy, especially on plantations. It was one of the main causes of the Civil War.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

Someone who worked to end slavery. In the 1800s they gave speeches, printed newspapers, and helped enslaved people escape on the Underground Railroad. Their work grew support in the North and caused fear and anger in the South.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

A secret network of safe houses and routes that enslaved people used to reach freedom in the North or in Canada. It was not a real railroad — it was called "underground" because it was secret and against the law. Black and white helpers both took serious risks to run it.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

A deal that let Missouri join as a slave state and Maine as a free state, so neither side gained power in Congress. It also banned slavery in territory north of the 36°30′ line. It was one of the first big attempts to avoid a fight over slavery.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

A law proposed in 1846. It would have banned slavery in any land won in the Mexican American War. The House passed it but the Senate did not, so it never became law. Still, the fight over it made North–South tensions worse.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

A package of five laws meant to calm the North and South. California came in as a free state, the laws on returning runaways got stricter, and new territories were left to vote on slavery themselves. It was supposed to settle the argument and instead started more of them.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

This law made people and officials in free states help catch enslaved people who had escaped. They had to send them back south. It was part of the Compromise of 1850. It angered Northerners who wanted no part of slavery, and pushed more of them to fight slavery openly.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

This law let the people of two territories vote on whether to allow slavery. That threw out the Missouri Compromise line, and settlers on both sides poured in and turned Kansas violent. It divided North and South further.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

The violent fighting in Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers both rushed in to swing the vote. The fighting turned deadly. It showed how angry and split the country had already become.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

The idea that the people living in a territory should vote on whether slavery is allowed there. The Kansas-Nebraska Act used it. Instead of peace it brought violence, because both sides rushed in to control the vote.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

Dred Scott, an enslaved man, sued for his freedom after living in a free state. The Supreme Court ruled that enslaved people were property, not citizens, so he had no right to sue — and that Congress could not ban slavery in any territory. The decision outraged the North and moved the country closer to war.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

A novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852, that showed how cruel slavery was. It sold hugely in the North and changed how many people there thought about slavery. Southerners hated it and said it was full of lies.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

Abraham Lincoln won this election promising to stop slavery from spreading — not to end it everywhere. The South did not believe him and feared he would end it eventually. Several Southern states seceded right after, which led to the Civil War.

● Other Vocabulary — not listed under a standard

A political party formed in the 1850s by people against letting slavery spread into new territories. It was strongest in the North and became the main political force opposing slavery. Abraham Lincoln was its first president.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

The name for the United States during the Civil War, and especially for the Northern states. Its goal was to hold the country together, and later also to end slavery. It included the free states, the border states, and any area loyal to the U.S. government.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

Slave states that stayed in the Union during the war. They were Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. West Virginia joined them after it split from Virginia in 1863. Each one sat between the two sides. Their culture had Southern ties and their business had Northern ties. Keeping them loyal mattered a great deal to the Union.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

To leave a country and break away from it. Eleven Southern states did this in 1860 and 1861, right after Lincoln was elected. They formed their own country, the Confederate States of America. Their goal was to protect slavery and states’ rights.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

The new country created by the 11 Southern states that left the Union. It had its own government, army, and president. Its main goal was to keep slavery and the way of life built on it.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

A U.S. fort in South Carolina held by Union soldiers. In April 1861 Confederate forces fired on it, and that started the Civil War. No one was killed, but both sides began preparing to fight.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

The Union’s plan for winning the war: block Southern ports, take control of the Mississippi River, and squeeze the Confederacy from every side like a snake. That would cut off supplies and cut the South in two.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

The Confederacy’s plan: defend their own land until the North got tired and gave up. They also expected help from foreign countries that needed Southern cotton. They thought time was on their side.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

A short, powerful speech Lincoln gave in 1863 after the Battle of Gettysburg. He honored the soldiers who died there and said the war was a fight to protect democracy and freedom, calling for "a new birth of freedom."

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

An order Lincoln issued on January 1, 1863. It declared that all enslaved people in the Confederate states were free. It did not free everyone right away. But it did make ending slavery one of the goals of the war.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

In total war, an army attacks more than just enemy soldiers. It also goes after the farms, factories, and railroads that keep those soldiers supplied. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman did this in 1864. He marched from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, wrecking what lay in his path. The goal was to break the South’s ability to keep fighting.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

The village in Virginia where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865. That ended the major fighting of the Civil War, and the war officially ended soon after.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

The change to the Constitution that made slavery illegal in the United States. Congress passed it in 1865, just after the Civil War ended, and it freed enslaved people in every state, North and South.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas finally learned they were free. That was more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Today it is a holiday. It marks the end of slavery and celebrates African American freedom and culture.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

Anyone killed, wounded, missing, or captured in a war. The Civil War had more than 600,000, which makes it the deadliest war in U.S. history. Single battles left huge numbers of dead and wounded on both sides.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

A man who escaped slavery. He became one of the strongest speakers and writers against it. He published the story of his own life. He also started an anti-slavery newspaper called The North Star to fight for freedom and equal rights.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

A white abolitionist. He published an anti-slavery newspaper called The Liberator. He called slavery a moral evil. He wanted it ended at once, not bit by bit.

● Standard 7.8a — Sectional Differences

A woman who escaped slavery and then became a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, making 19 trips back south and leading more than 70 people to freedom. During the Civil War she also served the Union as a nurse, scout, and spy.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

An abolitionist who believed only force would end slavery. He led violent attacks in Kansas. He then raided the federal weapons store at Harpers Ferry, hoping to start a revolt of enslaved people. He was caught, tried for treason, and hanged. The North saw a hero; the South saw a villain.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

A senator from Massachusetts who gave a furious speech attacking slavery and Southern leaders. A Southern congressman answered by beating him with a cane on the Senate floor. The attack shocked the country and showed how deep the split over slavery ran.

● Standard 7.8b — Slavery in the New Territories

The author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a white woman from the North who used writing to speak out against slavery. Lincoln reportedly called her "the little lady who made this big war," which says something about how much her book mattered.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

The 16th president of the United States, who led the country through the Civil War. He worked to hold the Union together and later issued the Emancipation Proclamation to help end slavery. He said the country could not survive "half slave and half free."

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

The Union Army’s top general during the Civil War. He won many battles, including the last one that forced the South to surrender, and later became the 18th President of the United States.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

A senator from Massachusetts known for trying to keep the country together. He supported deals like the Compromise of 1850 to avoid war. He was against slavery, but at the time he thought saving the Union mattered more.

● Standard 7.8c — Causes of the Civil War

The president of the Confederate States during the Civil War. He believed strongly in states’ rights and supported slavery. He led the South through the war but had trouble getting the Southern states to cooperate with each other.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

The Confederate Army’s top general. He was asked to lead the Union Army first, but when his home state of Virginia seceded he chose to fight for it instead. He was known as a brilliant military commander.

● Standard 7.8d — The Course of the Civil War

A well-known actor who backed the South. He shot and killed President Lincoln in April 1865, just days after the war ended. He thought he was helping the South. Instead he shocked the whole country, and his name is still one of the most hated in U.S. history.