Vocab Quiz History

112. Manifest destiny- a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America.

113. Samuel Morse - Morse contributed to the invention of a singlewire telegraph system, and co-developer of the Morse code, and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.

114. Wilmot Proviso - proposed by Congressman David Proviso as an American law to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War. The conflict over the proviso was one of the major events leading to the American Civil War.

115. Bear Flag Republic- short-lived, unrecognized breakaway state that, for twentyfive days in 1846, militarily controlled the area to the north of the San Francisco Bay in the present-day state of California.

116. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo- the peace treaty signed on February 2, 1848, in the Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo (now a neighborhood of Mexico City) between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican–American War (1846–48). It ceded large amounts of land from Mexico to the US.

117. Mexican Cession- a historical name in the United States for the region of the modern day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

118. Zachary Taylor- 12th President of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850. Before his presidency, Taylor was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to the rank of major general, and famous for his role in the Mexican-American War. Chapter 13: The Union in Peril

119. Free soil movement- a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership consisted of anti-slavery former members of the Whig Party and the Democratic Party.

120. Bleeding Kansas- a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery "Free-Staters" and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian", or "southern yankees" elements in Kansas between 1854 and 1861.

121. Popular sovereignty- the principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of its people. A highly controversial approach to slavery in the territories as propounded by senator Stephen A. Douglas. It meant that local residents of a territory would be the ones to decide if slavery would be permitted, and it led to bloody warfare in Bleeding Kansas as violent proponents and enemies of slavery flooded Kansas territory in order to decide the elections.

122. Compromise of 1850- a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War(1846–1848). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, reduced sectional conflict.

123. Stephen A. Douglas- an American politician from Illinois and the designer of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He was a U.S. representative, a U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 1860 election, losing to Republican Abraham Lincoln.

124. Kansas-Nebraska Act- created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and President Franklin Pierce. The popular sovereignty clause of the law led pro- and anti-slavery elements to flood into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, resulting in Bleeding Kansas.

125. Secession- the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity (a country), but also any organization, union or military alliance. Threats of secession can also be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.

126. Fugitive slave law- law passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to force the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory.

127. Underground railroad- a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19thcentury enslaved people of African descent in the United States in efforts to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause.

128. Dred Scott v. Sanford- imply as the Dred Scott case, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on US labor law and constitutional law. It held that "a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves", whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States.

129. Lincoln-Douglas Debates- (also known as The Great Debates of 1858) were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate.

130. John Brown- an American abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States.

131. Harpers Ferry Raid- (also known as John Brown's raid or The raid on Harpers Ferry; in many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry") was an effort by white abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

132. Uncle Tom’s Cabin- an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War"