APUSH assignments 1-3 vocab

Andrew Jackson

7th president, common man, opposed national bank, supported westward expansion (Indian Removal Act and Trail of Tears).

John C. Calhoun

U.S. politician from South Carolina who served as vice president, senator, and secretary of war in the early 1800s, supported states rights and nullification, defended slavery.

Henry Clay

U.S. politician from Kentucky who served as a senator, representative, and Speaker of the House in the early 1800s, American system, 'great compromiser.'

Martin Van Buren

8th president (1837-1841), helped found democratic party, Panic of 1837, supported limited government.

John Quincy Adams

6th president and later served in the House of Representatives, mostly wrote Monroe Doctrine.

Daniel Webster

U.S. statesman and lawyer from Massachusetts who served as a Senator and Secretary of State in the early to mid-1800s, powerful speaker who defended the Union and opposed states trying to nullify.

Robert Hayne

Governor of South Carolina, supported states' rights and the idea of nullification.

Webster-Hayne Debate

Took place in the U.S. Senate in 1830 between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina, centered on states' rights vs. federal power.

Nicholas Biddle

President of the Second Bank of the United States during the 1820s and 1830s, clashed with President Andrew Jackson during the Bank War.

Stephen Austin

'Father of Texas', led the first successful group of American settlers into Texas, worked with the Mexican government to establish colonies.

Sam Houston

Ex governor of Texas, became the chief leader of the Texas rebels, elected to senate and governorship of Texas.

John Tyler

10th president of the United States, first vice president to take over after a president's death, states' rights and opposing a national bank.

Santa Anna

Mexican dictator, led Mexican forces against Texas, won battle of Alamo but lost battle of San Jacinto leading to Texas independence.

Annexation

Adding a territory to an existing country or state.

Nullification

The idea that a state has the right to reject or ignore a federal law if it believes the law is unconstitutional.

Spoils system

Under Jackson, rewarding political supporters with public office.

'Corrupt bargain'

Alleged deal between presidential candidates John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay to throw the election, to be decided by the House of Representatives in Adams favor.

Tariff of abominations

High duties on imports, southerners opposed the tariff arguing that it hurt southern farmers.

South Carolina exposition and protest

Secretly written by John C. Calhoun, denounced the recent tariff as unjust and unconstitutional.

Specific circular

US Treasury decree requiring that all public lands be purchased with 'hard', or metallic, currency.

Tariff of 1833

Passed as a measure to resolve the nullification crisis, it provided that tariffs be lowered gradually, over a period of ten years.

Trail of Tears

Forced march of fifteen thousand Cherokee Indians from their Georgia and Alabama homes to Indian territory, some four thousand Cherokees died on the journey.

Panic of 1837

Economic crisis brought on primarily by the efforts of the Bank of the US to curb over speculation on western land, it disproportionately affected the poorer classes, especially in the west.

Force Bill

Passed by Congress alongside the compromise Tariff of 1833, it authorized the president to use the military to collect federal tariff duties.

Democratic Party

Began in the 1820s, led by Andrew Jackson and his followers, supported the 'common man', limited the power of the federal government, states' rights and westward expansion.

'Pet' Banks

Popular term for pro-Jackson state banks that received the bulk of federal deposits when Andrew Jackson moved to dismantle the Bank of the US in 1833.

Whig Party

Formed to oppose Jackson and the Democratic Party, supported a strong Congress and weaker presidency.

Cyrus McCormick

Invented the mechanical mower-reaper, changed farming for the better.

Eli Whitney

Worked in mass production of muskets for the US army, invented cotton gin, impact on industrialization.

Robert Fulton

Installed a powerful steam engine in a vessel that posterity came to know as the Clermont.

Samuel F.B. Morse

His telegraph was among the inventions that tightened the sinews of an increasingly complex business world, invention brought him fame and fortune.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Women's rights activist, organized Seneca Falls Convention, co-founded National Woman Suffrage Association, advocated for voting rights, property rights and education.

Susan B. Anthony

Leading women's rights activist, fought for women's suffrage pushing for women to vote, co-founded National Woman Suffrage Association, also worked for abolition.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

19th-century American essayist, lecturer, and poet, leader of the Transcendentalist movement, which emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and the connection between humans and nature.

Henry David Thoreau

Poet, mystic, transcendentalist, refused to pay his MA poll tax and was jailed for a night, known for book 'Walden', promoted civil disobedience.

Herman Melville

19th-century American author best known for his novel Moby-Dick (1851), his works often explored themes of adventure, the sea, human nature, and good versus evil.

Nativism

The belief that native-born citizens should be favored over immigrants, opposed immigration and feared they would take Americans jobs or change American culture.

James Russell Lowell

19th-century American poet, essayist, and editor, part of the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who made poetry popular and accessible, wrote essays that promoted abolition (ending slavery) and other social reforms.

Joseph Smith

A visionary who reported that he had received some golden plates from an angel and when deciphered, they constituted the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was launched.

Brigham Young

Led his oppressed and despoiled LDS over vast rolling plains to Utah, saved Mormon movement.

Mormons

Religious followers of Joseph Smith, who founded a communal, oligarchic religious order in the 1830s, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, eventually migrated west and established a flourishing settlement in the Utah desert.

McGuffey

Ohioan who was a teacher-preacher of rare power, his grade-school readers sold 122 million copies in following decades, McGuffey's readers hammered home lasting lessons in morality, patriotism, and idealism.

Noah Webster

Connecticut Yankee who was known as the 'Schoolmaster of the Republic', his reading lessons, used by millions of children, were partly designed to promote patriotism, wrote a famous dictionary and textbooks.

Edgar Allen Poe

19th-century American writer, poet, and literary critic, dark, mysterious stories and poems, such as 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' 'The Raven,' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' helped create the modern detective story and influenced the horror and mystery genre.

Oneida Community

Radical utopian community established in the 19th century, it advocated free love.

Cult of domesticity

A widespread 19th-century belief that idealized women's roles in the home — it gave married women more control over family life but restricted their chances outside the household.

Dorothea Dix

Traveled sixty thousand miles in eight years and assembled her damning reports on insanity and asylums from firsthand observations, her petition to the MA legislature describing cells that smelled so bad turned legislative hearts, persistence resulted in improved conditions.

William Miller

19th-century American preacher who founded the Millerite movement, predicted that Jesus Christ would return to Earth around 1843-1844, when the prediction failed, the event became known as the 'Great Disappointment.'

James Fenimore Cooper

Writer known for his historical novels, he wrote the 'Leatherstocking Tales,' including The Last of the Mohicans, which depicted frontier life and Native Americans.

Horace Mann

Campaigned effectively for more and better schoolhouses, longer school terms, and higher pay for teachers, his influence radiated out to other states and impressive improvements were chalked up.

Louisa May Alcott

19th-century American author best known for her novel Little Women (1868), wrote stories that focused on family, independence, and women's roles, supported abolition and women's rights.

American Temperance Society

Formed in Boston in 1826 to reduce alcohol use in the United States, urged people to stop drinking alcohol, or at least drink less, became one of the first major reform movements in the U.S., inspiring later efforts that led to Prohibition in the early 1900s.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revival characterized by emotional mass 'camp meetings' and widespread conversion. Brought about a democratization of religion as a multiplicity of denominations vied for members.

Hudson River School

Excelled in romantic art, group of American landscape painters.

Seneca Falls Convention

Gathering of feminist activists in Seneca Falls, New York, where Elizabeth Katie Stanton read her declaration of sentiments stating that all men and women are created equal.

Declaration of Sentiments

Declared that all men and women are created equal.

Zachary Taylor

12th president of the United States, gained fame as a hero in the Mexican-American War, Whig party, tried to keep the Union together during debates over slavery in new territories.

James K. Polk

The 11th president of the United States, strongly supported Manifest Destiny, oversaw major territorial expansion, including the annexation of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and lands gained after the Mexican-American War, established the U.S. Naval Academy and reducing tariffs.

David Wilmot

U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania best known for the Wilmot Proviso, a proposal to ban slavery in any territory gained from Mexico after the Mexican-American War, it did not pass, but it intensified the debate over slavery and helped lead to the rise of the Republican Party.

Manifest destiny

Belief that the US was destined by God to spread its 'empire of liberty' across North America. Served as a justification for mid-nineteenth-century expansionism.

'Spot' resolutions

Measures introduced by Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln, questioning President James K. Polk's justification for war with Mexico.

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

Ended the war with Mexico, Mexico agreed to cede territory reaching northwest from Texas to Oregon in exchange for $18 million in cash and assumed debts.