AP U.S. History Period 5 (1844–1877): Expansion, Civil War, and Reconstruction

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the key people, policies, battles, legislation, and concepts from AP U.S. History Period 5 (1844–1877), including Manifest Destiny, sectional crises, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Manifest Destiny

The popular belief that the United States had a divine mission to extend its power and civilization across North America, driven by nationalism, population growth, economic development, technological advances, and reform ideals.

Stephen Austin

Missouri banker's son who brought 300 American families into Texas, initiating a steady stream of American migration into the northern Mexican frontier province.

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

The dictator of Mexico who abolished Mexico's federal system of government in 1834, attempted to enforce Mexican laws in Texas, and was captured at the Battle of San Jacinto River.

Sam Houston

Leader of American settlers who revolted against Santa Anna, declared Texas an independent republic in March 1836, and served as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

The Alamo

A San Antonio mission attacked by the Mexican army where all defending Americans were killed, inspiring the rallying cry 'Remember the Alamo.'

Aroostook War

An open border conflict between rival groups of American and Canadian lumbermen on the boundary between Maine and the British Canadian province of New Brunswick, also called the 'battle of the maps.'

Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842

A treaty negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster and British ambassador Lord Alexander Ashburton that split disputed territory between Maine and British Canada and settled the boundary of the Minnesota territory.

"Fifty-four Forty or Fight!"

The 1844 Democratic campaign slogan referencing the latitude line of $54^\circ 40'$ marking the northern border between Oregon Territory and Russian Alaska.

John Slidell

Special official representative sent by President Polk to Mexico City in 1845 to negotiate the purchase of California and New Mexico and settle the disputed border along the Rio Grande.

Bear-Flag Republic

The independent republic proclaimed in Northern California by John C. Fremont and American settlers after overthrowing Mexican rule.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Treaty negotiated by Nicholas Trist ending the Mexican-American War; established the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas and ceded California and New Mexico to the U.S. for $\$15\text{ million}$.

Mexican Cession

The former Mexican northern provinces of California and New Mexico acquired by the United States under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Wilmot Proviso

An 1846 amendment proposed by Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot to forbid slavery in any of the new territories acquired from Mexico; passed the House twice but was defeated in the Senate.

Ostend Manifesto

A secret dispatch drafted in Ostend, Belgium, by American diplomats under President Franklin Pierce proposing to purchase Cuba from Spain for $\$100\text{ million}$, which provoked outrage when leaked to the press.

Walker Expedition

A filibustering expedition led by Southern adventurer William Walker, who took over Nicaragua in 1855 to establish a pro-slavery Central American empire before being executed by Honduran authorities in 1860.

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850)

An agreement between the United States and Great Britain stipulating that neither nation would attempt to take exclusive control over any future canal route in Central America.

Gadsden Purchase

The 1853 purchase of thousands of acres of semidesert land in present-day southern New Mexico and Arizona from Mexico for $\$10\text{ million}$, negotiated by U.S. minister James Gadsden.

Mountain Men

Early fur traders who were the first nonnative individuals to open the Far West, meeting yearly with American Indians in the 1820s to trade for animal skins and gathering trail knowledge for later settlers.

Preemption Acts of 1830s and 1840s

Federal legislation giving squatters the right to settle public lands and purchase parcels as small as 40 acres at low prices once placed on sale by the government.

Elias Howe

The inventor of the sewing machine, which shifted clothing production from domestic households to industrial factories.

Samuel Morse

The inventor who successfully demonstrated the electric telegraph in 1844, facilitating rapid nationwide communication.

Kanagawa Treaty (1854)

A treaty negotiated by Commodore Matthew Perry allowing U.S. vessels to enter two Japanese ports to take on coal, opening Japan to trade after two centuries of isolation.

Panic of 1857

An economic depression causing sharp price declines and high unemployment in Northern cities, while high cotton prices left the Southern plantation economy relatively unaffected.

Free-Soil Movement

A political movement supported by Northern Democrats and Whigs demanding that all African Americans (enslaved and free) be excluded from the Mexican Cession to prevent white laborers from competing with Black labor.

Free-Soil Party

A political party formed in 1848 by Northerners opposed to the expansion of slavery into the territories, campaigning on the slogan 'free soil, free labor, free men' and advocating free homesteads.

Popular Sovereignty

A compromise proposed by Michigan Senator Lewis Cass suggesting that the settlers who populated a new territory should vote to determine whether slavery would be allowed rather than Congress deciding.

"Conscience" Whigs

A faction of the Whig party that opposed slavery and joined with antislavery Democrats in 1848 to form the Free-Soil Party.

Compromise of 1850

A five-part legislative compromise designed by Henry Clay: admitted California as a free state, organized Utah and New Mexico by popular sovereignty, assumed Texas's public debt of $\$10\text{ million}$, banned the D.C. slave trade, and enacted a strict Fugitive Slave Law.

Fugitive Slave Law

A strict measure of the Compromise of 1850 placing runaway slave cases under exclusive federal jurisdiction, denying captured suspects a jury trial, and penalizing citizens who obstructed enforcement.

Underground Railroad

A clandestine network of Northern free African Americans, ex-slaves, and white abolitionists who aided escaped slaves in reaching freedom in the North or Canada.

Harriet Tubman

The most famous 'conductor' of the Underground Railroad, who made at least 19 trips into the South and assisted approximately 300 enslaved individuals in escaping.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

An 1852 antislavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe depicting the conflict between enslaved Tom and brutal master Simon Legree, inflaming sectional moral outrage against slavery.

Impending Crisis of the South

An 1857 book written by North Carolinian Hinton R. Helper that utilized statistical evidence to demonstrate to fellow Southerners how the institution of slavery undermined the region's economy.

George Fitzhugh

A proslavery Southern author who questioned equal rights for 'unequal men' and attacked Northern capitalist wage labor as worse than slavery in his 1854 book Sociology for the South.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

A law sponsored by Stephen A. Douglas dividing Nebraska into Kansas and Nebraska territories and granting settlers popular sovereignty on slavery, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise line of $36^\circ 30'$.

"Bleeding Kansas"

The term describing the violent guerrilla skirmishes and territorial civil warfare between proslavery and antislavery settlers in Kansas starting in 1854.

New England Emigrant Aid Company

An organization founded in 1855 by Northern abolitionists and Free-Soilers that financed the transport of antislavery settlers to Kansas to combat proslavery expansion.

Pottawatomie Creek

The site in Kansas where abolitionist John Brown and his sons attacked a proslavery farm settlement in 1856, killing five settlers in retaliation for the proslavery attack on Lawrence.

Sumner-Brooks Incident

The 1856 assault in the Senate chamber in which South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner unconscious with a cane following Sumner's speech 'The Crime Against Kansas.'

Know-Nothing Party

The colloquial name for the American Party, founded in the mid-1850s on anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment amidst growing native-born Protestant tensions with Irish and German immigrants.

Republican Party

A sectional party founded in Wisconsin in 1854 directly responding to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, composed of Free-Soilers and antislavery Whigs and Democrats united to oppose the spread of slavery in the territories.

Lecompton Constitution

A proslavery constitution framed by Southern delegates in Kansas that lacked majority settler support but was submitted to Congress by President James Buchanan in an unsuccessful attempt to admit Kansas as a slave state.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Supreme Court ruling authored by Roger Taney deciding that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens, enslaved people were property protected under the Fifth Amendment, and the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

Roger Taney

The Southern Democratic Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.

Freeport Doctrine

Stephen A. Douglas's argument during the 1858 debates that slavery could not exist in any territory unless local citizens passed and enforced slave codes, reconciling popular sovereignty with Dred Scott.

Harpers Ferry Raid

An October 1859 raid led by abolitionist John Brown against the federal arsenal in Virginia aimed at arming slaves for a revolt; ended with Brown's capture by Robert E. Lee, conviction for treason, and execution.

Constitutional Union Party

A political party organized in 1860 by former Whigs, Know-Nothings, and moderate Democrats that nominated John Bell on a platform pledging enforcement of laws, defense of the Constitution, and preservation of the Union.

Crittenden Compromise

A proposed constitutional amendment introduced in 1860 by Senator John Crittenden to guarantee the right to hold slaves in all territories south of $36^\circ 30'$, rejected by Lincoln because it violated Republican principles.

Fort Sumter

A federal garrison located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, where the bombardment and capture by Confederate forces on April 12, 1861, marked the start of the Civil War.

Writ of Habeas Corpus

A constitutional procedural safeguard preventing unlawful detention without trial, suspended unilaterally by President Lincoln during the Civil War to detain suspected Confederate sympathizers.

Border States

Four slave states—Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri—that chose not to secede and remained strategic, loyal components of the Union throughout the Civil War.

Anaconda Plan

Union military strategy devised by General Winfield Scott calling for a naval blockade of Southern ports, taking control of the Mississippi River to divide the South, and raising 500,000 troops to capture Richmond.

First Battle of Bull Run

The first major battle of the Civil War in July 1861 at Manassas Junction, Virginia, where Confederate forces under Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson routed Union troops, shattering illusions of a short war.

Peninsula Campaign

Union offensive in eastern Virginia launched in March 1862 by General George B. McClellan aiming to capture Richmond, which was halted by the tactical counteroffensives of General Robert E. Lee.

Battle of Antietam

The bloodiest single day of combat in the Civil War (September 1862 in Sharpsburg, Maryland), resulting in over 22,000 casualties and giving Lincoln the opportunity to announce the Emancipation Proclamation.

Battle of Fredericksburg

A December 1862 battle in Virginia where Union forces under General Ambrose Burnside launched disastrous frontal assaults against entrenched Confederate positions, suffering 12,000 casualties.

Monitor vs. Merrimac

A historic five-hour naval duel in March 1862 between the Union ironclad Monitor and the Confederate ironclad Merrimac (the Virginia), inaugurating the modern era of armored naval warfare.

Battle of Shiloh

An April 1862 battle in Tennessee in which Confederate forces under Albert Johnston surprised Ulysses S. Grant, resulting in over 23,000 casualties and a Confederate retreat.

Trent Affair

An 1861 naval incident in which a Union warship removed Confederate diplomats James Mason and John Slidell from a British steamer, sparking British threats of war until Lincoln released them.

Laird Rams

Warships constructed with heavy underwater iron rams designed to pierce enemy hulls, which the Confederacy attempted to purchase from Britain until U.S. diplomat Charles Francis Adams pressured Britain to cancel the sale.

Confiscation Acts

Federal wartime statutes passed in 1861 and 1862 that authorized the seizure of Confederate property used for insurrection, treated escaping slaves as 'contraband of war,' and freed enslaved individuals owned by rebels.

Emancipation Proclamation

Executive proclamation issued by Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declaring all enslaved persons in areas still in rebellion against the United States to be 'then, thenceforward, and forever free.'

Thirteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment ratified in December 1865 that completely abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the entire United States, except as punishment for a crime.

Massachusetts 54th Regiment

An all-Black Union army infantry regiment recognized for its extraordinary courage under fire, helping to win the respect of white soldiers and officers.

Battle of Vicksburg

A seven-week Union siege led by Ulysses S. Grant that culminated in the surrender of 29,000 Confederate troops on July 4, 1863, securing complete Union control over the Mississippi River.

Battle of Gettysburg

A turning-point three-day battle in southern Pennsylvania in July 1863 resulting in over 50,000 casualties, ending with the defeat of Pickett's Charge and the retreat of Lee's forces.

Total War

A military doctrine pioneered by General William Tecumseh Sherman involving the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, barns, cotton fields, and railroads to break the Confederacy's economic capacity and will to fight.

Appomattox Court House

The Virginia village where Confederate General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered his remaining army of under 30,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865.

Copperheads

A Northern faction of Peace Democrats who vigorously opposed the Civil War and urged an immediate negotiated settlement with the Confederacy.

Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

A Supreme Court ruling establishing that civilians cannot be subjected to military tribunals when regular civilian courts remain open and operational.

Draft Riots of 1863

Violent working-class, mostly Irish American protests in New York City in July 1863 triggered by conscription laws that allowed wealthy individuals to buy substitutes for $\$300$, resulting in approximately 117 deaths.

Greenbacks

More than $\$430\text{ million}$ in paper currency issued directly by the U.S. Treasury to finance the Civil War, which was not backed by gold and contributed to wartime inflation.

Homestead Act (1862)

Federal legislation promoting Great Plains settlement by offering 160 acres of public land free to any citizen or family who farmed the parcel for at least 5 years.

Morrill Land Grant Act (1862)

Federal law granting public lands to states to sell in order to fund and maintain state agricultural and technical colleges.

Pacific Railway Act (1862)

Federal act authorizing the construction of a northern transcontinental railroad route linking the economies of California and western territories to eastern states.

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)

Lincoln's 10% plan granting presidential pardons to Confederates taking an oath of allegiance and accepting emancipation, allowing a state government to be reestablished when 10% of voters took the oath.

Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

A stringent congressional Reconstruction proposal requiring 50% of a state's voters to take a loyalty oath and permitting only non-Confederates to vote on new state constitutions; pocket-vetoed by Lincoln.

Freedmen's Bureau

An early welfare agency established by Congress in March 1865 that provided food, shelter, and medical relief to destitute freedmen and whites, achieving its greatest success in establishing roughly 3,000 schools.

Black Codes

Restrictive laws enacted by Southern legislatures in 1865 that prevented Black citizens from renting land, compelled them to sign labor contracts as 'apprentices' or 'vagrants,' and barred them from testifying against whites.

Radical Republicans

Congressional Republican faction led by figures like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner who championed full civil rights for Black Americans, federal education programs, and extended military rule in the South.

Thaddeus Stevens

Pennsylvania Radical Republican leader in the House of Representatives who advocated military occupation of the South, civil rights enforcement, and redistribution of confiscated planter estates to freedmen.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Federal legislation enacted over Andrew Johnson's veto declaring all African Americans to be U.S. citizens and providing legal protections against Southern Black Codes, directly repudiating Dred Scott.

Fourteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment ratified in 1868 declaring all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. to be citizens, guaranteeing due process and equal protection of the laws, and disqualifying former Confederate officials from holding office.

Equal Protection Clause

A provision of the Fourteenth Amendment requiring state governments to uphold and guarantee equal legal protection to all individuals under their jurisdiction.

Due Process Clause

A Fourteenth Amendment constitutional guarantee obligating states to respect the legal rights of citizens and prohibiting the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Legislation dividing the 10 unreconstructed Southern states into five military districts governed by Union generals and requiring states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and enfranchise all adult males to gain readmission.

Tenure of Office Act (1867)

A law passed over Johnson's veto forbidding the president from dismissing civil officials or military commanders without Senate approval, designed to safeguard Radical Republican Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

The 1868 congressional proceeding in which the House impeached Johnson on 11 'high crimes and misdemeanors' for dismissing Stanton, resulting in an acquittal in the Senate by a single vote.

Fifteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment ratified in 1870 prohibiting any state from abridging or denying a citizen's right to vote based on 'race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'

Civil Rights Act of 1875

The final major Reconstruction civil rights bill, which prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations (hotels, railroads, theaters) and barred the exclusion of African Americans from jury service.

Scalawags

A derogatory term used by Southern Democrats to describe white Southerners, typically former Whigs seeking economic development, who supported Republican-led Reconstruction state governments.

Carpetbaggers

A derogatory epithet used by Southern conservatives for Northern transplants who moved to the South during Reconstruction as teachers, businessmen, humanitarian reformers, or political opportunists.

Hiram Revels

An African American clergyman and politician elected to the U.S. Senate from Mississippi in 1870, taking the seat previously held by former Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Sharecropping

An agricultural tenancy system in the postwar South where landowners furnished land, seed, and tools in exchange for a share (usually half) of the harvest, frequently trapping rural laborers in perpetual debt.

Spoilsmen

Postwar political party leaders, such as Roscoe Conkling and James Blaine, who built and sustained political organizations through political patronage and the distribution of government favors and jobs.

Crédit Mobilier

A Gilded Age scandal in which construction company insiders awarded shares of inflated stock to members of Congress to conceal excessive government profits from transcontinental railroad construction subsidies.

William "Boss" Tweed

The corrupt head of New York City's Tammany Hall political machine who stole an estimated $\$200\text{ million}$ from taxpayers before being exposed by political cartoonist Thomas Nast and imprisoned in 1871.

Panic of 1873

A severe financial panic triggered by overspeculation by financiers and overbuilding by railroads, leading to business collapses, mass unemployment, and demands for unbacked greenback currency.

Ku Klux Klan

A secret white supremacist vigilante society founded in 1867 by ex-Confederate general Nathaniel Bedford Forrest that used flogging, murder, and arson to terrorize Black citizens and white Republicans.

Force Acts of 1870 and 1871

Federal statutes designed to protect Black voting rights, place elections under federal marshal supervision, and authorize President Grant to deploy military troops and suspend habeas corpus to combat Klan terrorism.