Slave and free states

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/slave-and-free-states

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the constitutional protection of slavery?The Three-Fifths Compromise granted disproportionate political power to slaveholding states
2. What is the key legislative attempts at resolution?Missouri Compromise (1820), Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
3. What is the difference between slave states and free states?Slave states used enslaved people to grow crops like cotton, while free states did not use slavery and relied on wages and factories.
4. Why did the U.S. have the Three-Fifths Compromise?It counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for voting power, giving slave states more influence in Congress.

Chattel Slavery: A system where enslaved people are treated as personal property, bought and sold.
Popular Sovereignty: The principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives.
Antebellum Period: The period in American history before the Civil War (roughly 1815-1860).
Reconstruction Era: The period after the Civil War (1865-1877) focused on rebuilding the South and readmitting former Confederate states.