Abolitionists: People who worked to end slavery.

Civil War: Conflict that took place from 1861 to 1865 between the Northern states ( Union ) and the Southern seceded states (Confederacy); also known in the South as the War between the States and in the North as the War of the Rebellion.

Confederate States of America : The eleven Southern states that seceded (separated) from the United States during the 1860s and fought the Union during the American Civil War.

Emancipation: The act of freeing people from slavery.

Reconstruction: A federal policy from 1865 to 1877 through which the national government took an active part in assisting and policing the former Confederate states.

Secession: The formal withdrawal of eleven Southern states from the Union in 1860-61.

Union : Northern states that remained loyal to the United States during the Civil War.

Whig Party: A political party that existed roughly from 1836 to 1854 that consisted...