APUSH Period 5

Manifest Destiny

The belief that the United States had a divine mission to expand its power and civilization across the breadth of North America.

The Alamo

A fort in San Antonio where a Mexican army led by Santa Anna killed all of its American defenders.

"Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!"

The Democratic slogan in the election of 1844, referring to the latitude line that Democrats wanted as the boundary between the U.S. and British territory in the Oregon Territory.

Oregon Territory

A territory in the Pacific Northwest that was claimed by four different nations at one time: Russia, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States.

Stephen Austin

Succeeded in bringing 300 families into Texas and thereby beginning a steady migration of American settlers into the vast frontier territory.

Antonio López de Santa Anna

The general who made himself dictator of Mexico and abolished that nation's federal system of government.

Matthew C. Perry

U.S. commodore who pressured Japan's government to sign the Kanagawa Treaty, which allowed U.S. vessels to enter two Japanese ports to take on coal.

Kanagawa Treaty

A treaty signed between the U.S. and Japan that allowed U.S. vessels to enter two Japanese ports to take on coal.

Rio Grande

The river that President Polk insisted was the southern border of Texas.

Zachary Taylor

General who was ordered by Polk to move his army toward the Rio Grande, across territory claimed by Mexico.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The treaty negotiated with Mexico in 1848, which was favorable to the United States. Mexico recognized the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas. The United States took possession of the former Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico—the Mexican Cession. The U.S. paid $15 million and assumed responsibility for any claims of American citizens against Mexico.

Mexican Cession

The former Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico that the United States took possession of as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Wilmot Proviso

Proposed that an appropriations bill be amended to forbid slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico.

Walker Expedition

Southerner adventurer William Walker tried unsuccessfully to take Baja California from Mexico.

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850)

Provided that neither nation (the U.S. or Great Britain) would attempt to take exclusive control of any future canal route in Central America.

Gadsden Purchase

President Pierce succeeded in purchasing a small strip of land from Mexico for $10 million.

Free-Soil Party

Northerners who opposed allowing slavery in the territories organized the Free-Soil Party, which adopted the slogan 'free soil, free labor, and free men'.

Lewis Cass

Senator from Michigan who proposed a compromise solution to the problem of whether to allow slavery in a new territory; suggested that the matter be determined by a vote of the people who settled the territory.

Popular Sovereignty

The concept that settlers of a territory should vote on whether to allow slavery.

Henry Clay

Proposed the Compromise of 1850 to resolve the political crisis caused by California's application for statehood.

Compromise of 1850

A compromise engineered by Henry Clay that bought time for the Union, but the political debate deepened the commitment of many Northerners to antislavery and Southerners to secession.

Barnburners

Antislavery Democrats whose defection threatened to destroy the Democratic Party.

Irish

Immigrants who came from Ireland due to crop failures and a devastating famine in the 1840s. They often faced discrimination because of their Roman Catholic religion.

Germans

Immigrants who came to America due to economic hardships and the failure of democratic revolutions in 1848.

Nativism

The alarm and antagonism toward immigrants by native-born Americans, which resulted in sporadic rioting in the big cities.

Elias Howe

Invented the sewing machine, which made much of the production of clothing out of homes and into factories.

Samuel F. B. Morse

Invented the electric telegraph, which enormously sped up communication and transportation across the country.

Railroads

Emerged as America's largest industry and united the commercial interests of the Northeast and Midwest.

Harriet Tubman

A conductor on the Underground Railroad who made at least 19 trips into the South to help some 300 slaves escape.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

The most influential book of its day was a novel about the conflict between an enslaved man, Tom, and the brutal white slave owner, Simon Legree.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

The author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

George Fitzhugh

The best-known pro-slavery author who questioned equal rights for 'unequal men' and attacked the wage system as worse than slavery.

Fugitive Slave Law

A law passed in 1850 that made it a federal crime to assist runaway slaves and denied enslaved people the right to a jury trial.

Underground Railroad

A loose network of activists who helped enslaved people escape to freedom in the North or Canada.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Legislation that allowed settlers in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide whether to permit slavery, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Stephen Douglas

Proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

Know-Nothing Party

A nativist political party that arose in the 1840s and 1850s in response to increasing immigration.

Republican Party

A political party formed in 1854 with the purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery in the territories.

Millard Fillmore

Nominee of the Know-Nothing Party for president in 1856.

James Buchanan

The Democratic nominee for president in 1856.

Lecompton Constitution

A pro-slavery state constitution submitted by the Southern legislature in Kansas that Buchanan supported.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because the Framers of the Constitution did not intend for African Americans to be U.S. citizens.

Roger Taney

Chief Justice during the Dred Scott v. Sandford case; a majority of the Court decided against Scott and gave these reasons.

Abraham Lincoln

Republican who challenged Stephen Douglas for Illinois Senator.

Lincoln-Douglas debates

Series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign.

Freeport Doctrine

Idea put forth by Stephen Douglas during the Lincoln-Douglas debates that slavery could not exist in a community if the local citizens did not pass laws (slave codes) maintaining it.

Sumner-Brooks incident

Violence in the Senate in which Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was beaten over the head with a cane by South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks.

John Brown

Northern radical abolitionist who led a band of followers, including his four sons and some formerly enslaved people, to attack the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

Harpers Ferry

Federal arsenal in Virginia that was attacked by John Brown in an effort to start an uprising of enslaved people.

John C. Breckinridge

Southern Democratic candidate for president in 1860.

Constitutional Union Party

A political party formed in 1860 that attempted to unite the country and avoid secession.

Secession

The act of states leaving the Union.

Crittenden Compromise

A proposal by Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky that would guarantee the right to hold slaves in all territories south of the Missouri Compromise line.

Fort Sumter

A federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, where the Civil War began when Confederate forces fired on it.

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America.

Anaconda Plan

The U.S. Navy's strategy to blockade Southern ports and cut off essential supplies from reaching the Confederacy.

Robert E. Lee

Confederate general.

Antietam

The bloodiest single-day battle of the Civil War, fought in Maryland in September 1862.

Ulysses S. Grant

Union general who led the Union to victory in the Civil War. Also President of the United States (1869-1877) whose administration was marked by corruption.

Vicksburg

City in Mississippi that was besieged and ultimately captured by Union forces under General Grant in 1863, giving the Union control of the entire Mississippi River.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Union general who led a force of 100,000 men on a campaign of deliberate destruction across the state of Georgia.

Appomattox Court House

The site of Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, marking the end of the Civil War.

Monitor vs. Merrimac

The battle between two ironclad ships, the Monitor and the Merrimac, which ended in a draw but prevented the Confederacy's new weapon from breaking the Union blockade.

Trent Affair

A diplomatic crisis in which Britain sided with the Confederacy after the U.S. Navy removed Confederate diplomats James Mason and John Slidell from a British steamer, the Trent.

Greenbacks

Paper money issued by the U.S. Treasury during the Civil War.

Morrill Tariff Act

Raised tariff rates to increase revenue and protect American manufacturers.

Homestead Act (1862)

Promoted settlement of the Great Plains by offering parcels of 160 acres of public land free to any person or family that farmed that land for at least five years.

Morrill Land Grant Act (1862)

Encouraged states to use the sale of federal land grants to maintain agricultural and technical colleges.

Pacific Railway Act (1862)

Authorized the building of a transcontinental railroad over a northern route in order to link the economies of California and the western territories with the Eastern states.

Confiscation Acts

Laws passed by Congress during the Civil War that allowed the Union army to seize enemy property, including enslaved people.

Emancipation Proclamation

Issued by Abraham Lincoln in January 1863, declaring that all enslaved people in Confederate-held territory were free.

Copperheads

Peace Democrats who opposed the Civil War and criticized Lincoln's conduct of it.

54th Massachusetts Regiment

An all-Black unit that fought for the Union in the Civil War.

Freedmen's Bureau

A welfare agency providing food, shelter, and medical aid for both blacks and white Americans left destitute by the war.

Andrew Johnson

Lincoln's vice president who became president after his assassination.

Black Codes

Laws passed by Southern state legislatures that restricted the rights and movements of African Americans.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

An act of Congress that pronounced all African Americans to be U.S. citizens and attempted to provide a legal shield against the operation of the South's Black Codes.

14th Amendment

Ratified in 1868, it declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens and obligated the states to respect the rights of U.S. citizens and provide them with 'equal protection of the laws' and 'due process of law'.

Reconstruction Acts

Acts passed by Congress in 1867 that divided the South into five military districts, each under the control of the Union army.

Impeachment

The process of charging a public official with misconduct in office.

15th Amendment

Ratified in 1870, it prohibited any state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote 'on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude'.

Carpetbaggers

Derogatory Democratic term for Northern newcomers in the South after the Civil War.

Scalawags

Derogatory Democratic term for Southern Republicans.

Ku Klux Klan

One of several secret societies organized by white Southerners during Reconstruction to intimidate African Americans and white reformers.

Sharecropping

A system in which the landlord provided the seed and needed farm supplies in return for a share of the harvest.

Compromise of 1877

An informal deal in which Democrats would allow Hayes to become president in return for the withdrawal of all federal troops in the South and the support of a Southern transcontinental railroad.

Redeemers

Southern conservatives who took control of one state government after another.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Republican nominee for president in the election of 1876.

Samuel J. Tilden

Democratic nominee for president in the election of 1876.

Election of 1876

The presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden, which was disputed and ultimately resolved by the Compromise of 1877.

Force Acts

Acts passed by Congress to give federal authorities the power to stop Ku Klux Klan violence and to protect the civil rights of citizens.