APUSH Period 5 Study Guide Flashcards

This flashcard set covers the key political, economic, and social developments of APUSH Period 5 ($$1844$$-$$1877$$), including the causes of the Civil War, wartime measures, and the successes and failures of Reconstruction.

Period 5

The historical era spanning from $1844$ to $1877$, beginning with increased sectionalism and ending with the formal conclusion of the Reconstruction Period.

$$1844$$

The starting year of Period 5 that helps clarify what was building the tension and conflict leading to the Civil War.

$$1877$$

The year signifying the end of the Reconstruction Period and technical resolution of Civil War issues, though the question of equality continued.

President Polk

The U.S. President who declared war with Mexico after the Texan Republic's admission as a slave state led to disputes over territory ownership.

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

The agreement ending the Mexican-American War in which Mexico ceded huge amounts of land to the U.S., known as the Mexican Cession.

Mexican Cession

Territory including modern-day California, Texas, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and part of New Mexico, all located below the $36^{\circ}30^{\circ}$ line.

Wilmot Proviso

A bill that sought to prohibit the spread of slavery into lands acquired from the Mexican Cession; it never passed both houses of Congress.

Free Soil Party

A political party formed with the main goal of preventing the spread of slavery into new territories.

Whig Party

A political organization that faced destruction due to internal divisions regarding the Texan issue.

Popular Sovereignty

A concept campaigned by Stephan Douglas suggesting that a territory's population should vote on whether to be a slave or free state upon applying for statehood.

Compromise of $1850$

A legislative package that admitted California as a free state, established popular sovereignty in the Mexican Cession, abolished the D.C. slave trade, and created a stronger fugitive slave law.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

An act that applied popular sovereignty to the Kansas and Nebraska territories, effectively throwing out the Missouri Compromise because these lands were above the $36^{\circ}30^{\circ}$ line.

Bleeding Kansas

A period of violence where people from free and slave states flooded territories to influence the vote, resulting in murders.

Brooks and Sumner Beating

An incident in Congress where Sumner, an anti-slavery senator, was beaten on the head with a cane by Brooks.

Republican Party

A party comprised of Free Soil supporters, anti-slavery Whigs, and Northern Democrats who supported land distribution, protective tariffs, infrastructure, and restricting slavery's expansion to align with Northern economics.

Dred Scott Decision

A court ruling that defined an enslaved man as 'property' that is inherited, maintaining his status as enslaved even after traveling to a free state.

Chief Justice Taney

The Supreme Court figure who ruled that Congress had no constitutional right to ban slavery in any territory.

Election of $1860$

The presidential contest won by Abraham Lincoln, which triggered the secession of South Carolina from the Union.

Jefferson Davis

The leader of the South during the Civil War who faced severe inflation and social unrest while trying to stimulate market growth.

Bread Riots

Social disturbances characterized by starvation among poor white farmers in the South during the Civil War.

Conscription

A military draft policy where Southern elites could pay poor white farmers to serve in their place, causing class tensions.

Greenbacks

Paper money issued by Abraham Lincoln to support the Northern economy, moving away from the previous support for hard money.

Emancipation Proclamation of $1863$

A wartime order that declared no slaves in the Confederacy while allowing slave states still in the Union to keep their slaves; it also barred anti-slavery Europeans from aiding the South.

$13^{th}$ Amendment

The constitutional amendment that freed all black men in the Confederacy and abolished slavery.

Confiscation Acts

Legislation that allowed escaped slaves from the South to become soldiers for the North, dealing a blow to the Southern economy and military.

Antietam

The battle recognized as the first Union victory in the Civil War.

Sherman’s March to the Sea

A Northern military tactic that split the South in half to weaken them by destroying outward from the divide.

Lincoln's $10\%$ Plan

A minimal Reconstruction plan requiring $10\%$ of voters to pledge loyalty to the Union, though Lincoln was assassinated before it could be enforced.

Black codes

Discriminatory laws that incorporated the word 'freedmen' to replace 'slave' to continuously oppress black individuals.

Congressional Reconstruction Plan ($1867$)

A plan that included the $14^{th}$ and $15^{th}$ Amendments and barred major Confederates from political positions.

$14^{th}$ Amendment

The amendment establishing that Blacks are citizens.

$15^{th}$ Amendment

The amendment establishing that black men, as citizens, are allowed to vote.

Military Reconstruction Act of $1867$

Legislation that stationed American soldiers in the South to ensure the enforcement of the Reconstruction plan.

Panic of $1873$

An economic crisis that, along with corruption, pulled national attention away from the Reconstruction process.

Compromise of $1877$

A deal between Democrats and Republican President Hayes where Hayes won the election in exchange for ending Reconstruction and pulling soldiers out of the South.

Manifest Destiny

The belief that God determined America should extend its democratic ideals from sea to sea.

Freedmen’s Bureau

An organization that provided significant aid to African Americans following the Civil War.

Sharecropping

A labor system where farmers worked a landlord's land for a share of the crop, often resulting in slave-like conditions and lifetime debt.

Nativism

A growing negative sentiment against immigrants (primarily from China, Ireland, and Germany) due to overcrowding and urban issues.