APUSH EC: Period 5

Manifest Destiny

Order by God to spread democracy westward from sea to shining sea. Reason for the US to spread west and acquire California.

Example: President James K. Polk used Manifest Destiny to justify the push for acquiring California and Oregon during the 1840s.

Free-Soil Movements

People who believed that slavery should not spread to new territories. This split the abolitionist movement and formed the Liberty Party.

Example: The Free-Soil Party (1848) ran Martin Van Buren on a platform opposing the expansion of slavery into the Mexican Cession.

Slavery as a positive social good

Southerners claimed that African Americans have a better life as slaves. The Southerners' defense for slavery.

Example: Senator John C. Calhoun argued in an 1837 speech that slavery was a “positive good” that benefitted both enslaved people and slaveholders.

Compromise of 1850

California enters as a free state, slave trade is banned in DC, and there is a new Fugitive Slave Law. Start of the abolition of slavery.

Example: Under the compromise, California entered as a free state and the South gained a strengthened Fugitive Slave Act, which forced Northerners to help return escaped slaves.

Second American Party System

Two main parties of the 1800s were the Democratic party and the Whig party. Increase in voter turnout, rallies, newspapers, and loyalty to parties.

Example: The competition between Andrew Jackson’s Democrats and Henry Clay’s Whigs during the 1830s led to massive increases in voter turnout.

Confederacy

The Southern states of the US that were pro-slavery. They seceded from America.

Example: South Carolina, the first state to secede in 1860, became a founding member of the Confederacy.

13th Amendment

Freed all slaves. Slavery was legally banned.

Example: After its ratification in 1865, over 4 million enslaved people were legally freed across the United States.

Civil War

Union vs. Confederacy after the slavery issue. Union won and slavery was abolished.

Example: Key battles like Gettysburg (1863) marked turning points that allowed the Union to eventually win the war.

Reconstruction

The time after the Civil War. The seceded states of the Civil War were let back into the Union, but the method of how was highly debated.

Example: The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into military districts and required them to draft new state constitutions guaranteeing Black male voting rights.

15th Amendment

Black men can vote. Although this was a national law, the South refused to follow it.

Example: Despite the amendment, states like Mississippi used poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent Black men from voting.

Mexican-American War

Began as border dispute of Texas. US won and gained California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Example: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) ended the war and gave the U.S. the Mexican Cession (CA, NV, UT, AZ, NM).

Abolitionists

Anti-slavery activists. One part of the nation's divide on the slavery issue.

Example: William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, demanded immediate emancipation.

Secession

What the South did when they felt threatened by the abolitionist movement. Caused the Civil War.

Example: Eleven Southern states, beginning with South Carolina, seceded after Lincoln’s election in 1860.

Dred Scott Case

African Americans cannot be citizens because they never ceased to be slaves. US territories are now open to slavery.

Example: The Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.

Republican Party

New party that replaced the Whig Party and were against slavery. Appealed to many Northerners (sectional party).

Example: Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president (elected 1860) on a platform limiting slavery’s expansion.

Union

Anti-slavery North that fought in Civil War to regain South. Won the Civil War and got the South back.

Example: Union strategies like Sherman’s March to the Sea helped defeat the Confederacy.

Sharecropping system

Version of tenant farming that tied African Americans back to white landowners. How the South rebelled against the Union post Civil War.

Example: Many freedmen signed contracts with white landowners where they worked the land for a share of the crops, often becoming trapped in cycles of debt.

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln's speech to dedicate a cemetery. Union's change for purpose for the Civil War to be for the abolition of slavery.

Example: Lincoln delivered the speech in 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg.

14th Amendment

Citizenship for blacks. Legal action for giving rights to every man.

Example: The amendment overturned Dred Scott by granting citizenship to all people born in the U.S., including formerly enslaved people.

Irish and German migrants

Left to US for job opportunities. Took over simple jobs, but caused formation of Know-Nothing Party.

Example: Many Irish immigrants worked on canal and railroad construction, while Germans often moved to the Midwest to farm.

Anti-Catholic nativist movement

Americans were resistant to immigrants. Caused turmoil and division in America.

Example: The Know-Nothing Party (1850s) formed specifically to oppose Catholic immigrants.

Mexican Cession

Region of South West that Mexico lost to the US. Expansion of US to the west for Manifest Destiny.

Example: The U.S. gained the Mexican Cession through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican-American War.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

These two territories could try popular sovereignty to vote on slavery. Complete fail of popular sovereignty.

Example: The act caused “Bleeding Kansas,” where pro- and anti-slavery settlers fought violently over the vote.

Abraham Lincoln free-soil

He started with this position at the start of the Civil War. By the middle of the Civil War, he gave up this position and advocated for abolition.

Example: During the Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858), Lincoln said he did not want to abolish slavery where it already existed but opposed its expansion.

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln's freeing of slaves in the Confederate states. He sunk all opportunities of foreign aid for the South.

Example: After January 1, 1863, the Proclamation freed enslaved people in areas still rebelling and prevented Britain/France from recognizing the Confederacy.

Radical Republicans

Supported abolition and reconstruction after the Civil War. Believed South should be harshly punished.

Example: Leaders like Thaddeus Stevens pushed for the Reconstruction Acts and wanted to transform Southern society.

Moderate Republicans

Supported abolition and reconstruction after the Civil War. Not radical and did not demand large punishment for South.

Example: Moderate Republicans supported the 14th Amendment but opposed confiscating Southern land or fully punishing ex-Confederates.

Segregation

How African Americans were kept apart from whites with different rooms, different seating, etc. Although African Americans were citizens, they were still treated unequal, especially in the South.

Example: Jim Crow laws in states like Alabama and Georgia required separate schools, trains, and public facilities.