Unit 1 US History Vocab

Popular Sovereignty

A principle in which the people are the only source of government power

Ulysses S. Grant

Was a Union general who later became the 18th president of the United States from 1869-1877. He won key victories along the Mississipi River, including at the Battle of Shiloh and the Battle of Vicksburg. He was appointed commander of all Union armies in March 1864, and led them to victory at Appomattox Court House, where he accepted General Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865

Emancipation Proclamation

A decree by President Lincoln that declared free all enslaved people living in Confederate states and territories still in rebellion against the Union on January 1, 1863.

Gettysburg Address

A speech by President Lincoln in which he dedicated a national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Freedman’s Bureau

A federal agency designed to aid freed African Americans and poor white farmers in the South after the Civil War.

Reconstruction

A program implemented by the federal government between 1865 and 1877 to repair damage to the South caused by the Civil War and to restore the southern states to the Union.

Radical Republicans

Congressmen who advocated full citizenship rights for African Americans along with a harsh Reconstruction policy toward the South.

Andrew Johnson

(RACIST) Was a Tennsessee tailor who rose to become the 17t President of the US. In 1864, he became Vice President under President Lincoln. Less than a year later, he became president following Lincoln’s assassination. His disputes with Radical Republicans over Reconstruction led to his impeachment in 1868.

13th Amendment

The 1865 Constitutional Amendment that abolished slavery in the US, except for as a form of punishment for a crime.

14th Amendment

An 1868 Constitutional Amendment that defined citizenship and guaranteed race and previous condition of servitude.

15th Amendment

An 1870 Constitutional Amendment that guaranteed voting rights regardless of race and previous condition of servitude.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement by which Rutherford B. Hayes won the 1876 presidential election and in exchange agree to remove all remaining federal troops from the South.

Black Codes

Laws that restricted African Americans rights and opportunities.

Convict leasing

A system after the Civil War in which Southern governments would lease prisoners to different private industries like railways, mines, and large plantations.

Sharecropping

A system in which a farmer tends to a portion of a planter’s land in return for a share of the crop