Unit 5 (1844-1877) APUSH

Oregon Trail

a vital overland route to the western United States that extended from Missouri to the Oregon Territory

54-40 or Fight!

the United States ought to claim all the territory up to 54 degrees and 40 minutes north parallel or fight Great Britain for the land

Mexican Cession

The land that Mexico gave to the U.S. Which was land from texas to California that was north of the Rio Grande

Nativism

a set of beliefs favoring the interests of established inhabitants against those of immigrants; anti-immigrants

Free Soil/Free Soil Party

was organized by anti-slavery men in the north, democrats who were resentful at Polk's actions; was against slavery in the new territories

Wilmot Proviso

proposed legislation intended to bar slavery's expansion into the lands acquired after the Mexican-American War; failed to pass—and debate over the proposal exacerbated North-South tensions

Forty-Niners

name for people who went to California during the gold rush

Gadsden Purchase

provided the land necessary for a southern transcontinental railroad and attempted to resolve conflicts that lingered after the Mexican-American War; this land became the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico

Fugitive Slave Act

a law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves

Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not establish military courts to try civilians except where civil courts were no longer functioning in an actual theatre of war

Slave-Based Agriculture

Farming reliant on slaves; like plantations the crops required meticulous care and hard working people to maintain it and slaves were the ones to care for it

“Slavery as a Positive Good”

Theory that slaves are better off as property because they have monetary value to the master and are therefore taken care of and treated like family as opposed to competing for wage jobs in the open market economy where factories had terrible working conditions and many people were unemployed. They also believed that slavery was sanctioned by the Bible and that capitalism.

Compromise of 1850

Slavery becomes outlawed in Washington D.C., California is admitted as a free state, and Utah and New Mexico will determine whether slavery is allowed through popular sovereignty.

Sumner-Brooks Affair

Congressman Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner, for giving a speech about Kansas (The Crime Against Kansas) , severely in the chamber of the United States Senate

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Law that allowed for popular sovereignty (people living in an area could decide if slavery would be allowed or not. Devised by Stephen Douglas) in the Kansas and Nebraska territories

Popular Sovereignty

The doctrine stating that the sovereign people of a territory should themselves determine the status of slavery within that territory

Copperheads

a vocal faction of Democrats in the Northern United States of the Union who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates

John Brown

a northern abolitionist who moved about the country supporting anti-slavery causes, which included giving land to fugitive slaves and participating in the Underground Railroad

Crittendon Plan

A plan proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden for a constitutional amendment to protect slavery from federal interference in any state where it already existed and for the westward extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the California border

Morrill Act

made it possible for states to establish public colleges funded by the development or sale of associated federal land grants. Over 10 million acres provided by these grants were expropriated from tribal lands of Native communities

Homestead Act

a federal law promoting westward expansion by allotting 160 acres of free public land to individual settlers

Election of 1860

The South saw Lincoln as a threat to slavery as he had too much power and was more viewed as a Northerner who wanted to abolish slavery. This election, where Lincoln won, became a cause of the Civil War

Scott vs. Sanford (1857)

the U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory

Confederacy

A group of eight Southern states that seceded from the Union, beginning with South Carolina; was led by Jefferson Davis

Union

the group of states that remained part of the United States after 11 southern states seceded in 1860 and 1861 and formed the Confederacy

Anaconda Plan

Plan for civil war proposed by general-in-chief Winfield Scott, which emphasized the blockade of Southern ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River the cut the South in two, the plan would suffocate the South.

New York Draft Riots

a series of violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War

Prigg vs. Pennsylvania (1842)

a Supreme Court case that refuted an attempt to stop slave owners from recapturing escaped slaves in free states in the North, such as Pennsylvania, and returning them to a slave state

Battle of Antietam

the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with almost 23,000 casualties

Emancipation Proclamation

an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten Confederate states still in rebellion. It also decreed that freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union Army, thereby increasing the Union's available manpower

Battle of Gettysburg

A 3-day battle at Gettysburg of which many historians consider to be the turning point of the Civil War because it crippled the Confederacy so badly that Confederate troops would never again be able to invade a Northern state.

Gettysburg Address

a speech given by Abraham Lincoln after the Battle of Gettysburg, in which he praised the bravery of Union soldiers and renewed his commitment to winning the Civil War

Andersonville

one of the largest of many established prison camps during the American Civil War. Built early in 1864, more than 45,000 Union soldiers were kept here, nearly 13,000 died from disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, or exposure to the elements

Monitor vs. Merrimack

the first engagement ever between two iron-clad naval vessels. The two ships battled in a portion of the Chesapeake Bay known as Hampton Roads for five hours on March 9, 1862, ending in a draw

Reconstruction

Period after the Civil War during which Northern political leaders created plans for the governance of the South and a procedure for former Southern states to rejoin the Union

Wade-Davis Bill

A bill proposed by Radical Republican senators Benjamin Wade and Henry Winter Davis that declared that the Reconstruction of the South was a legislative, not executive, matter. It was an attempt to weaken the power of president Lincoln

Radical Republicans

a faction within the Republican Party that existed from the mid-1850s through the Reconstruction Era. They briefly held control of Congress after the Civil War, and aimed to make significant changes in the South

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the South after the war, supposedly in an effort to get rich or acquire political power

Scalawags

a derogatory name used by Southerners as a name for Southern whites who supported Reconstruction

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

either of two distinct U.S. hate organizations that employed terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. One group was founded immediately after the Civil War and lasted until the 1870s.

Freedmen’s Bureau

created by Congress in 1865 to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support

13th Amendment

Constitutional amendment prohibiting all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude

14th Amendment

granted African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the laws

15th Amendment

prohibited any government in the US from denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

Amnesty Act of 1872

This act permitted former Confederate leaders and secessionists to hold office again. It also allowed about 160,000 of them to vote again. This helped the Democrats reclaim the South from the Republicans

Whiskey Ring

an American bribery scandal that took place from 1871 to 1875 during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. The scandal involved a conspiracy among whiskey distillers and distributors to bribe U.S. government officials to avoid paying government excise taxes on liquor.

Republican Party

The main goal of the Republican party was to stop the spread of slavery into the western territories

Bleeding Kansas

a period of violent conflict in the Kansas Territory in the 1850s, which was driven by the struggle between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions over the issue of whether or not to allow slavery in the territory

Andrew Johnson

A Southerner form Tennessee, as V.P. when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote

Tenure of Office Act

a measure passed by Congress in 1867. It prohibited the president from dismissing any cabinet member or other federal officeholder whose appointment had required the consent of the Senate unless the Senate agreed to the dismissal