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| 416509907 | Panic of 1837 | Ecnomic downturn caused by loose lending practices of stat banks' and overspeculation. Martin Van Buren spent most of his time in office attempting to stablize and lessen the economic situation (under Jackson who ordered backing by gold or silver) | |
| 416509908 | Manifest Destiny | belief that the U.S. was destined to secure territory from "sea to sea," from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This rationale drove the acquisition of territory. | |
| 416509909 | Mexican-American War | after Mexican refusal to sell California-New Mexico region, Polk sent troops and it ended w/ Treat of Guadalupe-Hidalgo...we got 55% of Mexico...annexation of TX | |
| 416509910 | Mormons | religious group that migrated to Utah to escape religious persecution | |
| 416509911 | California Gold Rush | 1848 gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. These early gold-seekers, called "forty-niners," traveled to California by sailing boat and in covered wagons across the continent, often facing substantial hardships on the trip. San Francisco grew from a small settlement to a boomtown, and roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. A system of laws and a government were created, leading to the admission of California as a state in 1850 | |
| 416509912 | Mr. Polk's War | the war with Mexico had mixed views throughout the Union. It was popular in the Mississippi Valley, but it was called Mr. Polk's War in the northeast. Whigs generally opposed the war, but party members in Congress voted to support the America soldiers and marines during the fighting. Abraham Lincoln believed Polk rushed the country into war over disputed territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. His views were not popular and he chose not to run for reelection as a Whig congressman. | |
| 416509913 | Wilmot Proviso | Dispute over whether any Mexican territory that America won during the Mexican War should be free or a slave territory. A representative named David Wilmot introduced an amendment stating that any territory acquired from Mexico would be free. This amendment passed the House twice, but failed to ever pass in Senate. The "Wilmot Proviso", as it became known as, became a symbol of how intense dispute over slavery was in the U.S. | |
| 416509914 | Donner Party | in 1846 a group of 87 overlanders, known as this party after the two brothers who lead them, were trapped by winter snows high up in the sierra nevada. after 41 died of starvation, those alive faced the choice of death or cannibalism, many resorted to cannibalism. | |
| 416509915 | Comprimise of 1850 | bunch of bills (Henry Clay) passed separately; Cali becomes a free state, territorial gov't to be established in NM and UT.. border with TX settled. | |
| 416509916 | Popular Sovereignty | people hold the final authority in all matters of government | |
| 416568572 | Revision of the Fugitive Slave Act | ticks off North; it is punishable to not help Southerner who is missing a slave. Also, Northerners must give a horse to S.'s if they need one. Also enables federally mandated judges to decide whether or not a slave was a runaway | |
| 416568573 | Uncle Tom's Cabin | Novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe about a slave who's ordered to be beaten to death by two other slaves. Showed northerners the horrors of slavery while southerners attack it as an exaggeration, it was also a cause of the Civil War. | |
| 416568574 | Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) | created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries. | |
| 416568575 | Bleeding Kansas (1856) | 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. | |
| 416568576 | Bleeding Sumner | When Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts denounced "the crime against Kansas" in a widely publicized speech, a member of Congress from South Carolina, Preston Brooks, attacked him on the Senate floor and beat him senseless with a cane. | |
| 416568577 | new Republican party | Formed by antislavery Whigs and Democrats (also free-soilers and know-nothings) | |
| 416568578 | Sack of Lawrence | (May 1856) an attack, led by pro-slavery men, on abolitionists living in the city of Lawrence, Kansas; these pro-slavery men were sent to arrest antislavery leaders in Lawrence and in the process, they (the pro-slavery men) burned the town, robbed many buildings, and destroyed printing presses used to print abolitionist newspapers | |
| 416568579 | John Brown | violent abolitionist who murdered slaveholders in Kansas and Missouri (1856-1858) before his raid at Harpers Ferry (1859), hoping to incite a slave rebellion; he failed and was executed, but his martyrdom by northern abolitionists frightened the South. | |
| 416568580 | Pottawatomie Creek | John Brown rode with 4 sons & 2 others to Pottawatomie Creek; dragged 5 proslavery settlers from beds and murdered them | |
| 416568581 | 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. | |
| 416576849 | Preston Brooks | Responsible for beating radical republican Charles Sumner with his cane | |
| 416576850 | Dred Scott | A Missouri slave who had been taken north to work in free territory for several years. After he returned with his slaveholder to MIssouri, Scott sued to end his slavery arguing that living in free territory made him a free man. Supreme court ruled against Scott. Stating that he was not a U.S. citizen and that gave him no right to sue in federal court. And said that the 5th amendment protected slaveholders from being deprived of their property. | |
| 416576851 | Harper's Ferry | place where John Brown attacked a federal armory to steal weapons to fight slave owners | |
| 416576852 | 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. | |
| 416576853 | Gag rule | 1835 law passed by Southern congress which made it illegal to talk of abolition or anti-slavery arguments in Congress | |
| 416576854 | Secession | the withdrawal of eleven Southern states from the Union in 1860 which precipitated the American Civil War | |
| 416576855 | 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 | |
| 416576856 | Confederate States of America | a republic formed in February of 1861 and composed of the eleven Southern states that seceded from the United States | |
| 416576857 | Fort Sumter | Site of the opening engagement of the Civil War. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and had demanded that all federal property in the state be surrendered to state authorities. Major Robert Anderson concentrated his units at Fort Sumter, and, when Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, Sumter was one of only two forts in the South still under Union control. Learning that Lincoln planned to send supplies to reinforce the fort, on April 11, 1861, Confederate General Beauregard demanded Anderson's surrender, which was refused. On April 12, 1861, the Confederate Army began bombarding the fort, which surrendered on April 14, 1861. Congress declared war on the Confederacy the next day. | |
| 416576858 | Major Robert Anderson | Union army officer, who is known for his command of Fort Sumter at the start of the war. |
