Unit 5 APUSH Key Terms

Mission and fort that was the site of a siege and battle during the Texas Revolution, which resulted in the massacre of all its defenders; the event helped galvanize the Texas rebels and eventually led to their victory at the Battle of San Jacinto and independence from Mexico.

Alamo

Political opportunist and general who served as president of Mexico eleven different times and commanded the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s and the war with the United States in the 1840s.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

Proposal by Henry Clay to settle the debate over slavery in territories gained from the Mexican War; it was shepherded through Congress by Stephen Douglas.

Compromise of 1850

Northern Democratic president with southern principles, 1853

Franklin Pierce

Formed from the remnants of the Liberty Party in 1848; adopting a slogan of 'free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men,' it opposed the spread of slavery into territories and supported home

Free Soil Party

U.S. acquisition of land south of the Gila River from Mexico for $10 million; the land was needed for a possible trans

Gadsden Purchase (1853)

Democratic president from 1845 to 1849; nicknamed 'Young Hickory' because of his close political and personal ties to Andrew Jackson, he pursued an aggressive foreign policy that led to the Mexican War.

James K. Polk

Influential editor of the Democratic Review who coined the phrase 'manifest destiny' in 1845.

John L. O'Sullivan

Nebraska Act (1854)

Kansas

Nothing Party

Know

Set of ideas used to justify American expansion in the 1840s, weaving together the rhetoric of economic necessity, racial superiority, and national security.

Manifest Destiny

Region comprising California and all or parts of the states of the present

Mexican Cession

A statement by American envoys abroad to pressure Spain into selling Cuba to the United States; the declaration suggested that if Spain would not sell Cuba, the United States would be justified in seizing it.

Ostend Manifesto (1854)

Political process promoted by Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, and other northern Democrats whereby, when a territory organized, its residents would vote to decide the future of slavery there.

Popular sovereignty

Political party formed in 1854 in response to the Kansas

Republican Party

The belief that a slave

'slave power'

A leading Democratic senator in the 1850s; nicknamed the 'Little Giant' for his small size and great political power, he steered the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas

Stephen Douglas

Agreement that ended the Mexican War; under its terms Mexico gave up all claims to Texas north of the Rio Grande and ceded California and the Utah and New Mexico territories to the United States.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Measure introduced in Congress in 1846 to prohibit slavery in all territory that might be gained by the Mexican War; southerners blocked its passage in the Senate.

Wilmot Proviso

Arguably the finest military figure in America from the War of 1812 to the Civil War; he distinguished himself in the Mexican War.

Winfield Scott

Military hero of Mexican War and the last Whig elected president (1848); his sudden death in July 1850 allowed supporters of the Compromise of 1850 to get the measures through Congress.

Zachary Taylor

President of the United States, 1861

Abraham Lincoln

Vice president who took over after Lincoln's assassination; an ex

Andrew Johnson

Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri; these slave states stayed in the Union and were crucial to Lincoln's political and military strategy.

Border States

Northerners who went South to participate in Reconstruction governments; although they possessed a variety of motives, southerners often viewed them as opportunistic, poor whites.

Carpetbaggers

Senator from Massachusetts who was attacked on the floor of the Senate (1856) for antislavery speech; he required three years to recover but returned to the Senate to lead the Radical Republicans and to fight for racial equality.

Charles Sumner

Agreement that ended the disputed election of 1876 between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden; under its terms, the South accepted Hayes's election.

Compromise of 1877

Northerners (mostly Democrats) who supported the southern cause; they were strongest in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

Copperheads

A failed southern strategy to embargo cotton from England until Great Britain recognized and assisted the Confederacy.

Cotton Diplomacy

Chief Justice Roger Taney led a pro

Dred Scott decision (1857)

Executive order issued January 1, 1863, granting freedom to all slaves in states that were in rebellion.

Emancipation Proclamation

Granted black males the right to vote and split former abolitionists and women's rights supporters.

Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

Granted citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States; protects citizens from abuses by state governments.

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

A U.S. government

Freedmen's Bureau

Union general who was reluctant to attack Lee because of military/political reasons; he ran unsuccessfully for president against Lincoln in 1864.

George McClellan

Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a best

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Weak, vacillating president of the United States, 1857

James Buchanan

President of the Confederate States of America; a leading southern politician of the 1850s.

Jefferson Davis

Vice president under James Buchanan and Democratic presidential nominee in 1860 who supported slavery and states' rights.

John Breckinridge

Violent abolitionist who murdered slaveholders in Kansas and Missouri before his raid at Harpers Ferry.

John Brown

Terrorist organization active throughout the South during Reconstruction and after, dedicated to maintaining white supremacy.

Ku Klux Klan

Republican faction in Congress who demanded immediate emancipation of the slaves at the war's beginning.

Radical Republicans

Highly regarded Confederate general who surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865.

Robert E. Lee

White southerners who cooperated with and served in Reconstruction governments; generally considered traitors to their states.

Scalawags

percent plan

Ten

Radical attempt to further diminish Andrew Johnson's authority by providing that the president could not remove any civilian official without Senate approval.

Tenure of Office Act (1867)

Uncompromising Radical Republican who wanted to revolutionize the South by giving equality to blacks.

Thaddeus Stevens

Abolished slavery everywhere in the United States.

Thirteenth Amendment (1865)

Hard

Ulysses S. Grant

Davis Bill (1864)

Wade

Lincoln's secretary of state who worked to buy Alaska from Russia.

William Seward

A historical time period, describing the pre

Antebellum

A person who suffers or dies for a cause, belief, or principle.

Martyr

To withdraw formally from membership in an organization.

Secede