AMSCO United States History 2015 Edition, Chapter 13 The Union in Peril, 1848-1861
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| 7925256860 | free-soil movement | This movement did not oppose slavery in the South, but they did not want the Western states to allow slavery. (p. 247) |  | 0 |
| 7925256861 | Free-Soil party | In 1848, Northerns organized this party to advocate that the new Western states not allow slavery and provide free homesteads. Their slogan was, "free soil, free labor, free men". (p. 248) |  | 1 |
| 7925256862 | conscience Whigs | Whigs that opposed slavery. (p. 248) |  | 2 |
| 7925256863 | barnburners | Antislavery Democrats, whose defection threatened to destroy the the Democratic party. (p 248) |  | 3 |
| 7925256864 | New England Emigrant Aid Company | Northern abolitionist and Free-Soilers set up this company to pay for the transportation of antislavery settlers to the Kansas Territory. They did this to shift the balance of power against slavery in this new territory. (p. 253) |  | 4 |
| 7925256865 | bleeding Kansas | After 1854, the conflicts between antislavery and proslavery forces exploded in the Kansas Territory. (p. 252) |  | 5 |
| 7925256866 | Pottawatomie Creek | In 1856, abolitionist John Brown and his sons attacked this proslavery farm settlement and killed five settlers. (p. 253) |  | 6 |
| 7925256867 | Lecompton constitution | In 1857, President James Buchanan asked that Congress accept this document and admit Kansas as a slave state. Congress did not accept it. (p. 255) |  | 7 |
| 7925256868 | popular sovereignty | Around 1850, this term referred to the idea that each new territory could determine by vote whether or not to allow slavery would be allowed in that region. (p. 248) |  | 8 |
| 7925256869 | Lewis Cass | This Democratic senator from Michigan, proposed popular sovereignty as the solution to the slavery question in the territories. (p. 248) |  | 9 |
| 7925256870 | Henry Clay | He proposed the Compromise of 1850. (p. 249) |  | 10 |
| 7925256871 | Zachary Taylor | The twelfth president of the United States from 1849 to 1850. He was a general and hero in the Mexican War. He was elected to the presidency in 1848, representing the Whig party. He died suddenly in 1850 and Millard Fillmore became the president. (p 248, 249) |  | 11 |
| 7925256872 | Compromise of 1850 | Henry Clay proposed and it was signed into law by President Millard Fillmore. It proposed: * Admit California to the Union as a free state * Divide the remainder of the Mexican Cession into New Mexico and Utah (popular sovereignty) * Give land in dispute between Texas and New Mexico to federal government in return for paying Texas' public debt of 10 million * Ban slave trade in D. C., but permit slaveholding * New Fugitive Slave Law to be enforced (p. 249) |  | 12 |
| 7925256873 | Stephen A. Douglas | In 1854, he devised the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which in effect overturned the Missouri Compromise, and allowed the South the opportunity to expand slavery. In 1858, he debated Abraham Lincoln in a famous series of seven debates in the campaign for the Illinois senate seat. He won the campaign for reelection to the Senate, but he alienated Southern Democrats. In 1860, he won the Democratic presidential nomination, but Southern Democrats nominated their own candidate, John Breckinridge. He was easily defeated by Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election that year. (p. 252, 256, 258) |  | 13 |
| 7925256874 | Millard Fillmore | The thirteenth president of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853, and the last member of the Whig Party to hold that office. He was the second Vice President to become president upon the death of a sitting President, when he succeeded Zachary Taylor. As vice president he helped pass the Compromise of 1850. (p. 249, 255) |  | 14 |
| 7925256875 | Kansas-Nebraska Act | This 1854 act, sponsored by Senator Stephen A Douglas, would build a transcontinental railroad through the central United States. In order gain approval in the South, it would divide the Nebraska territory into Nebraska and Kansas and allow voting to decide whether to allow slavery. This increased regional tensions because it effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had already determined that this area would not allow slavery. (p. 252) |  | 15 |
| 7925256876 | Crittenden compromise | In the winter of 1860-1861, Senator John Crittenden proposed a constitutional amendment to appease the South. He proposed that slavery would be allowed in all areas south of the 36 30 line. The Republicans rejected the proposal because it would allow extension of slavery into the new territories. (p. 260) |  | 16 |
| 7925256877 | Franklin Pierce | The fourteenth President of the United States from 1853 to 1857. A Democrat from New Hampshire, he was acceptable to Southern Democrats because he supported the Fugitive Slave Law. (p. 252) |  | 17 |
| 7925256878 | Know-Nothing party | This political party started in the mid-1850s. Also known as the American party, they were mostly native-born Protestant Americans. Their core issue was opposition to Catholics and immigrants who were entering Northern cities in large numbers. (p. 254) |  | 18 |
| 7925256879 | Republican party | This political party formed in 1854, in response to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It was composed of a coalition of Free-Soilers, antislavery Whigs, and Democrats. Although not abolitionist, it sought to block the spread of slavery in the territories. (p. 254) |  | 19 |
| 7925256880 | John C. Fremont | In the presidential election of 1856, this California senator was the Republican nominee. The Republican platform called for no expansion of slavery, free homesteads, and a probusiness protective tariff. He lost the election to James Buchanan, but won 11 of the 16 free states, which foreshadowed the emergence of a powerful Republican party. (p. 255) |  | 20 |
| 7925256881 | James Buchanan | The fifteenth President of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He tried to maintain a balance between proslavery and antislavery factions, but his moderate views angered radicals in both North and South, and he was unable to forestall the secession of South Carolina to December 20, 1860. During his term: "Bleeding Kansas" (1856), Caning of Senator Sumner (1856), Lecompton Constitution (1857), Dred Scott case (1857) (p. 255) |  | 21 |
| 7925256882 | election of 1860 | In this presidential election, the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln won. Lincoln won all the northern states, while John C. Breckinridge, a South Democrat, won all the southern states. The South felt like it no longer had a voice in national politics and a number of states soon seceded from the Union. (p. 258) |  | 22 |
| 7925256883 | sucession | The election of Abraham Lincoln was the final event that caused the southern states to leave the Union. In December 1860, South Carolina voted unanimously to secede. Within the next six weeks Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas had all seceded. In February 1861, representatives of seven states met in Montgomery, Alabama to create the Confederate States of America. (p. 259) | 23 | |
| 7925256884 | Fugitive Slave Law | Congress passed a second version of this law in 1850. The law's chief purpose was to track down runaway slaves who had escaped to a Northern state, capture them, and return them to their Southern owners. Enforcement of the law in the North was sometimes opposed even though there were penalties for hiding a runaway slave or obstructing enforcement of the law. (p. 250) |  | 24 |
| 7925256885 | Underground Railroad | A network of people who helped thousands of enslaved people escape to the North by providing transportation and hiding places. (p. 250) |  | 25 |
| 7925256886 | Harriet Tubman | Born a slave, she escaped to the North and became the most renowned conductor on the Underground Railroad, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom. (p. 250) |  | 26 |
| 7925256887 | Dred Scott v. Sandford | An 1857 Supreme Court case, in which Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that African Americans (free or slave), were not citizens of the United States, that Congress could not exclude slavery from any federal territory, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The ruling delighted Southern Democrats and infuriated Northern Republicans. (p. 255) |  | 27 |
| 7925256888 | Roger Taney | He was a Southern Democrat and chief justice of the Supreme Court during the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. (p. 255) |  | 28 |
| 7925256889 | Abraham Lincoln | He was elected president of the United States in 1860. He was a Republican, who ran on a platform that appealed to those in the North and the West. It called for the exclusion of slavery in the new territories, a protective tariff for industry, free land for homesteaders, and a railroad to the Pacific. (p. 258) |  | 29 |
| 7925256890 | Lincoln-Douglas debates | In 1858, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln had seven debates in the campaign for the Illinois senate seat. Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but he attacked Douglas's seeming indifference to slavery as a moral issue. Although Lincoln lost the election to Douglas, he emerged as a national figure and leading contender for the Republican nomination for president. (p. 256) |  | 30 |
| 7925256891 | house-divided speech | The speech given by Abraham Lincoln when accepting the Republican nomination for the Illinois senate seat. He said, "This government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free". (p. 256) |  | 31 |
| 7925256892 | Freeport Doctrine | Doctrine developed by Stephen Douglas that said slavery could not exist in a community if the local citizens did not pass laws (slave codes) maintaining it. This angered Southern Democrats. (p. 257) |  | 32 |
| 7925256893 | Sumner-Brooks incident | This incident took place in 1856, when Congressman Preston Brooks severely beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. The attack occurred in the Senate chamber, after Sumner gave a vitriolic speech, "The Crime Against Kansas". (p. 254) |  | 33 |
| 7925256894 | John Brown | He led his four sons and some former slaves, in an attack on the federal arsenal, called the Harpers Ferry raid. (p. 257) |  | 34 |
| 7925256895 | Harpers Ferry raid | In October 1859, John Brown led his four sons and some former slaves, in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. His impractical plan was to obtain guns to arm Virginia's slaves, whom he hoped would rise up in a general revolt. He and six of his followers were captured and hanged. Southern whites saw the raid as proof of the north's true intentions - to use slave revolts to destroy the South. (p. 257) |  | 35 |
| 7925256896 | Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin | In 1852, she wrote this influential book about the conflict between a slave named Tom, and a brutal white slave owner, Simon Legree. It caused a generation of Northerners and many Europeans to regard all slave owners as cruel and inhuman. Southerners believed it to be proof of Northern prejudice against the Southern way of life. (p. 250) |  | 36 |
| 7925256897 | Hinton R. Helper, Impending Crisis of the South | In 1857, he wrote this nonfiction book, that attacked slavery using statistics to demonstrate to fellow Southerners that slavery weakened the South's economy. Southern states banned the book, but it was widely read in the North. (p. 250) |  | 37 |
| 7925256898 | George Fitzhugh, Sociology of the South | In 1854, he wrote this proslavery book which argued that slavery was a positive good for slave and master alike. He was the boldest and most well known of proslavery authors. He questioned the principle of equal rights for unequal men and attacked the capitalist wage system as worse than slavery. (p. 251) |  | 38 |
| 7925256899 | manifest destiny | The belief that the United States had a divine mission to extend its power and civilization across the breadth of North America. (p. 230) |  | 39 |
| 7925256900 | industrial technology | After 1840, industrialization spread rapidly throughout most of the Northeast. New factories produced shoes, sewing machines, ready-to-wear clothing, firearms, precision tools, and iron products for railroads and other new products. (p. 238) |  | 40 |
| 7925256901 | Elias Howe | The U.S. inventor of the sewing machine, which moved much of clothing production from homes to factories. (p. 238) |  | 41 |
| 7925256902 | Samuel F. B. Morse | In 1844, he invented the electric telegraph which allowed communication over longer distances. (p. 238) |  | 42 |
| 7925256903 | railroads | In the 1840s and the 1850s, this industry expanded very quickly and would become America's largest industry. It required immense amounts of capital and labor and gave rise to complex business organizations. Local and state governments gave the industry tax breaks and special loans to finance growth. (p. 238) |  | 43 |
| 7925256904 | Panic of 1857 | Financial crash which sharply lowered Midwest farmers prices and caused unemployment in the Northern cities. The South was not affected as much because cotton prices remained high. (p. 239) |  | 44 |
| 7925256905 | Great American Desert | In the 1850s and 1860s, the arid area between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast, was known by this name. (p. 236) |  | 45 |
| 7925256906 | mountain men | The first non-native people to open the Far West. These fur trappers and explorers included James Beckwourth, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith. (p. 237) |  | 46 |
| 7925256907 | Far West | In the 1820s, the Rocky Mountains were known by this name. (p. 237) |  | 47 |
| 7925256908 | overland trails | The wagon train trails that led from Missouri or Iowa to the west coast. They traveled only 15 miles per day and followed the river valleys through the Great Plains. Months later, the wagon trains would finally reach the foothills of the Rockies or face the hardships of the southwestern deserts. The final challenge was to reach the mountain passes before the first heavy snows. Disease was even a greater threat than Indian attack. (p. 237) |  | 48 |
| 7925256909 | mining frontier | The discovery of gold in California in 1848 caused the first flood of newcomers to the West. A series of gold strikes and silver strikes in what became the states of Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and South Dakota kept a steady flow of hopeful young prospectors pushing into the West. (p. 237) |  | 49 |
| 7925256910 | gold rush | California's population soared from 14,000 in 1848 to 380,000 in 1860, primarily because of this event. (p. 237) |  | 50 |
| 7925256911 | silver rush | The discovery of silver in Colorado, Nevada, the Black Hills of the Dakotas, and other western territories, created a mining boom. (p 237) |  | 51 |
| 7925256912 | farming frontier | In the 1830s and 1840s pioneer families moved west to start homesteads and begin farming. Government programs allowed settlers to purchase inexpensive parcels of land. (p. 237) |  | 52 |
| 7925256913 | urban frontier | Western cities that arose as a result of railroads, mineral wealth, and farming. They included San Francisco, Denver, and Salt Lake City. (p. 238) |  | 53 |
| 7925256914 | federal land grants | In 1850, the U.S. government gave 2.6 million acres of federal land to build the Illinois Central railroad from Lake Michigan to Gulf of Mexico. (p. 238) |  | 54 |
| 7925256915 | John Tyler | He was elected Vice President, then he became the tenth president (1841-1845) when Benjamin Harrison died. He was responsible for the annexation of Mexico after receiving a mandate from Polk. He opposed many parts of the Whig program for economic recovery. (p. 231) |  | 55 |
| 7925256916 | Oregon territory | This was a vast territory on the Pacific coast that stretched as far north as the Alaskan border. Originally the United States was interested in all the territory, but in 1846 Britain and the U.S. agreed to divide the territory at the 49th Parallel, today's border between Canada and the United States. (p. 232) |  | 56 |
| 7925256917 | Fifty-four Forty or Fight | The slogan of James K. Polk's plan for the Oregon Territory. They wanted the border of the territory to be on 54' 40° latitude (near present-day Alaska) and were willing to fight Britain over it. Eventually, 49 degrees latitude was adopted as the northern border of the United States, and there was no violence. (p. 232) |  | 57 |
| 7925256918 | James K. Polk | The eleventh U.S. president from 1845 to 1849. He was a slave owning southerner dedicated to Democratic party. In 1844, he was a "dark horse" candidate for president, and a protege of Andrew Jackson. He favored American expansion, especially advocating the annexation of Texas, California, and Oregon. (p. 232) |  | 58 |
| 7925256919 | Wilmot Proviso | In 1846, the first year of the Mexican War, this bill would forbid slavery in any of the new territories acquired from Mexico. the bill passed the House twice, but was defeated in the Senate. (p. 234) |  | 59 |
| 7925256920 | Franklin Pierce | In 1852, he was elected the fourteenth president of the United States. (p. 236) |  | 60 |
| 7925256921 | Ostend Manifesto | The United States offered to purchase Cuba from Spain. When the plan leaked to the press in the United States, it provoked an angry reaction from antislavery members of Congress, forcing President Franklin Pierce to drop the plan. (p. 235) |  | 61 |
| 7925256922 | Texas | In 1823, Texas won its national independence from Spain. The annexation of this state was by a joint resolution of Congress, supported by President-elect James Polk. This annexation contributed to the Mexican War because the border with Mexico was in dispute. Land from the Republic of Texas later became parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. (p. 233) |  | 62 |
| 7925256923 | Stephen Austin | In the 1820s, his father had obtained and large land grant in Texas. He brought 300 families from Missouri to settle in Texas. (p. 231) |  | 63 |
| 7925256924 | Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna | In 1834, he established himself as dictator of Mexico and attempted to enforce Mexico's laws in Texas. In March 1836 a group of American settlers revolted and declared Texas to be an independent republic. He then led an army which attacked the Alamo in San Antonio, killing all the American defenders. Shortly after that, Sam Houston led an army that captured him and he was forced to sign a treaty that recognized the independence of Texas. (p. 231) |  | 64 |
| 7925256925 | Sam Houston | In March 1836, he led a group of American settlers that revolted against Mexico and declared Texas to be an independent republic. He led an army that captured Santa Anna and forced him to sign a treaty that recognized Texas as an independent republic. As the first president of the Republic of Texas, he applied to the U.S. government for Texas to be added as a new state. It was many years before the U.S. would act to add Texas as a state. (p. 231) |  | 65 |
| 7925256926 | Alamo | The mission and fort that was the site of a siege and battle during the Texas Revolution, which resulted in the massacre of all its defenders. The event helped galvanize the Texas rebels and led to their victory at the Battle of San Jacinto. Eventually Texas would join the United States. (p. 231) |  | 66 |
| 7925256927 | Aroostook War | In the early 1840s, there was a dispute over the the British North America (Canada) and Maine border. Open fighting broke out between rival groups of lumbermen. The conflict was soon resolved by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. (p. 231) |  | 67 |
| 7925256928 | Webster-Ashburton Treaty | In this 1842 treaty US Secretary of State Daniel Webster and British ambassador Lord Alexander Ashburton created a treaty splitting New Brunswick territory into Maine and British Canada. It also settled the boundary of the Minnesota territory. (p. 232) |  | 68 |
| 7925256929 | Rio Grande; Nueces River | In the 1840s the United States believed the southern Texas border was the Rio Grande River. Mexico believed the border was further north on the Nueces River. (p. 233) |  | 69 |
| 7925256930 | Mexican War (1846-1847) | A war between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. President James Polk attempted to purchase California and the New Mexico territories and resolve the disputed Mexico-Texas border. Fighting broke out before the negotiations were complete and the war lasted about two years, ending when the United States troops invaded Mexico City. (p. 233-235) |  | 70 |
| 7925256931 | Zachary Taylor | In 1845, this U.S. general, moved his troops into disputed territory in Texas, between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers. Eleven of his soldiers were killed by Mexican troops and President James Polk used the incident to justify starting the Mexican War. He used of force of 6,000 to invade northern Mexico and won a major victory at Buena Vista. In 1848, he was elected president. (p. 233, 234) | | 71 |
| 7925256932 | Winfield Scott | This U.S. general invaded central Mexico with an army of 14,000. They took the coastal city of Vera Cruz and then captured Mexico City in September 1847. (p. 234) |  | 72 |
| 7925256933 | Stephen Kearney | This U.S. general led a small army of less than 1,500 that succeeded in taking Santa Fe, the New Mexico territory, and southern California during the Mexican War. (p. 234) |  | 73 |
| 7925256934 | John C. Fremont | In June 1846, he overthrew Mexican rule in northern California and proclaimed California to be an independent republic, the Bear Flag Republic. (p. 234) | | 74 |
| 7925256935 | California; Bear Flag Republic | In June 1846, John C. Fremont quickly overthrew Mexican rule in Northern California to create this independent republic. (p. 234) |  | 75 |
| 7925256936 | Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo | In 1848, this treaty ended the Mexican War. Under its terms, Mexico recognized the Rio Grande as the border with Texas, Mexico ceded the California and New Mexico territories to the United States. The United States agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and assumed responsibility for any claims of American citizens against Mexico. (p. 234) |  | 76 |
| 7925256937 | Mexican Cession | Historical name for the former Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico that were ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. (p 234) |  | 77 |
| 7925256938 | Walker Expedition | An expedition by a Southern adventurer who unsuccessfully tried to take Baja California from Mexico in 1853. He took over Nicaragua in 1855 to develop a proslavery empire. His scheme collapsed when a coalition of Central American countries invaded and defeated him, and he was executed. (p. 236) |  | 78 |
| 7925256939 | Clayton-Bulwer Treaty | An 1850 treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain agreeing that neither country would attempt to take exclusive control of any future canal route in Central America. (p. 236) |  | 79 |
| 7925256940 | Gadsden Purchase | In 1853, the U.S. acquired land (present day southern New Mexico and Arizona) from Mexico for $10 million. (p. 236) |  | 80 |
| 7925256941 | foreign commerce | In the mid-1800s, the growth in manufactured goods as well as in agriculture products (Western grains and Southern cotton) caused a significant growth of exports and imports. (p. 238, 239) |  | 81 |
| 7925256942 | exports and imports | In the mid-1800s, the U.S. was exporting primarily manufactured goods and agriculture products such as Western grains and Southern cotton. Imports also increased during this period. (p. 238, 239) |  | 82 |
| 7925256943 | Matthew C. Perry; Japan | Commodore of the U.S. Navy who was sent to force Japan to open up its ports to trade with the U.S. (p. 239) |  | 83 |
