APUSH Give Me Liberty Key Terms

Articles of Confederation

First frame of government for the United States; in effect from 1781 to 1788, it provided for a weak central authority and was soon replaced by the Constitution.

Ordinance of 1784

A law drafted by Thomas Jefferson that regulated land ownership and defined the terms by which western land would be marketed and settled; it established stages of self-government for the West. First Congress would govern a territory; then the territory would be admitted to the Union as a full state.

Ordinance of 1785

A law that regulated land sales in the Old Northwest. The land surveyed was divided into 640-acre plots and sold at $1 per acre.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Law that created the Northwest Territory (area north of the Ohio River and west of Pennsylvania), established conditions for self-government and statehood, included a Bill of Rights, and permanently prohibited slavery.

Empire of Liberty

The idea, expressed by Jefferson, that the United States would expand liberty as it spread west across the continent. White Americans who moved west would eventually

be able to apply for admission into the United States as full member states.

Shay’s Rebellion

Attempt by Massachusetts farmer Daniel Shays and 1,200 compatriots, seeking debt relief through issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, to prevent courts from seizing property from indebted farmers.

Constitutional Convention

Meeting in Philadelphia, May 25-September 17, 1787, of representatives from twelve colonies-excepting Rhode Island-to revise the existing Articles of Confederation; the convention soon resolved to produce an entirely new constitution.

Virginia Plan

Virginia's delegation to the Constitutional Convention's plan for a strong central government and a two-house legislature apportioned by population.

New Jersey Plan

New Jersey's delegation to the Constitutional Convention's plan for one legislative body with equal representation for each state.

federalism

A system of government in which power is divided between the central government and the states.

Division of powers

The division of political power between the state and federal governments under the U.S. Constitution (also known as federalism).

Checks and balances

A systematic balance to prevent any one branch of the national government from dominating the other two branches.

Separation of powers

Feature of the U.S. Constitution in which power is divided between executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the national government so that no one can dominate the other two and endanger citizens' liberties.

Three-fifths clause

A provision signed into the Constitution in 1787 that three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted in determining each state's representation in the House of Representatives and its electoral votes for president.

The Federalist

Collection of eighty-five essays that appeared in the New York press in 1787-1788 in support of the Constitution; written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay and published under the pseudonym "Publius."

Anti-Federalists

Opponents of the Constitution who saw it as a limitation on individual and states' rights.

Bill of Rights

First ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1791 to guarantee individual rights against infringement by the federal government.

Treaty of Greenville

A 1795 treaty under which representatives of twelve Native nations ceded most of Ohio and Indiana to the federal government.

Annuity system

System of yearly payments to Native American nations by which the federal government justified and institutionalized its interference in Indian tribal affairs.

Assimilation

A series of efforts by the United States to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream American culture.

Gradual emancipation

A series of acts passed in state legislatures in the North in the years following the Revolution that freed slaves after they reached a certain age, following lengthy "apprenticeships.”

Notes on the State of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson's 1785 book that claimed, among other things, that Black people were incapable of becoming citizens and living in harmony alongside white people due to the legacy of slavery and what Jefferson believed were the "real distinctions that nature has made" between races.

Bank of the United States

Proposed by the first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, the bank that opened in 1791 and operated until 1811 to issue a uniform currency, make business loans, and collect tax monies.

Impressment

The British navy's practice of using press-gangs to kidnap men in British and colonial ports who were then forced to serve in the British navy.

Jay’s Treaty

Treaty with Britain negotiated in 1794 by Chief Justice John Jay; Britain agreed to vacate forts in the Northwest Territories, and festering disagreements (such as the border with Canada, prewar debts, and shipping claims) would be settled by commission.

Federalists and Republicans

The two increasingly coherent political parties that appeared in Congress by the mid-1790s.

The Federalists, led by George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong central government. The Republicans supported a strict interpretation of the Constitution, which they believed would safeguard individual freedoms and states' rights from the threats posed by a strong central government.

Whiskey Rebellion

Violent protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against the federal excise tax on whiskey in 1794.

Democratic-Republican societies

Organizations created in the mid-1790s by opponents of the policies of the Washington administration and supporters of the French Revolution.

Judith Sargent Murray

A writer and early feminist thinker prominent in the years following the American Revolution.

Alien and Sedition Acts

Four measures passed in 1798 during the undeclared war with France that limited the freedoms of speech and press and restricted the liberty of noncitizens.

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions

Legislation passed in 1798 and 1799 by the Virginia and the Kentucky legislatures in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Virginia's resolution called on the federal courts to protect free speech. Jefferson's draft for Kentucky stated that a state could nullify federal law, but this was deleted.

Revolution of 1800

First time that an American political party surrendered power to the opposition party; Jefferson, a Republican, had defeated incumbent Adams, a Federalist, for president.

Haitian Revolution

A revolution by enslaved people that led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent country in 1804.

Gabriel’s Rebellion

An 1800 uprising planned by Virginian slaves to gain their freedom. The plot led by a blacksmith named Gabriel was discovered and quashed.

Marbury v. Madison

First U.S. Supreme Court decision to declare a federal law-the Judiciary Act of 1801-unconstitutional.

Louisiana Purchase

President Thomas Jefferson's 1803 purchase from France of the important port of New Orleans and 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. In theory, it more than doubled the territory of the United States at a cost of only $15 million; in reality it was still the land of multiple Native nations.

Lewis and Clark expedition

Led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a mission to the Pacific coast commissioned for the purposes of scientific and geographical exploration.

Barbary Wars

The first wars fought by the United States, and the nation's first encounter with the Islamic world. The wars were fought from 1801 to 1805 against plundering pirates off the Mediterranean coast of Africa after President Thomas Jefferson's refusal to pay them tribute to protect American ships.

Embargo Act

Attempt in 1807 to exert economic pressure by prohibiting all exports from the United States instead of waging war in reaction to continued British impressment of American sailors; smugglers easily circumvented the embargo, and it was repealed two years later.

Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa

Shawnee diplomatic and military leader who followed the teachings of his brother Tenskwatawa and tried to unite all Indians into a confederation to resist white encroachment on their lands; his beliefs and leadership made him seem dangerous to the American government. He allied with the British during the War of 1812 and was killed at the Battle of the Thames.

War of 1812

War fought with Britain, 1812-1814, over issues that included impressment of American sailors, interference with shipping, and collusion with Northwest Territory Indians; settled by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814.

Fort McHenry

Fort in Baltimore Harbor unsuccessfully bombarded by the British in September 1814; Francis Scott Key, a witness to the battle, was moved to write the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Battle of New Orleans

Last battle of the War of 1812, which was fought on January 8, 1815, weeks after the peace treaty was signed but prior to the news reaching America; General Andrew Jackson led the victorious American troops.

Hartford Convention

Meeting of New England Federalists on December 15, 1814, to protest the War of 1812; proposed seven constitutional amendments (limiting embargoes and changing requirements for officeholding, declaration of war, and admission of new states), but the war ended before Congress could respond.

XYZ affair

Affair in which French foreign minister Talleyrand's three anonymous agents (designated X, Y, and Z) demanded payments to stop French plundering of American ships in 1797; refusal to pay the bribe was followed by two years of undeclared sea war with France (1798-1800).

Steamboat

Paddlewheelers that could travel both up- and down-river in deep or shallow waters.

Erie Canal

Most important and profitable of the canals of the 1820s and 1830s; stretched from Buffalo to Albany, New York, connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast and making New York City the nation's largest port.

Cotton Kingdom

Cotton-producing region, relying predominantly on slave labor, which spanned from North Carolina west to Louisiana and reached as far north as southern Illinois.

Cotton gin

Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the machine that separated cotton seed from cotton fiber, speeding cotton processing and making profitable the cultivation of the more hardy, but difficult to clean, short-staple cotton.

Porkopolis

Nickname of Cincinnati, coined in the mid-nineteenth century, after its numerous slaughterhouses.

American system of manufactures

A system of production that relied on the mass production of interchangeable parts that could be rapidly assembled into standardized finished products.

Mill girls

Women who worked at textile mills during the industrial revolution who enjoyed new freedoms and independence not seen before.

Nativism

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling especially prominent from the 1830s through the 1850s.

Dartmouth College v. Woodward

1819 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the original charter of the college against New Hampshire's attempt to alter the board of trustees; set the precedent of support of contracts against state interference.

Gibbons v. Ogden

1824 U.S. Supreme Court decision reinforcing the "commerce clause" (the federal government's right to regulate interstate commerce) of the Constitution; Chief Justice John Marshall ruled against the State of New York's granting of steamboat monopolies.

Manifest destiny

Phrase first used in 1845 to urge annexation of Texas; used thereafter to encourage U.S. settlement of European colonial and Native lands in the Great Plains and the West and, more generally, as a justification for American empire.

Transcendentalists

Philosophy of a small group of mid-nineteenth-century New England writers and thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller; they stressed personal and intellectual self-reliance.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revival movement of the early decades of the nineteenth century, in reaction to the growth of secularism and rationalist religion.

Individualism

Term that entered the language in the 1820s to describe the increasing emphasis on the pursuit of personal advancement and private fulfillment free of outside interference.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Religious sect founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith; it was a product of the intense revivalism of the "burned-over district" of New York.

Cult of domesticity

The nineteenth-century ideology of "virtue" and "modesty" as the qualities that were essential to proper womanhood.

Family wage

Idea that male workers should earn a wage sufficient to support their family without their wives having to work outside the home.

The “peculiar institution”

A phrase used by whites in the antebellum South to refer to slavery without using the word "slavery."

Second Middle Passage

The massive trade of slaves from the upper South (Virginia and the Chesapeake) to the lower South (the Gulf states) that took place between 1820 and 1860.

Paternalism

A moral position developed during the first half of the nineteenth century, which claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own "good." Such a rationalization was adopted by some slaveowners to justify slavery.

Proslavery argument

The series of arguments defending the institution of slavery in the South as a positive good, not a necessary evil. The arguments included the racist belief that Black people were inherently inferior to white people, as well as the belief that slavery, in creating a permanent underclass of laborers, made freedom possible for whites. Other elements of the argument included biblical citations.

“Cotton is king”

Phrase from Senator James Henry Hammond's speech extolling the virtues of cotton and, implicitly, the slave system of production that led to its bounty for the South. "King Cotton" became a shorthand phrase for southern political and economic power.

Fugitive slaves

Slaves who escaped from their owners.

Underground Railroad

Operating in the decades before the Civil War, a clandestine system of routes and safehouses through which slaves were led to freedom in the North.

Harriet Tubman

Abolitionist who was born a slave, escaped to the North, and then returned to the South nineteen times and guided 300 slaves to freedom.

The Amistad

Ship that transported slaves from one port in Cuba to another, seized by the slaves in 1839. They made their way northward to the United States, where the status of the slaves became the subject of a celebrated court case.

Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy

An 1822 failed slave uprising in Charleston, South Carolina, purported to have been led by Denmark Vesey, a free Black man.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion

An 1831 insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, led by an enslaved preacher, resulting in the death of about sixty white persons.

Democracy in America

Two works, published in 1835 and 1840, by the French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville on the subject of American democracy. Tocqueville stressed the cultural nature of American democracy and the importance and prevalence of equality in American life.

Franchise

The right to vote.

American System

Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs promoted by Speaker of the House Henry Clay in his presidential campaign of 1824.

Tariff of 1816

First true protective tariff, intended to protect certain American goods against foreign competition.

Panic of 1819

Financial collapse brought on by sharply falling cotton prices, declining demand for American exports, and reckless western land speculation.

McCulloch v. Maryland

1819 U.S. Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice John Marshall, holding that Maryland could not tax the Second Bank of the United States, supported the authority of the federal government versus the states.

Era of Good Feelings

Contemporary characterization of the administration of popular Republican president James Monroe, 1817-1825.

Missouri Compromise

Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay in 1820 to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri's admission as a slave state; Maine's admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri.

Monroe Doctrine

President James Monroe's declaration to Congress on December 2, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to European colonization, and that the United States would not interfere in European affairs.

Spoils system

The custom of filling federal government jobs with persons loyal to the party of the president.

Tariff of abominations

Tariff passed in 1828 by Congress that taxed imported goods at a very high rate; aroused strong opposition in the South.

Exposition and Protest

Document written in 1828 by Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina to protest the so-called tariff of abominations, which seemed to favor northern industry.

Nullification crisis

The 1832 attempt by the State of South Carolina to nullify, or invalidate within its borders, the 1832 federal tariff law.

Force Act

1833 legislation, sparked by the nullification crisis in South Carolina, authorizing the president's use of the army to compel states to comply with federal law.

Indian Removal Act

An 1830 law signed by President Andrew Jackson that permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain Native Americans' lands in exchange for their deportation to what would become Oklahoma.

Worcester v. Georgia

1832 Supreme Court case that held that the Indian nations were distinct peoples who could not be dealt with by the states-instead, only the federal government could negotiate with them.

Trail of Tears

Cherokee's own term for their forced removal, 1838-1839, from the Southeast to Indian Territory (later Oklahoma).

Bank War

Political struggle in the early 1830s between President Jackson and financier Nicholas Biddle over the renewing of the Second Bank's charter.

Soft money and hard money

In the 1830s, "soft money" referred to paper currency issued by banks. "Hard money" referred to gold and silver currency-also called specie.

Pet banks

Local banks that received deposits while the charter of the Bank of the United States was about to expire in 1836.

Panic of 1837

Beginning of major economic depression lasting about six years; touched off by a British financial crisis and made worse by falling cotton prices, credit and currency problems, and speculation in land, canals, and railroads.