HIS 1070 Test 2 Study Guide: Foreign Affairs, Political Economy, and Antebellum Reform

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering treaties, foreign diplomacy, early American economic policies, and antebellum reform movements from the HIS 1070 Test 2 Study Guide.

Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise)

An agreement reached at the 1787 Constitutional Convention that resolved the dispute between large and small states by creating a bicameral Congress: representation based on population in the House of Representatives and equal representation for each state in the Senate.

Jay's Treaty

A 1794 treaty negotiated by Chief Justice John Jay with Great Britain in which Britain agreed to evacuate frontier forts and submit debts and claims to arbitration; it averted immediate war but failed to stop impressment or protect neutral shipping.

Rule of 1756

A British maritime doctrine asserting that neutral nations could not conduct trade with a belligerent power during wartime if that trade was prohibited during peacetime; used by Britain to intercept U.S. commerce with French colonies.

Pinckney's Treaty

A 1795 agreement between the United States and Spain negotiated by Thomas Pinckney that granted Americans navigation rights on the Mississippi River and the right of deposit at the port of New Orleans.

XYZ Affair

A 1797–1798 diplomatic crisis where French agents demanded a loan and a bribe from American envoys before opening negotiations, leading to public outrage and the slogan "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."

Quasi-War

An undeclared naval conflict (1798–1800) between the United States and France fought primarily in the Caribbean and Atlantic, demonstrating the young republic's ability to defend its shipping without a formal declaration of war.

Convention of 1800

A diplomatic agreement between the United States and France that formally ended the Quasi-War and abrogated the 1778 Franco-American alliance.

Democratic-Republicans

A political party organized in the early 1790s by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that championed states' rights, a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and an agrarian republic of independent farmers while opposing Hamiltonian financial programs.

Louisiana Purchase

The 1803 acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from Napoleonic France for approximately $15 million, which roughly doubled the geographic size of the United States, secured the Mississippi River system, and initiated debates over the expansion of slavery.

Impressment

The British naval practice of forcibly seizing sailors from merchant vessels—including American ships—under the claim that they were British subjects or deserters; a primary grievance leading to the War of 1812.

Chesapeake–Leopard Affair

An 1807 naval clash off the American coast in which the British warship HMS Leopard attacked the American frigate USS Chesapeake and forcibly removed four crew members, provoking nationwide outrage.

Embargo Act

An 1807 statute enacted under President Thomas Jefferson that prohibited U.S. merchant vessels from trading with foreign ports to compel Britain and France to respect American neutral rights; it devastated domestic commerce and was repealed in 1809.

War of 1812

A military conflict (1812–1815) fought between the United States and Great Britain over impressment, neutral shipping violations, British aid to Native American resistance, and territorial expansion pressures from congressional War Hawks.

Hartford Convention

An 1814–1815 gathering of New England Federalists who opposed the War of 1812 and proposed constitutional amendments to curb southern influence; the convention brought accusations of disloyalty and hastened the demise of the Federalist Party.

Treaty of Ghent

The peace agreement signed on December 24, 1814, that concluded the War of 1812 by restoring prewar territorial borders under the status quo ante bellum without addressing impressment.

Battle of New Orleans

A decisive American victory commanded by General Andrew Jackson on January 8, 1815, fought after the Treaty of Ghent was signed but before news reached North America, which fueled post-war nationalism.

Romantic Nationalism

A late 18th- and 19th-century cultural movement that emphasized collective identity, national pride, folklore, landscapes, and shared historical memory in American literature and art.

Bank of the United States

A central banking institution proposed by Alexander Hamilton (first chartered in 1791; second chartered in 1816) designed to manage federal revenues, stabilize currency, and issue commercial credit, creating persistent constitutional debates over implied federal powers.

Cotton Gin

A mechanical device patented by Eli Whitney in 1794 that drastically accelerated the separation of seeds from short-staple cotton fibers, cementing cotton cultivation and entrenching enslaved labor across the Deep South.

Lowell Girls

Young, unmarried New England farm women recruited in the 1820s–1840s to work in the textile factories of Lowell, Massachusetts; they represented early industrial wage labor and early collective protests over hours and wages.

Erie Canal

A 363-mile artificial waterway completed in 1825 linking the Hudson River at Albany with Lake Erie at Buffalo, substantially lowering transportation costs and connecting western agricultural produce directly to Atlantic markets.

National Road

A federally financed paved highway authorized by Congress in 1806 that stretched westward from Maryland into the Ohio Valley, exemplifying early federal support for internal improvements.

Republican Motherhood

An ideological concept emerging after the American Revolution asserting that women served the nation by educating their sons in civic virtue and republican principles, widening educational opportunities for women while limiting their direct political roles.

Transcontinental Treaty (Adams–Onís Treaty)

An 1819 agreement negotiated by John Quincy Adams and Luis de Onís in which Spain ceded Florida to the United States and defined the western boundary separating U.S. and Spanish claims to the Pacific Ocean.

Monroe Doctrine

An 1823 foreign policy statement by President James Monroe declaring that the Western Hemisphere was closed to future European colonization and that European interference in sovereign American republics would be treated as an act of hostility.

Mother Ann Lee

The English-born religious leader (1736–1784) who brought the Shakers to America in 1774, advocating communal living, celibacy, pacification, and spiritual gender equality.

Shakers

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing; a communal religious sect known for celibacy, shared property, simple craftsmanship, and gender equality in spiritual governance.

Henry David Thoreau

A transcendentalist writer and philosopher (1817–1862) who emphasized individual conscience, nature, self-reliance, and nonviolent resistance against immoral state actions.

Civil Disobedience

An 1849 essay by Henry David Thoreau arguing that individuals have a moral duty to disobey unjust government laws and refuse complicity with state-sanctioned evils such as slavery and unjust wars.

Dorothea Dix

A nineteenth-century humanitarian reformer who documented the neglect and abuse of mentally ill individuals in jails and poorhouses, persuading state legislatures to establish specialized public asylums and hospitals.

Temperance Movement

A widespread antebellum social reform campaign, organized significantly through the American Temperance Society (founded 1826), aimed at curbing or banning the consumption of intoxicating beverages.

Second Great Awakening

A widespread Protestant evangelical revival movement spanning the 1790s to the 1840s that stressed free will, emotional conversion, and individual moral responsibility, sparking widespread antebellum social reform efforts.

Camp Meeting

Multi-day outdoor evangelical religious revivals, such as the famous 1801 gathering at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, that featured charismatic preaching and facilitated the rapid spread of the Second Great Awakening in frontier regions.

Corrupt Bargain

The political charge leveled by Andrew Jackson's partisans following the 1824 presidential election, accusing Speaker Henry Clay of swaying the House vote to elect John Quincy Adams in return for being appointed Secretary of State.

Andrew Jackson

Military commander and seventh U.S. president (1829–1837) who personified populist mass democracy for white men, dismantled the Second Bank of the United States, and orchestrated the forced removal of Southeastern Native tribes.

John Quincy Adams

Sixth U.S. president (1825–1829) and prominent diplomat who negotiated the Adams–Onís Treaty, contributed to the Monroe Doctrine, and favored federal funding for infrastructure and science.

Tariff of 1828 (Tariff of Abominations)

A steep protective tariff on foreign imports designed to protect northern manufacturing that southern cotton planters fiercely condemned as discriminatory, triggering the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina.

Democrats

A national political party emerging in the late 1820s behind Andrew Jackson that advocated limited federal power, expanded political democracy for white men, states' rights, and strict opposition to national banking monopolies.

National Republicans

A political faction led by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay that emerged in the 1820s opposing Jacksonian democracy; they advocated broad federal economic action and the American System, eventually evolving into the Whig Party.

American Colonization Society

An organization founded in 1816 to purchase and transport free Black Americans to West Africa, establishing the settlement of Liberia; opposed by most free Black leaders who claimed full American citizenship.

John Marshall

Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1801–1835) whose landmark opinions established judicial review (Marbury v. Madison), affirmed implied federal powers (McCulloch v. Maryland), and strengthened federal supremacy over commerce.

Henry Clay

Kentucky statesman, Speaker of the House, and leader of the National Republicans/Whigs who authored the American System economic plan and brokered major sectional compromises.

American System

An economic program championed by Henry Clay following the War of 1812 consisting of three complementary pillars: a national bank, protective tariffs, and federally funded internal improvements such as roads and canals.

William Lloyd Garrison

A radical abolitionist editor who launched the Boston antislavery newspaper The Liberator in 1831, rejecting gradualism and demanding the immediate, uncompensated emancipation of all enslaved people.

Horace Mann

Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education appointed in 1837 who spearheaded the common-school movement, advocating tax-funded public education, standardized curricula, and formal training for teachers.

Seneca Falls Convention

An 1848 women's rights convention organized in New York by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott that issued the Declaration of Sentiments, demanding legal, economic, and voting equality for women.