APUSH Period 5 AMSCO Key Terms

manifest destiny

popular belief that the United States had a divine right to extend its power and civilization across the North American continent

Samuel F.B. Morse

invented the electric telegraph in 1844; sped up communication and transportation across the country

Panic of 1857

prices for Midwestern farmers dropped drastically, and unemployment in the North increased; led the less affected South to believe their agricultural economy was superior, and that union with the North was unnecessary

Gold Rush; Silver Rush

1848; discovery of gold in California led to major population boost and migration into the mineral-rich West mountains; short-lived mining towns and camps sprung up, attracted foreign miners (Chinese)

federal land grants

1850; federal government granted land to build the Illinois Central Railroad in first land grant hoping to increase cheap & rapid transportation; united commercial interests of Northeast and Midwest, would give North strategic advantage in Civil War

mountain men

fur traders in the West; held annual rendezvous in the Rockies to trade animal skins with Native Americans, provided much of the early information about trails and frontier conditions in the West

"fifty-four forty or fight!"

Democratic slogan that appealed to expansionists who advocated for all of Oregon Territory, referred to latitude line that marked Northern border between Oregon Territory & Russian Alaska

James K. Polk

Democratic dark horse candidate of the Election of 1844; committed to expansion and manifest destiny, favored annexation of Texas, reoccupation of Oregon, and acquisition of California

Ostend Manifesto

1854; leaked dispatch from American diplomats meeting in Belgium to secretly negotiate buying Cuba from Spain; angered antislavery members of Congress, who marked it a plot to extend slavery

Texas; Stephen Austin

brought 300 families into Texas on his father's large land grant, starting a steady migration of Americans into frontier territory; Texas became independent from Mexico and applied to the U.S. for annexation, at first denied in 1844

The Alamo

American fort in Texas; was attacked by Santa Anna in 1836, all American defenders were killed

Aroostook War

rival groups of lumbermen fought over a boundary dispute on the Maine-Canadian border; resolved by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842)

split the disputed territory of the Aroostook War between Maine and Canada; also settled border of the Minnesota Territory

Mexican-American War

considered one of the causes of the Civil War; war over the southern border of Texas (the Rio Grande for the U.S., and the Nueces River for Mexico); resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Wilmot Proviso

California (Bear Flag Republic); John C. Fremont

John C. Fremont overthrew Mexican rule in California and declared it an independent republic in 1846

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

1848; resolved the Mexican-American War, declared the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas & gave the U.S. the Mexican Cession for $15 million

Gadsden Purchase

strips of land purchased from Mexico for $10 million to build a railroad in the American Southwest; forms southern sections of New Mexico and Arizona

Kanagawa Treaty

1854; allowed U.S. vessels to enter two Japanese ports for coal; led to commercial agreement on trade

Free-Soil Party

formed in 1848 by Northerners who opposed allowing slavery in the territories; advocated free homesteads and internal improvements; adopted the slogan "free soil, free labor, and free men"

popular sovereignty

practice of allowing the issue of slavery to be determined by a vote of the people who settled the territory; also known as squatter sovereignty

Compromise of 1850

another of Henry Clay's compromises; suggested that 1) California be admitted as a free state, 2) the Mexican Cession would be divided into Utah and New Mexico and slavery would be determined by popular sovereignty, 3) disputed land between Texas and New Mexico would be given to the new territories, 4) the slave trade in Washington, D.C. be banned, and 5) a strict Fugitive Slave Law would be enforced

Fugitive Slave Law

purpose was to allow people to track down fugitive slaves, capture them, and return them to their Southern owners; fugitive slaves were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government; citizens who attempted to shelter a fugitive slave were subject to heavy penalties

Uncle Tom's Cabin

a piece of anti-slavery literature written by Harriet Beecher Stowe; led Northerners and Europeans to see Southern slave owners as inhuman, Southerners became increasingly angry

George Fitzhugh; Sociology of the South

1854 piece of pro-slavery literature; questioned principle of equal rights for "unequal men" and attacked the capitalist wage system as worse than slavery

Hinton Helper; Impending Crisis of the South

1857 piece of anti-slavery nonfiction; used statistics to demonstrate to Southerners that slavery weakened the South's economy

Kansas-Nebraska Act; Stephen Douglas

1854, devised by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas; divided the Nebraska Territory into Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory and allowed settlers in each territory to determine whether to allow slavery or not; violated the Missouri Compromise of 1820 & led to an outbreak of violence

"Bleeding Kansas"

fighting between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups in Kansas led to this nickname for the Kansas Territory

Sumner-Brooks incident

1856; on the Senate floor, Brooks beat Sumner over the head with a cane due to personal charges against his uncle; outraged Northerners, delighted Southerners; sign of growing divide between North & South

Know-Nothing Party

formed by hostile Nativists; drew support away from the Whigs but quickly died out

Republican Party

1854, founded in Wisconsin by anti-slavery Whigs, Democrats, and Free-Soilers; opposed the spread of slavery in the territories, but not the end of slavery entirely; was a Northern party that quickly became the second largest party

Dred Scott v. Sanford

pro-slavery decision that Dred Scott was property and therefore 1) could not sue on a federal court and 2) must be returned to his previous owner; declared Missouri Compromise unconstitutional; decision infuriated Northerners and delighted Southerners

Abraham Lincoln

relatively unknown compared to opponent Stephen Douglas for the Senate seat in 1858; not an abolitionist, but viewed slavery as a moral issue; would become the 16th President of the United States, handle the Civil War, and pass the Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Lincoln challenged Douglas to explain how popular sovereignty worked with the Dred Scott decision; Freeport Doctrine came of these debates

Freeport Doctrine

Douglas' concept that slavery could not exist in an area without local slave codes to maintain it; idea angered Southern Democrats

John Brown; Harpers Ferry

attempted slave uprising in 1859 led by John Brown; attacked the federal arsenal Harpers Ferry with sons, but locked self into arsenal and was captured by Robert E. Lee; convicted and hanged for treason

Election of 1860

the Democrats divided, though both halves supported the expansion of slavery; the Republicans elected Lincoln with an easy win, supported the exclusion of slavery from the territories and built their platform around economic interests; Lincoln's election led the Southern states to secede

border states

slaveholding states that remained in the Union (Delaware, Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky) and gave the Union an advantage

Confederate States of America

created in a convention in Montgomery, AL, composed of delegates from the seven Deep South states; had similar government with limits on president's power to impose tariffs and restrict slavery; was short on money, overproduced and caused severe inflation

Morrill Tariff Act (1861)

raised tariff rates to protect American manufacturers; first of Republican program of high protective tariffs for industrialists

Morrill Land Grant Act (1862)

encouraged states to use sale of federal land grants to maintain agricultural and technical colleges

Pacific Railway Act (1862)

authorized construction of a northern route transcontinental railroad to link the economies of the western territories with the eastern states

Homestead Act (1862)

promoted settlement of the Great Plains by offering free public land to any family that farmed it for a minimum of five years

Fort Sumter

first attack of the war; Fort Sumter was cut off from vital Confederate supplies and reinforcements; Lincoln offered food to the fort as a choice of war, but offer was denied

Anaconda Plan

plan to blockade Southern ports with the U.S. navy in order to cut off essential supplies from reaching the Confederacy

Antietam

Lee led Confederates into Maryland hoping a win on Union land would win them British recognition & support; severe loss, bloodiest day of battle in the Civil War

Gettysburg and Vickburg

two detrimental losses for the Confederacy; battles considered to be turning point of the war b/c Confederate army was severely reduced and put off the offensive

Emancipation Proclamation

1863; declared all slaves in the rebelling Confederate states free

Sherman's March to the Sea

march from Chattanooga, through Georgia, and north into South Carolina, led by Tecumseh Sherman; burned all buildings, cotton fields, barns and houses in Georgia; left Confederacy with little ambition or drive to continue war

habeas corpus

suspended during the Civil War; meant that citizens could be arrested without being informed of the charges against them

13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

13th Amendment abolished slavery; 14th Amendment required states to uphold equal rights for all citizens and "due process of law"; 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote

Causes & Effects of the Civil War

causes: sectional division over the expansion of slavery, Northern industrial economy vs. Southern agricultural economy, differences in tariffs, views on internal improvements, political extremism, federal vs. states' rights

effects: women became more involved in economy as nurses & factory workers, women's first push for equal voting rights, end of slavery, granting of civil rights, shift towards more industrial economy

Copperheads

Northerners who sympathized with the Southerners during the Civil War; threatened Lincoln's reelection

Lincoln's Plan for Reconstruction

hoped the Southern states could be reestablished by meeting a test of political loyalty; Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863) allowed states to rewrite their state constitutions abolishing slavery; Freedmen's Bureau granted black families confiscated Southern land to farm

Wade-Davis Bill of 1864

proposed stricter terms for Reconstruction, including a 50 percent loyalty plan, and prohibited Confederates from voting on bills; vetoed by Lincoln

Freedmen's Bureau

1865; acted as an early welfare agency; resettled freed blacks onto confiscated Southern land during Lincoln's presidency, but were prohibited under Johnson's presidency

Johnson's Plan for Reconstruction

had similar 10 percent plan as Lincoln; prevented former Confederate leaders from holding office, but granted personal pardons that allowed Confederate leaders to slip back into the Senate & House; allowed Black Codes and a contract-labor system to take form

Radical Republican Reconstruction Plan

struggled to extend equal rights to African Americans in terms of the Civil Rights Acts; reconstruction occurred in Congress rather than through the President

Civil Rights Act of 1866

pronounced all African Americans to be U.S. citizens and attempted to protect African Americans from Black Codes, but 14th Amendment would guarantee protection

Tenure of Office Act

1867; prohibited the president from removing a federal official or military commander without the approval of the Senate

Civil Rights Act of 1875

guaranteed equal accommodations in all public buildings and prohibited courts from excluding African Americans from juries

spoilsmen

political manipulators who became the faces of the Republican Party & were considered masters of patronage

patronage

to give jobs and government favors to supporters of an elected official

Jay Gould; Credit Mobilier

Wall Street financer who used President Grant's brother-in-law to corner the gold market; insiders gave stock to influential members of Congress to avoid investigation in the Credit Mobilier affair

Boss Tweed

boss of the New York City Democratic party; helped himself to large chunks of graft in a series of schemes

Thomas Nast

New York Times cartoonist who exposed Boss Tweed & influenced his arrest and imprisonment in 1871

Panic of 1873

overspeculation and overbuilding by industries and railroads led to widespread business failures & an economic depression

Blanche Bruce & Hiram Revels

first two African American men to be admitted into the Senate; their positions of power caused bitter resentment among ex-Confederates

Tilden, Hayes, and the Compromise of 1877

Tilden won the popular vote in the election of 1875; informal Compromise of 1877 allowed Hayes to become president as long as he 1) immediately ended federal support for Southern Republicans and 2) support the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad

scalawags and carpetbaggers

nicknames for the rivals of Southern Democrats; "scalawags" were Southern Republicans, and "carpetbaggers" were Northern newcomers

Ku Klux Klan

secret society organized by Southern whites to intimidate blacks; burned black-owned buildings & murdered free men

Force Acts (1870, 1871)

gave federal authorities the power to stop Ku Klux Klan violence and protect the civil rights of Southern citizens

Amnesty Acts of 1872

removed the remaining restrictions on ex-Confederates; consequently allowed Southern conservatives to vote for Democrats to retake control of state governments