APUSH Unit 4 Key Concepts

Key concepts for AP US History Unit 4: Overlapping Revolutions (1820-1848).

franchise

the right to vote, expanded during this era

notables

northern landlords, slave-owning planters, seaport merchants who dominated the political system

political machine

highly organized group of insiders that directed a political party

caucus

a meeting held by political party to choose candidates, make policies, and enforce party discipline

demographic transition

1790s sharp decline in birth rate in the US, caused by changes in cultural behavior (birth control) and migration of young men to trans-Appalachian west

American Colonization Society

founded in 1817 by Henry Clay, argued that slaves should be free and then resettled elsewhere - did little to help, no effect

Missouri Compromise

a series of agreements devised by Speaker of House Henry Clay that made Maine into a free state and Missouri into a slave state

American System

a mercantilist system of national economic development, advocated by Henry Clay and adopted by John Quincy Adams

internal improvements

government funded public works like roads and canals

Tariff of Abominations

1828 tariff that raised duties on raw materials, textiles, and iron goods

corrupt bargain

when Henry Clay used influence to select John Quincy Adams as 1824 president and then Clay was made secretary of state

Jacksonians

“national” aristocrats, egalitarian, hostile to corporations and Henry Clay’s American System, hostile to natives, and called themselves Democrats

spoils system

a widespread award of public jobs to political supporters after electoral victory

nullification

constitutional argument advanced by John C. Calhoun that state legislatures/convention could void laws passed by congress

The Second Bank of the US

a national bank with multiple branches chartered in 1816 for 20 years, intended to regulate economy - became a major issue in Andrew Jackson’s reelection 1832 campaign

Indian Removal Act of 1830

directed mandatory relocation of eastern tribes to the territory west of Mississippi, reinforced by American pressure and military power

Trail of Tears

forced westward journey of Cherokees from lands in Georgia to Oklahoma in 1838, 1/4th died en route

classical liberalism/laissez-faire

political ideology of individual liberty, private property, competitive market economy, free trade, and limited government - “let alone” policy

Whig Party

political party that arose in 1834, group of congressmen contest Jackson’s policies and conduct, identified with pre-Revolutionary American and British parties, opposed arbitrary actions of British monarchs - John C. Calhoun spokesman

Anti-Masons

short-lived party, formed in the late 1820s, opposed Order of Freemasonry, espoused temperance, equality of opportunity, evangelical morality - eventually joined Whigs

Panic of 1837

triggered by a sharp reduction in English capital and credit flowing into the US, cash shortage caused panic while collapse of credit led to depression (1837-1843)

Specie Circular

executive order in 1836 that required the Treasury Department to accept only gold and silver as payment for lands in national domain

Benevolent Empire

web of reform organizations, heavily Whig, built by evangelical Protestants and influenced by the Second Great Awakening

Maine Law (1851)

nation’s 1st state law for prohibition of liquor manufacture and sales

Charles Grandison Finney

Presbytarian minister who preached and promoted group prayer, converted merchants and manufactures, leading to the Free Presbytarian Church’s creation

American Renaissance

a literary explosion during the 1840s inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas on liberation of individuals

transcendentalism

19th century American intellectual movement, believed in mystical knowledge of harmony beyond the immediate grasp of senses, founded by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

published Walden/Life in the Woods (1854), called to avoid unthinking conformity, peacefully resist

Margaret Fuller

published Woman in the 19th Century (1844), believed that every women deserved psych and social independence, quality in education and work

Brook Farm

a communal experiment to connect transcendentalist thinkers at a farm, but members had few farming skills and eventually failed and disbanded

utopias

communities founded by reformers and transcendentalists to realize spirit and moral potential and escape the competition of modern industrial society

Shakerism

founded 1770 by Ann Lee Stanley, believed she was the second Christ - called for common property ownership, abstain from alcohol, tobacco, politics, and war, and placed community governance in both women and men

Charles Fourier’s ideas

Albert Brisbane spread ideas of “associated households”, educated farmers and craftsmen, and yearned for economic stability and communal solidarity

minstrel shows

entertainment started in ~1830, white actors in blackface used ideas of racist caricatures, social criticism, white supremacy, racial stereotypes

penny papers

urban newspapers that built large circulations by reporting crime and scandals

Free African Societies

organizations in northern free black communities to help members and work against racism and slavery

African Methodist Episcopal Church

founded in 1816 by African Americans who were discriminated against by white Protestants, spread northeast and midwest

David Walkers’ Appeal (1829)

a radical pamphlet that protested slavery, racial opposition, and called for African American solidarity

Nat Turner’s Revolt

Happened August 1831, Turner and rebel groups killed at least 55 white people, sowed terror in slaveowners and clamped down on punishments for slaves

abolitionism

a social reform movement to end slavery without compensation for slaveholders, began in the US in the 1830s

American Anti-Slavery Society (AA-SS)

the first interracial social justice movement

Underground Railroad

an informal network of white people and free black people to assist fugitive slaves to reach freedom in the North

gag rule (1836-1844)

antislavery petitions were auto-tabled by the House of Representatives when received and not allowed to debate

Liberty Party

an antislavery political party

Female Moral Reform Society

an organization led by mid-class Christian women who viewed prostitutes as victims of male lust

Dorothea Dix

used money to set up charity schools and in 1841, persuaded Massachusetts to house indigent mental patients in hospitals, not prisons

married women property laws

Through 1839-1860, New York and other states permitted married women to own, inherit, and bequeath property

Seneca Falls Convention

the first women’s rights convention held in the US in Seneca Falls, New York

Susan B. Anthony

A Quaker woman who created an activist network of political “captains” who lobbied state legislatures

slave society

a society in which the institution of slavery affects all aspects of life (ex: the South)

republican aristocracy

what wealthy southerners called themselves, the Old South gentry that feared the federal government’s interference in slavery and criticized mid-class Democracy

Great American Desert

coined by Major Stephen H. Long in 1820 to describe the plains region “unfit for cultivation”

Alamo

an 1836 defeat by the Mexican army of the Texan garrison defending the Alamo in San Antonio

secret ballot

a form of voting that allows anonymous voting which made Democrats appeal to commonfolk

Gullah dialect

a Creole language that combined English and African words, spoken by African Americans in Carolina’s low country

task system

a system of labor common in rice growing regions of South Carolina: slaves were assigned a daily task to complete and were allowed to do whatever they wanted once completed

German Coast Uprising

the largest slave revolt in the 19th century America, 200+ enslaved workers revolted, 95 slaves killed or executed (January 8, 1811)

Manifest Destiny

the idea that European-Americans were fated by God to settle America from the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean, coined by John L. O’Sullivan in 1845

Oregon Trail

route from Independence, Missouri to Williamson Valley, Oregon (2000+ miles) that several hundred thousand of migrants traveled in the 1840s-1860s

Californios

elite Mexican ranchers in California

Grattan Massacre (1854)

Sioux Indiands vs. Lieutenant John Lawrence Grattan, initiated war between the US. and Sioux for 35 years

“Fifty-four forty or fight!”

Governor James K. Polk’s slogan, called for American sovereignty over Oregon Country

Bear Flag Republic (1846)

a short-lived republic in California by American emigrants to sponsor the rebels against Mexican authority