Great American Story Exam 2

Marbury v. Madison

Jefferson found out Adams (V.P.) had told the secretary to send letters to Judge Marbury. Result = judicial review.

Louisiana Purchase

French in need of $$. Should we call Congress back into court? Or treaty powers of the Pres and ask him later?

Lewis & Clark Expedition

Explore territory in Louisiana purchase, find a route to the pacific and document it

Barbary pirates

Harassing people in Tripoli, Marines sent to stop.

Embargo Act of 1807

How do we get $$ back from British when they steal our ships?

War of 1812

Kickstarted by 2 pressures- 1) British impressment/trade restrictions. 2) Tecsumseh allied w/ British in conflict

Battle of Ft. McHenry

British bombarded Ft. McHenry (right outside baltimore)

Treaty of Ghent (1814)

ended war b/w U.S> and Britain. Resolved border disputes and both agreed to work to end slavery

Battle of New Orleans

8K brits vs. 5K U.S. Happened technically after the war was over. Andy Jackson =MVP propels him to public stage

Era of Good Feelings

period of national unity and political calm in the United States after the War of 1812

Adams-Onis Treaty

“We will renounce SW territory for the Oregon territory”

Missouri Compromise of 1820

Missouri applied for statehood as a slave state. At the time there were 11 free and 11 slave states, so admitting Missouri would tip the Senate balance.

Tariff of Abominations

set off a major constitutional dispute over federal power. High tariffs on goods like wool, iron, cotton

James Monroe

president for 2 terms. Virginian, fought in war

Monroe Doctrine

Euro. powers should not interfere in U.S. affairs. Non-colonization, intervention, interference

Andrew Jackson

Pres. starting 1828= age of common man

Age of Common Man

parties in the white house

Petticoat/Eaton Affair

Jackson appt. close friend Eaton as sec. of state. Eaton married Peggy Timberlake and gossip said they had been naughty b4 marriage. All cabinet wives shunned Peggy but Jackson defender bc it reminded him of his own wife Rachel

Trail of Tears

Indians (cherokee) marching out of Georgia.

Nullification Crisis

written by Calhoun. Says “don’t test me”- states can nullify any law

William Pinkney

Maryland lawyer- supreme court. Attorney general under James Maddy

John Quincy Adams

elected pres in 1824 over 3 other candidates by House of Rep. V.P John Calhoun

Alexis de Tocqueville

French aristocrat. Studied america for a long time. Thought america was a mix of liberty and equality and lean → passions too much

soft despotism

extensive, mild, degrading w/o tormenting. Men endeavoring—>petty pleasures and secures men in their fate

civic associations

“common object for men and induce them voluntarily to pursue it.” religious, manufacturing, schools.

Second Great Awakening

wave of protestant religious revival. Personal salvation, emotional preaching, moral reform.

Joseph Smith

MO-MO. started mormons. Moved westward as they faced hostility bc they're weird and creepy.

Brigham Young

2nd pres of Mo-Mos. Guided them to Utah

Harriet Beecher Stowe

uncle tom’s cabin= sanctity of fam tied to slavery

Edgar Allan Poe

American author known for gothic and horror literature, whose dark themes of grief, madness, and mortality were shaped by personal losses such as the death of his wife.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

American novelist who wrote The Scarlet Letter, examining themes of guilt, legalism, adultery, and the social ostracization of children born out of wedlock.

Herman Melville

American writer who authored Moby-Dick, exploring human obsession, fate, and flawed humanity through the search for a giant white whale.

Romanticism

An artistic and intellectual movement emphasizing raw emotion, personal experience, nature, and the complexity of flawed human nature over pure Enlightenment rationalism.

Transcendentalism

Philosophical and literary movement asserting that divine truth transcends the physical senses and can be realized through a direct spiritual connection with nature and the soul.

Karl Bodmer

Swiss-born artist known for creating precise, detailed watercolor landscapes and ethnographic portraits documenting the American West and indigenous peoples.

Walt Whitman

Poet who bridged transcendentalism and realism in works such as Song of the Open Road, celebrating American democracy, nature, and self-sacrifice over material comfort.

Frederick Douglass

Escaped enslaved person turned leading abolitionist speaker and writer who argued against the notion that the U.S. Constitution permanently sanctioned human enslavement.

Harriet Tubman

Celebrated conductor on the Underground Railroad who repeatedly returned to the South to guide scores of enslaved African Americans to freedom.

Nat Turner

Enslaved preacher who led an 1831 armed uprising in Virginia, acting on religious visions to strike violently against the system of slavery.

William Lloyd Garrison

Radical white abolitionist who founded the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator in 1831 and advocated for the immediate, uncompensated emancipation of all enslaved people.

John Brown

Militant abolitionist who attempted to spark a widespread slave revolt by raiding the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859.

Amos Dresser

Abolitionist Lane Seminary student who was arrested and publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1835 for possessing anti-slavery literature.

Letter to My Old Master

Open letter written by Frederick Douglass to former enslaver Thomas Auld demanding back pay for years of labor and condemning the cruelty of bondage.

Mudsill Theory

Pro-slavery argument articulated by James Henry Hammond claiming every society relies on a degraded lower class to carry out menial duties so elites can advance civilization.

King Cotton

Southern economic rationale claiming Europe and the North depended so completely on Southern cotton that the South could safely secede without economic ruin.

Harriet Jacobs

Escaped enslaved woman whose narrative detailed the sexual harassment inflicted by enslavers and the emotional agony of having children separated from their mothers.

Stephen F. Austin

The Father of Texas, who led the first legal settlement of approximately 300 American families into Mexican Texas in the 1820s.

Sam Houston

Commander of the Texan army who routed General Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, securing Texas independence.

Remember the Alamo!

Rallying cry of the Texas Revolution honoring the defenders who were killed during the Mexican siege of the San Antonio mission.

Oregon Trail

A 2,000-mile overland route stretching from Missouri to the Willamette Valley traversed by farming families seeking fertile land despite disease and harsh conditions.

Manifest Destiny

19th-century ideology asserting that the United States held a God-given right and mission to expand its boundaries across the North American continent.

Martin Van Buren

Eighth U.S. president and key architect of the Democratic Party whose presidency was overshadowed by the economic collapse of the Panic of 1837.

William Henry Harrison

Whig war hero elected president in 1840 who died just thirty-one days into office, sparking the nation's first presidential succession debate.

John Tyler

Vice president who succeeded Harrison in 1841, establishing the Tyler Precedent that an elevated vice president becomes the full constitutional president.

James K. Polk

Democratic president elected in 1844 on an aggressive expansionist platform who fulfilled his pledge to serve a single term after acquiring Texas, Oregon, and the Southwest.

Mexican-American War

Armed conflict between the U.S. and Mexico from 1846 to 1848, initiated over disputed Texas borders and led by Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Peace treaty ending the Mexican-American War in which Mexico ceded the Southwest and Alta California to the U.S. in exchange for $15 million.

California Gold Rush

Mass westward migration of Forty-Niners following the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, creating an urgent need for civil government and statehood.

Zachary Taylor

Mexican-American War general elected president as a Whig in 1848 who surprised Southerners by supporting the direct admission of California as a free state.

Compromise of 1850

compromise that admitted California as a free state, allowed popular sovereignty in Utah and New Mexico, ended the D.C. slave trade, and enacted a strict Fugitive Slave Act.

Henry Clay

Kentucky statesman known as the Great Compromiser for crafting the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the American System economic plan.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Legislation proposed by Stephen Douglas that repealed the Missouri Compromise by applying popular sovereignty to let settlers decide the legality of slavery in new territories.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Supreme Court ruling stating that Black people were not U.S. citizens, had no right to sue in federal court, and that Congress could not ban slavery in federal territories.