Key Terms of Antebellum America Quiz

Adams-Onis Treaty

Florida Purchase, signed by U.S. and Spain, U.S. bought Florida for $5 million

Era of Good Feelings

After the War of 1812, this name that describes the national mood and decade that reflected a national purpose and sense of unity under Monroe's presidency.

Gibbons v. Ogden

Supreme Court prevented the state of New York from giving a monopoly to a steamboat line because the Hudson River, which flowed into New Jersey was considered interstate commerce in this court case.

McCulloch v. Maryland

This Supreme Court case asserted the dominance of the national government over the state government and institutions known as the Supremacy Clause.

Missouri Compromise

This sectional compromise, supported by Henry Clay, balanced the admission of a slave state with the admission of a free state; banned slavery in the remainder of the territory north of the latitude of 36°30'; allowed slavery in the Arkansas Territory.

Monroe Doctrine

This U.S. foreign policy declared European powers could no longer interfere in the Western Hemisphere and the United States would also stay out of European affairs.

American System

Proposed by Henry Clay, this aimed to make America economically independent and encouraged commerce between the states over trade with Europe and the West Indies.

telegraph

This major change and improvement in the ability of Americans to send messages for commerce, news, or diplomacy quickly and efficiently across the country.

Erie Canal

Most important/profitable man-made waterway completed in 1825, stretched between Great Lakes and New York City (Hudson River).

First Industrial Revolution

This was a major change in the 1800s of the how the United States shifted from more to a manufacturing economy; machines running on steam and water power replaced animal and human power; birth of the factory system.

Market Revolution

This was a major change in which an old subsistence world died and a new more wholesale economic country was born.

Second Bank of the United States

This institution had been chartered in 1816 to deal with debts from the War of 1812; later Jackson vetoed the recharter and dealt the death blow to this institution.

Waltham-Lowell System

This new approach to manufacturing in Massachusetts and other New England states entrepreneurs combined capital, textile manufacturing innovations, and the cheap labor of young women from farming families to become competitive with the production and trade of British textiles.

Transportation Revolution

This transformation of travel marked by the collective advances in technology of roads, canals, steamboats, and railroads.

steam power

A device that uses force produced by pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder that can be transformed into energy.

Corrupt Bargain

Jackson and his supporters accused John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay of engineering this to make Adams president and Clay his secretary of state.

Democratic Party

President Jackson was the first president of this political party which formed around opposition to the national bank which came to define their beliefs.

Election of 1824

Four way presidential race where Andrew Jackson gained more popular and electoral votes than any of his competitors, but he did not secure a majority in the Electoral College. Instead, John Quincy Adams became president after this event went to the House of Representatives.

Election of 1828

Adams and Jackson squared off in this which was one of the dirtiest presidential race to date; Andrew Jackson won the election easily.

Indian Removal Act of 1830

This was signed by President Andrew Jackson which permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain Native American lands in exchange for their relocation to Oklahoma.

Nullification Crisis

Sectionalism was heightened and highlighted by this conflict when the state of South Carolina refused to enforce federal tariffs due to the states' rights belief to void a federal law.

Panic of 1837

This was the beginning of a major economic depression that lasted about 6 years; the total capital held by American banks dropped by 40 percent as prices fell and economic activity around the nation slowed to a crawl.

spoils system

This practice of political parties to award loyal supporters with government jobs, etc. once in power.

states' rights

This belief that more power should rest with local governments.

Tariff of 1828

This taxed imported goods at a very high rate; aimed to support Northern industries and aroused strong opposition in the South.

The Bank War

After Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill in 1832 which resulted in this conflict when Jackson used his presidential power to distribute federal funds to 'pet banks.'

Trail of Tears

This trek from western Georgia to Oklahoma Territory carried out during the Van Buren presidency resulted in the death of over four thousand Cherokee.

Whig Party

Founded in 1834 to unite political factions opposed to President Andrew Jackson, this political party favored federal responsibility for internal improvements.

Jacksonian Democracy

Democratic movement that supported expanded suffrage of most white men, believed in uplifting the common man, but also emphasized white supremacy.

Abolition

Social reform movement to end slavery immediately and without compensation.

Cotton Gin

This invention greatly reduced the tedious task of removing seeds from cotton; led to an increased demand of slaves.

Cotton Kingdom

The nickname of the South as cotton became the main export and extremely important to the Southern economy and society.

Cult of Domesticity

In the early nineteenth century, this was the dominant understanding of gender claimed that women were the guardians of virtue and the spiritual heads of the home.

Declaration of Sentiments

Stanton wrote this to capture the wide range of issues embraced by the early women's rights movement. She modeled the document on the Declaration of Independence to make explicit the connection between women's liberty and the rhetoric of America's founding.

Know-Nothing Party

This Nativist, anti-Catholic third political party organized in 1854.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

This was the most important slave uprising in 19th Century Antebellum America.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revival movement of the early decades of the 19th Century.

Seneca Falls Convention of 1848

First women's rights gathering in the United States held in upstate New York in 1848.

Temperance

This is the moderation in or abstinence from the use of alcoholic beverages.

Transcendentalism

19th Century intellectual movement of some writers and philosophers that stressed personal and intellectual self-reliance.

Women's Suffrage

The right of female citizens to vote in elections.

Andrew Jackson

He was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, vetoed the charter for the Second Bank of the United States, and was the first president to not be from either Virginia or Massachusetts.

John Quincy Adams

He was a Whig from MA who represented the North and was pro-industrialization and pro-Union.

James Monroe

He was the fifth president who presided over the Era of Good Feelings.

John C. Calhoun

He was a Democrat from SC who represented the South and was pro-states' rights and pro-slavery.

James Madison

He was the fourth president who was in office during the War of 1812.

Henry Clay

He was a Whig from KY who represented the West and supported a national economic system.

John Marshall

He was an influential Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

John Tyler

He served as the 10th president who was a Whig but favored states' rights.

Martin Van Buren

He was the eighth president who was a Democrat.

William Henry Harrison

He was the ninth president but was the first to die in office only 31 days after his inauguration.

Dorothea Dix

Worked to reform the conditions in insane asylums; influenced better conditions in prisons and mental institutions.

Frederick Douglass

Escaped from slavery; authored an autobiography of his life as a slave; became an important abolitionist.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most popular transcendentalist speaker; called 'Father of Transcendentalism.'

Lyman Beecher

Protestant minister who advocated for temperance.

Mother Ann Lee

Founder of the Shakers; advocated for celibacy.

Lucretia Mott

Quaker who advocated for women's rights, abolition, and equality.

Sojourner Truth

Escaped slavery who changed their name and became a preacher, abolitionist, and women's rights reformer.

William Lloyd Garrison

Most influential leader of the abolitionist movement; published his own abolitionist newspaper The Liberator.

Charles Grandison Finney

The most influential preacher of the Second Great Awakening; conducted massive revivals throughout New York.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Authored the Declaration of Sentiments; became an important figure in the movement for women's suffrage.

Henry David Thoreau

Advocated for simple living, communion with nature, and self-sufficiency. Believed in rugged individualism. Wrote the book Walden.

Horace Mann

Advocated for public education.

John Humphrey Noyes

Believed in complex marriages and brought the concept to the Oneida community in upstate New York.

Joseph Smith

The founder of the Mormon religion.

Sarah and Angelina Grimke

Southern women who were outspoken critics of slavery and advocated for women's rights.

Susan B. Anthony

An important figure in the movement for women's suffrage; was later arrested for illegally voting.

Catherine Beecher

An influential American educator and author who championed women's education and domestic roles.

Francis Cabot Lowell

An American businessman and industrialist who played a pivotal role in the American Industrial Revolution by founding the first integrated textile mill in the U.S.

Samuel Slater

An English-American industrialist who introduced the first successful water-powered cotton mill in the United States in 1793.

Sylvester Graham

An American Presbyterian minister and dietary reformer who significantly influenced American dietary practices and the early health movement.