The Time of Slavery

1. abolitionist - A person who wanted to end slavery in the United States.

2. Compromise of 1850 - A law passed by Congress admitting California to the Union, allowing people in the territories to decide slavery for themselves, and obtaining the North’s agreement to obey the Fugitive Slave Law.

3. Confederate States of America - The name adopted by the 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union during the Civil War.

4. Dred Scott Decision - An 1857 Supreme Court decision that said slaves were private property.

5. Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 - A law passed by Congress that required police in free states to help capture escaping slaves.

6. Kansas-Nebraska Act - An 1854 law passed by Congress that allowed the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide whether to become free states or slave states.

7. secede - To break away from a group, such as the Southern states seceding from the Union in 1861.

8. Seneca Falls Convention - The country’s first women’s rights meeting, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

9. states’ rights - The belief that each state should be allowed to make its own decisions about issues affecting it.

10. Underground Railroad - A system of secret routes used by escaping slaves to reach freedom in the North or in Canada.