US History - Unit 5 Terms Exam - Period 5 (Kimberly)

Compromise of 1850

Definition: Includes California admitted as a free state, the Fugitive Slave Act, Made popular sovereignty in most other states from Mexican- American War Significance: The south gained by the strengthening of the fugitive slave law, the north gained a new free state, California. Texas lost territory but was compensated with 10 million dollars to pay for its debt. Slave trade was prohibited in Washington DC, but slavery was not.

Battle of Gettysburg

Definition: July 1-3, 1863, turning point in war, Union victory, bloodiest battle on american soil Significance: was a Union victory that stopped Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. Making it the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.Jun 6, 2015

Popular Sovereignty

Definition: Letting the people of a territory decide whether their territory will be slave or free. Significance: cited in the years leading up to the American Civil War asserting the right of the people living in a new territory to decide by vote of their territorial legislature whether or not slavery would be allowed.

Harpers Ferry

Definition: Location of federal arsenal that John Brown raided to get guns to arm slaves Significance: in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery.

Free Soil Party

Definition: Organized by Anti-Slavery men in the North, Democrats who were resentful of Polk's actions and some conscience Whigs. They were against slavery in the new territories. Also advocated federal aid for internal improvements and urged free government homesteads for settlers. Significance: Foreshadowed the emergence of the Republican Party.

Election of 1860

Definition: Presidential Election that ended with Abraham Lincoln as President, the Southern states began to secede forming the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as their President Significance: As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.

Battle of San Jacinto

Definition: The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution Significance: Santa Ana was taken prisoner and signed an armistice securing Texas independence.

Reconstruction

Definition: The period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union Significance: Reconstruction after the Civil War was America's first attempt at an interracial democracy.

Compromise of 1877

Definition: Was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. Significance: It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.

Emancipation Proclamation

Definition: Was an executive order issued on January 1, 1863, by President Lincoln freeing slaves in all portions of the United States not then under Union control (that is, within the Confederacy). Significance: Led the way to total abolition of slavery in the United States. With the Emancipation Proclamation, the aim of the war changed to include the freeing of slaves in addition to preserving the Union.

California Gold Rush

Definition: a period from 1848 to 1856 when thousands of people came to California in order to search for gold. Significance: Caused the immigration and emigration of about 300,000 to California.

Freedman's Bureau

Definition: an agency of the War Department set up in 1865 to assist freed slaves in obtaining relief, land, jobs, fair treatment, and education. Significance: Congress to help former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War (1861-65).

Wilmot Proviso

Definition: proposed an American law to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War. Significance: prohibited the expansion of slavery into any territory acquired by the United States from Mexico as a result of a settlement in the Mexican-American War. The proposed amendment narrowly passed through the House of Representatives and was then defeated in the Senate.

Jefferson Davis

Definition: served as a U.S. senator and as Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce before his election as the president of the secessionist Confederate States of America. Significance: was a Mexican War hero, U.S. senator from Mississippi, U.S. secretary of war and president of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Frederick Douglass

Definition: was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. ... Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave. Significance: was a consultant to President Abraham Lincoln and helped convince him that slaves should serve in the Union forces and that the abolition of slavery should be a goal of the war.

American Anti - Slavery Society

Definition: was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was a key leader of this society who often spoke at its meetings. Significance: Garrison and his supporters called for the creation of a new government that prohibited slavery from the very beginning. He contended that the United States Constitution was an illegal document because it denied African Americans their freedom.

Nat Turner

Definition: was an enslaved African American who led a rebellion of slaves and free blacks in Southampton County, Virginia on August 21, 1831. Significance: rebellion was one of the largest slave rebellions ever to take place in the United States, and it played an important role in the development of antebellum slave society

Andrew Johnson

Definition: was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Significance: The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union.

Gadsden Purchase

Definition: was the 1853 treaty in which the United States bought from Mexico parts of what is now southern Arizona and southern New Mexico. Southerners wanted this land in order to build southern transcontinental railroad, Significance: finalized in 1854, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico.

Radical Republicans

Definition: were a wing of the Republican Party organized around an uncompromising opposition to slavery before and during the Civil War and a vigorous campaign to secure rights for freed slaves during Reconstruction. Significance: believed blacks were entitled to the same political rights and opportunities as whites. They also believed that the Confederate leaders should be punished for their roles in the Civil War.

John Brown

Definition: who sought to free the slaves by military force. After leading several attacks in Kansas, he planned to start an uprising among the slaves. In 1859 Significance: Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Definition: who was commander of all Union troops in the West; he captured Atlanta and led a destructive march to the sea that cut the Confederacy in two Significance: he realized that they could only defeat the whites and take back the Northwest if they united

American Colonization Society

Definiton: as a group established in 1816 by Robert Finley of New Jersey which supported the migration of free African Americans to the continent of Africa. Significance: The public and private funds raised by the American Colonization Society led to the settlement of approximately thirteen thousand African Americans in West Africa by 1867 and the establishment of the independent nation of Liberia.

Kansas & Nebraska Act

Definition: 1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty. Significance: This law led to the civil war in Kansas creating what many called "Bleeding Kansas."

Republican Party

Definition: Antislavery political party that formed in the 1850's Significance: stop the spread of the slavery in the west

Manifest Destiny

Definition: 1800s belief that Americans had the right to spread across the continent. Significance: The main impact was that the United States got much larger and much wealthier.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Definition: 1852 Antislavery book, widely read and disliked by southerners, made Americans more skeptical of slavery. Significance: that fueled the abolitionist movement in the northern states.

Ulysses S. Grant

Definition: A general and political leader of the nineteenth century. Grant became commanding general of the Union army during the Civil War. He accepted the unconditional surrender of the commanding general of the main Confederate army Significance: commanded the victorious Union army during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and served as the 18th U.S. president from 1869 to 1877. An Ohio native, Grant graduated from West Point and fought in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

Stephen Douglass

Definition: A political leader of the nineteenth century, known for twice running against Abraham Lincoln — for a seat in the Senate from Illinois in 1858, which he won, and for the presidency in 1860, which he lost. Significance: leader of the Democratic Party, and orator who espoused the cause of popular sovereignty in relation to the issue of slavery in the territories before the American Civil War (

Abraham Lincoln

Definition: Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865 Significance: He was the 16th president of the United States of America, the leader who successfully prosecuted the Civil War to preserve the nation. He played in key role in passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in America.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Definition: After ruling that people of African descent were not citizens and could not sue in court, the Supreme Court under the Chief Justice, Roger Taney, affirmed the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories Significance: Delivered by Chief Justice Roger Taney, this opinion declared that slaves were not citizens of the United States and could not sue in Federal courts.

15th Amendment

Definition: All US male citizens have the right to vote regardless of race. Significance: Because it guarantees voting rights to all American males of all races. be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Fort Sumter

Definition: April 12, 1861. Virtual declaration of war by Lincoln. 1st shot of the civil war. Significance: The major effect of the battle was that it marked the beginning of the American Civil War. The battle had other effects as well, after the Battle of Fort Sumter several new states seceded from the Union giving the Confederacy 11 states in total.

Mexican American War

Definition: Conflict after U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico considered Texas its own. The victor was the U.S. Significance: It granted all land from Texas to California (minus the Gadsden Purchase) in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

13th Amendment

Definition: Constitutional amendment that abolished slavery in the United States and its territories Significance: Abolished slavery in 1865. To protect the rights of newly freed people, Congress enacted two additional Constitutional amendments.

14th Amendment

Definition: Constitutional amendment that made former slaves citizens and guaranteed them equal protection of the laws. Significance: grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Definition: Ended the Mexican American war Significance: Because of its military victory the United States virtually dictated the terms of settlement.

Antietam

Definition: First major battle of the civil war, it proved to be the bloodiest single day battle in American History with over 26,000 lives lost in that single day. Significance: resulted in President Abraham Lincoln issuing his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862.

James K. Polk

Definition: He was the Democratic candidate in the election of 1844 and the 11th president of the United States. He was a Jacksonian, expansionist, Tennessee man. Significance: He was responsible for a successful war with Mexico which resulted in annexing much of western lands like Texas and Mexican territory

Underground Railroad

defintion: A network of houses and other places that abolitionists used to help slaves escape to freedom in the northern states or in Canada before the Civil War. Significance: helped hundreds of runaway slaves escape to freedom