Terms : Hide Images
| 554307330 | free-soil movement | opposed the expansion of slavery in new states (particularly out west) ; subcatagory of the Republican party who were also abolitionists ; popular during the late antebellum period ; Abe Lincoln was the most influential person of this political party | |
| 554307331 | free soil party | Formed in 1847 - 1848, dedicated to opposing slavery in newly acquired territories such as Oregon and ceded Mexican territory. | |
| 554307332 | conscience Whigs | anti-slavery Whigs who opposed both the Texas annexation and the Mexican war on moral grounds. | |
| 554307333 | "barnburners" | Conscience Whigs and Free-soilers were known as this; their defection threatened to destroy the Democratic Party | |
| 554307334 | 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 | |
| 554307335 | Lewis Cass | He was nominated as President after Polk and he evolved a doctrine of popular sovereignty. He argued that slavery should be kept out of Congress and left to the people. | |
| 554307336 | Henry Clay | United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852) | |
| 554307337 | Zachary Taylor | 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. | |
| 554307338 | Compromise of 1850 | Includes California admitted as a free state, the Fugitive Slave Act, Made popular sovereignty in most other states from Mexican- American War | |
| 554307339 | Stephen A. Douglass | A Democratic Senator from Illinois who debated Abraham Lincoln during his run for Senator in the Lincoln-Douglass Debates. He was an avid supporter of the Compromise of 1850, supported popular sovereignty, he rescued Clay's faltering compromise, he divided the compromise into 5 parts to he could mobilize a majority for each issue separately | |
| 554307340 | Millard Fillmore | Successor of President Zachary Taylor after his death on July 9th 1850. He helped pass the Compromise of 1850 by gaining the support of Northern Whigs for the compromise. | |
| 554307341 | Fugitive Slave Laws | a law enacted as part of the compromise of 1850 designed to ensure that escaped slaves would be returned into bondage | |
| 554307342 | Underground Railroads | A system of escape routes to the north. Virtual freedom train that was a chain of "stations" (antislavery homes) through which scores of "passengers" (runaway slaves) were spirited by "conductors" (white/black abolitionists) from the slvae states to the free soil of Canada. | |
| 554307343 | Harriet Tubman | United States abolitionist born a slave on a plantation in Maryland and became a famous conductor on the Underground Railroad leading other slaves to freedom in the North (1820-1913) | |
| 554307344 | 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. | |
| 554307345 | 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. | |
| 554307346 | 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 | |
| 554307347 | The Impending Crisis | A controversial book. written by Hinton Helper, that used statistics to argue that the non-slaveholding whites were the ones that were suffering from slavery. This book was banned in the south, but the republican party used it as campaign material in the north | |
| 554307348 | George Fitzhugh | Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society,The most influential propagandist in the decade before the Civil War. In his Sociology (1854), he said that the capitalism of the North was a failure. In another writing he argued that slavery was justified when compared to the cannibalistic approach of capitalism. Tried to justify slavery. | |
| 554307349 | Sociology for the South | George Fitzhugh; book supported slavery | |
| 554307350 | Franklin Pierce | 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. | |
| 554307351 | Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 | 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. | |
| 554307352 | Know-Nothing Party | Group of prejudice people who formed a political party during the time when the KKK grew. Anti-Catholics and anti-foreign. They were also known as the American Party. | |
| 554307353 | Republican Party | Political party that believed in the non-expansion of slavery and comprised of Whigs, Northern Democrats, and Free-Soilers, in defiance to the Slave Powers | |
| 554307354 | John C Frémont | 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. | |
| 554307355 | James Buchanan | The 15th President of the United States (1857-1861). 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 on December 20, 1860. | |
| 554307356 | New England Emigrant Aid Company | Antislavery organization in the North that sent out thousands of pioneers to the Kansas-Nebraska territory to thwart the Southerners and abolitionize the West. | |
| 554307357 | "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. | |
| 554307358 | 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 | |
| 554307359 | Pottawatomie creek | John Brown rode with 4 sons & 2 others to Pottawatomie Creek; dragged 5 proslavery settlers from beds and murdered them | |
| 554307360 | Sumner-Brooks incident | Sumner was an MA senator and unyielding foe of slavery. He was physically attacked by Senator Brooks of SC in retaliation for a two-day speech made denouncing the proslavery Missourians who had crossed into Kansas and Brook's pro-slavery uncle who supported the Missourians- showed the split of the government | |
| 554307361 | Lecompton constitution | 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. | |
| 554307362 | Dred Scott v. Standford | landmark supreme court decision which confirmed that status of slaves as property rather than citizens, and therefore the case was thrown out by Chief Justice Roger B Taney | |
| 554307363 | Roger Taney | chief justice of the supreme court who wrote an opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that declared the Missouri compromise unconstitutional | |
| 554307364 | Abraham Lincoln | 16th President of the United States saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865) | |
| 554307365 | 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 | |
| 554307366 | House-Divided Speech | made by Abraham Lincoln before he was elected stating that the United States will either be all slave or all free because it can't be half and half and still succeed. | |
| 554307367 | Freeport Doctrine | Idea authored by Stephen Douglas that claimed slavery could only exist when popular sovereignty said so | |
| 554307368 | Harpers Ferry raid | Brown's idea to use guns from the arsenal to arm VA slaves whom he expected to rise and revolt; federal troops under Robert E. Lee captured Brown and his band after a two-day siege; Brown and his followers were killed; a martyr to the North, a rebel and radical to the South | |
| 554307369 | Election of 1860 | Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery. As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union. | |
| 554307370 | secession | the withdrawal of eleven Southern states from the Union in 1860 which precipitated the American Civil War | |
| 554307371 | Crittenden Compromise | 1860 - attempt to prevent Civil War by Senator Crittenden - offered a Constitutional amendment 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 | |
| 554307372 | manifest destiny | This term spread across the land as the rallying cry for westward expansion. This phrase expressed the popular belief that the United States had a divine mission to extend its power and civilization across the breadth of North America. Enthusiasm for expansion reached a fever pitch in the 1840s. It was driven by many forces: nationalism, population increase, rapid economic development, technological advances, and reform ideas. However, all Americans were not united under this ideal | |
| 554307373 | Texas | Mexican northern frontier province, which had just won its national independence from Spain in 1823. Mexico then hoped to attract settlers - even Anglo settlers - to farm in this sparsely populated area | |
| 554307374 | Stephen Austin | Son of Moses Austin, a Missouri banker, who had obtained a large land grant in Texas but died before he could carry out his plan to recruit American settlers for this land. His son then had succeeded in bringing 300 families into Texas and thereby beginning a steady migration of American settlers into the vast frontier territory. By 1830, Americans outnumbered the Mexicans in Texas by three to one | |
| 554307375 | Antonio López de Santa Anna | In 1834, he made himself dictator of Mexico and abolished that nation's federal system of government | |
| 554307376 | Sam Houston | Led a group of American settlers and revolted and declared Texas to be an independent republic (March 1836), when Santa Anna insisted on enforcing Mexico's laws in Texas | |
| 554307377 | Alamo | A Mexican army led by Santa Anna captured the town of Goliad and attacked this city in San Antonio, killing every one of its American defenders | |
| 554307378 | Battle of the San Jacinto River | Battle in which an army under Sam Houston caught the Mexicans by surprise and captured their general, Santa Anna. Under the threat of death, he was forced to sign a treaty that recognized Texas' independence and granted the new republic all territory north of the Rio Grande. When the news of this battle reached Mexico City, however, the Mexican legislature rejected the treaty and insisted that Texas was still part of Mexico | |
| 554307379 | John Tyler | The president (1841-1845) after Martin Van Buren, who was a southern Whig, and was worried about the growing influence of the British in Texas. He worked to annex Texas, but the U.S. Senate rejected his treaty of annexation in 1844 | |
| 554307380 | Aroostook War | Also known as the "battle of the maps", this war sought to resolve the conflict over the ill-defined boundary between Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. At this time, Canada was still under British rule, and many Americans regarded Britain as their country's worst enemy - an attitude carried over from 2 previous wars (the Revolution and the War of 1812). A conflicted between rival groups of lumbermen on the Maine-Canadian border erupted into open fighting | |
| 554307381 | Webster-Ashburton Treaty | The conflict, known as the Aroostook War was resolved with this treaty in 1842. This was negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster and the British ambassador, Lord Alexander Ashburton. In this treaty, the disputed territory was split between Maine and British Canada. It also settled the boundary of the Minnesota territory, leaving what proved to be the iron-rich Mesabi range on the U.S. side of the border | |
| 554307382 | Oregon Territory | A vast territory on the Pacific Coast that originally stretched as far north as the Alaskan border. At one time, this territory was claimed by four different nations: Spain, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. A serious dispute, however, developed over this territory between Britain and the United States. Britain based its claim to Oregon on the Hudson Fur Company's profitable fur trade with the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. By 1846, however, there were fewer than a thousand Britishers living north of the Columbia River. The U.S. based its claim to on (1) the discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Robert Gray in 1792, (2) the overland expedition to the Pacific Coast by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805, and (3) the fur trading post and fort in Astoria, Oregon, established by John Jacob Astor in 1811. Manifest destiny clearly applied to this territory | |
| 554307383 | Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 | Treaty in which Spain gave up its claim to Oregon to the United States | |
| 554307384 | Fifty-four Forty or Fight! | The Democratic slogan which appealed strongly to American westerners and southerners who in 1844 were in an expansionist mood. It referred to the line of latitude that marked the border between the Oregon Territory and Russian Alaska. However, President Polk backed down from this slogan and was willing to settle for just the southern half of Oregon. The British and American negotiators agreed to divide it at the 49th parallel | |
| 554307385 | James K. Polk | Also known as a dark horse (lesser known candidate), this man chosen in the Democratic nomination. He had been a protegé of Andrew Jackson. Firmly committed to expansion and manifest destiny, he favored the annexation of Texas, the "reoccupation" of all of Oregon, and the acquisition of California | |
| 554307386 | Rio Grande | The Mexico-Texas border that was asserted by Polk and Slidell, which was further south than the Nueces River | |
| 554307387 | Nueces River | The Mexico-Texas border according to the Mexican government | |
| 554307388 | Mexican War | The war between Mexico and the U.S. (1846-1847), which started because of Polk's order to General Zachary Taylor to move his army toward the Rio Grande across territory claimed by Mexico. On April 24, 1846, a Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande and captured an American army patrol, killing 11. Polk used the incident to send his already prepared war message to Congress. However, this incident was opposed by northern Whigs as a legitimate reason to go to war because American blood had not been shed on American soil | |
| 554307389 | Zachary Taylor | General who was ordered by Polk to move his army toward the Rio Grande across territory claimed by Mexico. In February 1847, he won a major victory at Buena Vista after crossing the Rio Grande into northern Mexico with a force of 6,000 men | |
| 554307390 | Stephen Kearney | General who led a force which never exceeded 1,500, and succeeded in taking Santa Fe, the New Mexico territory, and southern California | |
| 554307391 | Winfield Scott | General who invaded central Mexico. The army of 14,000 under his command succeeded in taking the coastal city of Vera Cruz and then captured Mexico City in Sept. 1847 | |
| 554307392 | John C. Frémont | American military officer who quickly overthrew Mexican rule in northern California (June 1846) and proclaimed California to be an independent republic. He was backed by only several dozen soldiers, a few navy officers, and American civilians who had recently settled in California | |
| 554307393 | Bear Flag Republic | The independent republic of California which has a bear on its flag | |
| 554307394 | Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo | The treaty negotiated in Mexico by American diplomat Nicholas Trist who provided for the following: (1) Mexico would recognize the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas, and (2) The United States would take possession of the former provinces of California and New Mexico. For these territories, the U.S. would pay $15 million and assume the claims of American citizens against Mexico. In the Senate, some Whigs opposed it because they saw the war as an immoral effort to expand slavery. A few southern Democrats dislike the treaty because they wanted the U.S. to take all of Mexico | |
| 554307395 | Mexican Cession | The former Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico, which were given to the U.S. as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo | |
| 554307396 | Wilmot Proviso | In 1846, the first year of war, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposed an amendment to an appropriations bill to forbid slavery in any of the new territories acquired form Mexico. It passed the House twice but was defeated in the Senate. Some view it as the first round in an escalating political conflict that led ultimately to civil war | |
| 554307397 | Franklin Pierce | Elected to the presidency in 1852, he adopted pro-southern policies and dispatched 3 American diplomats to Ostend, Belgium, where they secretly negotiated to buy Cuba from Spain | |
| 554307398 | Ostend Manifesto | Drawn up by the diplomats sent to Ostend, where they secretly negotiated to buy Cuba from Spain. It later got leaked to the press in the United States and provoked an angry reaction from antislavery members of Congress. President Pierce was forced to drop the scheme; (1852) | |
| 554307399 | Walker Expedition | Southern adventurer William Walker had tried unsuccessfully to take Baja California from Mexico in 1853. Finally, leading a force mostly of southerners, he took over Nicaragua in 1855. His regime even gained temporary recognition from the United States in 1856. Walker's grandiose scheme to develop a proslavery Central American empire collapsed, however, when a coalition of Central American countries invaded and defeated him. He was executed by Honduran authorities | |
| 554307400 | Clayton-Bulwer Treaty | 1850 treaty between Britain and the United States, which provided that neither nation would attempt to take exclusive control of any future canal route in Central America. This treaty continued in force until the end of the century | |
| 554307401 | Gadsden Purchase | 1853 purchase, in which Pierce added a strip of land to the American Southwest for a railroad. In 1853, Mexico had agreed to sell thousands of acres of semi-desert land to the United States for $10 million. The land forms the southern sections of New Mexico and Arizona | |
| 554307402 | Great American Desert | The arid area between the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Coast. Emigrants passed over this region to reach the more inviting lands on the West Coast | |
| 554307403 | mountain men | Fur traders who were the earliest nonnative group to open the Far West. In the 1820s, they held yearly rendezvous in the Rockies with Native Americans to trade for animal skins | |
| 554307404 | Far West | Pacific states that were the focus of Manifest Destiny: California, Oregon, Texas, etc. | |
| 554307405 | overland trails | The long and arduous trek which usually began in St. Joseph or Independence, Missouri, or in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and followed the river valleys through the Great Plains. These trails were followed by large groups of pioneers who took the hazardous journey west in hopes of clearing the forests and farming the fertile valleys of California and Oregon. 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 get through the mountain passes of the Sierras and Cascades before the first heavy snow. A wagon train inched westward at an average rate of only 15 miles a day. Far more serious than any threat of attack by Indians were the daily experience of disease and depression from harsh conditions on the trail | |
| 554307406 | mining frontier | The discovery of gold in CA 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 Western mountains | |
| 554307407 | gold rush | Migration to California (1848-1850) because of the discovery of gold | |
| 554307408 | silver rush | Miners rused to Coloroado, Nevado, the Black Hills of the Dakotas, and other western states to search for silver | |
| 554307409 | farming frontier | The area which pioneer families sought to start homesteads and begin farming. The government made it easier for settlers to move here. However, the move was mainly for the middle-class. The isolation of this area made life for pioneers especially difficult during the first years, but rural communities soon developed. | |
| 554307410 | urban frontier | Western cities that arose as a result of railroads, mineral wealth, and farming. This attracted a number of professionals and businesspersons (e.g. San Francisco, Denver, and Salt Lake City) | |
| 554307411 | industrial technology | This was a result of the period of economic growth from the 1840s to 1857. Before 1840, factory production had mainly been concentrated in the textile mills of New England. After 1840, industrialization spread rapidly to the other states of the Northeast. The new factories produced shoes, sewing machines, ready-to-wear clothing, firearms, precision tools, and iron products for railroads and other new technologies | |
| 554307412 | Elias Howe | Inventor of the sewing machine who took much of the production of clothing out of the home into the factory | |
| 554307413 | Samuel F. B. Morse | Inventor of a successful electric telegraph (1844) which went hand in hand with the growth of railroads in enormously speeding up communication and transportation across the country | |
| 554307414 | railroads | These soon emerged as America's largest industry and replaced canals. They required immense amounts of capital and labor and gave rise to complete business organizations. Local merchants and farmers would often buy stocks in the new companies in order to connect their area to the outside world. Local and state governments also helped them grow by granting special loans and tax breaks. They not only united the common commercial interests of the Northeast and Midwest, but would also give the North strategic advantages in the Civil War | |
| 554307415 | federal land grants | Federal government granted land for railroad companies to build more routes with these. In 1850, the first such grant was given when the U.S. government granted 2.6 million acres of federal land to build the Illinois Central Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico | |
| 554307416 | foreign commerce | Commerce with foreign nations. This was increased as a result of the growth in manufactured goods as well as in agricultural products. Other factors also played a role in the expansion of U.S. trade in the mid-1800s | |
| 554307417 | exports and imports | These grew significantly as a result of the growth in manufactured goods as well as in agricultural products (both western grains and southern cotton) | |
| 554307418 | Matthew C. Perry | Commodore sent to Japan to persuade that country to open up its ports to trade with Americans. In 1854, he convinced Japan's government to agree to a treaty that opened two Japanese ports to U.S. trading vessels | |
| 554307419 | Japan | The country which opened up 2 ports to U.S. trading vessels because of Commodore Perry's influence | |
| 554307420 | Panic of 1857 | Financial panic which ended the mid-century economic boom. There was a serious drop in prices, especially for midwestern farmers, and increased unemployment in northern cities. The South were less affected, for cotton prices remained high. This fact gave some southerners the idea that their plantation economy was superior |
