APUSH Unit 4 1844-1877 Key Terms

Manifest Destiny

set of ideas used to justify American expansion in the 1840s, weaving together the rhetoric of economic necessity, racial superiority, and national security, the concept implied an inevitability of U.S. continental expansion.

John L. O'Sullivan

influential editor of the Democratic Review who coined the phrase "manifest destiny" in 1845.

Stephen Austin

leader of American immigration to Texas in the 1820s; he negotiated land grants with Mexico and tried to moderate growing Texan rebelliousness in the 1830s. After Texas became an independent nation, he served as its secretary of state.

Alamo

mission and fort that was the site of a siege and battle during the Texas Revolution, which resulted in the massacre of all its defenders; the event helped galvanize the Texas rebels and eventually led to their victory at the Battle of San Jacinto and independence from Mexico.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

political opportunist and general who served as president of Mexico eleven different times and commanded the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s and the war with the United States in the 1840s.

Sam Houston

leader of the Texas revolutionaries, 1835-1836, first president of the Republic of Texas, and later a U.S. Senator from the state of Texas; he was a close political and personal ally of Andrew Jackson. 

James K. Polk

Democratic president from 1845 to 1849; nicknamed “Young Hickory” because of his close political and personal ties to Andrew Jackson, he pursued an aggressive foreign policy that led to the Mexican War, settlement of the Oregon issue, and the acquisition of the Mexican Cession.

Mexican American War

war between the United States and Mexico (April 1846–February 1848) stemming from the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U.S. claim). The war—in which U.S. forces were consistently victorious—resulted in the United States’ acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean.

Winfield Scott

arguably the finest military figure in America from the War of 1812 to the Civil War; he distinguished himself in the Mexican War, ran unsuccessfully for president (1852), and briefly commanded the Union armies at the beginning of the Civil War.

Zachary Taylor

military hero of Mexican War and the last Whig elected president (1848); his sudden death in July 1850 allowed supporters of the Compromise of 1850 to get the measures through Congress.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

agreement that ended the Mexican War; under its terms Mexico gave up all claims to Texas north of the Rio Grande and ceded California and the Utah and New Mexico territories to the United States. The United States paid Mexico fifteen million dollars for the land, but the land cession amounted to nearly half that nation’s territory.

"slave power"

the belief that a slave-holding oligarchy existed to maintain slavery in the South and to spread it throughout the United States, including into the free states; this belief held that a southern cabal championed a closed, aristocratic way of life that attacked northern capitalism and liberty. 

Free Soil Party

formed from the remnants of the Liberty Party in 1848; adopting a slogan of “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men,” it opposed the spread of slavery into territories and supported home-steads, cheap postage, and internal improvements. It ran Martin Van Buren (1848) and John Hale (1852) for president and was absorbed into the Republican Party by 1856.

Wilmot Proviso

measure introduced in Congress in 1846 to prohibit slavery in all territory that might be gained by the Mexican War; southerners blocked its passage in the Senate. Afterward, it became the congressional rallying platform for the antislavery forces in the late 1840s and early 1850s.

Mexican Cession

region comprising California and all or parts of the states of the present-day American Southwest that Mexico turned over to the United States after the Mexican War. 

Popular sovereignty

political process promoted by Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, and other northern Democrats whereby, when a territory was organized, its residents would vote to decide the future of slavery there; the idea of empowering voters to decide important questions was not new to the 1840s and 1850s or to the slavery issue, however.

Nashville Convention

meeting of representatives of nine southern states in the summer of 1850 to monitor the negotiations over the Compromise of 1850; it called for extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean and a stronger Fugitive Slave law. The convention accepted the Compromise but laid the groundwork for a southern confederacy in 1860

Compromise of 1850

proposal by Henry Clay to settle the debate over slavery in territories gained from the Mexican War; it was shepherded through Congress by Stephen Douglas. Its elements included admitting California as a free state, ending the buying and selling of slaves in the District of Columbia (DC), a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law, postponed decisions about slavery in the New Mexico and Utah Territories, and settlement of the Texas

Ostend Manifesto

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.

Franklin Pierce

northern Democratic president with southern principles, 1853-1857, who signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and sought sectional harmony above all else. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe

author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a best-selling novel about the cruelty of slavery; often called the greatest propaganda novel in United States history, the book increased tension between sections and helped bring on the Civil War. 

Stephen Douglas

a leading Democratic senator in the 1850s; nicknamed the “Little Giant” for his small size and great political power, he steered the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress. Although increasingly alienated from the southern wing of his party, he ran against his political rival Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860 and lost. 

Kansas Nebraska Act

Stephen Douglas’s bill to open western territories, promote a transcontinental railroad, and boost his presidential ambitions; it divided the Nebraska territory into two territories and used popular sovereignty to decide slavery in the region. Among Douglas’s goals in making this proposal was to populate Kansas in order to make more attractive a proposed route for a trans continental railroad that ended in Chicago, in his home state of Illinois.

Know Nothing Party

influential third party of the 1840s; it opposed immigrants, especially Catholics, and supported temperance, a waiting period for citizenship, and literacy tests. Officially the American Party, its more commonly used nickname came from its members’ secrecy and refusal to tell strangers anything about the group. When questioned, they would only reply, “I know nothing.”

Nativism

an ideology, governmental policy, or political stance that prioritizes the interests and well-being of native-born or long-established residents of a given country over those of immigrants, typically by advocating or enacting restrictions on immigration. 

Second Party System

The political party system in the United States that lasted from 1828 to 1852. It was characterized by rapidly rising levels of voter interest, beginning in 1828, as demonstrated by Election Day turnouts, rallies, partisan newspapers, and high degrees of personal loyalty to parties. The system was dominated by the Whig Party and Democratic Party. It came to an end in the 1850s as a result of divisions over the issue of slavery.

Republican Party

political party formed in 1854 in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act; it combined  remnants of Whig, Free Soil, and Know-Nothing Parties as well as disgruntled Democrats. Although not  abolitionist, it sought to block the spread of slavery in the territories. It also favored tariffs, homesteads,  and a transcontinental railroad. 

John Fremont

explorer, soldier, politician, and first presidential nominee of the Republican Party (1856); his erratic personal behavior and his radical views on slavery made him controversial and unelectable.

Dred Scott decision

Chief Justice Roger Taney led a pro-slavery Supreme Court to uphold the  extreme southern position on slavery; his ruling held that Scott was not a citizen (nor were any African Americans), that slavery was protected by the Fifth Amendment and could expand into all territories, and  that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. 

John Breckinridge

vice president under James Buchanan and Democratic presidential nominee in 1860 who supported slavery and states' rights; he split the Democratic vote with Stephen Douglas and lost the election to Lincoln. He served in the Confederate army and as secretary of war.

John Brown

violent abolitionist who murdered slaveholders in Kansas and Missouri (1856-1858) before his raid at Harpers Ferry (1859), hoping to incite a slave rebellion; he failed and was executed, but his  martyrdom by northern abolitionists frightened the South. 

James Buchanan

weak, vacillating president of the United States, 1857-1861; historians rate him as a failure for his ineffective response to secession and the formation of the Confederacy in 1860 and 1861.

Election of 1860

Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. The electoral split between Northern and Southern Democrats was emblematic of the severe sectional split, particularly over slavery, and in the months following Lincoln’s election (and before his inauguration in March 1861) seven Southern states, led by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, seceded, setting the stage for the American Civil War.

secession

the voluntary withdrawal of one or more states from the Union that constituted the United States. South Carolina was the first of several states to secede from the Union following the election of 1860. Virginia was the first of several states to secede following the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

Abraham Lincoln

president of the United States, 1861-1865; he is generally rated among America’s  greatest presidents for his leadership in restoring the Union. He was assassinated April 14, 1865, by  John Wilkes Booth before he could implement his Reconstruction program. 

Ulysses S. Grant

hard-fighting Union general whose relentless pursuit of Robert E. Lee finally brought  the war to an end in April 1865; elected president in 1868, he presided over two disappointing and corrupt terms and is considered a failure as president. 

Jefferson Davis

president of the Confederate States of America; a leading southern politician of the 1850s, he believed slavery essential to the South and held that it should expand into the territories without restriction. He served as U.S. senator from Mississippi (1847-1851, 1857-1861) and secretary of war (1853- 1857) before becoming president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865). After the war, he  served two years in prison for his role in the rebellion.

Robert E. Lee

highly regarded Confederate general who was first offered command of the Union armies but declined; Lee was very successful until he fought against Ulysses S. Grant in 1864 and 1865. He surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865, to end major fighting in the war.

Border States

Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri; these slave states stayed in the Union and were crucial to Lincoln’s political and military strategy. He feared alienating them with emancipation of slaves and adding them to the Confederate cause.

Cotton Diplomacy

a failed southern strategy to embargo cotton from England until Great Britain recognized and assisted the Confederacy; southerners hoped the economic pressure resulting from Britain’s need for cotton for its textile factories would force Britain to aid the South. But direct aid was never forthcoming.

Emancipation Proclamation

executive order issued January 1, 1863, granting freedom to all slaves in states that were in rebellion; Lincoln issued it using his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief; as a  military measure to weaken the South’s ability to continue the war. It did not affect the Border States or any  region under northern control on January 1. However, it was a stepping stone to the Thirteenth  Amendment.

Gettysburg Address

delivered by U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln at the dedication (November 19, 1863) of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of one of the decisive battles of the American Civil War (July 1–3, 1863). Lincoln’s brief address would be remembered as one of the most important speeches in American history. In it, he invoked the principles of human equality contained in the Declaration of Independence and connected the sacrifices of the Civil War with the desire for “a new birth of freedom,” as well as the all-important preservation of the Union created in 1776 and its ideal of self-government.

Copperheads

northerners (mostly Democrats) who supported the southern cause; they were strongest in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Former Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham was the most notorious Copperhead. Many of Lincoln’s arbitrary arrests were directed against this group.

George McClellan

Union general who was reluctant to attack Lee because of military/political reasons; his timidity prompted Lincoln to fire him twice during the war. He ran unsuccessfully for president against Lincoln in 1864 on an antiwar platform. 

William Seward

Lincoln’s secretary of state and previously his chief rival for the Republican nomination in 1860; however, his comments about the Fugitive Slave Law and “irrepressible conflict” made him too controversial for the nomination. As secretary of state, he worked to buy Alaska from Russia.

Reconstruction

the period that followed the American Civil War and during which attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to solve the problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. Long portrayed by many historians as a time when vindictive Radical Republicans fastened Black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy, Reconstruction has since the late 20th century been viewed more sympathetically as a laudable experiment in interracial democracy.

Ten percent plan

reconstruction plan of Lincoln and Johnson; when 10 percent of the number of voters in 1860 took an oath of allegiance, renounced secession, and approved the Thirteenth Amendment, a southern state could form a government and elect congressional representatives. The plan involved no military occupation and provided no help for freedmen. It was rejected by Radical Republicans in December 1865.

Wade Davis Bill

harsh Congressional Reconstruction bill that provided the president would appoint provisional governments for conquered states until a majority of voters took an oath of loyalty to the Union; it required the abolition of slavery by new state constitutions, the disenfranchisement of Confederate officials, and the repudiation of Confederate debt. Lincoln killed the bill with a pocket veto.

Ku Klux Klan

terrorist organization active throughout the South during Reconstruction and after, dedicated to maintaining white supremacy; through violence and intimidation, it tried to stop freedmen from exercising their rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

Carpetbaggers

northerners who went South to participate in Reconstruction governments; although they possessed a variety of motives, southerners often viewed them as opportunistic, poor whites—a carpetbag was cheap luggage—hoping to exploit the South.

Scalawags

white southerners who cooperated with and served in Reconstruction governments; generally eligible to vote, they were usually considered traitors to their states.

Andrew Johnson

vice president who took over after Lincoln’s assassination; an ex-Democrat with little sympathy for former slaves, his battles with Radical Republicans resulted in his impeachment in 1868. He  avoided conviction and removal from office by one vote. 

Radical Republicans

Republican faction in Congress who demanded immediate emancipation of the slaves at the war’s beginning; after the war, they favored racial equality, voting rights, and land distribution for the former slaves. Lincoln and Johnson opposed their ideas as too extreme.

Charles Sumner

senator from Massachusetts who was attacked on the floor of the Senate (1856) for antislavery speech; he required three years to recover but returned to the Senate to lead the Radical Republicans and to fight for racial equality. Sumner authored the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Thaddeus Stevens

uncompromising Radical Republican who wanted to revolutionize the South by giving equality to blacks; a leader in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, he hoped for widespread land distribution to former slaves.

Thirteenth Amendment

abolished slavery everywhere in the United States.

Fourteenth Amendment

granted citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States; this amendment protects citizens from abuses by state governments, and ensures due process and equal protection of the law. It overrode the Dred Scott decision.

Fifteenth Amendment

granted black males the right to vote and split former abolitionists and women’s rights supporters, who wanted women included as well.

Freedmen’s Bureau

a U.S. government-sponsored agency that provided food, established schools, and  tried to redistribute land to former slaves as part of Radical Reconstruction; it was most effective in  education, where it created over 4,000 schools in the South.

Tenure of Office Act

Radical attempt to further diminish Andrew Johnson’s authority by providing that the president could not remove any civilian official without Senate approval; Johnson violated the law by removing Edwin Stanton as secretary of war, and the House of Representatives impeached him over his actions.

Compromise of 1877

agreement that ended the disputed election of 1876 between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden; under its terms, the South accepted Hayes’s election. In return, the North agreed to remove the last troops from the South, support southern railroads, and accept a southerner into the Cabinet. The Compromise of 1877 is generally considered to mark the end of Reconstruction.