United States History Comprehensive Final Exam Study Guide
Core Vocabulary and Essential Terms
Chapter 9: The New Nation
- Precedent: An action or decision that later serves as an example or rule for others to follow.
- Cabinet: A group of advisors to the president, consisting of the heads of the executive departments.
- Partisan: Favoring one side of an issue or a specific political party.
- Caucus: A meeting held by a political party to choose their party's candidate for president or decide policy.
Chapter 10: The Jefferson Era
- Customs duty: A tax collected on goods that are imported into a country.
- Jurisdiction: The power or right of a court to interpret and apply the law.
- Secede: To formally withdraw from membership in a group or organization (in this context, from the United States).
- Neutral rights: The right of a nation to sail the seas and not take sides in a conflict.
- Embargo: A government order that prohibits trade with another country.
- Nationalism: A strong sense of devotion or loyalty to one's own nation.
- Frigate: A fast, medium-sized warship.
Chapter 11: Growth and Expansion
- Sectionalism: Rivalry based on the special interests of different areas or regions of a country.
- Monopoly: A market where there is only one provider of a good or service.
Chapter 12: The Jackson Era
- Federalism: A system of government in which power is shared between the federal (national) government and the states.
- Veto: The power of a president to reject a bill passed by a legislature.
Chapter 13: Manifest Destiny
- Manifest Destiny: The 19th-century belief that the United States was destined by God to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.
Chapter 14: North and South
- Prejudice: An unfair opinion or attitude toward a group of people not based on reason or actual experience.
- Discrimination: The unfair or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
- Slave codes: Laws in a Southern state that controlled enslaved people and denied them basic rights.
- Underground Railroad: A network of secret routes and safe houses used by enslaved African Americans in the 19th century to escape into free states and Canada.
- Revival: A religious meeting designed to reawaken faith through impassioned preaching.
- Utopia: A community based on a vision of a perfect society.
- Temperance: Drinking little or no alcohol.
- Normal School: A state-supported school for training high school graduates to become teachers.
- Civil Disobedience: The refusal to obey laws that are considered unjust.
- Abolitionist: A person who wanted to end slavery.
- Suffrage: The right to vote.
- Coeducation: The teaching of male and female students together.
- Transcendentalism: A philosophical movement emphasizing that the most important reality is what is sensed or what is intuitive, rather than scientific knowledge.
Chapter 16: Toward Civil War
- Fugitive: Someone who is running away from legal authority.
- Martyr: A person who dies for a cause they believe in.
- States’ Rights: The idea that states should have all powers that the Constitution does not give to the federal government or forbid to the states.
Chapter 17: The Civil War
- Enlist: To formally join a military force.
- Ironclad: A warship equipped with iron plating for protection.
- Habeas Corpus: A legal writ, or order, that guarantees a prisoner the right to be heard in court.
- Draft: A system of required military service.
- Flank: The side or edge of a military formation.
- Resistance: An effort made to stop or fight against someone or something.
- Total War: A strategy of bringing war to the entire society, not just the military.
Chapter 18: The Reconstruction Era
- Amnesty: The granting of a pardon to a large group of people.
- Impeach: To formally charge a public official with misconduct in office.
- Segregation: The enforced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment.
- Lynching: Putting to death by the illegal action of a mob.
The Foundation of the American Republic (Chapter 9)
The First Administration
- First President: George Washington.
- Inauguration: Washington took office on April 30, $1789$.
- Washington’s Cabinet and Key Officials:
* Vice President: John Adams.
* Department of State: Thomas Jefferson.
* Department of Treasury: Alexander Hamilton.
* Department of War: Henry Knox.
* Attorney General: Edmund Randolph.
* Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: John Jay.
Key Legislative and Diplomatic Milestones
- Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, added to guarantee individual liberties and limit the power of the federal government.
- Second President: John Adams.
Major Acts and Resolutions of the Era
- Judiciary Act of 1789:
* Cause: The Constitution established a Supreme Court but left to Congress the creation of lower federal courts.
* Accomplishment: It established a federal court system with $13$ district courts and $3$ circuit courts to serve as the middle tier of the federal judicial system.
- XYZ Affair:
* Cause: France began seizing American ships to prevent trade with Britain; American diplomats were sent to Paris to resolve the conflict.
* Accomplishment: French agents (X, Y, and Z) demanded a bribe. This led to a state of undeclared war (the Quasi-War) and heightened anti-French sentiment in the U.S.
- Alien and Sedition Acts:
* Cause: Federalist fears that domestic dissent and French immigrants would threaten the national security of the young republic.
* Accomplishment: They allowed the president to imprison or deport aliens deemed dangerous and made it a crime to speak or write "false, scandalous, and malicious" criticisms of the government.
- Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions:
* Cause: Democratic-Republican opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts, which they believed violated the First Amendment.
* Accomplishment: These resolutions argued that states had the right to nullify (cancel) federal laws they deemed unconstitutional, promoting the principle of states' rights.
The Jeffersonian Era and Judicial Power (Chapter 10)
The Third Presidency
- Third President: Thomas Jefferson.
Landmark Supreme Court Cases and Legislation
- Judiciary Act of 1801: An act passed by the retiring Federalist Congress to create many new judgeships, which President Adams filled with "midnight judges" to maintain Federalist influence in the judiciary.
- Marbury v. Madison: This landmark case established the principle of Judicial Review, granting the Supreme Court the final authority to determine the constitutionality of laws.
- McCulloch v. Maryland: This case affirmed that the federal government possesses implied powers under the "Necessary and Proper" clause and that states cannot tax federal institutions.
- Gibbons v. Ogden: This ruling clarified that the federal government has the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Expansion and the Louisiana Purchase
- Original Landowner: France owned the Louisiana Territory before selling it to the United States.
- Federalist Reaction: Federalists opposed the Louisiana Purchase, fearing it would dilute their political power and that the new Western states would support the Democratic-Republicans.
- Lewis and Clark: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were explorers commissioned by Jefferson to lead the "Corps of Discovery" to explore the Louisiana Territory and find a water route to the Pacific Ocean.
Sectionalism and National Growth (Chapters 11–14)
Key Regional Conflicts
- Missouri Compromise (Chapter 11): This agreement admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36∘30′ parallel. Its significance lay in maintaining the balance of power between slave and free states in the Senate.
- Trail of Tears (Chapter 12): The forced relocation of the Cherokee nation and other Native American tribes from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to designated "Indian Territory" in present-day Oklahoma. Thousands died during the journey.
- Jackson’s Veto (Chapter 12): President Andrew Jackson famously used the veto to kill the Second Bank of the United States, which he viewed as an unconstitutional monopoly.
Territorial Expansion
- Florida Statehood (Chapter 13): Florida became a state in $1845$. Prior to this, it was owned by Spain before being ceded to the U.S. via the Adams-Onís Treaty.
Economic Sectionalism (Chapter 14)
- North’s Economy: Industrialized, characterized by factories, a growing railroad network, high population density, and a diverse workforce.
- South’s Economy: Primarily agrarian, heavily dependent on the "King Cotton" industry, plantation systems, and the labor of enslaved people.
- Second Great Awakening: A religious revival movement in the early $1800$s that inspired people to improve society through various reform movements.
- Frederick Douglass: An escaped enslaved man who became a prominent abolitionist leader, orator, and writer.
- Sojourner Truth: A former enslaved woman who became an influential speaker for both abolition and women’s rights.
- Underground Railroad: A secret network of safe houses and routes that helped thousands of enslaved people escape to freedom in the North or Canada.
- Harriet Tubman: The most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, she risked her life repeatedly to lead others to freedom.
- Seneca Falls Convention: The first women's rights convention in the U.S., held in New York in $1848$, which produced the Declaration of Sentiments.
Escalating Tensions (Chapter 16)
- Reasons for Southern Secession: Primarily the desire to protect the institution of slavery and the belief in states' rights against federal interference.
- Kansas-Nebraska Act: It allowed people in those territories to decide on the issue of slavery through popular sovereignty, essentially repealing the Missouri Compromise and leading to violent conflict known as "Bleeding Kansas."
- Lincoln-Douglas Debates: A series of seven debates focused primarily on the expansion of slavery into the territories.
- Election of 1860: Abraham Lincoln won the election.
- Secession Timeline: Southern states began seceding in December $1860$, shortly after Lincoln's election.
- Seceding States: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
The American Civil War (Chapter 17)
War Overview
- Border States: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri (slave states that did not secede from the Union).
- Critical Waterway: Control of the Mississippi River was vital for splitting the Confederacy and controlling trade/transportation.
Comparison of the North and South
- North (Union):
* Goals: Initially to preserve the Union; later to end slavery.
* Strengths: Larger population, superior industrial capacity, more miles of railroad, and a stronger navy.
* Soldier Name: Yankees.
- South (Confederacy):
* Goals: To win independence and preserve their way of life (including slavery).
* Strengths: Stronger military leadership (initially), fighting a defensive war on familiar terrain, and highly motivated soldiers.
* Soldier Name: Rebels.
- Ironclads: Warships covered in iron. Famous examples include the USS Monitor (North) and the CSS Virginia (South, formerly the USS Merrimack).
- David Farragut: A Union naval commander who captured New Orleans, the South's largest port, which prevented the Confederacy from using the Mississippi River for exports.
- Emancipation Proclamation: Signed by Lincoln on January 1, $1863$. It declared all enslaved people in Confederate-held territory free, shifting the goal of the war toward abolition.
- Profiles in Leadership:
* Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson: A skilled Confederate general known for his tenacity; he earned his nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run.
* Robert E. Lee: The primary commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
* 54th Massachusetts: One of the first African American regiments organized in the North, known for their bravery at Fort Wagner.
* Ulysses S. Grant: The lead Union general who eventually accepted Lee's surrender.
* William Tecumseh Sherman: A Union general known for his "March to the Sea" and the use of total war.
Major Battles of the Civil War
- First Battle of Bull Run: The first major land battle; a Confederate victory that showed the war would be long and bloody.
- Battle of Antietam: The bloodiest single day in American history; a strategic Union win that gave Lincoln the political capital to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
- Battle of Gettysburg: A turning point in the war (July $1863$); the Union victory stopped Lee’s second invasion of the North.
- Siege at Petersburg: A prolonged Union siege that eventually led to the fall of the Confederate capital.
- Sherman’s March to the Sea: A campaign from Atlanta to Savannah that destroyed military targets, industry, and infrastructure to break the South's will to fight.
Conclusion of the War
- Confederate Capital: Richmond, Virginia.
- Election of 1864: Won by Abraham Lincoln.
- End of the War: The war effectively ended with Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House.
- Official End Date: April 9, $1865$.
Reconstruction: Rebuilding the Union (Chapter 18)
Post-War Government and Policy
- Reconstruction President: Andrew Johnson (following Lincoln’s assassination).
- Control of Congress: The Radical Republicans controlled Congress during much of the Reconstruction Era.
- Freedmen's Bureau: An agency set up by Congress to help former enslaved people (and poor whites) by providing food, medical care, and establishing schools.
- Sharecropping: A farming system that developed after the war where farmers worked land owned by someone else in exchange for a share of the crops; it often kept former slaves in a cycle of debt and poverty similar to slavery.
The Reconstruction Amendments
- 13th Amendment: Formally abolished slavery in the United States.
- 14th Amendment: Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including former enslaved people—and guaranteed all citizens "equal protection of the laws."
- 15th Amendment: Guaranteed that the right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.