AP US History Period 5 Vocab

Popular Sovereignty

The notion that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery.

Fugitive Slave Law (1850)

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.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe's widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery which caused many to join the abolitionist movement.

Emancipation Proclamation

1863. Declared all slaves in rebelling states to be free but did not affect slavery in non-rebelling Border States.

Sherman's March to the Sea

1864-1865. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive march through Georgia. An early instance of "total war", purposely targeting infrastructure and civilian property to diminish morale and undercut the Confederate War effort.

Freedmans' Bureau

1865-1872. Created to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support.

Black Codes

1865-1866. Laws passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated blacks.

Sharecropping

An agricultural system that emerged after the Civil War in which black and white farmers rented land and residences from a plantation owner in exchange for giving him a certain "share" of each year's crop.

Hayes-Tilden Election

The South conceded to let Hayes win the presidency because he agreed to pull out the troops. - Election 1876 - sacrificed reconstruction ideals of the Republican party

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.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854. 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 Douglass in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

Homestead Act

1862. A federal law that gave settlers 160 acres of land for about $30 if they lived on it for five years and improved it by, for instance, building a house on it. The act helped make land accessible to hundreds of thousands of westward-moving settlers.

Gettysburg Address

1863. Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted speech, delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg battlefield. In the address, Lincoln framed the war as a means to uphold the values of liberty.

10% Reconstruction Plan

1863. Introduced by President Lincoln, it proposed that a state be readmitted to the Union once 10 percent of its voters had pledged loyalty to the United States and promised to honor emancipation of slaves.

Radical Republicans

Most liberal part of the Republican Party. Desired political, economic, and social equality for African Americans. Wanted harsh punishment for the South after the Civil War.

Election of Lincoln

Angered many people in the south who owned slaves because he wanted to end slavery. Won the election of 1860 but did not win the popular vote. South Carolina was happy at the outcome of the election because now it had a reason to secede.11 states in the south seceded and made themselves the Confederacy after the election.

Abolitionist Movement

The movement to end the practice of slavery within the entirety of the United States.

Wilmot Proviso

(1846) Proposal to prohibit slavery in any land acquired in the Mexican War. Never passed by both houses of Congress but helped fan the flame of sectional tension.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

(1848) The Mexican government gave up the area of Texas and offered to sell the provinces of California and New Mexico as a result of its defeat in the Mexican-American War.

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.

Bleeding Kansas

(1856-1861) A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

(1857) Supreme Court case that decided US Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in federal territories and slaves, as private property, could not be taken away without due process. Invalidated the Missouri Compromise.

John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry

(1859) John Brown led a raid on Harper's Ferry. He hoped to start a rebellion against slaveholders by arming enslaved African Americans. Brown was quickly defeated by citizens and federal troops. Brown became a villain to southerners who now thought northerners would use violence to end slavery as well as a martyr to some northerners who saw Brown as someone who sacrificed himself for the ideal of freedom for all.

Election of 1860

(1860) The United States presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil War. Hardly more than a month following Lincoln's victory came declarations of secession by South Carolina and other states, which were rejected as illegal by outgoing President James Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln.

Civil Rights Act of 1867

(1867) Banned discrimination in public accommodations, prohibited discrimination in any federally assisted program, outlawed discrimination in most employment; enlarged federal powers to protect voting rights and to speed school desegregation.

Thirteenth Amendment

(1865) The constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude.

Fourteenth Amendment

(1868) Provided equal protection of the law to freed slaves. Representation for any state that withheld voting from African Americans would be reduced.

Fifteenth Amendment

(1870) Prohibited any state from denying citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

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.

Texas Annexation

1845. Originally refused in 1837, as the U.S. Government believed that the annexation would lead to war with Mexico. Texas remained a sovereign nation. Annexed via a joint resolution through Congress, supported by President-elect Polk, and approved in 1845. Land from the Republic of Texas later became parts of NM, CO, OK, KS, and WY.

"Fifty-Four Forty or Fight"

The phrase used in James K Polk's 1844 presidential election dealing with the Oregon Territory. Polk's campaign used the phrase as a rallying cry for the United States to obtain all of Oregon Territory, including land claimed by the English, up through Northern Canada.

Mexican American War

It stemmed from the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the U.S. in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (the Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (the U.S. claim).
1846 - 1848. President Polk declared war on Mexico over the dispute of land in Texas. At the end, American ended up with 55% of Mexico's land, called the Mexican Cession.

Stephen A. Douglas

Senator from Illinois who ran for president against Abraham Lincoln and was a leading voice in the debates over slavery and its expansion before the Civil War. Wrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Freeport Doctrine. Influential in the compromise of 1850

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the United States saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865)

Robert E. Lee

Confederate general who had opposed secession but did not believe the Union should be held together by force. Military genius whose aggressiveness made him a fearsome opponent throughout the Civil War.

Battle of Gettysburg

A large battle in the American Civil War, took place in southern Pennsylvania from July 1 to July 3, 1863. Union General George G. Meade led an army of about 90,000 men to victory against General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army of about 75,000. Proved to be a significant turning point in the war because of the loss of about 1/3 of Lee's army.

Ulysses S. Grant

An American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Union General who destroyed South during "march to the sea" from Atlanta to Savannah; example of total war and "scorched-earth" military tactics.

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

He was a confederate general who was known for his fearlessness in leading rapid marches, bold flanking movements, and furious assaults. He earned his nickname at the battle of first bull run for standing courageously against union fire. During the battle of Chancellorsville his own men accidently mortally wounded him.

Radical Reconstruction

Name given to the period when Congress, which was controlled by Republicans, took over Reconstruction efforts. When southerners balked at some of the more moderate reforms proposed, more radical republicans started to gain more power and pass more legislation.

Military Reconstruction Act

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

carpetbagger

A northerner who went to the South immediately after the Civil War; especially one who tried to gain political advantage or other advantages from the disorganized situation in southern states (as viewed from the southern perspective).

scalawag

A derogatory term for southerners who were working with the North to buy up land from desperate southerners; sometimes used in a general way by southerners criticizing other southerners who had northern sympathies.

James K. Polk

Democratic president after John Tyler who was best known for policies that promoted Manifest Destiny and expansionism.

William H. Seward

Congressman of the "Young Guard" who fiercely opposed slavery and argued that Americans should follow a "higher law" (God's law) over the Constitution when it came to the issue of slavery.

The Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman

Secret system of safe houses along a route that led many slaves to freedom in the North and eventually Canada.Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America prior to and during the Civil War.

Lecompton Constitution

Supported the existence of slavery in the proposed state and protected rights of slaveholders. It was rejected by Kansas, making Kansas an eventual free state (and was a factor in spurring violence there).

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas to debates during the senatorial race of 1858 which became a public referendum on the issue of slavery.

Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States, A Southerner form Tennessee, as V.P. when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote. Andrew Johnson implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South

George B. McClellan

First commander of the Army of the Potomac; well-known for being a master at training an army; was replaced several times by President Lincoln during the Civil War because of his timidness and sometimes outright refusal to send his army into battle.

Copperheads

Nickname for Northerners who were pro-Confederacy.

First Battle of Bull Run (Battle of Manassas)

(July 1861) first major conflict of the Civil War. Southern victory led to overconfidence.

Thaddeus Stevens

Radical Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who defended runaway slaves in court for free and insisted on being buried in a black cemetery; hated white Southerners. Leading figure on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction and for the social equality of African Americans.

Wade-Davis Bill

Bill pushed by Congress in 1864 that required 50 percent of a state's voters take the oath of allegiance and demanded stronger safe-guards for emancipation than proposed in Lincoln's 10 percent plan. Pocket-vetoed by Lincoln.

Winfield Scott

"Old Fuss and Feathers," whose conquest of Mexico City brought U.S. victory in the Mexican War

Zachary Taylor

(1849-1850), Whig president who was a Southern slave holder, and war hero (Mexican-American War). Won the 1848 election. Surprisingly did not address the issue of slavery at all on his platform. He died during his term and his Vice President was Millard Fillmore.

Battle of Antietam

Civil War battle in which the North suceedeed in halting Lee's Confederate forces in Maryland. Was the bloodiest battle of the war resulting in 25,000 casualties

Battle of Shiloh

Confederate forces suprised union troops & drove them across the Tennesee river; union got backup and won the battle but it was one of the most bloody battles in the civil war

Union Party (1864)

A coalition party of pro-war Democrats and Republicans formed during the 1864 election to defeat anti-war Northern Democrats.

Reconstruction

the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union

Advantages and Disadvantages of the North and South in the Civil War

Despite the North's greater population, however, the South had an army almost equal in size during the first year of the war. The North had an enormous industrial advantage as well. At the beginning of the war, the Confederacy had only one-ninth the industrial capacity of the Union. But that statistic was misleading.
The Union also had an industrial economy, where- as the Confederacy had an economy based on agriculture. The Union had most of the natural resources, like coal, iron, and gold, and also a well-developed rail system.

Fort Sumpter

Federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; the confederate attack on the fort marked the start of the Civil War

Ostend Manifesto (1854)

a statement by American envoys abroad to pressure Spain into selling Cuba to the United States; the declaration suggested that if Spain would not sell Cuba, the United States would be justified in seizing it. It was quickly repudiated by the U.S. government but it added to the belief that a "slave power" existed and was active in Washington.

Joseph Smith

Founded Mormonism in New York in 1830 with the guidance of an angel. 1843, Smith's announcement that God sanctioned polygamy split the Mormons and let to an uprising against Mormons in 1844; translated the Book of Mormon and died a martyr.