expansionism
policy of increasing the amount of territory a government holds
migration/Immigration
the movement of a group of people/animals from one region to another/the movement of a person(s) into a country
Manifest Destiny
A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific
Mexican-American War
The war between the United States and Mexico in which the United States acquired one half of the Mexican territory.
ethnic Communities
ethnic groups grouped in certain areas in the city, brought and shared their culture, language, and traditions
nativism
A policy of favoring native-born individuals over foreign-born ones
Civil War
deadliest war in American history; conflict between north (union) and south
sectionalism
Loyalty to one's own region of the country, rather than to the nation as a whole
free labor manufacturing
A system in which countries could benefit from free labor, so they could gain the utmost profit from their goods. For example, the south in terms of the American system, free labor was crucial in the fact that it provided the labor source to advance the economy, hence "Cotton King".
abolitionists
people who believed that slavery should be against the law
states' rights
the rights and powers held by individual US states rather than by the federal government.
secession
Formal withdrawal of states or regions from a nation/union
Election of 1860
Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery. As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.
Compromise of 1850
(1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries, (4) federal assumption of Texas debt, (5) slave trade abolished in DC, and (6) new fugitive slave law; advocated by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas
Kansas
Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.
Dred Scott Decision
A Missouri slave sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S, Supreme Court decided he couldn't sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen.
Republican Party
anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats, Free Soilers and reformers from the Northwest met and formed party in order to keep slavery out of the territories
Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the United State. Saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth
Mexican Cession
Awarded as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo after the Mexican American War. U.S. paid $15 million for 525,000 square miles.
Radical Republicans
After the Civil War, a group that believed the South should be harshly punished and thought that Lincoln was sometimes too compassionate towards the South.
Gettysburg Address
(1863) a speech given by Abraham Lincoln after the Battle of Gettysburg, in where he praised the bravery of Union soldiers and renewed his commitment to winning the Civil War; supported the ideals of self-government and human rights.
Free Soil Platform
Absorbed by republicans. To keep western territories free by promising free homesteads to white farmers who will go west.
Reconstruction
the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union
Confederacy
A loose union of independent states; name of government used by the southern states that seceded during the Civil War
Emancipation Proclamation
Issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 it declared that all slaves in the confederate states would be free
13th Amendment (1865)
Abolition of slavery without compensation for slave owners
sharecropping system
Dominant agricultural model in the post-Civil War South. Is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land (e.g., 50% of the crop).
Radical vs. Moderate Republicans
Radicals wanted to use federal power in the south to force social and economic change
Moderates wanted to let state governments handle the changes.
14th and 15th Amendments
14th-all people born or naturalized in US are citizens, national citizenship took priority over citizenship in a state.
15th-forbade states to deny anyone the right to vote on grounds of race.
Women's Movement
Women's Movement - movement beginning in the mid-1800s in the United States that sought greater rights and opportunities for women