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US History

This is a survey course that provides students with an investigation of important political, economic, and social developments in American history from the pre-colonial time period to the present day. Students will be engaged in activities that call upon their skills as historians (i.e. recognizing cause and effect relationships, various forms of research, expository and persuasive writing, reading of primary and secondary sources, comparing and contrasting important ideas and events).

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Zachary Taylor

Taylor was a general and hero of the Mexican-American war. He was elected to the presidency in 1848, representing the Whig party. He was a good soldier but a poor administrator. He was in office during the crisis of California's admittance to the Union but died in office before a compromise could be worked out, and left vice president Filmore to finalize a deal between the hostile north and south.

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Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce was elected president in the 1852 election as the second Democratic "dark horse." He was a pro-southern northerner who supported the Compromise of 1850 and especially the Fugitive Slave Law. He also tried to gain Cuba for the South as a slave state, but was stopped because of Northern public opinion after the incident in Ostend, Belgium. He also supported the dangerous Kansas-Nebraska Act pushed for by Senator Douglas. He was succeeded in 1856 by James Buchanan.

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Stephen Douglas

Stephen Douglas took over for Henry Clay in the Compromise of 1850. Clay could not get the compromised passed because neither party wanted to pass it as a whole since they would be passing things for the opposite party as well as their own. Douglas split the compromise up to get it passed.

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Lewis Cass

Named father of "popular sovereignty." Ran for president in 1848 but Gen. Taylor won. The north was against Cass because popular sovereignty made it possible for slavery to spread.

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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.

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Aroostook War

It was over the Maine boundary dispute. The British wanted to build a road from Halifax to Quebec. It ran through land already claimed by Maine. Fights started on both sides and they both got their local militia. It could have been a war, but it never proceeded that far.

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Creole (1841)

an American ship captured by 130 Virginian slaves in the Bahamas. British officials offered refuge to these slaves because there was immense tension between the Americans and British. Other acts of unlawful invasion had occurred because of the British and the possibility of yet another US/ England War was at large.

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Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo

Mexico sold the United States all of the southwest for 15 million dollars in agreement that the rights and religion of the Mexican inhabitants of this land would be recognized by the United States government. It was drawn up by Nicholas P. Trist and sent to congress. The anti slavery congressmen passed the treaty and signed it on February 2nd, 1848.

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Bear Flag Revolt

a revolt from Fort Devenworth to Santa Fe; 1846; John C. Frement- Americans in California wanted to be independent of Mexican rule; when the war with Mexico begin these Californians revolted and established an independent republic; hoisted short lived California Bear Flag Republic

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