APUSH - Unit 5 Vocabulary (May)

Manifest Destiny

A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

Oregon Trail

Trail from independence Missouri to Oregon used by many pioneers during the 1840s.

Texas Revolution / Annexation

War between Texas settlers and Mexico from 1835-1836 resulting in the formation of the Republic of Texas. Texas was later annexed by the United States in 1845, just prior to the Mexican-American War.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

1842 treaty between the US and the British, settled boundary disputes in the Northwest (Oregon), fixed most borders between US and Canada.

James K. Polk

President from 1844-1848. Wanted to settle Oregon boundary dispute with Britain. Wanted to acquire California. Wanted to incorporate Texas into the Union. Strong Jacksonian Democrat.

Mexican-American War

(1846-1848) The war between the United States and Mexico in which the United States acquired one half of the Mexican territory.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Treaty that ended the Mexican War, granting the U.S. control of Texas, New Mexico, and CA in exchange for $15 million.

Gadsden Purchase (1853)

Acquired additional land from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

Amendment that sought to prohibit slavery from territories acquired from Mexico. Introduced by Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot, the failed amendment increased tensions between North and South over the issue of slavery.

Popular Sovereignty

In the context of the Civil War era, this idea stated that the voters of a particular state or territory could decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery, invalidating the arguments for externally imposed restrictions.

Free Soil Party

Formed in 1847 - 1848, dedicated to opposing slavery in newly acquired territories such as Oregon and ceded Mexican territory.

California Gold Rush (1849)

A massive migration of gold hunters, mostly men, who transformed the economy of California after gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Sacramento River Valley in northern California.

Compromise of 1850

(1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries, (4) federal assumption of Texas debt, (5) slave trade abolished in DC, and (6) new fugitive slave law; advocated by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

Harriet Beecher Stowe's widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery. It heightened Northern support for abolition and escalated the sectional conflict.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Proposed by Senator Douglas (Illinois) and advocated popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska territories. Douglas wanted it to facilitate the building of the transcontinental railroad on a central route through Illinois, thus benefitting his state economically. K/A Act passed but backfired terribly as extremes of both sides of slavery debate flooded into Kansas. Votes on constitutions were plagued with fraud and "Bleeding Kansas" begins as violence erupts between pro/anti-slavery groups.

Bleeding Sumner (1856)

Event in 1856 in which Preston Brooks (SC) attacked Senator Charles Sumner (MA) with his cane after argument over slavery.

Dred Scott Decision (1857)

Ruling by the Supreme Court —reversed by the 14th Amendment in 1868— black Americans were not citizens under the Constitution; the Missouri Compromise (which banned slavery in the territories) was unconstitutional

Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

A series of seven debates for US Senate in Illinois between Lincoln (R) and Senator Douglas (D). The debates previewed the issues that Lincoln would face in the aftermath of his victory in the 1860 presidential election. The main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery as it related to popular sovereignty in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Lecompton Constitution and the Dred Scott decision. Douglas won election, but Lincoln's fine showing made him a national figure and helped him win Republican nomination in 1860.

John Brown

(1800-1859) anti-slavery advocate who believed that God had called upon him to abolish slavery. He and his followers (his sons and others) killed five men in the pro slavery settlement of Pottawatomie Creek. Also led an unsuccessful raid on Harpers Ferry in an attempt to steal weapons for use in liberating slaves. Was captured and executed, but used as propaganda for both sides of the abolitionist debate (hero versus terrorist).

North and South Advantages in Civil War

North: higher population, more industry, controlled navy, could import goods in ports

South: could produce more food, more trained officers, fighting defense on home turf

Anaconda Plan

Union war plan by Winfield Scott, called for blockade of southern coast, capture of Richmond, capture Mississippi River, and to take an army through heart of South

Conscription Act of 1863

Union act instituting military draft; service could be avoided by hiring a substitute or paying a fee.

Antietam / Emancipation Proclamation

Fought on April 17th, 1862 (also know as Sharpsburg) bloodiest single-day battle of the Civil War. Results in Southern victory despite being heavily out-numbered and out-maneuvered, the South withdraws from Maryland and ends 1st Southern invasion of North. Despite losing, Lincoln claims victory and uses this to declare the Emancipation Proclamation, stating all slaves in Confederate territories were free and altering goal of the war.

New York Draft Riots (1863)

Uprising, mostly of working-class Irish-Americans, in protest of the draft. Rioters were particularly incensed by the ability of the rich to hire substitutes or purchase exemptions.

Battle of Gettysburg (1863)

Largest and bloodiest battle of the American Civil War; Union victory; considered - when coupled with General Ulysses S. Grant's victory in Vicksburg the next day - to be the turning point of the war. Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen Union soldiers and redefine the purpose of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address.

Sherman's March to the Sea (1864)

The Union army's devastating march through Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah, led by General William T. Sherman, intended to demoralize civilians and destroy the resources the Confederate army needed to fight. Considered an example of "total war" - the deliberate attacking of civilians and infrastructure.

Thirteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude.

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)

Lincoln set up a process for political Reconstruction, as in reconstructing the state governments in the South so that Unionists were in charge rather than secessionists; full presidential pardons for most southerners who either took an oath of allegiance to the Union and the Constitution, a state government could be reestablished and accepted as legitimate by the US president as soon as at least 10 percent of the voters in the state took the loyalty oath, each southern state needed to rewrite Constitution to eliminate existence of slavery

Radical Republicans

These were a small group of people in 1865 who supported Black suffrage. They were led by Senator Charles Sumner and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. They supported the abolition of slavery and a demanding reconstruction policy during the war and after. Sought to punish the South after the Civil War.

Freedmen's Bureau (1865-1872)

Provided food, clothing, medical care, and education to freedmen and white refugees. Greatest success was teaching 200,000 blacks how to read.

Johnson's Reconstruction Plan

A plan that gave pardon to all those who took loyalty oaths. It punished plantation owners and forced states to abolish slavery before readmittance.

Black Codes

Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War.

Fourteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment giving full rights of citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, except for American Indians.

Congressional (Radical) / Military Reconstruction

Led by Thaddeus Stevens/Charles Sumner. Goal: Punish the South

-Supported by military rule (South divided into five military districts)

-States must ratify the 14th Amendment (extended citizenship to former slaves)

-State constitutions include a guarantee or full suffrage to freedmen

-15th Amendment (right to vote for freedmen)

Fifteenth Amendment

1870 constitutional amendment that guaranteed voting rights regardless of race or previous condition of servitude.

"40 acres and a mule"

This slogan was created in 1864 and 1865 when the federal government settled nearly 10,000 black families on abandoned plantation land often times receiving a single mule for their property.

Sharecropping

System in which landowners leased a few acres of land to farmworkers in return for a portion of their crops.

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

Post Civil War- Reconstruction

*Carpetbaggers: Derogatory Southern name for Northerners who came to the South to participate in Reconstruction governments

*Scalawags: Derogatory name for Southerners working for or supporting the federal government during Reconstruction

KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

An extremist, paramilitary, right-wing secret society founded in the mid-nineteenth century and revived during the 1920s. It was anti-foreign, anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, anti-evolutionist, and anti-bootlegger, but pro-Anglo-Saxon and pro-Protestant. Its members, cloaked in sheets to conceal their identities, terrorized freedmen and sympathetic whites throughout the South after the Civil War. By the 1890s, Klan-style violence and Democratic legislation succeeded in virtually disenfranchising all Southern blacks.

Compromise of 1877

Ended Reconstruction. In exchange for Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) winning the 1876 election over Samuel Tilden (Democrat), Republicans promise 1) Remove military from South and 2) Federal money for railroad construction and levees on Mississippi river