APUSH 10-13 rewrite

Franchise

Right to vote in political elections.

Notables

Influential individuals in politics or society.

Political Machine

Political organization that influences elections through patronage.

Spoils System

Practice of rewarding political supporters with government jobs. 

Caucus

Meeting of party members to select candidates. 

American System 

Economic plan promoting national bank and internal improvements.

Internal improvements

Investments in infastructure like roads and canals.

Corrupt Bargain

Controversial political deal in the 1824 election.

“Consolidated Government”

Centralized government authority over local entities.

Tariff of Abominations

1832 tariff raising duties on imported goods.

Nullification

State’s right to invalidate federal laws deemed unconstitutional.

State’s Rights

Political doctrine emphasizing state sovereignty over federal authority.

Second Bank of the United States

National bank charted in 1816 to stabilize currency.

Indian Removal Act of 1830

Law facilitating the relocation of Native Americans westward.

Trail of Tears

Forced relocation of Cherokee people resulting in many deaths.

Classical Liberalism

Political ideology advocating for individual freedoms and limited government.

Whigs

Political party opposing Democrats, active in the 1830s.

Panic of 1837

The second major economic crisis of the United States, led to widespread economic depression.

Specie

An executive order in 1836 that required the Treasury department to accept only gold and silver in payment for land.

Ethnocultural politics

Political alignment based on cultural and ethnic identities. 

Martin Van Buren

Considered the first real politician, partly because he created the first statewide political machine. 8th U.S President.

John Quincy Adams

Won the election of 1824. Won because of the house of representatives voted him due to Henry Clay influence. Called for a national university and scientific explorations out west. 

Henry Clay

Helped John Quincy Adams win presidency by using his influence as speaker to prevent Jackson’s election. Prominent politician known for the Missouri Compromise. 

Andrew Jackson

Won the election of 1828-7th President. Founder of the Democratic Party. Aggressive Indian fighter and unpredictable military leader.

John C. Calhoun

The prime advocate of the doctrines of nullification and states rights, a founder of the Whig party, and a stead fast defendant of slavery. He hated Martin Van Buren because of his political skills.

Daniel Webster

Presented a nationalist interpretation that celebrated popular sovereignty and congress’ responsibility to secure the “general welfare”. Defended the union and delivered an impassioned oration that celebrated the unity of American people as the key to their freedom.

Nicholas Biddle

Second Bank of the United States president. Powerful central banker who stabilized the economy.

Roger B. Taney

Best known for his majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) Supreme Court case. Ruled in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837). Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury under President Andrew Jackson

John Tyler

Election led to the war with Mexico. Joined the Whigs only to protest Jackson’s stance against nullification. vetoed Whig bills that would have raised tariffs and created a new national bank.

Individualism

Belief in the importance of individual rights

American Renaissance

Cultural flowering in American literature and arts

transcendentalism

Philosophical movement emphasizing nature and individual intuition. 

Utopias

Ideal communities aiming for social perfection.

Socalism

Economic system advocating for collective ownership.

Perfectionism

Belief in the possibility of human improvement

Mormonism

The religion of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints, founded by Joseph Smith in 1830.

Minstrelsy

Popular theatrical entertainment that begun around 1830, in which white actors in blackface presented comic routines that combined racist caricature and social criticism.

Abolitionism

Movement to end slavery in the United States.

Underground Railroad

Network aiding enslaved people to escape to freedom.

Amalgamation

Mixing of different races through marriage or cohabitation

Gag Rule

A procedure in the House of Representatives by which antislavery petitions were automatically tabled when they were received.

Separate Sphere

Ideology assigning gender roles in public and private life.

Domestic Slavery

Term referring to the institution of slavery at home.

Married women’s property laws

Laws permitting married women to own, inherit, and bequeath property.

Seneca Falls Convention

First women’s rights convention in 1848.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The leading voice of transcendentalism who stood outside the main “American Protestantism” sphere due to his unitarian views. 

Henry David Thoreau

Essayist, poet, philosopher, and naturalists. Published “Walden, or life in the woods”.

Margaret Fuller

Opened up transcendentalist discussion groups for women in Boston. 

Walt Whitman

Poet. printer, teacher, journalist, and editor. Brought art into transcendentalism. Often called the “father of free verse”.

Herman Melville

Explored limits of individualism in extremely tragic situations, emerging as a critic of transcendentalism. Wrote Moby Dick.

Nat Turner

A slave that staked a bloody revolt. Caused North to realize that the southerners would not voluntarily give up slavery. 

William Lloyd Garrison

Worked on an anti-slavery newspaper. Founded the New England Anti-slavey society.

Dorothea Dix

A compassionate women that was emotionally enslaved as a child and later went on to be a voice for impoverished children and mentally ill women. Established hospitals for the mentally ill and charity schools for children.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

An outspoken female abolitionist. Pivotal leader of the American women’s rights, organized the 1848 Seneca Falls convention.

Susan B. Anthony

A female abolitionist from a Quaker surgery. Had a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement; fighting for women’s right to vote.

Costal Trade

Trade conducted along the coast, often by ship

Inland System

Trade network connecting interior regions of the country.

Chattel Principle 

Legal concept treating slaves as personal property.

Benevolent Masters

Slave owners who justified slavery as a moral duty

Republican aristocracy

Wealthy class promoting republican values for personal gain

Positive good argument

An argument that the institution of slavery was a “positive good” because it subsidized an elegant lifestyle for the white elite.

Gang-labor system

Organized labor system using groups of enslaved workers.

Slave Society

Society where slavery is central to economy and culture.

Alamo

Site of a pivotal battle in the Texas Revolution.

Secret Ballot

Voting method ensuring privacy for voters.

Black Protestantism

A form of Protestantism that was devised by Christian slaves in the Chesapeake and spread to the cotton south as a result of the domestic slave trade.

Task System

Labor system assigning specific tasks to enslaved individuals.

Harriet Jacobs

Slave whose fear of sexual abuse from her master compelled her to hide in an attic before escaping to freedom in the North. Wrote “Incident in the life of a Slave Girl”.

James Henry Hammond

A senator and slave owner from South Carolina who believed in the necessity of slaves in society.

Stephen Austin

Man that led 300 American families to settle in the Texas territory on land that his father had acquired.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

Mexican President who resented American encroachment on Texas lands and refused to grant independence to the American settlers in Texas; led brutal attack on the Alamo.

Sam Houston

United States politician and military leader who fought to gain independence for Texas from Mexico.

Manifest Destiny

A term coined by John L. O'Sullivan in 1845 to express the idea that Euro-Americans were fated by God to settle the north American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Californios

Spanish-speaking resident of California during the 19th century.

Fifty-four forty or fight

Slogan advocating for U.S. control of Oregon territory.

Conscience Whigs

Whig Politicians who opposed the Mexican War on moral ground, mentioning that the purpose of the war was to expand control of the national government.

Wilmot Proviso 

Proposal to ban slavery in territories acquired from Mexico.

Free-soil movement

Political movement opposing the expansion of slavery.

Squatter sovereignty

A plan that would allow settlers in each territory to determine its status as free or slave.

Forty-niners

The more than 80,000 settlers who arrived in California in 1849 as part of the territory’s gold rush.

Slavery Follows the flag

Planters could by right take their slave property into newly opened territories.

Compromise of 1850

Laws passed that were meant to resolve the dispute over the status of slavery in the territories. 

Personal-liberty laws

State laws protecting escaped slaves from capture.

Gadsden Purchase

A small piece of land purchased for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from New Orleans to Los Angeles. 

Ostend Manifesto

Manifesto that urged President Franklin Pierce to seize the slave-owning province of Cuba from Spain.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Law that divided Indian Territory into Kansas and Nebraska, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and left the new territories to decide the issue of slavery.

American, or know nothing party

A political party formed in 1851 that drew on the anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic movements of the 1840s.

Bleeding Kansas

Term for the bloody struggle between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Kansas following its organization as a territory in the fall of 1854.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Supreme court decision that ruled the Missouri compromise. Declared that African Americas were not citizens. 

Freeport Doctrine

Stephen Douglas argument that territory’s residents could exclude slavery by not adopting laws to protect it.

James K. Polk

11th President known for his expansionist agenda during his presidency, which included the annexation of Texas and winning the Mexican-American war. Associated with Manifest Destiny.

Frederick Douglass

Abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman, known for his escape from slavery and his lifelong work to end slavery and promote civil rights. 

Zachary Taylor

U.S. Army general known for his leadership in the Mexican-American war. 12th President of the U.S. Defended slavery in the south but not in territories.

Lewis Cass

Advocated buying Cuba, annexing Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, and taking all of Oregon. Promoted squatter sovereignty.

Stephen Douglas

Wanted to open up permanent Indian territory in the trans-Mississippi west to allow a trans-continental railroad from Chicago to California. Proposed to extinguish native American rights and start a new state (Nebraska).

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Wrote uncle tom’s cabin which boosted apposition to the fugitive slave act. promoted an anti[slaver petition signed by 560,000 English women.

John Brown

Abolitionist from New York and Ohio who commanded a free-state militia. Murdered five pro slavery settlers at Pottawatomic.

Abraham Lincoln

16th President known for leading the U.S. through the Civil War. Issued the emancipation proclamation which declared that slaves in Confederate held territories were free. Worked to pass the 13th amendment.