19th Century American History: Westward Expansion, the Market Revolution, Jacksonian Democracy, and Sectional Crisis

Vocabulary flashcards covering key events, institutions, legislation, and movements from the American frontier expansion, Market Revolution, Jacksonian Era, and Sectional Crisis.

Land Act of $1820$

Legislation that authorized the sale of western public land at $\$1.25$ per acre with an $80\text{-acre}$ minimum, requiring cash payment to avoid speculation loans and financial panics.

Market Revolution

The transformation of the American economy prior to the Civil War, marked by a shift from production for personal use to production for sale, driven by transportation improvements and industrial growth.

Waltham-Lowell System

A manufacturing system memorized by Francis Cabot Lowell that centralized all stages of textile production under one single roof in Massachusetts.

Lowell Mill Girls

Young female workers recruited from New England farms who labored in Lowell textile mills from sunup to sundown, earning wages that offered independence from parental oversight.

Interchangeable Parts

A manufacturing technique developed by Eli Whitney in $1793$ that made identical parts for products, eliminating the need to construct goods entirely by hand and enabling mass production.

King Cotton

A term reflecting cotton's role as the South's dominant, highly profitable crop following Eli Whitney's $1793$ invention of the cotton gin, which fueled an invincible demand for enslaved labor.

King Caucus

An older political nominating process where party leaders held a secret meeting to select their party's candidate for elections.

Anti-Mason Party

The first successful third party in the United States, which appealed to the middle and lower classes, attacked secret meetings of political leaders, and introduced the party nominating convention.

Spoils System

Andrew Jackson's practice of rotation in office, removing entrenched federal officials and appointing loyal party followers to government jobs.

Tariff of Abominations

The Southern designation for the high protective Tariff of $1828$, which protected Northern manufacturers while raising import prices and harming Southern agricultural trade.

Maysville Veto

President Andrew Jackson's veto of federal funds for the Maysville Road on the grounds that it was located entirely within Kentucky and only benefited that single state.

South Carolina Exposition

An $1828$ document written by Vice President John C. Calhoun that denounced the Tariff of $1828$ and called on individual states to nullify federal laws.

Force Bill

Federal legislation requested by Andrew Jackson authorizing military force to collect customs duties and enforce the Tariff of $1832$ within South Carolina.

Specie Circular

An $1836$ presidential order issued by Andrew Jackson requiring all purchases of federal western lands to be made exclusively in gold or silver hard currency.

Whigs

A political party organized by supporters of Henry Clay that championed an active federal government, Clay's American System, and high tariffs in opposition to Andrew Jackson.

Indian Removal Act

An $1830$ law supported by Andrew Jackson that forced Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River to relocate to federal lands in the west.

Worcester v. Georgia

An $1832$ Supreme Court case in which Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Georgia state laws had no jurisdiction over Cherokee lands, meaning the Cherokees did not have to move west.

Treaty of New Echota

An $1835$ treaty signed by a minority Cherokee faction ceding tribal territory for $\$5\text{ million}$, which was rejected by most Cherokee but used by the federal government to enforce removal.

Trail of Tears

The forced $1838$ relocation of approximately $16{,}000$ Cherokees ordered by President Martin Van Buren, resulting in only about $10{,}000$ surviving the journey.

Burned-Over District

An area in western New York named for its rapid succession of religious revivals that spawned new groups, including the Millerites and Seventh-day Adventists.

The Oneida Community

A utopian community founded by John Humphrey Noyes that eliminated private property, practiced complex marriage, and used stripiculture to attempt the breeding of perfect children.

Brook Farm

A transcendentalist utopian community in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, led by George Ripley and based on Charles Fourier's theories of shared communal dwellings and divided labor.

American Temperance Society

An organization formed in Boston in $1826$ that sought to eliminate social problems by curbing alcohol consumption through signed pledges, tracts, and pamphlets.

Commonwealth v. Hunt

A Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling declaring that labor unions were not illegal conspiracies so long as their methods remained peaceful.

Cult of Domesticity

A nineteenth-century ideology asserting that a woman's proper sphere was confined to the home, serving as a refuge from the outside world and civilizing her husband and family.

Manifest Destiny

A concept coined in $1845$ by Jane McManus Storm and printed by editor John O'Sullivan, arguing that God ordained the United States to expand across the continent.

Spot Resolution

Congressional demands introduced by Abraham Lincoln insisting that President James K. Polk identify the exact spot of soil where American blood had been spilled to justify the Mexican-American War.

Wilmot Proviso

A proposed measure seeking to ban all slavery from any territory acquired from Mexico to preserve western lands for white farmers.

Popular Sovereignty

A doctrine proposed by Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan, also called squatter sovereignty, stating that the settlers of a territory should vote to decide whether to allow slavery.

Filibustering

Privately funded schemes conducted by expansionists to seize foreign territory, such as lands in Mexico, Central America, or Cuba, without United States government approval.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

A federal law that turned the North into a hunting ground for runaways, denied fair trials to freed and accused Blacks, and penalized Northerners who harbored escaping slaves.

Ostend Manifesto

An $1854$ diplomatic dispatch stating that if Spain refused to sell Cuba, the United States was entitled to seize the island forcibly to make it a slave state.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

An $1854$ law organized by Stephen Douglas that established Kansas and Nebraska territories and left the slavery question to popular sovereignty, repealing the Missouri Compromise.

Slave Power Conspiracy

A growing Northern fear that a Southern bloc of enslavers had secretly captured the federal government to transform slavery into a protected national institution.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

An $1857$ Supreme Court case led by Roger Taney ruling that African Americans could not sue in court, slaves were property protected by the 5th Amendment, and Congress could not ban slavery in federal territories.