AP US History AMSCO 4th Edition: Unit 4 Vocab

"common man"

In the 1830s and 1840s, candidates for office directed their campaigns to the interests and prejudices of this target audience. The negative side to the new campaign techniques was that in appealing to the masses, candidates would often resort to personal attacks and ignore the issues.

Universal White Male Suffrage

Western states newly admitted to the Union Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818), and Missouri (1821) adopted state constitutions that allowed all members of this demographic to vote and hold office.

party nominating conventions

In the past, candidates for office had commonly been nominated either by state legislatures or by a closed-door meeting of a political party's leaders in Congress. In the 1830s, however, those meetings were replaced by these.

"King Caucus"

In the past, candidates for office had commonly been nominated either by state legislatures or by this, a closed-door meeting of a political party's leaders in Congress.

popular election of president

In the presidential election of 1832, every state with the exception of South Carolina used this system in which voters got to choose a state's slate of presidential electors.

popular campaigning

Using this strategy, politicians in the 1830s and 1840s directed their campaigns to the interests and prejudices of the common people by turning politics into a form of local entertainment. Campaigns featured parades of floats and marching bands and large rallies in which voters were treated to free food and drink.

spoils system

The practice of dispensing government jobs in return for party loyalty was called this and was exercised by President Andrew Jackson, where he would appoint people to federal jobs strictly according to if they had campaigned for the Democratic Party or not. Any previous holder of office who did not was fired.

rotation in office

Jackson believed in this system regarding people in positions of power. By limiting a person to one term in office, he could then appoint some other deserving Democrat in his place.

Indian Removal Act (1830)

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed this into law, which forced the resettlement of many thousands of American Indians. Sympathizing with land-hungry citizens eager to take Indian land, President Andrew Jackson thought the most humane solution was to compel the American Indians to leave their traditional homelands and resettle west of the Mississippi.

Trail of Tears

In 1838, after President Andrew Jackson had left office, the U.S. Army forced 15,000 Cherokees to leave Georgia. The hardships during this journey westward caused the deaths of 4,000 Cherokees.

Bank of the United States

Andrew Jackson's opposition to the rechartering of this institution was only one of many causes of the Panic of 1837 and resulting economic depression.

"pet banks"

President Andrew Jackson's critics coined this term to describe the state banks that housed funds he transferred from the Bank of the United States.

Specie Circular

As a result of both Jackson's financial policies and the feverish purchase of western lands by many speculators, prices for land and various goods became greatly inflated. Jackson hoped to check the inflationary trend by issuing this presidential order. It required that all future purchases of federal lands be made in gold and silver.

Panic of 1837

Soon after the Specie Circular, banknotes lost their value and land sales plummeted. Right after Jackson left office, this financial crisis plunged the nation's economy into a depression.

The West

Most politicians supported a policy of Indian removal. Georgia and other states passed laws requiring the Cherokees to migrate to this region of the United States.

Frontier

Jackson gained fame as an Indian fighter and as hero of the Battle of New Orleans and came to live in a fine mansion in Tennessee as a wealthy planter and slaveowner. But he never lost the rough manners that exhibit this region in the western lands. He chewed tobacco, fought several duels, and displayed a violent temper.

"Corrupt Bargain"

When President Adams appointed Clay his secretary of state, Jackson and his followers charged that the decision of the voters had been foiled by secret political maneuvers. Angry Jackson supporters accused Adams and Clay of making this sort of deal.

Tariff of 1828 (Tariff of Abominations)

In 1828, the South Carolina legislature declared this tariff to be unconstitutional. It affirmed a theory advanced by John C. Calhoun. According to this nullification theory, each state had the right to decide whether to obey a federal law or to declare it null and void (of no effect).

states' rights

President Andrew Jackson favored this but not disunion.

Nullification Crisis

This event began when South Carolina attempted to deem a federal tariff null and void. President Jackson responded with a Proclamation stating that nullification and disunion were treason.

Webster-Hayne Debate

In 1830, Conflicting views on the federal union led to this dramatic exchange of speeches between two senators. One from Massachusetts argued for the rights of states, while the other from South Carolina attacked the idea that any state could defy or leave the Union. Afterwards, President Jackson declared his own position: "Our federal Union," he declared, "it must be preserved."

Proclamation to the People of South Carolina

In response to the Nullification Crisis, Jackson issued this document stating that nullification and disunion were treason.

"Log Cabin & Hard Cider" Campaign

In the election of 1840, the Whigs were in a strong position to defeat Martin Van Buren and the Jacksonian Democrats with their popular war hero, William Henry "Tippecanoe" Harrison. To symbolize Harrison's humble origins, they wheeled around log cabins and gave out hard cider to voters in what is now known as this campaign.

Cultural Nationalism

As fervent nationalists, the generation of Americans that became adults in the first decades of the 19th century believed their young country was entering an era of unlimited prosperity. These ideals would dominate most of the 19th century.

utopia

Brook Farm was just one attempt to set up an intentionally organized society. The idea of withdrawing from conventional society to create an ideal community in a fresh setting was not a new idea.

Shakers

One of the earliest religious communal movements, this group had about 6,000 members in various communities by the 1840s. They held property in common and kept women and men strictly separate (forbidding marriage and sexual relations).

Amana Colonies

The settlers of the these colonies in Iowa were Germans who belonged to the religious reform movement known as Pietism. Like the Shakers, they emphasized simple, communal living. However, they allowed for marriage.

Antebellum

Never before were social experiments so numerous as during this period of time. The open lands of the United States proved fertile ground for more than a hundred experimental communities.

romanticism

In Europe, during the early years of the 19th century, artists and writers shifted toward intuition, feelings, individual acts of heroism, and the study of nature. This new movement was known as this.

transcendentalists

The new movement of romanticism was most clearly expressed in the United States by these people, a small group of New England thinkers.

On Civil Disobedience

For refusing to pay a tax for the U.S. war against Mexico, Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail. Thoreau's reflections on the necessity for disobeying unjust laws and accepting the penalty in this essay added to his lasting fame.

feminists

Living at Brook Farm at times were some of the leading intellectuals of the period. One such individual was Margaret Fuller, who was an advocate for women's rights, a writer and an editor.

Hudson River School

This term for Thomas Cole and Frederick Church's dramatic Hudson River paintings expressed the Romantic Age's fascination with the natural world.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revivals swept through the United States starting in the late 18th century and through the first half of the 19th century. Some of these, known as this event, marked a reassertion of the traditional Calvinist (Puritan) teachings of original sin and predestination.

revivalism, revivals, camp meetings

In 1823, Charles Grandison Finney began a series of religious comeback specials in New York. Instead of delivering sermons based on rational argument, Finney appealed to people's emotions and fear of damnation. He prompted thousands to publicly declare their revived faith.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons)

This religious group was founded by Joseph

Smith in 1830 in New York. Smith based his beliefs on a book of Scripture (The Book of Mormon) that traced a connection between American Indians and the lost tribes of Israel.

temperance

The high rate of alcohol consumption prompted reformers to target alcohol as a cause of crime, poverty, abuse of women, and other social ills. This movement became the most popular of the reform movements.

American Temperance Society

In 1826, Protestant ministers and others concerned with drinking and its effects founded this group. The society tried to persuade drinkers to take a pledge of total abstinence.

Women's Christian Temperance Union

In the 1850s, the issue of slavery came to overshadow the temperance movement. The movement would gain strength again in the late 1870s, with strong support from this group.

asylum movement

The prison reforms of penitentiaries and placing prisoners in solitary confinement reflected a major doctrine of this movement: structure and discipline would bring about moral reform.

penitentiaries

Pennsylvania took the lead in prison reform, building these new prisons to take the place of crude jails. Reformers placed prisoners in solitary confinement to force them to reflect on their sins and repent.

Auburn System

Prison reforms reflected a major doctrine of the asylum movement: structure and discipline would bring about moral reform. A similar penal experiment in New York enforced rigid rules of discipline while also providing moral instruction and work programs.

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

The leading feminists met at the first women's right's convention in American history in 1848. At the conclusion of their convention, they issued a document closely modeled after the Declaration of Independence.

American Colonization Society

The idea of transporting freed slaves to an African colony was first tried in 1817 with the founding of this group. This appealed to some opponents of slavery and to many White Americans who wanted to remove all free Black Americans from U.S. society.

American Antislavery Society

In 1833, William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists founded this group. Garrison stepped up his attacks by condemning and burning the Constitution as a proslavery document. He argued for "no Union with slaveholders" until they repented for their sins by freeing their slaves.

Liberty Party

Believing that political action was a more practical route to reform than William Lloyd Garrison's moral crusade, a group of northerners formed this political group in 1840. The party's one campaign pledge was to bring about the end of slavery by political and legal means.

The North Star

In 1847, Frederick Douglass started this antislavery journal.

Antebellum Period

Several historic reform movements began during the Jacksonian era and in the following decades. This period before the Civil War started in 1861 is known as this period of time.

women's rights

Women reformers, especially those involved in the antislavery movement, resented the way men relegated them to secondary roles in the movement, and thus fought for these.

cult of domesticity

The idealized view of women as moral leaders in the home is called this.

Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of the Woman

Well, this one really rolls off the tongue. Among the women who spoke out against discrimination was Sarah Grimké in this easy-to-remember document...

Free African Americans

By 1860, there were approximately 500,000 of this demographic living throughout the United States.

slave codes

Rebellions gave hope to enslaved African Americans, drove southern states to tighten these already strict laws with growing fear, and demonstrated to many the evils of slavery.

planters

Originally, cotton was grown almost entirely in two states, South Carolina and Georgia, but as demand and profits increased, these guys moved westward into Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

code of chivalry

Southern gentlemen ascribed to this code of conduct, which included a strong sense of personal honor, the defense of womanhood, and paternalistic attitudes toward all who were deemed inferior, especially slaves.

Poor Whites

Three-fourths of the White households in the South owned no enslaved people. They could not afford the rich river-bottom farmland controlled by the planters, and many lived in the hills as subsistence farmers. These people, or "hillbillies," as planters derisively called them, hoped that someday they, too, could own enslaved people.

Deep South

In parts of this region, enslaved African Americans made up as much as 75 percent of the total population. Fearing slave revolts, southern legislatures added increased restrictions on movement and education to their slave codes.

King Cotton

Agriculture was the foundation of the South's economy, particularly with this crop.

peculiar institution

Some Whites were sensitive about how they treated the other humans, so they referred to slavery as this.