APUSH unit 5

Manifest Destiny

The 19th-century belief that the United States was destined—by God and by history—to expand westward across the North American continent, spreading democracy and American institutions.

President James K. Polk

The 11th U.S. president (1845–1849) known for aggressively promoting Manifest Destiny; oversaw the Mexican-American War, the acquisition of the Oregon Territory, and major expansion of U.S. territory.

Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!

A slogan used by expansionists in the 1840s demanding U.S. control of the entire Oregon Territory up to latitude 54°40′; it pressured President Polk to take a strong stance against Britain during the Oregon boundary dispute.

Mexican-American War

The 1846–1848 conflict between the United States and Mexico sparked by disputes over Texas’s southern border; it resulted in a decisive U.S. victory and the acquisition of vast southwestern territories through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 

The 1848 treaty that ended the Mexican-American War; Mexico ceded a huge amount of territory to the U.S. (including present-day CA, AZ, NM, NV, and UT), recognized the Rio Grande as the Texas border, and the U.S. paid Mexico $15 million.

Annexation of Texas

The 1845 incorporation of the Republic of Texas into the United States; it heightened tensions with Mexico (leading to the Mexican-American War) and intensified sectional debates over the expansion of slavery.

Popular sovereignty

The idea that the people of a territory should vote directly on whether to allow slavery, rather than having Congress decide; associated with leaders like Stephen Douglas and major conflicts like “Bleeding Kansas.”

Free Soil Party

A political party (1848–1854) that opposed the expansion of slavery into western territories, arguing that free men and free labor should dominate the new lands; later helped form the Republican Party.

Compromise of 1850

A series of laws aimed at easing sectional tensions: admitted California as a free state, used popular sovereignty in Utah and New Mexico, ended the slave trade (but not slavery) in D.C., and enacted a much stricter Fugitive Slave Act.

Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

A law requiring citizens to help capture escaped enslaved people and denying alleged fugitives the right to a jury trial; it angered Northerners, strengthened abolitionist resistance, and intensified sectional conflict.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

An 1852 antislavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that depicted the brutality of slavery; it became hugely influential in the North, intensified sectional tensions, and helped fuel the abolitionist movement.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

The 1854 law that created Kansas and Nebraska territories and allowed them to decide on slavery by popular sovereignty, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise; it led to violent conflict known as “Bleeding Kansas” and helped spark the rise of the Republican Party.

Republican Party

A political party formed in 1854 in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act; it opposed the expansion of slavery into western territories and drew support from former Whigs, Free-Soilers, and anti-slavery Democrats.

Bleeding Kansas

A period of violent conflict (mid-1850s) in the Kansas Territory between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers trying to influence whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state; a direct consequence of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Dred Scott vs Sandford (1857)

A Supreme Court decision ruling that enslaved people were not citizens and had no right to sue, and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories; it essentially voided the Missouri Compromise and inflamed sectional tensions.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

A series of 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the Illinois Senate race, focusing mainly on slavery’s expansion; they boosted Lincoln’s national profile and showcased Douglas’s Freeport Doctrine.

John Brown’s Raid

John Brown’s 1859 attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, intended to spark a large slave uprising; the raid failed, Brown was captured and executed, and the event heightened sectional tensions leading up to the Civil War.

Websters-Ashburton Treaty

The 1842 agreement between the U.S. and Britain that settled the Maine–Canada boundary dispute, reduced tensions along the border, and improved U.S.–British relations.

Prigg vs Pennsylvania (1842)

A Supreme Court case ruling that federal fugitive slave laws took precedence over state laws; it struck down Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law and limited states’ ability to protect alleged escaped enslaved people.

Homestead Act

A federal law that offered 160 acres of free land in the West to settlers who lived on it and improved it for five years; it encouraged massive westward migration during and after the Civil War.

Greenbacks

Paper currency issued by the Union during the Civil War that was not backed by gold or silver; their value fluctuated, sparking political debates over inflation and monetary policy.

Copperheads

Northern Democrats during the Civil War who opposed Lincoln’s policies and the war effort, calling for immediate peace with the Confederacy; critics accused them of disloyalty.

Ex Parte Milligan

A Supreme Court case ruling that civilians cannot be tried in military courts when civilian courts are open; it limited wartime presidential power and protected civil liberties after the Civil War.

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln’s wartime order declaring enslaved people in Confederate-held territory “forever free”; it shifted the Civil War’s purpose to ending slavery and allowed Black men to join the Union Army, though it didn’t immediately free all enslaved people.

Jefferson Davis

The president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War; a former U.S. senator and secretary of war who struggled to unify the Confederacy and manage its war effort.

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant

The leading Union general in the Civil War known for his aggressive strategy and key victories at Vicksburg and Appomattox; later became the 18th U.S. president.

Robert E. Lee

The leading Confederate general during the Civil War, known for his tactical skill and command of the Army of Northern Virginia; surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in 1865.

King Cotton Diplomacy

The Confederate strategy during the Civil War that relied on exporting cotton to Britain and France to gain their economic support and diplomatic recognition; it failed because Europe found other cotton sources and avoided siding with the Confederacy.

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln’s 1863 speech dedicating the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery; it reframed the Civil War as a struggle to preserve a nation founded on equality and to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people” would endure.

13th Amendment

The 1865 constitutional amendment that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States (except as punishment for a crime).

14th Amendment

The 1868 constitutional amendment granting citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the U.S. and guaranteeing equal protection and due process under the law; a cornerstone of Reconstruction.

15th Amendment

The 1870 constitutional amendment prohibiting states from denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude; aimed at protecting Black male suffrage during Reconstruction.

President Andrew Jackson

The 7th U.S. president (1829–1837), known for his populist appeal, expansion of presidential power, support for the “common man,” the Indian Removal Act, opposition to the national bank, and the Nullification Crisis.

Scalawags

White Southerners who supported Reconstruction and the Republican Party after the Civil War; viewed by many other Southerners as traitors to the South.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War, often to participate in Reconstruction governments or pursue economic opportunities; Southerners accused them of exploiting the region’s postwar conditions.

Credit Mobilier

An 1870s scandal in which Union Pacific Railroad insiders created a fake construction company (Crédit Mobilier) to overcharge the government for building the transcontinental railroad, bribing members of Congress to avoid investigation.

Compromise of 1877

The political deal that resolved the disputed 1876 election by making Rutherford B. Hayes president in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South; it effectively ended Reconstruction and allowed the rise of Jim Crow.

Sharecropping

A post–Civil War labor system in which landowners allowed freedmen or poor farmers to work their land in exchange for a share of the crops; it often trapped workers in cycles of debt and poverty similar to slavery.

Jim Crow

Later state and local laws (late 1800s–1960s) that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised Black Americans across the South.

Black Codes

Early post–Civil War Southern laws (1865–1866) that restricted the freedom, movement, and economic opportunities of newly freed African Americans.