APUSH Period 5 Key Terms (Sections 1-3 & Dates)

1846-1848

Mexican-American War

1854

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1857

Dred Scott Decision

1860

Lincoln Elected

1861-1865

Civil War

Manifest Destiny

Coined by journalist John O'Sullivan in 1845 to describe the belief that it was God's will for the United States to expand westward to the Pacific Ocean.

James K. Polk

Eleventh President. Served 1845-1849. An heir of sorts to Andrew Jackson, he advocated for Manifest Destiny. His campaign slogan was "Fifty-four forty or fight!" Yet while that slogan advocated a hardline position on the disputed Oregon Territory, he instead reached a diplomatic agreement with Britain. The border was drawn at the 49th parallel, which ceded what is now British Columbia, including Vancouver Island. He then oversaw the controversial Mexican-American War, expanding the U.S. into the Southwest. Having pledged to only serve one term, he declined to run for reelection in 1848.

Mexican-American War

A conflict between the United States and Mexico. It took place from April 1846 to February 1848. Following the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered a wayward province whose independence was a legal fiction created under duress, war broke out between the two nations. The war was deeply controversial in its time, illustrating the deepening divide between free and slave states. Many political and military leaders of the Civil War fought in this war. It also led to a major U.S. territorial expansion. See: John Slidell, Santa Anna, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Wilmot Proviso.

Wilmot Proviso

Following the Mexican-American War, Representative David ______ proposed that slavery would be forbidden in any new lands acquired by the war with Mexico. The final bill passed in the House but failed in the Senate. This bill signaled the start of an even deeper crisis that would pit the North against the South over issues of slavery's expansion, states' rights, and government representation.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Signed in February 1848, it ended the Mexican-American War. The treaty granted California and most of the Southwest (including current-day New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada) to the United States. The U.S. government agreed to pay war reparations in the sum of $15 million to the Mexican government. Despite continued bitter debate over the expansion of slavery, the treaty was ratified.

Gadsden Purchase

An 1853 treaty between the U.S. and Mexico. It was ratified in 1854. The treaty resolved a border issue lingering from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In exchange for $10 million, the U.S. purchased a chunk of modern-day Arizona and a small portion of southwest New Mexico. This was the last notable expansion of the continental U.S.

Free Soil Party

Inspired by the Wilmot Proviso, antislavery advocates from various political parties founded the ________ to oppose the expansion of slavery into the new Western territories. Martin Van Buren ran for president as a _____ candidate in 1848. This Party's membership was later absorbed into the new Republican Party.

Gold Rush

Commonly refers to the California ____ ____, which took place between 1848 and roughly 1855. The population of California ballooned as prospectors flocked to the state to seek a fortune in mining gold. Over 100,000 American Indians died as settlers and prospectors violently displaced them. See: Forty-Niners.

Forty-Niners

Nickname for an influx of immigrants to California in 1849 seeking riches in the gold rush. A number of immigrants were Chinese.

Compromise of 1850

A package of several bills that alleviated some of the tension between the North and South, delaying the Civil War for another decade. Orchestrated by Henry Clay. Its key points were: California was admitted as a free state; it created the New Mexico and Utah Territories, and popular sovereignty would determine slavery's status in them; it banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C.; it enacted a stricter Fugitive Slave Act; it give Texas monetary compensation to drop its claims to part of New Mexico's territory.

Fugitive Slave Act

A controversial law that constituted part of the Compromise of 1850. It required that escaped slaves, upon their capture, would be returned to their masters, and that the authorities in a free state had to cooperate with this process. Nicknamed the "Bloodhound Law" by abolitionists for the common use of such dogs in hunting down slaves.

Stephen A. Douglas

A senator from Illinois nicknamed the "Little Giant." He is notable for creating the Kansas-Nebraska Act as well as participating in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. He initially supported the Dred Scott decision until it proved politically unpopular. He opposed the Lecompton Constitution. A staunch Unionist, he supported Lincoln during the Civil War, even holding the man's stovepipe hat during the Inauguration ceremony. However, he died in June 1861 of typhoid fever. See: Freeport Doctrine.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

American abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), an influential work of abolitionism.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Proposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas in 1854, it functionally repealed the Missouri Compromise. The act proposed the Nebraska Territory be divided into two regions, Nebraska and Kansas, and each would vote by popular sovereignty on the issue of slavery. It was presumed that Nebraska would become a free state, while Kansas would become a slave state. Douglas was able to push his bill through Congress, and President Pierce signed it into law in 1854. It helped spur the formation of the Republican Party.

Republican Party

Also known as the GOP, for "Grand Old Party," it emerged from the renewed sectional tension of the 1850s. The GOP was founded in 1854 by antislavery Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, and Know-Nothings from the North and West. Although the GOP lost the 1856 presidential election, the popular John C. Fremont garnered many votes and won 11 of the 16 free states in the Electoral College.

James Buchanan

Fifteenth President. Serve 1857-1861. A Pennsylvania Democrat, _________ had a storied career as a U.S. senator and representative, a Secretary of State, and an ambassador to both Russia and Britain. He essentially won his party's nomination due to being abroad for so long, meaning he wasn't tied to any of the contentious domestic issues of the 1850s. He supported the Dred Scott ruling, and the entry of Kansas into the Union as a slave state. Declined to run for a second term. Often ranked as the worst president for exacerbating regional tensions in the runup to the Civil War and then doing nothing to stop secession.

Bleeding Kansas

The nickname for a period of bloody conflict in what became Kansas. Lasted 1855-1859. Proslavery and antislavery forces engaged in a number of battles, massacres, and raids in order to determine whether Kansas would be a free or slave state. Due to decrying slavery in Kansas, Senator Charles Sumner was nearly beaten to death on the Senate floor by Preston Brooks. Due to the objections of Southern states, Kansas would not be admitted to the United States until the start of the Civil War. See: John Brown.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

A landmark 1857 Supreme Court case that was a major contributing factor to the outbreak of the Civil War. Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, spent years in Wisconsin and Illinois with his master. After his master's death, Dred Scott sued for freedom. The Court ruled that all African Americans (free or slave) were not citizens. Taney also ruled that Congress had no right to deny citizens of their individual property, and therefore the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional for stripping slave owners of their rightful property once they moved north.

John Brown

An abolitionist who believed that arming slaves was the only way to get rid of slavery. He first became famous for leading a small band of fighters in Bleeding Kansas, killing several proslavery supporters. In 1859, he led a raid on Harpers Ferry, intending to takes its weapons to equip slaves on nearby plantations. Brown's raid was quickly squashed, but it excited national furor, especially after he was executed.