US History - NYS Regents

Taino Indians

the Indians that Christopher Columbus met when he traveled to America

Bartolome de Las Casas

Dominican priest who spoke out against mistreatment of Native Americans

Jamestown, Virginia

the first permanent English settlement, founded in 1607 by the Virginia Company for economic reasons

Plymouth Colony

The second permanent English colony in North America

Mayflower Compact

1620 - The first agreement for self-government in America. It was signed by the 41 men on the Mayflower and set up a government for the Plymouth colony.

Virginia House of Burgesses

The first representative assembly in the new world. Created due to distance between Great Britain and the colonies.

New England Town Meetings

Democratic style of government. Towns and cities grew around gathering places, and allowed mass participation in politics.

13 Colonies- New England

Rocky Soil, Harbors, Abundant Forests MA-NH-RI-CT

13 Colonies- Middle Colonies

Fertile Soil but small farms, Harbors NY-NJ-PA-DE

13 Colonies- Southern Colonies

Very Fertile Soil, Long Growing Season, Plantation Economy MD- VA-NC-SC-GA

Appalachian Mountains

Natural boundary for the 13 colonies, Proclamation Line of 1763

Great Plains

Breadbasket of America- From Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains

Indentured Servants

Poorer Europeans signed a contract for work in exchange for passage to North America. (appx 7 years)

Mercantilism

Colonies must trade with the mother country

Salutary Neglect

Colonies are given more flexibility and self-government decisions

Middle Passage

African slave forced journey to the Americas

Albany Plan of Union (1754)

Plan proposed by Benjamin Franklin that sought to unite the 13 colonies for trade, military, and other purposes; the plan was turned down by the colonies & the Crown.

French and Indian War

(1754-1763) War fought in the colonies between the English and the French for possession of the Ohio Valley area. The English won.

Causes of the American Revolution

1. Taxation 2. Revocation of Royal Charters 3. Enforcement of Navigation Acts 4. British Demands for Colonists to pay for cost of French and Indian War. 5. Oppression by King 6. Interference of Parliament in Colonial Affairs. 7. No Representation in Parliament.

Stamp Act

1765; law that taxed printed goods, including: playing cards, documents, newspapers, etc.

Intolerable Acts

series of laws passed in 1774 to punish Boston for the Tea Party

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Common Sense was pamphlet that attacked the British monarchy, calling for American

independence from Britain.

Declaration of Independence

1776 statement, issued by the Second Continental Congress, explaining why the colonies wanted independence from Britain.

Articles of Confederation

1st Constitution of the U.S. 1781-1788 (weaknesses-no executive, no judicial, no power to tax, no power to regulate trade)

Shays' Rebellion (1786-1787)

Angered by taxes & debts, Daniel Shay led a rebellion against the American Gov't. (SHOWED how Articles of Confederation were weak) the people didn't have a commercial bank and had to borrow from each other; were in large debt.

Constitutional Convention

A meeting in Philadelphia in 1787 that produced a new constitution

Great Compromise (1787)

was an agreement between large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, VA plan-large states NJ-small states, CT- Great Compromise

Three-Fifths Compromise

Agreement that each slave counted as three-fifths of a person in determining representation in the House for representation and taxation purposes (negated by the 13th amendment)

Census

the official count of a population done every 10 years

Anti-Federalists

people who opposed the Constitution

Federalists

supporters of the Constitution

Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution, added by the Anti-Federalists demands

Federalist Papers

Written by Hamilton, Jay, & Madison to support ratification of the U.S. Constituiton

Popular Sovereignty

A government in which the people rule by their own consent.

Preamble

Introduction to the Constitution

Federalism

A system in which power is divided between the national and state governments

Elastic Clause

the part of the Constitution that permits Congress to make any laws "necessary and proper" to carrying out its powers

Checks and Balances

A system that allows each branch of government to limit the powers of the other branches in order to prevent abuse of power

strict constructionist

a person who interprets the Constitution in a way that allows the federal government to take only those actions the Constitution specifically says it can take

Loose Constructionist

broad interpretation of the Constitution

Unwritten Constitution

Political practices that are followed, but are not part of the actual Constitution. Examples include political parties, judicial review, and the Presidential Cabinet.

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Established judicial review

Judicial Review

Allows the court to determine the constitutionality of laws

Electoral College

A group of people named by each state legislature to select the president and vice president

Alexander Hamilton

1789-1795; First Secretary of the Treasury. He advocated creation of a national bank, assumption of state debts by the federal government, and a tariff system to pay off the national debt.

Hamilton's Financial Plan

Pay off all war debts, raise government revenues, create a national bank

Thomas Jefferson

Wrote the Declaration of Independence, 3rd president; Louisiana Purchase

Whiskey Rebellion

In 1794, farmers in Pennsylvania rebelled against Hamilton's excise tax on whiskey. GW used his troops to stop the rebellion

Farewell Address

1796 speech by Washington urging US to maintain neutrality and avoid permanent alliances with European nations

Louisiana Purchase

territory in western United States purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million

Lewis and Clark

Two explorers sent by the president to explore the Louisiana Purchase

Sacagawea

A Shoshone woman whose language skills and knowledge of geography helped Lewis and Clark

War of 1812

A war (1812-1814) between the United States and England which was trying to interfere with American trade with France.

Impressment

British practice of taking American sailors and forcing them into military service

XYZ Affair (1797)

French officials presented American diplomats with a demand for bribes over impressment

Midnight Judges

a nick name given to group of judges that was appointed by John Adams the night before he left office. He appointed them to go to the federal courts to have a long term federalist influence, because judges serve for life instead of limited terms

Monroe Doctrine

A statement of foreign policy which proclaimed that Europe should not interfere in affairs within the United States or in the development of other countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Andrew Jackson

(1829-1833) and (1833-1837), Indian removal act, nullification crisis, Old Hickory," first southern/ western president," President for the common man," pet banks, spoils system, specie circular, trail of tears, Henry Clay Flectural Process.

Spoils System

A system of public employment based on rewarding party loyalists and friends.

Indian Removal Act

law passed in 1830 that forced many Native American nations to move west of the Mississippi River

Trail of Tears

The Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their lands. They traveled from North Carolina and Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas-more than 800 miles (1,287 km)-to the Indian Territory. More than 4, 00 Cherokees died of cold, disease, and lack of food during the 116-day journey.

Worcester v. Georgia

Supreme Court Decision - Cherokee Indians were entitled to federal protection from the actions of state governments which would infringe on the tribe's sovereignty - Jackson ignored it

Nulllification Crisis- (1832-1833)

Showdown between President Andrew Jackson and the South Carolina legislature, which declared the 1832 tariff null and void in the state and threatened secession if the federal government tried to collect duties. It was resolved by a compromise negotiated by Henry Clay in 1833.

Manifest Destiny

the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.

Texas

American settlers take over this territory from Mexico, 1845- President John Tyler annexes the state

Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

Conflict between the US and Mexico that after the US annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its own. As victor, the US aqcuired vast new territories from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. New properties include CA, NV, UT, AZ, parts of Colorado and NM

Gadsden Purchase

Agreement w/ Mexico that gave the US parts of present-day New Mexico & Arizona in exchange for $10 million; all but completed the continental expansion envisioned by those who believed in Manifest Destiny.

Alaska

1867 purchase from Russia for $7.2 million

Hawaii

annexed in 1898. Dole encourages the Americans to topple Queen Liliuokalani and use the islands for profitable produce business ventures. Strategic place for a naval base

Sectionalism

Loyalty to one's own region of the country, rather than to the nation as a whole

Temperance

abstinence from alcoholic drink

Temperance Movement

An organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption

Seneca Falls Convention

(1848) the first national women's rights convention at which the Declaration of Sentiments was written

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

(1815-1902) A suffragette who, with Lucretia Mott, organized the first convention on women's rights, held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Issued the Declaration of Sentiments which declared men and women to be equal and demanded the right to vote for women. Co-founded the National Women's Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony in 1869.

Dorothea Dix

A reformer and pioneer in the movement to treat the insane as mentally ill, beginning in the 1820's, she was responsible for improving conditions in jails, poorhouses and insane asylums throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Antebellum

The Social Reform movement before the Civil War

Abolitionist

A person who wanted to end slavery

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin

Frederick Douglass

(1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer, he escaped slavery and became a leading African American spokesman and writer. He published his biography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and founded the abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

Harriet Tubman

Former slave who helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad

a system of secret routes used by escaping slaves to reach freedom in the North or in Canada

Missouri Compromise

"Compromise of 1820" over the issue of slavery in Missouri. It was decided Missouri entered as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state and all states North of the 36th parallel were free states and all South were slave states.

Compromise of 1850

(1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries, (4) federal assumption of Texas debt, (5) slave trade abolished in DC, and (6) new fugitive slave law; advocated by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas

Kansas-Nebraska Act

a law that allowed voters in Kansas and Nebraska to choose whether to allow slavery

Bleeding Kansas

A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.

William Lloyd Garrison

1805-1879. Prominent American abolitionist, journalist and social reformer. Editor of radical abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator", and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Dred Scott Decision

A Missouri slave sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S, Supreme Court decided he couldn't sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen.

John Brown

Abolitionist who was hanged after leading an unsuccessful raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (1800-1858)

Election of 1860

Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery. As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.

Secede/Secession

to leave or withdrawal from the Union

Causes of the Civil War

-Sectionalism

-States' rights

-Slavery

Civil War (1861-1865)

deadliest war in American history; conflict between north (union) and south (confederacy); 11 southern slave states wanted to secede from Union

Civil War Amendments

13th, 14th, and 15th amendments

13th Amendment (1865)

abolished slavery

14th Amendment

Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws

15th Amendment (1870)

U.S. cannot prevent a person from voting because of race, color, or creed

Emancipation Proclamation

Proclamation issued by Lincoln, freeing all slaves in areas still at war with the Union.

Gettysburg Address

A 3-minute address by Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War (November 19, 1963) at the dedication of a national cemetery on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg

Reconstruction

the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union

Lincoln's Plan for Reconstruction

10% of voters from the last election had to pledge to support the union. Pardon all Confederates except high-ranking officials and those who were cruel to POW's