HST 202 Final Exam [Key Terms & Essay Questions]

Cotton Economy

Identity - Began in the Late 18th century through the 19th century, in the cotton-producing region of the South: spanning from North Carolina to Louisianna all the way to Sothern Illinois. - Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793, allowed cotton to be produced in less time and resulted in the South establishing a national and international market. - Short-staple cotton was difficult to clean, so the South expanded slavery in the 19th century Significance - The South became the most commercially oriented region of the US - The South established an agrarian, slave-based social order

Charles Deslondes

Identity - Haitian born slave brought to Louisiana. He was a slave driver at the Woodland Plantation - The leader of the 1811 German Coast Uprising on the banks of the Mississippi - '"Mulato" being of mixed race, and was favored on his plantation by his owners. Significance - Deslondes led the largest slave revolt in American History, challenging the expansion of American authority in the Southwest and challenged the economic system of plantations - The US federal government and the French teamed up to stop Deslondes' Rebellion - The slave revolt was so close to being successful because they were ethnically diverse, politically stable and highly organized.

Planter Class

Identity - Planters were classified as plantations owning 20 or more slaves. Fewer than 40,000 families qualified. - Planters held the majority of slaves, controlled the most fertile land, and enjoyed the highest incomes - Dominated state and local offices and the leadership of both political parties Significance - The planter's values and aspirations dominated Southern life -

"National" Democrats

Identity - - - Significance - -

Baltimore Convention

Identity - - - Significance - -

Freedpeople

Identity - - - Significance - -

Hawai'ian Annexation

Identity - - - Significance - -

John C. Fremont

Identity - - - Significance - -

household economy

Identity - - - Significance - -

James K. Polk

Identity - 11th president of the United States won the election against Whig, Henry Clay. He was the Democratic, dark horse candidate. - The former governor of Tennessee - Declared war on Mexico in 1846 after they refused to sell Significance - Polk championed Manifest Destiny through the Mexican War. He secured California, Oregan, New Mexico and additional states. - He reduced tariffs, settled the despute over the ownership of Oregon between Great Britain by dividing Oregon at the 49th parallel, and he reestablished the independent US Treasury

John C. Breckinridge

Identity - 14th President of the United States - Confederate general during the Civil War (1851-1855) - Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1850, he allied with Stephen A. Douglas in support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Significance - When the Democratic party split, he represented the Southern portion of the party who supported slavery - lost Election of 1860 against Lincoln

California Statehood

Identity - 31st State of the US - Joined the Union officially in September of 1850 thanks to the Compromise of 1850, but was purchased/won from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 - Significance - The Gold Rush brought thousands of fortune seekers from all around the globe. The Gold Rush resulted in the decrease of the Indian population -

Andrew Jackson

Identity - 7th President of the US and former Tennessee Senator - Fought in Revolutionary War and War of 1812 - Creator of the modern democratic party, a party for the "common man" against the aristocratic rule and in favor of unionism. Significance - Jackson implemented the Indian Removal Act in 1830 law signed by that permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain the Indians' lands in exchange for their relocation to what would become Oklahoma. This resulted in the western expansion of the US and the Trail of Tears in which thousands of Native Americans died while being relocated. - Jackson opposed nullification and the Bank of the United States because he was pro unionism and felt an independent treasury was unfair to the common man

Martin Van Buren

Identity - 8th President of the US and helped form the Democratic Party (former Jeffersonian Republicans) - Martin Van Buren proposed the establishment of an independent treasury to handle the federal fundsthat had been moved to state banks and cut off all federal government expenditures in order to ensure the government would remain solvent - He strongly opposed the recharter of the Bank of the US Significance - Panic of 1837 - was a free soiler

Pres. Ulysses S. Grant

Identity - A United States general and commander of the Union during the later years of the Civil War - 18th President of the United States - Ratified the 15th Amendment Significance - A primary focus of Grant's administration was Reconstruction, and he worked to reconcile the North and South while also attempting to protect the civil rights of newly freed black slaves, but he failed and the South redeemed control and disregarded the terms of reconstruction - Led the Union to victory in the Civil War

40 Acres and a Mule

Identity - A phrase echoed throughout the South in the aftermath of the Civil War, asserting the right of newly freed African Americans to redistributed lands—particularly those plantations confiscated by U.S. troops during the war—as compensation for unpaid labor during slavery. - The idea originated from former black union soldiers getting confiscated/abandoned land or and military mules after the Civil War - would allow slaves to own their own land and grow crops for personal and capital use. Significance - The phrase "forty acres and a mule" evokes the Federal government's failure to redistribute land after the Civil War and the economic hardship that African Americans suffered as a result. As Northern armies moved through the South at the end of the war, blacks began cultivating land abandoned by whites. - Andrew Johnson refused to take land from former Confederates to give to freed slaves, so slaves were not granted reparations and were forced to sharecrop

Anti-Masons

Identity - A political party created in 1828 - Was the first 3rd party in the United States and was an alternative to the Democratic and Republican Parties - Went through a period of political realignment during the presidency of Adams Significance - Many of this party's supporters joined the Whig Party in opposition to the Jacksonian coalition -The party eventually disappeared and most of the reform was taken over by anti-slavery agitation

The Liberator

Identity - Abolitionist news periodical - Created by William Lloyd Garrison - Produced weekly by 1830-65 Significance - Most influential anti-slavery periodical of the pre-Civil War period - Slaveholders assumed he reflected the northerners beliefs by defending slavery and by legislating more measures for opposition

Abraham Lincoln

Identity - Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. - Lincoln suspended some civil liberties, including the right of habeas corpus - Lincoln delivered his famous "house divided" speech llustrating his belief that "this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free." Significance - Lincoln ordered a fleet of Union ships to supply South Carolina's Fort Sumter in April, the Confederates fired on both the fort and the Union fleet, beginning the Civil War. - Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, and freed all of the slaves in the rebellious states but left those in the border states (loyal to the Union) in bondage.

Akan Culture

Identity - African culture dominant in the lower Guinea Region - Kook and Quamana were from the Akan tribe - Men of the Akan tribe were skilled fighters/warriors Significance - Because of Kook and Quamana's combat training being males of the Akan culture, they were well suited to attack during Deslondes Rebellion of 1811 and were leaders alongside Deslondes in the revolt. - African slaves had a culture and life before being captured that influenced how they reacted to slavery.

Panic of 1837

Identity - An economic collapse of the United States that followed a depression that lasted to 1843. - Prices fell by 25% in the first year and businesses throughout the country failed and many farmers lost their land. - A result of the government selling 20 million acres of federal land in 1836, and the government only accepting gold and silver as payment for public land. Significance: - States amended their constitutions to prohibit legislatures from borrowing money, issuing corporate charters and buying stock in private enterprises. - The Jacksonians succeeded in separating the government (both federal and state) from the economy.

Manifest Destiny

Identity - An idea first introduced in 1845 to urge the annexation of Texas - The United States' divine right to expand westward and occupy the land of North American from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans - Began with the Louisianna Purchase then continued with Texas entering the Union, The Oregon territory, the Mexican war, and eventually conflicting ideas on race and territory led to the Civil War. Significance - The US expanded from having North American territory ranging from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans - Land Westward and along the Great Plains was taken away from the Native Americans and was justified by the US's divine right to land and implemented by the Indian Removal Act.

The Age of the Common Man

Identity - Andrew Jackson campaigns as a champion of the common man, and become president in 1829. - - Significance - Changes in state constitutions also led to more people being allowed to vote. For example, you no longer had to be a wealthy landowner. -

Election of 1828

Identity - Andrew Jackson was elected the 7th President of the US. Won the election against Republican John Quincy Adams - By 1828, voters, not the legislature, chose presidential electors in every state except South Carolina - The election results were a clear victory for Jackson, but were highly sectional in nature. Significance - Jackson's election was the first to demonstrate how the advent of universal white male voting, organized by national political parties, had transformed American politics. -

John C. Calhoun

Identity - Andrew Jackson's Vice Presidents - Helped John Quincy Adams establish the Second Bank of the United States - opposed the Tariff of Abomination of 1828, believing that it only benefited the North because the tariff raised taxes on imported manufactured goods made of wool as well as on raw materials. Significance - Calhoun drafted the Exposition and Protest on behalf of North Carolina protesting the Tariff of Abominations, introduced the idea of nullification and advocated states rights - His beliefs and creation of nullification influenced the Southand became the basis for South Carolina's Nullification Doctrine of 1833.

Colfax Massacre

Identity - Angered by the 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices, a group of white Democrats overpowered Republican freedmen and state militia (also black) occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax killing 150 blacks - Showed Reconstruction failed because of the harsh intimidation and violent tactics by white southerners - Black voters and former Union soldiers were now Rebuplicans and political figures Significance - Through the creation of the Democratic Party, white Southerners used intimidation and murder to end Reconstruction and gain control of the South. - All the efforts of Reconstruction were overturned and Blacks' newly granted rights such as the right to vote were no longer honored in the South

Shiloh

Identity - The Battle of Shiloh was a battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6-7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. - Union Victory - Significance - -

George B. McClellan

Identity - Army engineer who assumed command of the Union's Army of the Potomac in the wake of Bull Run - McClellan reticence to attack the Confederacy with the full force of his army put him at odds with Lincoln. - In 1862, McClellan's Peninsula Campaign unraveled after the Seven Days Battles, and he also failed to decisively defeat Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army at the Battle of Antietam. Significance - He was reluctant to commit his man to battle, since he tended to overestimate the size of enemy forces. And as a Democrat, he hoped that compromise might end the war without large-scale loss of life or a weakening of slavery. -

The Bank War

Identity - Bank War Political struggle in the early 1830s between President Jackson and financier Nicholas Biddle over the renewing of the Second Bank's charter. - Heading the Bank was Nicholas Biddle of Pennsylvania, who during the 1820s had effectively used the institution's power to curb the overissuing of money by local banks and to create a stable currency throughout the nation. - Significance - The Bank War reflected how Jackson enhanced the power of the presidency during his eight years in office, proclaiming himself the symbolic representative of all the people. - Jackson was the first president to use the veto power as a major weapon and to appeal directly to the public for political support, over the head of Congress.

Vicksburg

Identity - Battle of The fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, to General Ulysses S. Grant's army on July 4, 1863, after two months of siege; a turning point in the war because it gave the Union control of the Mississippi River. - Vicksburg was one of the Union's most successful campaigns of the war. - Significance - The simultaneous defeats at Gettysburg and the Battle of Vicksburg dealt a heavy blow to southern morale. - Union forces had complete control of the Mississippi River and had in effect cut the Confederacy in two. Confederate forces in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were now isolated from the rest of the South.

Virginia Debates (1832)

Identity - Because of the waves of shock, the South experienced after the Nat Turner Rebellion, Virginia leaders openly debated whether steps ought to be taken to do away with the "peculiar institution." - The proposal for Virginia to gradually emancipate and remove the black population from the state failed to win legal approval. - Instead of gradually emancipating slaves, Virginia legislature of 1832 decided to establish stricter slave regulations Significance - Virginia created new laws prohibiting blacks, free or slave, from acting as preachers, strengthed the militia and patrol systems, banned free blacks from owning firearms, and prohibited teaching slaves to read. -

Blanche K. Bruce

Identity - Blanche Kelso Bruce became the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate, as well as the first African American to preside over the Senate. - Mississippi Senator - Significance - During his term, he attempted to desegregate the U.S. Army and in 1878 became chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company. -

Kook

Identity - Born around 1790, in the lower Guinea region, the Oyo Empire in the kingdom of Dahomey. - Kook was captured and sold into slavery at the age of 15 for around $700 - One of the leaders of the largest slave revolts in US history, alongside Deslondes and Quamana. Significance - Was an Asante warrior before forced into slavery, making him a skilled fighter and a major strategist in Deslondes' Rebellion of 1811 - Revolutionary in the struggle for slave emancipation

abolitionists

Identity - Both black and white races who opposed the institution of slavery - White abolitionists launched legal and political battles against racial discrimination in the North - Notable abolitionists are Fredrick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, and many others Significance - Black abolitionists worked to attack the intellectual foundations of racism, seeking to disprove pseudoscientific arguments for black inferiority. They challenged the prevailing image of Africa as a continent without civilization. Many black abolitionists called on free blacks to seek out skilled and dignified employment in order to demonstrate the race's capacity for advancement. - Abolitionists published literature to expose the harsh truths of slavery and these authors were key figures in the country's divide that eventually led to the Civil War.

1st Bull Run

Identity - Bull Run was the first Battle of The first land engagement of the Civil War which took place on July 21, 1861, at Manassas Junction, Virginia. - Almost 800 men died at Bull Run - The Union's forces were slow in positioning themselves, allowing Confederate reinforcements time to arrive by rail. It was a Confederate victory, followed by a disorganized retreat of the Union forces. Significance - The battle proved to the Union that the Confederates were not going to be as easily defeated -

Civil Rights Act (1875)

Identity - Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last piece of Reconstruction legislation, which outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation such as hotels and theaters. - In the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), white butchers excluded from a state-sponsored monopoly in Louisiana went to court, claiming that their right to equality before the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated - Three years later, in United States v. Cruikshank, the Court gutted the Enforcement Acts by throwing out the convictions of some of those responsible for the Colfax Massacre of 1873. Significance -Many parts of it were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883. -

Adelbert Ames

Identity - Civil War hero who went to Mississippi as a military ruler then became Senator then governor - He was a liberal White Republican - Significance - He pleaded with Washington to send troop to Mississippi during the Reconstruction raids and accurately predicted the outcome if troops weren't sent in - Redeemers took control of Mississippi after Reconstruction failed

Compromise of 1850

Identity - Compromise of 1850 was devised by Senator Henry Clay and admitted California as a free state, including a stronger fugitive slave law, and delayed the determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories. - Legalized the Fugitive Slave Act 1850 law that gave the federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves. - Led to the later creation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act Significance - President Zachary Taylor opposed the compromise, but his death on July 9 allowed vice president Millard Fillmore to pass it. - The Compromise angered the North because they felt their rights would be infringed by having to honor slavery by returning fugitive slaves

Mexican War

Identity - Controversial War with Mexico for control of California and New Mexico, 1846-1848 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo fixed the border at the Rio Grande and extended the US to the Pacific Ocean - President James K Polk sent troops, led by Zachary Taylor, into the Texas/Mexico area after Mexico refused his offer to purchase the region. Significance - First American conflict to be fought primarily on foreign soil and the first in which American troops occupied foreign capital - The US annexed more than a half-million square miles of Mexican Territory (Texas and ceded California and present-day New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah) for $15 million

Franklin Pierce

Identity - Democrat that won the 1852 presidential election against Winfield Scott - Singed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 - Significance - His repeal of the Compromise of 1850 by signing the Kansas-Nebraska act enraged antislavery Northerners and brought about the emergence of the new Republican Party -

Elections of 1856

Identity - Democrats nominated Buchanan, Republicans nominated Fremont, and Know-Nothings chose Fillmore. Buchanan won due to his support of popular sovereignty -Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, on the grounds that such a prohibition would violate the Fifth Amendment rights of slaveholders, and that no black person could be a citizen of the United States - Significance - The 1854 elections revealed a deep seated feeling in favor of human freedom and also a fine determination that hereafter none but Americans shall rule America -

Stephen A. Douglas

Identity - Douglas was an Illinois Democratic Senator that argued that the essence of freedom lay in local self-government and individual self-determination. - Douglas insisted that popular sovereignty was not incompatible with the Dred Scott decision. He argued, if the people wished to keep slaveholders out, all they needed to do was refrain from giving the institution legal protection. - Lost the 1860 Presidential Election to Lincoln Significance - Stephen A. Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act which allowed settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over the resulting repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican Party. - His presidential loss led to the split in the Democratic Party and the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, which began the Civil War.

Emancipation Proclamation

Identity - Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln; the preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, freed the slaves in areas under Confederate control as of January 1, 1863, the date of the final proclamation, which also authorized the enrollment of black soldiers into the Union army. - - Significance - While the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. -

XV Amendment

Identity - Fifteenth Amendment Constitutional amendment ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from discriminating in voting privileges on the basis of race. - Amendment ratified by President Grant - Amendment was enforced during the Reconstruction Period of post-Civil War Significance - Allowed newly freed slaves the right to vote - The 15th Amendment opened the door to sufferage restrictions like literacy tests, property qualifications, and poll taxes loop holes not based on race

Free Soil Party

Identity - Formed in 1848 to oppose slavery in the newly acquired territory from the Mexican War. - For thousands of northerners, moreover, the ability to move to the new western territories held out the promise of economic betterment. - Southerners and plantation owners opposed because they wanted the new territories to expand plantations and didn't want blacks to have the same rights as them. Significance - The fact that a former president (Martin Van Buren) and the son of another abandoned their parties to run on a Free Soil platform showed that antislavery sentiment had spread far beyond abolitionist ranks. - The debate between Free Soilers and Pro-slavery Southerners resulted in the Compromise of 1850 in which California is admitted as a free state, stronger fugitive slave law, and delayed determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories.

Ft. Sumter

Identity - Fort Sumter First battle of the Civil War, in which the federal fort in Charleston (South Carolina) Harbor was captured by the Confederates on April 14, 1861, after two days of shelling. - Lincoln strove to ensure that if hostilities did break out, the South, not the Union, would fire the first shot. - The First Battle of Fort Sumter began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery fired on the Union garrison. -Confederate victory Significance - The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first battle of the American Civil War. - The attack on Fort Sumter crystallized in northern minds the direct conflict between freedom and slavery that abolitionists had insisted upon for decades.

XIV Amendment

Identity - Fourteenth Amendment 1868 constitutional amendment that guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. - Amendment was ratified during Andrew Johnson's Presidency - Reconstruction Act 1867 established temporary military governments in ten Confederate states—excepting Tennessee—and required that the states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and permit freedmen to vote. Significance - Black Codes Laws passed from 1865 to 1866 in southern states to restrict the rights of former slaves; to nullify the codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment. - The Fourteenth Amendment offered the leaders of the white South a choice—allow black men to vote and keep their state's full representation in the House of Representatives, or limit the votes to whites and sacrifice their political power.

Francios Trepagnier

Identity - French plantation owner of the German Coast in Louisianna - His son was killed during in 1811 during the Deslondes slave revolt - Significance - The murder of his son led him to start the plantation owner's militia to fight against Deslondes and the revolting slaves. He and the other plantation owners successfully shut down the revolt. - Because of Trepagnier and other plantation owners of the German Coast allowed their slaves such free movement around and on their plantations, it was easy for Deslondes and Kook to execute a large-scale slave revolt without raising suspicion.

Fugitive Slave Act

Identity - Fugitive Slave Act 1850 gave the federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves - aroused considerable opposition in the North. - was one of the terms of the Compromise of 1850 Significance - impacted all free states no just the ones bordering the South - Ralph Waldo Emerson and others viewed the Fugitive Slave Act as a dangerous example of how a government favoring the South can override an individual ability to act according to conscience.

The Gag Rule

Identity - Gag Rule was adopted by the House of Representatives in 1836, prohibiting consideration of abolitionist petitions - The Gag rule was implemented as a result of abolitionists flooding Washington and demanding that the capital emancipate slaves - The Gag Rule was repealed by John Quincy Adams in 1844 Significance - The Gag Rule aroused resentment in the North as it was viewed as a violation of "free opinion"—freedom of speech and of the press and the right of petition. - William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent abolitionist who said the rule's violation of free opinion went agsinst the gospel of freedom, the First Amemndment

George Fitzhugh

Identity - George Fitzhugh published racial and slavery-based sociological theories in the antebellum era. He argued that the negro "is but a grown up child" who needs the economic and social protections of slavery. - - Significance - -

Gettysburg

Identity - Gettysburg Battle fought in southern Pennsylvania, July 1-3, 1863; the Confederate defeat and the simultaneous loss at Vicksburg marked the military turning point of the Civil War. - remains the largest battle ever fought on the North American continent. - Union Victory Significance - The simultaneous defeats at Gettysburg and the Battle of Vicksburg dealt a heavy blow to southern morale. - More than 50,000 men fell as casualties during the 3-day battle, making it the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War. - Lincoln's Address

Lewis Cass

Identity - Governor of Michigan in 1845 - President Buchanan's Secretary of State - The Free Soil Party nominated him as the Democratic candidate against Martin Van Buren Significance - Democrats nominated Lewis Cass of Michigan, who proposed that the decision on whether to allow slavery should be left to settlers in the new territories (an idea later was given the name "popular sovereignty"). -

Wm. Lloyd Garrison

Identity - In 1830 he started an abolitionist paper, The Liberator. In 1832 he helped form the New England Antislavery Society. When the Civil War broke out, he continued to blast the Constitution as a pro-slavery document. - Garrison's pamphlet Thoughts on African Colonization persuaded many foes of slavery that blacks must be recognized as part of American society, not viewed as aliens to be shipped overseas - Significance - Publically spoke out against the Gag Rule of 1836 as it was a violation of the "gospel of freedom" - Used his writings to spread the ideas of abolitionists and convince emanicpation

Ostend Manifesto

Identity - In 1854, Pierre Soulé of Louisiana, the American ambassador to Spain, had persuaded the ministers to Britain and France to join him in signing the Ostend Manifesto - Ostend Manifesto called on the United States to purchase or seize Cuba, where slavery was still legal, from Spain. - document drawn up in 1854 that instructed the buying of Cuba from Spain, then suggested the taking of Cuba by force. It caused outrage among Northerners who felt it was a Southern attempt to extend slavery as states in Cuba would be southern states. Significance - Although it was primarily an attempt to expand U.S. territory, the document also caused uproar against antislavery groups because Cuba was already an established slavery territory - Dispatch urged U.S. seizure of Cuba if the U.S. possessed the power and if Spain refused the sale. This action stemmed both from fear of a slave revolt in Cuba similar to that in Haiti and from a desire to expand U.S. slave territory.

Presidential Reconstruction

Identity - In May 1865, President Johnson issued a series of proclamations that began the period of Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867) to reunite the nation. -Johnson offered a pardon (which restored political and property rights, except for slaves) to nearly all white southerners who took an oath of allegiance to the Union. He excluded Confederate leaders and wealthy planters whose prewar property had been valued at more than $20,000. -Reconstruction Act 1867 law that established temporary military governments in ten Confederate states—excepting Tennessee—and required that the states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and permit freedmen to vote Significance - Opposition to Johnson's Reconstruction policy were the Black Codes, laws passed by the new southern governments that attempted to regulate the lives of the former slaves. These laws granted blacks certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts. But they denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote. - Johnson's Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South

Congressional Reconstruction

Identity - In early 1866, Congressional Republicans, appalled by the mass killing of ex-slaves and adoption of restrictive black codes, seized control of Reconstruction from President Johnson. - The "great Constitutional revolution" of Reconstruction transformed the federal system - The laws and amendments of Reconstruction repudiated the idea that citizenship was an entitlement of whites alone. Significance - The Reconstruction amendments transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minorities could stake a claim to freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of government - Congress denied representatives from the former Confederate states their Congressional seats, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and wrote the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, extending citizenship rights to African Americans and guaranteeing them equal protection of the laws.

Election of 1864

Identity - In the United States Presidential election of 1864, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as president. - Lincoln ran under the National Union banner against his former top Civil War general, the Democratic candidate, George B. McClellan. - Significance - Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation becomes 13th Amendment - Lincoln gets assassinated 42 days into his second term

Secession

Identity - In the months that followed Lincoln's election, seven states stretching from South Carolina to Texas seceded from the Union. - First to secede was South Carolina - On December 20, 1860, the legislature unanimously voted to leave the Union. Its Declaration of the Immediate Causes of Secession placed the issue of slavery squarely at the center of the crisis. Significance - Secessionists equated their movement with the struggle for American independence. - The seceded states formed the Confederate States of America and later started the Civil War by bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861.

James Buchanan

Identity - James Buchanan was the 15th president of the US ( 1857 to 1861. ) - During his tenure, seven Southern states seceded from the Union and the nation teetered on the brink of civil war. - Dred Scott decision, which said the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the territories and denied African Americans the rights of U.S. citizens, happened two days after his inauguration Significance - Buchanan hoped the Dred Scott ruling would resolve America's slavery issue, and he reportedly pressured a Northern justice to vote with the Southern majority in the case. -

John Brown's Raid

Identity - John Brown was a deeply religious abolitionist that felt slavery was a sin. - On October 16, 1859, Brown and 21 men (five of which were black) raided Harpers Ferry - Brown and his raiders were captured and executed Significance - Brown was viewed as a martyr in the eyes of much of the North and blacks and slaves - Brown's radical actions reflected the rising attitude towards racial injustice and slavery

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Identity - Kansas and Nebraska lay in the nation's heartland, directly in the path of westward migration. Slavery, moreover, was prohibited there under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, which Douglas's bill would repeal. - Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 law sponsored by Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas to allow settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves - Significance - The Kansas-Nebraska Act opened a vast area in the nation's heartland to the possible spread of slavery by repealing the Missouri Compromise and providing that settlers would determine the status of slavery in these territories. - Fury over the resulting repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican Party.

Know Nothing Party

Identity - Know-Nothing Party Nativist, anti-Catholic third-party organized in 1854 in reaction to large-scale German and Irish immigration; the party's only presidential candidate was Millard Fillmore in 1856. - In many states, nativists emerged as a major component of victorious "anti-Nebraska" coalitions of voters opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act - The Know-Nothing Party nominated presidential candidate Millard Fillmore but he carried just one state (Maryland) in the 1856 election. Significance - Caught in the sectional strife disrupting all national institutions, the American Party fell apart after 1856. Antislavery Know-Nothings joined the Republican Party, while Southern members flocked to the proslavery banner still held aloft by the Democratic Party. -

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Identity - Lincoln-Douglas debates Series of senatorial campaign debates in 1858 focusing on the issue of slavery in the territories; held in Illinois between Republican Abraham Lincoln, who made a national reputation for himself, and incumbent Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, who managed to hold on to his seat. - To Lincoln, freedom meant opposition to slavery. The nation needed to rekindle the spirit of the founding fathers, who, he claimed, had tried to place slavery on the path to "ultimate extinction." - Douglas argued that the essence of freedom lay in local self-government and individual self-determination. Douglas insisted that popular sovereignty was not incompatible with the Dred Scott decision. he argued, if the people wished to keep slaveholders out, all they needed to do was refrain from giving the institution legal protection. Significance - The issues they discussed were not only of critical importance to the sectional conflict over slavery and states' rights but also touched deeper questions that would continue to influence political discourse. - Lincoln gained national attention and later became the 16th President of the US

Missouri Compromise

Identity - Missouri Compromise Deal proposed by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay in 1820 to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri's admission as a slave state -Maine's admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri. - Was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 184 Significance -The Missouri controversy raised for the first time what would prove to be a fatal issue—the westward expansion of slavery. -Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 allowed settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over the resulting repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican Party.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

Identity - Nat Turner was a slave preacher and religious mystic in Southampton County, Virginia. - Last large-scale slave rebellion in southern history. Took place in Virginia in 1831 - Significance - His revolt demonstrated conclusively that a region where whites outnumber blacks and the white community was armed and united, slaves stood at a fatal disadvantage in any violent situation - In the panic that followed the rebellion, In the South, hundreds of innocent slaves were whipped and scores executed - In 1832, Virginia legislature decided to establish new laws prohibiting blacks, free or slave, from acting as preachers, strengthed the militia and patrol systems, banned free blacks from owning firearms, and prohibited teaching slaves to read.

Thomas H. Benton

Identity - Nicknamed Old Bullion, Benton was the Senator of Missouri for thirty years - Argued extending the area of slavery required converting Indian soil into slave soil - During the 1820s, Missouri forced its Indian population to leave the state Significance - An architect of westward expansion Benton's removal of Indians influenced older states to follow and led to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 - He called for the annexation of the Republic of Texas (Texas becomes an official state in 1850)

Winfield Scott

Identity - Nicknamed The Grand Old Man of the Army for his important rule in the Wat of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War - Running as the Whig Party candidate, Scott lost the 1853 presidential election against Franklin Pierce - Significance - His Civil War tactics became part of the Union's successful strategy -

Salmon P. Chase

Identity - Ohio Senator - In response to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by Douglas's Bill, Chase and a group of antislavery congressmen issued the Appeal of the Independent Democrats - opposed Kansas-Nebraska Act Significance - The Appeal arraigned Douglas's Bill as a gross violation of a sacred pledge part and parcel of an atrocious plot to convert free territory into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves - The Appeal helped to convince millions of northerners that southern leaders aimed at nothing less than extending slavery throughout the West

Indian Removal Act

Identity - One of the early laws of Jackson's administration, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, provided funds for uprooting the so-called Five Civilized Tribes—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole—with a population of around 60,000 living in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. - Indian Removal Act 1830 law signed by President Andrew Jackson that permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain the Indians' lands in exchange for their relocation to what would become Oklahoma. - Significance - The law marked a repudiation of the Jeffersonian idea that "civilized" Indians could be assimilated into the American population. - Resulted in the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 died from hunger, exposure and disease during relocation.

Whig Party

Identity - Originally oppents of royal power in the 18th century England, Whigs were oppenents of Andrew Jackson and considered him a tyrant. - Led by Henry Clay, they were derided by the Jacksonian Democrats as a party devoted to the interests of wealth and aristocracy, a charge they were never able to shake completely. - Significance - The Whig party was founded by individuals united only in their antagonism to Jackson's war on the Second Bank of the United States and his high-handed measures in waging that war and ignoring Supreme Court decisions, the Constitution, and Indian rights embodied in federal treaties. -

popular sovereignty

Identity - Popular sovereignty allowed settlers in a disputed territory to decide the slavery issue for themselves. - The idea originated from Illinois Senator, Stephen A. Douglas, hoping it would offer a middle ground between the extreme differences of the North and South - repealed the Missouri Compromise Significance - Douglas' idea of popular sovereignty resulted in the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. This allowed settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves. -Popular sovereignty led to fury over the resulting repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican Party.

Southern Fire Eaters

Identity - Radical Southern secessionists who were pro-slavery - They used several recent events for propaganda, among them "Bleeding Kansas" and the Sumner-Brooks Affair, to accuse the North of trying to abolish slavery immediately. - Fire-Eaters urged Southern secession, citing irrevocable differences between the North and the South, and they inflamed passions by using propaganda against the North. Significance - The Fire-Eaters helped to unleash a chain reaction that eventually led to the formation of the Confederate States of America and to the American Civil War. -

Redeemers

Identity - Redeemers were Post-Civil War Democratic leaders who supposedly saved the South from Yankee domination and preserved the primarily rural economy. - The victorious Democrats called themselves Redeemers since they claimed to have "redeemed" the white South from corruption, misgovernment, and northern and black control. - Significance - Colfax Massacre marked the end of the Reconstruction period and white supremacist and white Democrat assumed control of the South - Nullified the 14th and 15th Amendments, not allowing Blacks to vote or have other rights granted during Reconstruction

Election of 1860

Identity - Republican Abraham Lincoln against Democrat Senator Stephen Douglas and Southern Democrat John Breckenridge - The main issue of the election was slavery and states rights - Lincoln won the election and became the 16th president Significance - First Republican President wins presidential election - In response to Lincoln's inauguration, Confederates bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, beginning the Civil War

Henry Clay

Identity - Senator from Kentucky, Secretary of State to John Quincy Adams, and Speaker of the House -Clay was called 'the Great Compromiser' because he played a major role in formulating the three landmark sectional compromises of his day: the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Tariff Compromise of 1833, and the Compromise of 1850 - The leader of the Whig Party Significance - Clay promoted the American System blueprinted by President James Madison. This envisioned a protective tariff, a national bank jointly owned by private stockholders and the federal government, public lands in the West were to be sold rather than given away to homesteaders. This helped establish the Second Bank of the U.S - Clay wanted to avoid the Civil War at all costs and opposed slavery.

Democratic Party

Identity - Technically the Party formed in 1792, to oppose Jeffersonian Republicans and express anti-aristocratic policies - Party Officially embraced in 1828 by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren - Known as the "white man's party" or the party of the common man Significance - the party was in conflict over extending slavery to the Western territories. Southern Democrats insisted on protecting slavery in all the territories while many Northern Democrats resisted. -

Republic of Texas

Identity - Texas Revolt during the 1830s. Residents of the territory of Texas rebelled against Mexican control of the region - In April, forces under Sam Houston routed Santa Anna's army at the Battle of San Jacinto and forced him to recognize Texan independence. - The Texas war of independence ended on April 21, 1836, the United States recognized the Republic of Texas in March 1837 but declined to annex the territory. Significance - Texans favored annexation, but many in the U.S. feared war with Mexico and the issue of slavery spreading as the U.S. grew - December 29, 1845, President Polk signs joint resolution; Texas becomes the 28th state of U.S. and as a later condition of the Compromise of 1850, Texas was a slave state.

Fall of Atlanta

Identity - The Battle of Atlanta was fought on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. -Union forces commanded by William T. Sherman, wanting to neutralize the important rail and supply hub, defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John B. Hood. - Sherman evacuated the city and burned down Atlanta Significance - The battle is known not only for it strategic and military significance but for its political importance. The victory greatly increased northern morale and helped the reelection of Abraham Lincoln over George Mcclellan -

Compromise of 1877

Identity - The Compromise of 1877 was an informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. - It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era. - After the most disputed election in American history, the Compromise of 1877 put Rutherford Hayes into office as the nation's 19th president; outraged northern Democrats derided Hayes as "His Fraudulency." Significance - Once the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction, the governments of the Southern states started to take away the rights that the freed slaves had enjoyed. - In the Compromise of 1877, the U.S. presidential election, 1876 is resolved with the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote

The German Coast

Identity - The German Coast was a region of early Louisiana settlement located above New Orleans on the east side of the Mississippi River - The area's name was derived from the large population of German pioneers who were settled along the Mississippi River - The German Coast was the site of the largest slave revolt in US history, the 1811 German Coast Uprising. Significance - When Haiti became a free country is 1804, the German Coast (the newly purchased Louisianna Territory) was now the dominant producer of Sugar Cane. - Unlike the cotton economy, the slaves on sugar plantations originally had free range on and off the plantations, allowing the 1811 Deslondes Revolt to be the largest slave revolt in US history

the "slave power"

Identity - The Republican and abolitionist term for proslavery dominance of southern and national governments. - Republicans managed to convince most northerners that the Slave Power posed a more immediate threat to their liberties and aspirations than "popery" and immigration. - The argument was that this small group of rich slave owners had seized political control of their own states and were trying to take over the national government in an illegitimate fashion in order to expand and protect slavery. Significance - When the Dred Scott decision was made, rather than abandoning their opposition to the expansion of slavery, Republicans now viewed the Court as controlled by the Slave Power. -

White Leagues

Identity - The White League, also known as the White Man's League, was an American white paramilitary organization started in 1874 to kick Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and politically organizing. - White Supremacist who used intimidation and murder to end reconstruction and gain authority in the South - Significance - Enforcement Acts passed by the United States Congress from 1870 to 1871 during the Reconstruction Era to combat attacks on the suffrage rights of African Americans from state officials or violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan. -

California Gold Rush

Identity - The discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 sparked the Gold Rush. - Just days after James Wilson Marshall found flakes of gold in the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the Mexican-American War and leaving California in the hands of the United States. - Significance - The California Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in American history since it brought about 300,000 people to California. -

Market Revolution

Identity - The first half of the 19th Century, an economic transformation and market expansion in the U.S. The catalyst was a series of innovations in transportation and communication - Rapid succession, steamboat, canal, railroad, telegraph opened new land to settlement, lowered transportation costs and made it easier to sell products - Increased number of workers producing in the market including women. The mobility of free blacks decreased because they were seen as competition for skilled-employment jobs Significance - The market revolution represented an acceleration of developments already under way in the colonial era - Creation of the middle class

Charleston Convention

Identity - The first of three Democratic Conventions in 1860 to determine the Democratic nominee for the upcoming presidential election - Convention adjourned in deadlock without choosing candidates for President and Vice President. - Significance - -

William C. Claiborne

Identity - The first territorial and state governor of Louisianna - Jefferson appointed Claiborne governor and Indian affairs commissioner for the Mississippi Territory. - Claiborne's chief concern as governor was to incorporate the former French and Spanish colony into the United States, bring its institutions in line with those of the republic, and mitigate conflict between the Creoles and the influx of American settlers. Significance - Finding relations between the races in Louisiana to be lax in comparison to slaveholding states, Claiborne tightened the Code Noir, the French colonial laws that regulated interactions between white and black people, and he strengthened the militia. - Claiborne put down Deslondes rebellion with swift force and executed its leaders. It was the largest slave revolt in the United States to date and the last such uprising in Louisiana.

Nullification

Identity - The idea resulted from the "tariff of abomination" on imported manufactured goods raised the prices paid by southern consumers to benefit the North, the legislature threatened to "nullify" it—that is, declare it null and void within their state. - John C. Calhoun introduced the idea of nullification in his Exposition and Protest. - South Carolina justified nullification on Calhoun's ideas Significance - In 1832, in response to South Carolina 's attempt to nullify, or invalidate within its borders, the 1832 federal tariff law, President Jackson responded with the Force Act of 1833. - Force Act 1833 legislation authorized the president's use of the army to compel states to comply with federal law. This eventually led to South Carolina's secession in 1860

Middle Class

Identity - The middle class was produced by the market revolution and was an army of clerks, accountants, and other employees who staffed businesses - Middle class neighborhoods populated by merchants, factory owners, and professionals like lawyers and doctors began to develop - Work in the middle-class homes was done by domestic servants, the largest employments of women in th 19th cedntury Significance - Freedom of middle class women was defined as freedom from labor and rested on the employment of other women within her household -

Confederate States of America

Identity - The seven seceding states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana ) formed the Confederate States of America before Lincoln assumed office - The Confederate States of America adopted a constitution and chose their president Jefferson Davis - Split from the Union and resulted in the Civil War Significance - The Confederate States of America (11 states) seceded from the Union in order to preserve slavery, states' rights, and white political liberty -

XIII Amendment

Identity - Thirteenth Amendment Constitutional amendment adopted in 1865 that irrevocably abolished slavery throughout the United States - Result of the Union's victiory in the Civil War - 13th Amendment implemented during Lincoln's second term of presidency Significance - On January 31, 1865, Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the entire Union—and in so doing, introduced the word "slavery" into the Constitution for the first time. - Slaves were official free in all state of the nation

Dred Scott Case

Identity - This Supreme Court case decided that a slave was not a citizen but property to be "used in subservience to the interests, the convenience, or the will of his owner" and the government can't take away someones property, this case led the Supreme court to declare the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional -Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, on the grounds that such a prohibition would violate the Fifth Amendment rights of slaveholders, and that no black person could be a citizen of the United States - Significance - Declared that all Blacks (slave or freed) were not US citizens and therefore had no rights guaranteed by the Constitution -

Zachary Taylor

Identity - Was a military commander during the Mexican War - 12th President of the United States. Member of the Whig Party - died suddenly on July 9, 1850, of an intestinal infection Significance - By 1848, Taylor had come to oppose the creation of new slave states, so he wanted settlers in both California and New Mexico to draft constitutions and be admitted immediately into the Union, skipping the territorial phase. - Taylor's efforts were carried out by Millard Filmore through the Compromise of 1850 devised by Senator Henry Clay, admitted California as a free state, including a stronger fugitive slave law, and delayed the determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories.

William H. Seward

Identity - William H. Seward of New York opposed the compromise of 1850 - He argued that the "law of morality" condemned slavery even more so than the Constitution -He represented the abolitionist voice of the Senate and was later appointed Secretary of State by Abraham Lincoln in 1861 Significance - Seward carefully managed international affairs during the Civil War as one of Lincoln's closest advisers, helping to ensure that Europe did not recognize the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. - He negotiated the 1867 purchase of Alaska.

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

Identity - Wilmot Proviso (Pennsylvania congressman) proposed to prohibit slavery in any land acquired in the Mexican War - The proposal was defeated by southern senators, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, in 1846 and 1847. - The proposal passed in the House but failed in the Senate Significance - His proposal showed party lines crumbled: every Northerner, Democrat, and Whig supported it, while almost all Southerners opposed it. A clear country divide - Resulted in the creation of the Free Soil Party in 1848 to oppose slavery in the territory acquired in the Mexican War; nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848.

Republican Party

Identity - a coalition of antislavery Democrats, northern Whigs, Free Soilers, and Know-Nothings opposed to the further expansion of slavery - The party's appeal rested on the idea of "free labor." - Significance - The Republican Party opposed the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories by the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. - When Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President was elected seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, and the country soon descended into the American Civil War (1861-65).

L.Q.C. Lamar

Identity - member of the Democratic Party, he represented Mississippi in both houses of Congress, served as the United States Secretary of the Interior, and was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He also served as an official in the Confederate States of America. - He opposed Reconstruction and voting rights for African Americans. - Lamar become a member in the Mississippi Secession Convention and drafted the state's Ordinance of Secession Significance - -

Blanche Butler

Identity - was the wife of Adelbert Ames - After her husband's death in 1933, Mrs. Ames compiled a collection of their letters, released by the family as Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century: Family Letters of Blanche Butler and Adelbert Ames in 1957. - Significance - -