Unit 5-Manifest Destiny&Civil War

Alamo

mission and fort that was the site of a siege and battle during the Texas Revolution, which
resulted in the massacre of all its defenders; the event helped galvanize the Texas rebels and
eventually led to their victory at the Battle of San Jacinto and independence from Mexico.

Antonio
Lopez de Santa Anna

political opportunist and general who served as president of Mexico eleven
different times and commanded the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s and the
war with the United States in the 1840s.

Compromise of 1850

proposal by Henry Clay to settle the debate over slavery in territories gained from the Mexican War; it included admitting California as a free state, ending slave trade in DC, a tougher Fugitive Slave Law, postponing decisions about slavery in NM and UT, and settling Texas boundary and debt issues.

Franklin Pierce

northern Democratic president with southern principles who signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Free Soil Party

political party opposing the spread of slavery into territories; absorbed into the Republican Party by 1856.

Gadsden Purchase (1853)

U.S. purchase of land south of the Gila River from Mexico for $10 million for a possible southern transcontinental railroad.

James K. Polk

Democratic president who pursued an aggressive expansionist policy leading to the Mexican War and the acquisition of the Mexican Cession.

John L. O'Sullivan

editor who coined the term "manifest destiny" in 1845.

Kansas-Nebraska Act
(1854)

Stephen Douglas's bill opening western territories and using popular sovereignty to decide slavery.

Know-Nothing Party

anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic party of the 1840s known for secrecy.

Manifest Destiny

belief that U.S. expansion across the continent was inevitable.

Mexican Cession

land ceded to the United States after the Mexican War, including California and the Southwest.

Ostend Manifesto (1854)

document pressuring Spain to sell Cuba; suggested the U.S. could seize Cuba if refused.

Popular sovereignty

idea that territorial residents should vote to decide the status of slavery.

Republican Party

political party formed in 1854 opposing the spread of slavery in the territories.

Slave power

belief that a pro-slavery oligarchy sought to expand slavery throughout the U.S.

Stephen Douglas

powerful Democratic senator who helped pass the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

treaty ending the Mexican War, ceding California and Southwest territories to the U.S.

Wilmot Proviso

proposal to ban slavery in any territory gained from the Mexican War.

Winfield Scott

leading American general from 1812 to the Civil War; distinguished in the Mexican War.

Zachary Taylor

Mexican War hero and last Whig president; died in 1850.

Abraham Lincoln

U.S. president during the Civil War; assassinated in 1865.

Andrew
Johnson

vice president who became president after Lincoln; impeached but acquitted by one vote.

Border States

slave states that stayed in the Union—Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri.

Carpetbaggers

northerners who moved South during Reconstruction.

Charles Sumner

Radical
Republican senator attacked in 1856; champion of racial equality.

Compromise of 1877

ended
Reconstruction by withdrawing federal troops from the South.

Copperheads

northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War.

Cotton Diplomacy

Confederate attempt to force British intervention by withholding cotton.

Dred Scott decision (1857)

Supreme Court ruling denying African American citizenship and declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.

Emancipation Proclamation

1863 order freeing slaves in Confederate states.

Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

granted Black men the right to vote.

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

granted citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. and guaranteed due process and equal protection.

Freedmen’s Bureau

agency assisting former slaves with food, education, and land redistribution.

George McClellan

cautious Union general fired twice; ran against Lincoln in 1864.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a powerful antislavery novel.

James Buchanan

ineffective president who failed to address secession.

Jefferson
Davis

president of the Confederacy.

John Breckinridge

pro-slavery Southern Democrat candidate in 1860.

John Brown

militant abolitionist who led violent raids hoping to spark slave uprisings.

Ku Klux
Klan

white supremacist terrorist group during Reconstruction.

Radical Republicans

faction seeking
full equality and rights for freedmen.

Robert E. Lee

leading Confederate general who surrendered in 1865.

Scalawags

white southern Republicans who supported Reconstruction.

Ten-percent plan

Lincoln and Johnson's Reconstruction plan allowing states to rejoin when 10% of voters swore loyalty.

Tenure of Office Act (1867)

law limiting presidential power to remove officials; Johnson’s violation led to impeachment.

Thaddeus Stevens

Radical Republican advocating land redistribution and equality.

Thirteenth Amendment (1865)

abolished slavery in the United States.

Ulysses S. Grant

Union general who forced Lee’s surrender; later a scandal-plagued president.

Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

harsh
Reconstruction bill requiring majority loyalty oaths; vetoed by Lincoln.

William Seward

Lincoln’s
secretary of state who negotiated the purchase of Alaska.

Antebellum

time period before the Civil War (1815–1861).

Martyr

person who dies or suffers for a cause.

Secede

to formally withdraw from an organization