From American Pageant version 12
Renewing the Sectional Struggle
and Drifting Toward Disunion
Terms : Hide Images
| 286298705 | Lewis Cass | Democratic senator who proposed popular sovereignty to settle the slavery question in the territories; he lost the presidential election in 1848 against Zachary Taylor but continued to advocate his solution to the slavery issue throughout the 1850s. | |
| 286298706 | Stephen Douglass | Illinois Senator, debated Lincoln, Democrat, popular sovereignty, Kansas-Nebraska Act | |
| 286298707 | Franklin Pierce | (1853-1857) whig *an American politician and the fourteenth President of the United States. Pierce's popularity in the North declined sharply after he came out in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri Compromise and reopening the question of the expansion of slavery in the West. | |
| 286298708 | Zachary Taylor | (1849-July 9, 1850) whig *General that was a military leader in Mexican-American War and 12th president of the United States. Sent by president Polk to lead the American Army against Mexico at Rio Grande, but defeated. | |
| 286298709 | John C. Calhoun | (1830s-40s) Leader of the Fugitive Slave Law, which forced the cooperation of Northern states in returning escaped slaves to the south. He also argued on the floor of the senate that slavery was needed in the south. He argued on the grounds that society is supposed to have an upper ruling class that enjoys the profit of a working lower class. | |
| 286298710 | Winfield Scott | United States general who was a hero of the War of 1812 and who defeated Santa Anna in the Mexican War (1786-1866) | |
| 286298711 | Martin Van Buren | (1837-1841) democrat *He was the eighth president of the United States who was experienced in legislative and administrative life. He passed the Divorce Bill which placed the federal surplus in vaults located in large cities and denied the backing system. | |
| 286298712 | Daniel Webster | Famous American politician and orator. he advocated renewal and opposed the financial policy of Jackson. Many of the principles of finance he spoke about were later incorporated in the Federal Reserve System. Would later push for a strong union. | |
| 286298713 | Matthew Perry | A commodore in the American navy. He forced Japan into opening its doors to trade, thus brining western influence to Japan while showing American might. | |
| 286298714 | Harriet Tubman | American abolitionist. Born a slave on a Maryland plantation, she escaped to the North in 1849 and became the most renowned conductor on the Underground Railroad, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom. | |
| 286298715 | William Seward | Secretary of State who was responsible for purchasing Alaskan Territory from Russia. By purchasing Alaska, he expanded the territory of the country at a reasonable price. | |
| 286298716 | James Gadsden | Jefferson Davis sent him to buy an area of Mexico from Santa Anna for which the railroad would pass. Gadsden negotiated a treaty in 1853 and the Gadsden Purchase area was ceded to the United States for $10 million. | |
| 286298717 | Henry Clay | United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852) | |
| 286298718 | Millard Fillmore | (1850-1853) whig *13th president. sent Matthew Perry to Japan. A trade route was made between the United States and Japan after that. | |
| 286298719 | popular sovereignty | The concept that political power rests with the people who can create, alter, and abolish government. People express themselves through voting and free participation in government | |
| 286298720 | filibustering | The act of talking endlessly to delay the vote on Senate bills | |
| 286298721 | Free Soil Party | formed in 1848 to oppose the extension of slavery into the territories; merged with the Liberty Party in 1848 | |
| 286298722 | Fugitive Slave Law | Enacted by Congress in 1793 and 1850, these laws provided for the return of escaped slaves to their owners. The North was lax about enforcing the 1793 law, with irritated the South no end. The 1850 law was tougher and was aimed at eliminating the underground railroad. | |
| 286298723 | "conscience" Whigs | Opposed the US-MEX war from the beginning on moral grounds. Warned of a S conspiracy to add new slave states in the W, undermine the Jeffersonian ideal of a yeoman freeholder society and ensure permanent control of the fed govt by slaveholding Dems | |
| 286298724 | Underground Railroad | a system of secret routes used by escaping slaves to reach freedom in the North or in Canada | |
| 286298725 | Compromise of 1850 | Forestalled the Civil War by instating the Fugitive Slave Act , banning slave trade in DC, admitting California as a free state, splitting up the Texas territory, and instating popular sovereignty in the Mexican Cession | |
| 286298726 | "fire eaters" | refers to a group of extremist pro-slavery politicians from the South who urged the separation of southern states into a new nation, which became known as the Confederate States of America. | |
| 286298727 | Clayton-Bulwer Treaty | 1850 - Treaty between U.S. and Great Britain agreeing that neither country would try to obtain exclusive rights to a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Abrogated by the U.S. in 1881. | |
| 286298728 | Seventh of March Speech | Speech given by Daniel Webster which eased the North into compromising with the South; argued that slaves couldn't be supported in the new territories either way because the land didn't cultivate cotton | |
| 286298729 | Ostend Manifesto | The recommendation that the U.S. offer Spain $20 million for Cuba. It was not carried through in part because the North feared Cuba would become another slave state; , a declaration (1854) issued from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, France, and Spain, stating that the U.S. would be justified in seizing Cuba if Spain did not sell it to the U.S. | |
| 286298730 | "higher law" | As used in describing a legal system, this term refrs to the superiority of one set of laws over another. For example, the constitution is a higher law than any federal or state law. In the natural rights philosophy, it menas that natural law and divine law are superior to laws made by human beings. | |
| 286298731 | Harriet Beecher Stowe | Wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book about a slave who is treated badly, in 1852. The book persuaded more people, particularly Northerners, to become anti-slavery. | |
| 286298732 | John C. Fremont | an American military officer, explorer, the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States, and the first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform in opposition to slavery. | |
| 286298733 | Kansas-Nebraska Act | This Act set up Kansas and Nebraska as states. Each state would use popular sovereignty to decide what to do about slavery. People who were proslavery and antislavery moved to Kansas, but some antislavery settlers were against the Act. This began guerrilla warfare. | |
| 286298734 | John Bell | Presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union Party. He drew votes away from the Democrats, helping Lincoln win. | |
| 286298735 | Hinton R. Helper | Wrote The Impending Crisis, a book about slavery. He said the non-slave holding whites were the ones who suffered the most from slavery. He was captured and killed by Southerners | |
| 286298736 | Dred Scott | United States slave who sued for liberty after living in a non-slave state; caused the Supreme Court to declare the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional (1795?-1858) | |
| 286298737 | Abraham Lincoln | (1861-1865) republican *16th President of the United States.Saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865 | |
| 286298738 | John Brown | An abolitionist who attempted to lead a slave revolt by capturing Armories in southern territory and giving weapons to slaves, was hung in Harpers Ferry after capturing an Armory | |
| 286298739 | Roger Taney | chief justice of the supreme court who wrote an opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that declared the Missouri compromise unconstitutional; remembered for his ruling that slaves and their descendants have no rights as citizens | |
| 286298740 | Jefferson Davis | an American statesman and politician who served as President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history from 1861 to 1865 | |
| 286298741 | James Buchanan | (1857-1861) democrat *The 15th President of the United States.He tried to maintain a balance between pro-slavery 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 on December 20, 1860. | |
| 286298742 | John Breckenridge | A Political leader who favored the extension of slavery. His opponents were Douglas and Bell. He polled fewer votes in slave states than the combined strength of his opponents. Showing that because of Uncle toms cabin American was mainly abolitionists. | |
| 286298743 | John Crittenden | A Senator from Kentucky who made a last effort to save the Union by introducing a bill to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, and he proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee forever the right to hold slaves in states south of the compromise line. | |
| 286298744 | Charles Sumner | gave a speech in may 1856 called " the Crime Against Kansas" militant opponent of slavery, beat with a cane by Preston Brooks after the speech, collapsed unconscious and couldn't return to senate for 4 years, symbol throughout the north. | |
| 286298745 | self-determination | the right of people to choose their own form of government | |
| 286298746 | Uncle Tom's Cabin | Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1853 that highly influenced england's view on the American Deep South and slavery. a novel promoting abolition. intensified sectional conflict. | |
| 286298747 | Impending Crisis of the South | 1857: written by Hinton R. Helper which attempted to prove that indirectly nonholding whites were the ones who suffered the most from slavery and was influential among the "poorer" whites. | |
| 286298748 | Pattawatomie Massacre | An incident in which abolitionists John Brown and seven other men murdered pro-slavery Kansans. | |
| 286298749 | Lecompton Constitution | Pro-slavery constitution that got voted in for Kansas after anti-slavery people boycotted the election, supported the existence of slavery in the proposed state and protected rights of slaveholders. It was rejected by Kansas, making Kansas an eventual free state. | |
| 286298750 | Bleeding Kansas | A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent. | |
| 286298751 | American (Know-Nothing) Party | Developed from the order of the Star Spangled Banner and was made up of nativists. This party was organized due to its secretiveness and in 1865 nominated the ex-president Fillmore. These super-patriots were antiforeign and anti-Catholic and adopted the slogan "American's must rule America!" Remaining members of the Whig party also backed Fillmore for President. | |
| 286298752 | Panic of 1857 | Economic downturn caused by overspeculation of western lands, railroads, gold in California, grain. Mostly affected northerners, who called for higher tariffs and free homesteads | |
| 286298753 | Lincoln-Douglas debates | 1858 Senate Debate, Lincoln forced Douglas to debate issue of slavery, Douglas supported pop-sovereignty, Lincoln asserted that slavery should not spread to territories, Lincoln emerged as strong Republican candidate | |
| 286298754 | Freeport Doctrine | Doctrine developed by Stephen Douglas that said the exclusion of slavery in a territory could be determined by the refusal of the voters to enact any laws that would protect slave property. It was unpopular with Southerners, and thus cost him the election. | |
| 286298755 | Harpers Ferry raid | John Brown plans to start a slave uprising, so he steals weapons at Harpers Ferry and is stopped by U.S. Marines where he is captured | |
| 286298756 | Constitutional Union Party | Political party that recognized "no political principles other than the constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws." | |
| 286298757 | Crittenden Compromise | 1860 - attempt to prevent Civil War by Senator Crittenden - offered a CONSTITUTIONAL AMMENDMENT recognizing slavery in the territories south of the 36º30' line, noninterference by Congress with existing slavery, and compensation to the owners of fugitive slaves - defeated by Republicans |
