APUSH CHP 18

Popular sovereignty

Notion advanced before the Civil War that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery. Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by northern abolitionists, who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

Free Soil Party

Antislavery party in the 1848 and 1852 elections that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, arguing that the presence of slavery would limit opportunities for free laborers.

California Gold Rush

Inflow of thousands of miners to northern California after news reports of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in January of 1848 had spread around the world by the end of that year. The onslaught of migrants prompted Californians to organize a government and apply for statehood in 1849.

Underground Railroad

Informal network of volunteers that helped runaway slaves escape from the South and reach free-soil Canada. Seeking to halt the flow of runaway slaves to the North, southern planters and congressmen pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law.

Seventh of March speech

Daniel Webster's impassioned address urging the North to support the Compromise of 1850. Webster argued that topography and climate would keep slavery from becoming entrenched in Mexican Cession territory and urged northerners to make all reasonable concessions to prevent disunion.

Compromise of 1850

Admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington, D.C., and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law. Widely opposed in both the North and South, it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery.

Fugitive Slave Law

Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, it set high penalties for anyone who aided escaped slaves and compelled all law enforcement officers to participate in retrieving runaways. Strengthened the antislavery cause in the North.

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

Signed by Great Britain and the United States, it provided that the two nations would jointly protect the neutrality of Central America and that neither power would seek to fortify or exclusively control any future isthmian waterway. Later revoked by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, which gave the United States control of the Panama Canal.

Ostend Manifesto

Secret Franklin Pierce administration proposal to purchase or, that failing, to wrest militarily Cuba from Spain. Once leaked, it was quickly abandoned due to vehement opposition from the North.

Opium War

War between Britain and China over trading rights, particularly Britain's desire to continue selling opium to Chinese traders. The resulting trade agreement prompted Americans to seek similar concessions from the Chinese.

Treaty of Wanghia

Signed by the United States and China, it assured the United States the same trading concessions granted to other powers, greatly expanding America's trade with the Chinese.

Trent affair

Treaty of Kanagawa

Ended Japan's two-hundred-year period of economic isolation, establishing an American consulate in Japan and securing American coaling rights in Japanese ports.

Gadsden Purchase

Acquired additional land from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Proposed that the issue of slavery be decided by popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, thus revoking the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Stephen Douglas in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

Lewis Cass

(1782-1866) War veteran, diplomat, and U.S. senator, he ran as the Democratic candidate in the 1848 election and lost to Zachary Taylor. He is best known as the father of "popular sovereignty," the notion that the sovereign people of a territory should decide for themselves the issue of slavery.

Zachary Taylor

(1784-1850) Military general and twelfth U.S. president, he emerged as a popular war hero after defeating Santa Anna's forces at Buena Vista in the war with Mexico. As president, he , a Louisiana slave owner, sought to avoid a sectional confrontation over slavery, though he opposed the Compromise of 1850.

Harriet Tubman

(ca. 1820-1913) Famed conductor on the Underground Railroad, she helped rescue more than three hundred slaves from bondage. Born into slavery, she fled to the North in 1849 but returned to the South nineteen times to guide slaves to freedom. After the Civil War, she worked to give freedpeople access to education in North Carolina.

Millard Fillmore

(1800-1874) New York congressman and vice president under Taylor, he took over the presidency after Taylor's death in 1850. A practical politician, he threw his support behind the Compromise of 1850, ensuring its passage. He was passed over for the Whig nomination in 1852 when the party chose to select the legendary war hero Winfield Scott.

Franklin Pierce

(1804-1869) Pro-southern Democrat from New Hampshire who became the fourteenth president of the United States on a platform of territorial expansion. As president, he tried to provoke war with Spain and seize Cuba, a plan he quickly abandoned once it was made public. Pierce emphatically supported the Compromise of 1850, vigorously enforced the Fugitive Slave Law, and threw his support behind the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

William Walker

(1824-1860) Tennessee-born adventurer who made several forays into Central America in the 1850s. After an unsuccessful ploy to take over Baja California in 1853, he ventured into Nicaragua, installing himself as president in 1856. His dream of establishing a planter aristocracy in Nicaragua faltered when neighboring Central American nations allied against him. He met his fate before a Honduran firing squad in 1860.

Caleb Cushing

(1800-1879) Massachusetts-born congressman and diplomat who "opened" China to U.S. trade, negotiating the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844.

Matthew Perry

(1794-1858) American naval officer sent by Millard Fillmore to negotiate a trade deal with Japan. Backed by an impressive naval fleet, he showered Japanese negotiators with lavish gifts. Combining military bravado with diplomatic finesse, he negotiated the landmark Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854, which ended Japan's two centuries of isolation.