APUSH Unit 5 Quiz

James K. Polk

Democrat elected president in 1844

• First American dark horse candidate for president (Franklin Pierce was another dhc who won the Democratic nomination and then the presidency)

• Not one of the announced candidates before the Democratic convention of that year

Manifest Destiny

__Americans believed__ themselves to have a __God-given right to possess a nation__ from the __Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean__

* Fueled the continued American __expansion westward__

Oregon Trail

A six-month, 2,000-mile journey to Oregon

• Brought settlers to the Oregon territory

• Many settled in the Willamette Valley

Oregon Treaty

1846

* __Gave most of Oregon to the Americans__

Bear Flag Republic

Officially __proclaimed in the California territory__ on __July 4, 1846__

Treaty of Guad-Hidalgo

Signed on February 2, 1848 and officially __ended the Mexican-American War__

* Many who had __favored war__ __considered__ the treaty __too generous to the defeated Mexicans__

Wilmot Proviso

David Wilmot introduced an amendment to a bill authorizing funding for the Mexican-American War that stated slavery could not exist in any territory acquired from Mexico

• Was passed by the House of Rep. four times and rejected by the Senate each time

• Symbolized the growing tension over westward expansions and the question of slavery

Missouri Compromise

President Polk decided to continue the line drawn out to the Pacific Ocean

• Slavery allowed in territories south of the line

• Slavery not allowed in territories north of the line

Free-Soil Party

Members of the __Liberty party__ and __defectors__ from the __Whig and Democratic parties__

* __Main purpose__ was to __oppose slavery in the newly acquired western territories__

Compromise of 1850

Both the North and South got some of what they wanted from the compromise

• Northerners were happy the legislation allowed California to enter the Union as a free state

• Residents of New Mexico and Utah territories would decide if areas would be slave territories and that slave trading was eliminated in Wash. D.C.

• Strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act bothered Abolitionists in the North

Fugitive Slave Act

Law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves

• Allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders

• Part of the Compromise of 1850

Stephen Douglas

Sponsored the bill that proposed the creation of the Kansas and Nebraska territories

• Was pressured by Southern senators

• Included a provision in the bill that the existence of slavery in these territories would be decided by a vote of those who lived there

• Opposed by Abraham Lincoln in the 1858 election for senator from Illinois

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Major Slave Legislation #3 of 3

• Reversed the Missouri Compromise

• Constructed by Stephen Douglas

• Let Kansas and Nebraska decide if they would be a slave state or not (popular sovereignty)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe

• A response to the Fugitive Slave Act

• Demonstrated the immortality of slavery

• Quickly became the best-selling book in America

• Popularity helped stoke the fires of abolition

Gadsden Purchase

__American diplomats negotiated with Mexico__

* Gave __America an additional southern route for trade__ and __territory for a proposed transcontinental railroad__

Know-Nothing party

Former Whigs that developed in response to the rising Immigration from Ireland and Germany

• Nativist

• Especially anti-Catholic

Republican Party

Created from the fury over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Exclusively Northern

• Dedicated to the principle that slavery should be prohibited in all territories

• Replaced the Know-Nothings as the second most important political party in the US

Bleeding Kansas

Many proslavery settlers flooded into Kansas from Missouri, thus ensuring the election of a proslavery legislature in 1855 by casting illegal ballots

• Fighting broke out between the anti-slavery and proslavery factions in that territory

• Free-soil settlement at Lawrence was attacked, in response, Abolitionist John Brown and his followers killed five proslavery settlers

Dred Scott

A __former slave__ who was __suing for his freedom__ on the __basis that his owner had taken him to stay__ first in a __free state__, Illinois, and __then into free territory__, Wisconsin

* Dred Scott case finally __made it to the Supreme Court docket in 1856__

Abraham Lincoln

• Was a part of 1858 election for senator from Illinois

• Used to be a Whig, now a Republican, having broken from the Whig party over slavery

• Practicing attorney

• Been in the US Congress during the Mexican War

• Narrowly lost an earlier bid for the Senate in 1852

Freeport Doctrine

__Douglas’ response__ to __how the residents of a territory could exclude slavery__ in light of the Dred Scott decision

* __Maintained that territory could exclude slavery if__ the __laws and regulations written made slavery impossible to enforce__

Election of 1860

Election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 virtually ensured that some Southern states would leave the Union

• Stephen Douglas received the support of Northern Democrats

• John Breckinridge got support from Southern Democrats

• Lincoln received nearly 40% of the popular vote and easily won the Electoral College vote

• Lincoln won

Confederate States of America

Seven states that left the union

• F- Florida

• A- Alabama

• S- South Carolina (first to leave)

• T- Texas

• M- Mississippi

• L- Louisiana

• G- Georgia

Compromise of 1877

Democrats __allowed Hayes to be president__ __in return for the removal of all federal troops from the south__

Election of 1844

Democratic candidate James K. Polk vs Whig candidate Henry Clay

• Polk wins

• Polk with 170 electoral votes to Clay’s 105