APUSH Extra Credit Period 5 Terms

Manifest Destiny

The belief that the US was destined by God to expand across the North American continent

Free-Soil Movements

A political movement that opposed the expansion of slavery into western territories (not always opposing slavery itself, just its expansion)

Slavery as as Positive Social Good

Southern pro-slavery argument claiming slavery benefitted both enslaved people and slave owners (nurturing benefits provided by owners & labor provided by slaves)

Compromise of 1850

A package of laws meant to settle tensions over slavery after the Mexican cession by admitting CA as a free state and giving popular sovereignty in Utah & New Mexico

Second American Party System

Political system dominated by the Democrats + Whigs

Confederacy

The government formed by the seceding Southern states

13th Amendment

Ended legal slavery in the US; first Reconstruction Amendment

Civil War

War between the Union & Confederacy over slavery + state rights

Reconstruction

Period after the Civil War focused on rebuilding the South & integrating freed people

15th Amendment

Guaranteed that voting rights could not be denied based on race, color or previous condition of servitude

Mexican-American War

War between the US & Mexico caused by territorial disputes and US expansionism

Abolitionist

People who wanted to end slavery

Secession

The act of withdrawing formally from a governing body; when the south left the union to form the Confederacy

Dred Scott Case

Supreme Court ruling saying Black people were NOT citizens and Congress could NOT ban slavery in territories

Republican Party

Political party formed to oppose the expansion of slavery

Union

The northeast states that remained loyal to the US during the Civil War

Sharecropping System

A farming system where freed people rented land and paid with a share of their crops—often trapping them in debt

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln’s speech saying the Civil War was about preserving democracy and the Union while also honoring the soldiers who died in the bloodiest American battle in history

14th Amendment

Granted citizenship to all born in the US and guaranteed equal protection under the law

Irish and German Migrants

Major immigrant groups arriving in the mid-1800s who faced much discrimination and often worked very low wage jobs

Anti-Catholic Nativist Movement

Movement of Americans opposed to immigration, especially Catholic immigrants

Mexican Cession

Land Mexico gave to the US after the Mexican-American War

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Law allowing settlers in Kansas & Nebraska to use popular sovereignty to decide on slavery

Abraham Lincoln free-soil

Lincoln believed slavery should not expand into the territories though he did not call for immediate abolition everywhere (nor in existing slave states)

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln’s order declaring enslaved people in Confederate states be declared free; shifted the Union’s war goals towards ending slavery and allowed black men to join the military

Radical Republicans

Republicans who wanted harsh punishment for the South and full rights for freed people

Moderate Republicans

Republicans who wanted a more lenient, quick reunion with the South

Segregation

The enforced separation of race in public & private environments, especially after Reconstruction

(e.g. Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson)