Period 5: 1844-1877

Matthew Perry

Opened Japan to U.S. trade in 1854.

Treaty of Kanagawa

Agreement that opened Japan's borders to trade.

General Winfield Scott

Led U.S. forces in Mexico City during war.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Ended Mexican-American War in 1848.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Abolitionist author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Book depicting slavery's brutality, sparked controversy.

John Brown

Abolitionist who led failed raid at Harper's Ferry.

Stephen Douglas

Proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act, supported popular sovereignty.

Dred Scott

Enslaved man whose court case denied his freedom.

Roger Taney

Chief Justice who ruled on Dred Scott case.

Alexander Stephens

Confederate vice president, defended slavery in speeches.

Robert E. Lee

Confederate general who surrendered at Appomattox.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Led destructive March to the Sea in Georgia.

John Wilkes Booth

Assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Women's rights advocate, co-founded NWSA.

Susan B. Anthony

Key figure in women's suffrage movement.

Lucy Stone

Argued for women's suffrage post-Reconstruction.

Manifest Destiny

Belief in U.S. expansion across the continent.

Southern Position

Argument for slavery as a constitutional right.

Free Soil Movement

Opposed slavery in new territories, favored free labor.

Popular Sovereignty

Territorial decision-making on slavery by residents.

Know-Nothing Party

Political party opposing immigration and immigrant influence.

Underground Railroad

Network aiding enslaved people to escape to freedom.

Republican Party

Formed in 1854 from various anti-slavery factions.

Secession

Withdrawal from the Union by Southern states.

Anaconda Plan

Union strategy to blockade and divide Confederacy.

Radical Republicans

Group advocating for harsh Reconstruction policies.

Sharecropping

Post-war labor system resembling slavery for blacks.

Ku Klux Klan

Secret society promoting white supremacy and terror.

Compromise of 1850

Set of laws addressing slavery and territorial issues.

Bleeding Kansas

Violence over slavery in Kansas during the 1850s.

Dred Scott Decision

1857 ruling denying rights to enslaved individuals.

Civil War

Conflict between North and South starting in 1861.

Emancipation Proclamation

1863 order freeing Confederate slaves.

Reconstruction

Post-Civil War period focused on rebuilding the South.

National Labor Union

First labor union advocating for workers' rights.

Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Divided South into military districts for governance.

15th Amendment

Prohibits voting discrimination based on race.

Indian Appropriation Act

Ended sovereignty of Indian nations in 1871.

Compromise of 1877

Ended Reconstruction, initiated Gilded Age.

Election of 1844

Main debate over Texas. Whigs nominate Henry Clay and democrats nominate James Polk. Polk says he will annex Texas and Oregon to make both sides happy. Polk was elected

James K. Polk's Presidency (1845-1849)

Objectives that were achieved: reduction of tariff, re-establishment of Independent Treasury, annexation of Texas, settlement of Oregon question, & acquisition of CA

General Zachary Taylor

Commander of the Army of Occupation on the Texas border. On President Polk's orders, he took the Army into the disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grnade Rivers and built a fort on the north bank of the Rio Grande River. When the Mexican Army tried to capture the fort, Taylor's forces engaged in is a series of engagements that led to the Mexican War. His victories in the war and defeat of Santa Ana made him a national hero.

Gadsden Purchase 1853

Agreement w/ Mexico that gave the US parts of present-day New Mexico & Arizona in exchange for $10 million; all but completed the continental expansion envisioned by those who believed in Manifest Destiny.

Second Great Awakening

A series of religious revivals starting in 1801, based on Methodism and Baptism. Stressed a religious philosophy of salvation through good deeds and tolerance for all Protestant sects. The revivals attracted women, Blacks, and Native Americans.

Charles Finney

A leading evangelist of the Second Great Awakening, he preached that each person had capacity for spiritual rebirth and salvation and that through individual effort could be saved. His concept of "utility of benevolence" proposed the reformation of society as well as of individuals.

Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon

1830 published BoM (translation of set of golden tablets he found in the hills of NY revealed by angel). Their history as righteous societies could serve as a model for a new holy community in US.

Brigham Young, Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1847

Brigham Young let the Mormons to the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah, where they founded the Mormon republic of Deseret. Believed in polygamy and strong social order. Others feared that the Mormons would act as a block, politically and economically.

Shakers/Mother Ann Lee

Believed in virgin purity. Formed a religious community so they could await Christ's second coming

Robert Owen; New Harmony

This secular (nonreligious) experiment was intended to provide the answer to the problems of inequity and alienation caused by the Industrial Revolution; it failed for financial reasons and arguments among community members.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Essayist, poet. A leading transcendentalist, emphasizing freedom and self-reliance in essays which still make him a force today. He had an international reputation as a first-rate poet. He spoke and wrote many works on the behalf of the Abolitionists.

Frances Willard and WCTU

Dean of Women at Northwestern University and the president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union which she build to become the largest organization of women in the world.

Dorothea Dix

A reformer and pioneer in the movement to treat the insane as mentally ill, beginning in the 1820's, she was responsible for improving conditions in jails, poorhouses and insane asylums throughout the U.S. and Canada. She succeeded in persuading many states to assume responsibility for the care of the mentally ill. She served as the Superintendant of Nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

Rebellion in which Nat Turner led a group of slaves through virginia in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow and kill planter families

The Cult of Domesticity

idealized view of women & home; women, self-less caregiver for children, refuge for husbands

Compromise of 1850/Fugitive Slave Act

1) California enters as a free state

2) Other states will be decided by popular sovereignty

3) Fugitive Slave Act added (runaway slaves had to be returned to their owners)

New Republican Party

combination of anti-slavery radicals, old-line Whigs, and Jacksonian democrats

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.

Battle of Bull Run

July 21, 1861. Va. (outside of D.C.) People watched battle. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson: Confederate general, held his ground and stood in battle like a "stone wall." Union retreated. Confederate victory. Showed that both sides needed training and war would be long and bloody

Fort Sumter

The first shots of the Civil War were fired in South Carolina

Trent Affair (1861)

Diplomatic row that threatened to bring the British into the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, after a Union warship stopped a British steamer and arrested two Confederate diplomats on board.

Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

After the Union victory at Antietam, Sep. 23, 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared slaves free in territories still in rebellion. Did not apply to border slave states because Lincoln feared it would push them into CSA, also felt he could only free slaves as a war measure under his power as commander-in-chief. However, hearing of this many slaves fled to Union armies, and this turned federal forces into armies of liberation (also made European intervention for South much less likely since Europe was anti-slavery)

Gettysburg Address

(1863) a speech given by Abraham Lincoln after the Battle of Gettysburg, in which 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

13th, 14th, 15th Amendments

13. abolished slavery, 14. Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws, 15. citizens cannot be denied the right to vote because of race, color , or precious condition of servitude

Black Codes/Jim Crow Laws

Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War

Lincoln's 10% Plan

1863

*Lincoln believed that seceded states should be restored to that Union quickly and easily, with "malice toward none, with charity for all."

*Lincoln's "10% Plan" allowed Southerners, excluding high-ranking confederate officers and military leaders, to take an oath promising future loyalty to the Union and an end to slavery

*When 10 percent of those registered to vote in 1860 took the oath, a loyal state government could be formed

*This plan was not accepted by Congress

Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction Plan

(1865) "amnesty and pardon" to any Southerner who would swear allegiance to the Union and the Constitution, ex-Confederate leaders should not be eligible for amnesty (like in Lincoln's plan) as well as individuals (almost always plantation owners) whose property was worth over $20,000, state needed to abolish slavery before being readmitted, state required to repeal secession ordinances be readmittance, ratify 13th amendment, disowned Confederate debts

Wade-Davis Bill

1864 Proposed far more demanding and stringent terms for reconstruction; required 50% of the voters of a state to take the loyalty oath and permitted only non-confederates to vote for a new state constitution; Lincoln refused to sign the bill, pocket vetoing it after Congress adjourned.

Military Reconstruction Plan

1867; divided the South into five districts and placed them under military rule; required Southern States to ratify the 14th amendment; guaranteed freedmen the right to vote in convention to write new state constitutions

Scalawags and Carpetbaggers

Scalawags are hope to gain political offices with the help of the African-American vote and then use those offices to enrich themselves. Carpetbaggers where Democrats that used an equally unflatterring name for Northerners who moved to the South after the war.