APUSH Henretta Ch.13

Manifest Destiny

A term coined by John L. O'Sullivan in 1845 to express the idea that Euro-Americans were fated by God to settle the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Californios

The elite Mexican ranchers in the province of California.

"Fifty-four forty or fight!"

Democratic candidate Governor James K. Polk's slogan in the election of 1844 calling for American sovereignty over the entire Oregon Country, stretching from California to Russian-occupied Alaska and presently shared with Great Britain

conscience Whigs

Whig politicians who opposed the Mexican War (1846-1848) on moral grounds, maintaining that the purpose of the war was to expand and perpetuate control of the national government.

Wilmot Proviso

The 1846 proposal by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania to ban slavery in territory acquired from the Mexican War

free-soil movement

A political movement that opposed the expansion of slavery. In 1848 the free-soilers organized the Free-Soil Party, which depicted slavery as a threat to republicanism and to the Jeffersonian ideal of a freeholder society, arguments that won broad support among aspiring white farmers.

squatter sovereignty

A plan promoted by Democratic candidate Senator Lewis Cass under which Congress would allow settlers in each territory to determine its status as free or slave.

forty-niners

The more than 80,000 settlers who arrived in California in 1849 as part of that territory's gold rush.

"slavery follows the flag"

The assertion by John C. Calhoun that planters could, by right, take their slave property into newly opened territories.

Compromise of 1850

Laws passed in 1850 that were meant to resolve the dispute over status of slavery in the territories. Key elements included the admission of California as a free state and the Fugitive Slave Act.

personal-liberty laws

Laws enacted in many northern states that guaranteed to all residents, including alleged fugitives, the right to a jury trial.

Gadsden Purchase

A small slice of land (now part of Arizona and New Mexico) purchased by President Franklin Pierce in 1853 for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from New Orleans to Los Angeles.

Ostend Manifesto

An 1854 manifesto that urged President Franklin Pierce to seize the slave-owning province of Cuba from Spain. Northern Democrats denounced this aggressive initiative, and the plan was scuttled.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

A controversial 1854 law that divided Indian Territory into Kansas and Nebraska, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and left the new territories to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty.

American, or Know-Nothing, Party

A political party formed in 1851 that drew on the anti-Catholic movements of the 1840s. In 1854, the party gained control of the state governments of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

"Bleeding Kansas"

Term for the bloody struggle between pro-slavery and antislavery factions in Kansas following its organization as a territory in the fall of 1854.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

1857 Supreme Court decision that stated that slaves were not citizens; that livig in a free state or territory, even for many years, did not free slaves; and declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitional

Freeport Doctrine

doctrine developed by Stephen Douglas that said that the exclusion of slavery in territory could be determined by refusal of voters to enact any laws that would protect slave property; unpopular with southerners, and thus cost him the 1860 election

James K. Polk

11 President, Strong advocate of American expansion. Dispute with Great Britain over Oregon territory was resolved. Disagreement over texas border led to Mexican War. US acquired CA and additional territory in southwest. Wilmot Proviso (propose all Mx cession free). Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Frederick Douglas

(1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer, he escaped slavery and became a leading African American spokesman and writer. He published his biography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and founded the abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

Zachary Taylor

(1849-1850), Whig president who was a Southern slave holder, and war hero (Mexican-American War). Won the 1848 election. Surprisingly did not address the issue of slavery at all on his platform. He died during his term and his Vice President was Millard Fillmore.

Lewis Cass

Democratic senator who proposed popular sovereignty to settle the slavery question in the territories; he lost the presidential election in 1848 against Zachary Taylor but continued to advocate his solution to the slavery issue throughout the 1850s.

Stephen Douglas

Senator from Illinois, author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act & the Freeport Doctrine, argues in favor of popular sovereignty; debated Lincoln prior to the 1860 presidential election

Harriet Beecher Stowe

She wrote the abolitionist book, Uncle Tom's Cabin. It helped to crystallize the rift between the North and South. It has been called the greatest American propaganda novel ever written, and helped to bring about the Civil War.

John Brown

Abolitionist involved in violence in Kansas. In 1859, he led a raid of a government arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, with the intention of arming slaves and starting a revolt. He became a hero of the abolitionists in the Civil War. Brown was considered a matryr by some and a madman by others.

Abraham Lincoln

(1809-1865) Sixteenth president of the United States, he promoted equal rights for African Americans in the famed Lincoln- Douglas debates. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation and set in motion the Civil War, but he was determined to preserve the Union. He was assassinated in 1865.