APUSH Period 5: The Idea of Manifest Destiny and Its Impacts

These flashcards cover key terms and concepts discussed in the lecture about Manifest Destiny and its historical context leading to the Civil War.

Manifest Destiny

A belief in the 1840s that the U.S. had a divine mission to expand across North America and spread democracy.

Aroostook War

A border dispute between the U.S. and Britain over the Maine boundary.

Oregon Trail

The primary route that thousands took to migrate to the Oregon Territory during the 1840s.

California Gold Rush

A mass migration to California beginning in 1848 after the discovery of gold.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

The treaty that ended the Mexican-American War, where Mexico recognized the Rio Grande as Texas's border and ceded California and New Mexico to the U.S.

Wilmot Proviso

A proposal that aimed to ban slavery in all territory acquired from Mexico, which heightened sectional tensions.

Compromise of 1850

A package of five bills that aimed to defuse tensions between slave and free states, which included admitting California as a free state.

Fugitive Slave Law

A law passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, that required the return of escaped enslaved people to their owners.

Secession

The formal withdrawal of a state from the Union, notably seen with Southern states after Lincoln's election.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

A Supreme Court decision that deemed African Americans were not citizens and Congress could not ban slavery in territories.

Bleeding Kansas

A term used to describe the violent conflicts between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Kansas.

John Brown's Raid

An attempt led by abolitionist John Brown to start a slave uprising by seizing arms from a federal arsenal.

Reconstruction

The period after the Civil War during which the U.S. aimed to reintegrate the Southern states and define new rights for freed slaves.

13th Amendment

The amendment to the U.S. Constitution that abolished slavery.

14th Amendment

The amendment that granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and promised equal protection under the law.

15th Amendment

The amendment that prohibited the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race.

Radical Republicans

A faction of the Republican Party that sought to secure civil rights for freed slaves and to rebuild the South.

Sharecropping

A system where landowners allowed tenants to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop, often leading to a cycle of debt for the laborers.

Ku Klux Klan

A white supremacist group formed during Reconstruction aimed at suppressing Black civil rights.

Amnesty Act of 1872

A law that removed voting restrictions from most ex-Confederates, enabling Southern Democrats to regain political power.