APUSH exam (answers and questions from Khan Academy)

The Mexican American War

(1846-1848) The war between the United States and Mexico in which the United States acquired one half of the Mexican territory.

Mount St. Helens Eruption

+May 18, 1980 +Subduction zone at the Juan de Fuca plate that slides beneath North America +Most active volcano in North America

What did the southern colonies have in common?

- Mostly male settlers - Slave labor - Cash crops - Scattered settlements

What did the New England colonies have in common?

- Settled for religion (religion/politics mixed) - Large family groups - Emphasis on education (to read the Bible)

House of Burgesses

1619 - The Virginia House of Burgesses formed, the first legislative body in colonial America. Later other colonies would adopt houses of burgesses.

Schenck v. United States

1919--Case involving limits on free speech. Established the "clear and present danger" principle.

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 case that overturned Separate but Equal standard of discrimination in education.

Anne Hutchinson

A Puritan woman who was well learned that disagreed with the Puritan Church in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her actions resulted in her banishment from the colony, and later took part in the formation of Rhode Island. She displayed the importance of questioning authority.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A government scandal involving a former United States Navy oil reserve in Wyoming that was secretly leased to a private oil company in 1921

The war of 1812

A war (1812-1814) between the United States and England which was trying to interfere with American trade with France.

Embargo Act (1807)

Act passed by congress in 1807 prohibiting American ships from leaving for any foreign port

the Missouri Compromise of 1820

Allowed Missouri to enter the union as a slave state, Maine to enter the union as a free state, prohibited slavery north of latitude 36˚ 30' within the Louisiana Territory (1820)

"The Embargo, giving time to the belligerent powers to revise their unjust proceedings and to listen to the dictates of justice, of interest and reputation, which equally urge the correction of their wrongs, has availed our country of the only honorable expedient for avoiding war: and should a repeal of these Edicts supersede the cause for it, our commercial brethren will become sensible that it has consulted their interests, however against their own will. It will be unfortunate for their country if, in the mean time, these, their expressions of impatience, should have the effect of prolonging the very suffering which have produced them, by exciting a fallacious hope that we may, under any pressure, relinquish our equal right of navigating the ocean, go to such ports only as others may prescribe, and there pay the tributary exactions they may impose. . ." Source: Thomas Jefferson, in a broadside signed to Eliot Brown, Jr., UH digital history, 1808

American industry suffered as Britain started substituting South American goods for American goods. American exports fell from \$108$108dollar sign, 108 million in 1807 to around \$22$22dollar sign, 22 million in 1808. After the Embargo Act of 1807, Britain turned to South America for their goods, limiting trade opportunities for producers in the United States.

Smallpox & Malaria

Among the major European diseases that devastated Native American populations after 1492

Iroquois Confederacy

An alliance of five northeastern Amerindian peoples (after 1722 six) that made decisions on military and diplomatic issues through a council of representatives. Allied first with the Dutch and later with the English, it dominated W. New England.

Maize

An early form of corn grown by Native Americans

The Nullification Crisis

Argument between South Carolina and the federal government regarding the role of national government

John Marshall (1755-1835)

As a justice in the U. S. Supreme Court, he established the authority of the court in defining the limits of the U.S. Constitution and the authority of the executive branch. He served in the Virginia legislature and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Federalist. He was appointed chief justice by President John Adams and served from 1801-1835. During his tenure he shaped federal law and government. Most important was the Marbury v. Madison decision (1803) in which he ruled that the federal courts had the power to determine whether or not congressional legislation was constitutional.

The Stamp Act of 1765 and the colonists' reaction to it

British Parliament required that revenue stamps be affixed to all colonial printed matter, documents, and playing cards. This was the first direct tax on the internal economic activity within the colonies, and it managed to offend a broad range of colonists. It provoked a large backlash among the colonists, and the act was repealed the following year.

Southwest Indians

Located in present day Arizona and New Mexico they farmed the desert, gathering wild plants and hunting small animals. Made their houses adobe and were excellent in pottery and weaving.

What did the New England colonies use to make money?

Lumber, shipbuilding, & whaling

"The [US population]not only outnumbered the rebels, but its other resources also dwarfed the Confederacy's. The North's wartime expenditures totaled over three billion dollars, two-thirds of it spent on military supplies. . . . Northern industry thus went into overdrive during the war . . . "The South also developed manufacturing capacity, but because the region was largely wedded to single-crop agriculture, it depended heavily on imported military supplies. One telling comparison: on the war's eve, Southern shops manufactured four million pairs of shoes annually whereas Massachusetts alone produced over forty million pairs . . . " -Source: Louis P. Masur and J. Ronald Spencer, historians, "Civil War Mobilizations," OAH Magazine of History, 2012

CORRECT (SELECTED) The United States produced their own war supplies, whereas the Confederacy imported their war supplies. The North's factories and production power allowed the United States to provide domestic war supplies to their troops. The South had to import their goods from other countries. US forces took advantage of the South's reliance on imported goods by instituting naval blockades to stop foreign trade and limit the South's resources.

Henry Clay (1777-1852)

Clay helped heal the North/South rift by aiding passage of the Compromise of 1850, which served to delay the Civil War.

"no taxation without representation"

Colonists did not want to be taxed if they did not have a representative in Britain's Parliament.

Committees of Correspondence

Committees of Correspondence, organized by patriot leader Samuel Adams, was a system of communication between patriot leaders in New England and throughout the colonies. They provided the organization necessary to unite the colonies in opposition to Parliament. The committees sent delegates to the First Continental Congress.

Hispaniola

First island in Caribbean settled by Spaniards; settlement founded by Columbus on second voyage to New World; Spanish base of operations for further discoveries in New World.

"If the States may tax one instrument, employed by the government in the execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent rights; they may tax the papers of the custom-house; they may tax judicial process; they may tax all the means employed by the government, to an excess which would defeat all the ends of government. This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their government dependent on the States. . ." -Source: Chief Justice John Marshall, opinion of the Court in McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819

Congress continued to run the Second National Bank of the United States. After the decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, Congress maintained the Second National Bank of the United States until 1836.

Pizzaro

For Spain. led a small army in an invasion of the Inca Empire. He conquered the Inca and gained huge amounts of gold and silver for himself and Spain.

New France

French colony in North America

The 3 G's

God, Gold, Glory

Roger Williams

He founded Rhode Island for separation of Church and State. He believed that the Puritans were too powerful and was ordered to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious beliefs.

Maya

Mesoamerican civilization concentrated in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and in Guatemala and Honduras but never unified into a single empire. Major contributions were in mathematics, astronomy, and development of the calendar.

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator who discovered the New World in the service of Spain while looking for a route to China (1451-1506)

Warhawks (1811-1812)

Democratic-Republican Congressmen who pressed James Madison to declare war on Britain. Largely drawn from the South and West, the war hawks resented British constraints on American trade and accused the British of supporting Indian attacks against American settlements on the frontier.

Bartolome de las Casas

Dominican priest who spoke out against mistreatment of Native Americans

"S.J. (Interviewer): Could you tell me a little bit about the dust storms? "Criswell: Our cotton would be about five or six inches tall and it looked like a fire had gone over that field of cotton. It would just kill it and then in a few days it would be dead. . . I've seen it take out a whole big field of cotton just like that. We lived on the sandy land. The storms would start up in Kansas or somewhere. These local sand storms could sometimes could ruin your crop. . . They'd come just like a big old black cloud and they soon covered everything. . . A lot of the crops that were older it would just damage. You couldn't start over again. If the cotton was small enough you could start over again. It would just damage it so it wouldn't grow right." Source: Vera Ruth Woodwall Criswell, Interview from the California Odyssey archive, 1981

Dust Bowl

Henry Hudson

English navigator who discovered the Hudson River

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Established judicial review; "midnight judges;" John Marshall; power of the Supreme Court.

Vasco de Gama

First European to reach India by sea

"We found ourselves rather pressed, the Ohio Company appeared to purchase a large tract of the federal lands, about 6 or 7 million of acres— ;and we wanted to abolish the old system and get a better one for the Government of the Country— ;and we finally found it necessary to adopt the best system we could get. . . . When I drew the ordinance which passed (in a few words excepted) as I originally formed it, I had no idea the States would agree to the sixth Art. prohibiting Slavery— ; as only [Massachusetts] of the Eastern States was present—; and therefore omitted it in the draft—; but finding the House favourably disposed on this subject, after we had completed the other parts I moved the art—; which was agreed to without opposition."

It established procedures by which territories could become states. Some of those procedures included how many people were necessary to make a territory into a state and the prohibition of slavery in the Northwest Territory.

"So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty." "If, then, the courts are to regard the constitution, and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply." Source: John Marshall, Opinion of the Court in Marbury v. Madison, 1803

It should judge whether a law is constitutional. Marshall argues that it is the duty of the judicial branch to determine whether a law conflicts with the Constitution, which is superior to ordinary law.

"Into this land of meek outcasts there came some Spaniards who immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts . . . killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons."

Moctezuma II Moctezuma II was the leader of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan when the Spanish invaded. He would have agreed that the Spaniards "behaved like ravening wild beasts" and caused the deaths of indigenous people.

What did Puritans believe God gave them?

Native American land

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929; date of the worst stock-market crash in American history and beginning of the Great Depression.

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)

Opposed Polk's high-handedness, avid Southern slave-owner (right to own property, slaves as property), Leader of the Fugitive Slave Law (1830s-40s), which forced the cooperation of Northern states in returning escaped slaves to the south. He also argued on the floor of the senate that slavery was needed in the south. He argued on the grounds that society is supposed to have an upper ruling class that enjoys the profit of a working lower class.

Free-soilers

People who opposed expansion of slavery into western territories

The Age of Revolution

Period of politcal upheaval beginning roughly with the American Revolution in 1775 and continuing through the French Revolution of 1789 and other movements for change up to 1848

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese explorer who found a sea route to the Spice Island by sailing around the American continent. His crew was the first to circumnavigate the world.

Quakers

Protestant reformers who believe in the equality of all people

Dust Bowl

Region of the Great Plains that experienced a drought in 1930 lasting for a decade, leaving many farmers without work or substantial wages.

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)

Served as the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Created the Democratic Party in 1828.

What were two things that were defining features of early American history?

Slavery & self-government

southern Democrats

Supported Slavery, used intimidation and manipulation to hold down Populist votes

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Supreme Court case that decided US Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in federal territories and slaves, as private property, could not be taken away without due process - basically slaves would remain slaves in non-slave states and slaves could not sue because they were not citizens

What kind of soil did New England colonies have?

Thin and rocky

Cortes

The Spanish conqueror of Mexico.

Headright System

The Virginia Company's system in which settlers and the family members who came with them each received 50 acres of land

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of goods and ideas between Native Americans and Europeans

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, found in East Virginia

Effects of the Seven Years War (aka the "French and Indian War")

The war left Britain in tremendous debt, which led to the end of "salutary neglect" and the imposition of new taxes on the colonists

"It is idle to say that a citizen shall have the right to life, yet to deny him the right to labor, whereby alone he can live. It is a mockery to say that a citizen may have a right to live, and yet deny him the right to make a contract to secure the privilege and the rewards of labor. It is worse than mockery to say that men may be clothed by the national authority with the character of citizens, yet may be stripped by State authority of the means by which citizens may exist. . . . "It is barbarous, inhuman, infamous, to turn over four million liberated slaves, always loyal to the government, to the fury of their rebel masters, who deny them the benefit of all laws for the protection of their civil rights." -Source: Representative William Lawrence, Congressional Globe, 1866

There was a lack of clarity about African American citizenship status after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. After the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, there were questions about the rights and protections African Americans had in the United States. Remember, the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that black people were not citizens of the United States.

"Having won the Cold War, it was by no means inevitable that the US would maintain its global engagement. Some argued that the US, and others had paid a high price for American involvement around the world. It would be prudent to retreat if not into isolationism then to a more modest role. These voices struggled for a hearing in both parties. Those that did argue for a change, as Pat Buchanan, were roundly defeated at the ballot box. Although the Cold War consensus fueled by the Soviet threat was not replaced by a comparable policy or ideological framework, the majority view was that America had widespread global interests and the US should maintain its global engagement. The mainstream debate after the Cold War was thus limited to the size and nature of American engagement, not the engagement itself." -Source: Fraser Cameron, political scientist, US Foreign Policy After the Cold War: Global Hegemon or Reluctant Sheriff? 2006

They began to debate the appropriate level of American involvement in the affairs of other nations. In the excerpt, Cameron writes that after the Cold War, the American public and political parties debated whether the United States should continue its involvement in other countries. He argues that the side that argued for continued "global engagement" after the Cold War won.

Treaty of Paris, 1783

This treaty ended the Revolutionary War, recognized the independence of the American colonies, and granted the colonies the territory from the southern border of Canada to the northern border of Florida, and from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River

Louisiana Purchase (1803)

U.S. purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, doubling the size of the U.S. and giving the U.S. full control of the Mississippi River

"Five years ago we had no colored women's clubs outside of those formed for special work; today with little over a month's notice, we are able to call representatives from more than twenty clubs. ". . . we need to talk over those things that are of special interest to us as colored women, the training of our children, openings for our boys and girls . . . how to make the most of our own, to some extent, limited opportunities. These are some of our own peculiar questions to be discussed. Besides these are the general questions of the day, which we cannot afford to be indifferent to: temperance, morality, the higher education, hygienic and domestic questions." -Source: Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, keynote for the Women's Era Club Conference, 1895

White women and black women had separate voluntary organizations. In the excerpt, the author writes that black women had "no colored women's clubs outside of those formed for special work." Voluntary associations started operating in the United States in the 1820s, but white people established and ran them. By 1895, black women formed voluntary organizations to address issues in their communities.

Plessy v. Ferguson

a 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

Inca

a member of a South American Indian people living in the central Andes before the Spanish conquest.

Aztec

a member of the American Indian people dominant in Mexico before the Spanish conquest of the 16th century.

"In the meantime, what has agriculture been doing in spite of all Mr. Clay's efforts to convert our young farmers into manufacturers? . . . Our agriculture is spreading in every direction, not only counties but by States, while population in our manufacturing regions is almost stationary. . . Although agriculture must thus outgrow this legislative home market, till our unexplored forests on north-western, western, and south-western borders, are converted into fields and pastures, we must go on taxing ourselves for generations to come, to increase the wealth of a small portion of our wealthy men and their posterity. Strip this American system of all its sophistries, and what is it, but a fraudulent partnership between a portion of our politicians and capitalists . . ." -Source: "Commercial Reciprocity and the American System," The United States Democratic Review, 1844

alignment of political parties based on regional issues The United States Democratic Review was a highly regarded political journal that advocated for Jacksonian Democracy. In the excerpt above, the author is clearly supporting the agricultural industry of the South over the manufacturing industry of the North, showing how regional interests shaped the political ideals and goals of the parties of that era.

"Classical revival architecture associated with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Latrobe had rested on the theory that forms were beautiful in themselves and that architecture should display the principles of simplicity, harmony, and proportion; . . . borrowing from British aesthetic theorists like Archibald Alison, now argued that structural forms were beautiful in terms of the thoughts that they raised in the mind of the viewer. Thus gothic architecture, which was popularized in the works of Byron and Sir Walter Scott, became emblematic of the ideals of an earlier Christian age." -Source: Clifford E. Clark, Jr., "Domestic Architecture as an Index to Social History: The Romantic Revival and the Cult of Domesticity in America, 1840-1870," The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1976

architecture found inspiration from medieval architecture The author points to the rise in gothic architecture during this time as the Romantic movement grew in the United States.

Mercantilism

belief in the benefits of profitable trading; commercialism.

Three Sisters Farming

corn, beans, squash

"The Sunbelt boom of the late 1970s paralleled the popularization of country music and auto racing; the expansion and relocation of professional sports franchises into the region; and even the country's mythical love affair with the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys, dubbed 'America's Team' in 1976. In sum, the Sunbelt became fashionable in the 1970s." -Source: Sean P. Cunningham, historian, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt: Conservative Growth in a Battleground Region, 2014

the cultural influence of the southern and western regions Cunningham writes that "the Sunbelt became fashionable in the 1970s." As more people relocated to states in the South and West, aspects of their regional cultures spread across the United States.

". . . [In] the late 1960s, conservative Protestants succeeded not only in making alliances with Republican politicians, but in changing the agenda of the party. . . . [This] time, they focused more on the culture wars than the Cold War. Conservative Protestants who mobilized against feminism, abortion, pornography, and gay rights acquired control of the Republican Party, partly because of their long-standing alliances with Republican politicians, but perhaps more important because of the united front they presented, and because of demographic and political shifts that favored evangelicals. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Christian Right was the most powerful group in the GOP." -Daniel K. Williams, historian, God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right, 2012

emergence of a political action group that sought to further a religious agenda. Founded in 1979, the Moral Majority was a political action organization that supported Republican candidates who upheld Christian values in their proposed legislation.

These Indians were the Remains of a Tribe of the Six Nations, settled at Conestoga, and thence called Conestoga Indians . . . there they have lived many Years in Friendship with their White Neighbours, who loved them for their peaceable inoffensive Behaviour. On Wednesday, the 14th of December, 1763, Fifty-seven Men, from some of our Frontier Townships . . . came, all well-mounted, and armed with Firelocks, Hangers and Hatchets, having traveled through the Country in the Night, to Conestoga Manor. There they surrounded the small Village of Indian Huts, and just at Break of Day broke into them all at once. Only three Men, two Women, and a young Boy, were found at home . . . These poor defenseless Creatures were immediately fired upon, stabbed and hatcheted to Death! . . . Guilt will lie on the whole Land, till Justice is done on the Murderers. THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT WILL CRY TO HEAVEN FOR VENGEANCE. -Source: Benjamin Franklin, A Narrative of the Late Massacres, in Lancaster County, of a Number of Indians, Friends of this Province, by Persons Unknown, 1764

frontier settlers Franklin describes an attack on an indigenous village orchestrated by a group of frontiersmen. He calls the indigenous victims of the attack "poor defenseless creatures" and the frontiersmen "murderers." Frontier settlers would have disagreed with this characterization as they often came into conflict with neighboring indigenous nations.

"It is little more than four years ago since I was last in this then almost unknown, but now world-famous, oil region. In the comparatively brief interval that has elapsed everything but the geographic conformation of the country, everything but its mountains and rivers, has been changed. . . . "Take one instance. Corry, four years ago, was a poor farm where the thinly-scratched soil of cold clay land yielded so little that the whole place, buildings and all, might easily have been purchased at 8 or 10 dols. an acre. . . . I was at Corry the other night. It is a fine rough city of about 10,000 inhabitants. The Atlantic and Great Western Railway, which has opened it up, has its great depot there, and has made it the central exchange of petroleum. It has nearly twenty banks, two newspapers, and the city is now building a large opera-house. The quotations made on the oil exchange at Corry, whether of oil, gold, or breadstuffs, influence Wall-street, and have infinitely greater weight on the trade of the country than anything done throughout all of Pennsylvania. -Source: "The Oil Regions of Pennsylvania," The Money Market Review: A Weekly Commercial and Financial Journal, Volumes 10-11, 1865

how the discovery of mineral resources and fuel led to the rapid creation of new communities Corry, the town described in the excerpt, went from a small farm to a bustling city of about 10,000 inhabitants in four years after the discovery of oil.

"[T]his momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it, at once as the [death] knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived, and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper." -Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Randolph, 1820

increasing regional differences over the expansion of slavery Jefferson writes that "A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived, and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated." This means that the 36'30" line that the Missouri Compromise created would continue to cause divisions within the federal government over the expansion of slavery.

" Until May 1940, most Americans had viewed the war in Europe as if it were a movie— a drama that, while interesting to watch, had nothing to do with their own lives . . . By the time of Pearl Harbor, attitudes toward entering the war had shifted dramatically. According to polls, a substantial majority of the U.S. population now regarding 'defeating Nazism' as 'the biggest job facing their country'; a similar majority preferred U.S. entry into the war to a German victory over Britain." -Source: Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, 2013

invasions carried out by German and Japanese forces into neighboring countries As Germany invaded and conquered several neighboring countries (such as France, Norway, and Poland), Japan also invaded neighboring countries, like China, Korea, and Taiwan. The United States feared an attack on the US if all the Allies fell to the Axis powers. This shifted public opinion towards helping the Allies win the war, even if it meant US entry into World War II.

Bering Strait Land Bridge

land bridge that connected Asia and North America together; enabled people to cross

Great Plains Indians

lived on dry grasslands between Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The Crow, Sioux, Blackfeet, and Cheyenne followed the great buffalo herds that roamed the plains.

Northwest Indians

one of the most advanced Indian cultures of North America

Abolitionists

people who believed that slavery should be against the law

"The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country . . . Nations of dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the wilderness. You cannot explain it; you cannot reason it away. . . Our friends will view this measure with sorrow, and our enemies alone with joy. And we ourselves, Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, shall look back upon it, I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing." -Source: Edward Everett, Speeches on the Passage of the Bill for the Removal of the Indians Delivered in the Congress of the United States, 1830

policy that forced the relocation of indigenous people From the source, we can tell that the author is responding to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In the excerpt, the author takes the stance that the conditions of the law are evil and will "stain the fair fame of the country."

Treaty of Tordesillas

set the boundary established in 1493 to define Spanish and Portuguese possessions in the Americas.

Jamestown was in the _________ region

southern

Encomienda System

system in Spanish America that gave settlers the right to tax local Indians or to demand their labor in exchange for protecting them and teaching them skills.

"We must make a departure. Instead of laying on the burdens of taxation upon the necessaries of life, instead of destroying our foreign commerce, we should encourage it as we would encourage our home commerce. We should remove every unnecessary burden." -Source: Democratic Congressman Roger Q. Mills, Congressional Record, 1888 "We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection; we protest against its destruction as proposed by the President and his party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interests of America." -Source: Republican Party Platform, 1888

tariffs hurt the American economy. In the first excerpt, Mills writes that adding tariffs (or taxes) to foreign goods "[destroyed] our foreign commerce." In contrast, the Republican Party platform includes a section advocating for more tariffs to protect "the interests of America."

"Why do we fear the communists? Why, in the paper this morning, I saw that in the West there were eighteen new communists arrested who have all these years apparently succeeded in hiding their identity or at least their connections with that party. We fear communism abroad, and we fear its infiltration at home. Why do we have to do that? We are not accustomed to the kind of leadership that leaves us bewildered [and] helpless. We want to get rid of those people soon." -Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech in Davenport, Iowa, 1952

the American public's anti-communist sentiment strengthened as the perceived threat of the Soviet Union increased In this excerpt, Eisenhower writes that "we fear [communist] infiltration at home," indicating there was a rise in anti-communist sentiment across the United States

"Once segregation began, there was no logical place for it to stop. If railroad cars were segregated, why not railroad stations, even ticket windows? If jails were segregated, why not courtrooms, even the Bibles on which witnesses swore? . . . Whites touted segregation as a way to ensure social peace, to reduce conflict in public places, to make sure that blacks received at least some social services. The newer a place or institution, the more certain it was to be segregated." -Edward L. Ayers, historian, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction, 2007.

the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Atlantic slave trade

the buying, transporting, and selling of Africans for work in the Americas

(Source 1) "But when all we do to make a citizen is to say, 'If you have been here illegally for a certain period of time, we will grandfather you in, we will give you amnesty,' that does not establish a very high standard for the integrity of this precious right of citizenship." -Source: Senator William Armstrong (R-CO), on the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986, Congressional Record, 1986 (Source 2) "I also believe legalization is essential in order to regularize the status of those aliens who have built up equities in this country and who have contributed for years toward our economic and social well-being. . . . I wish to emphasize that with a 1982 date, we are talking about aliens who have been in this country almost five years — who have roots and families here—and who should be made a part of American society." -Source: Representative Peter Rodino (D-NJ), on the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986, Congressional Record, 1986

the enforcement of strict immigration laws and the deportation of undocumented immigrants The Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986 made it illegal for any employer to hire or recruit any person unauthorized to work in the United States, like immigrants who did not have a work visa. Using similar rhetoric to Senator Armstrong in the excerpt provided, members of Congress in the 2000s pushed to enforce strict immigration laws to deport undocumented immigrants.

"The Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. . . . The free laborer must work or starve. He is more of a slave than the Negro because he works longer and harder for less allowance than the slave and has no holiday, because the cares of life with him begin when its labors end. He has no liberty, and not a single right." -Source: Frederick Law Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States, 1853-1861

the positive good theory The author argues that the enslaved people of the South "are the happiest, and . . . the freest people in the world." His argument echoes the popular positive good theory that slavery was not evil and that slaveowners "cared" for the people they enslaved.

"Where does the money go? Andrew Carnegie makes a specialty of public libraries in his gifts, with a good sprinkling of checks among educational institutions of established reputation. . . . John D. Rockefeller takes splendid care of the University of Chicago, and has several millions annually to pass around among Baptist institutions and other interests that appeal to his consideration. . . . "It is quite safe to assert that the majority of gifts and bequests goes to colleges and universities, with homes and hospitals for men, women, and children next, and memorial buildings and church edifices following. . . . Giving has become a business." -Source: George J. Hagar, "Magnitude of American Benefactions," The Review of Reviews, 1904

the rise in philanthropic donations In the excerpt, Hagar gives a few examples of notable millionaires giving their wealth away to good causes like educational institutions, churches, and hospitals. Motivated by Carnegie's message in his essay, "Wealth," philanthropy was a common way that millionaires supported good causes.

"The first modern mass medium, radio made America into a land of listeners, entertaining and educating, angering and delighting, and joining every age and class into a common culture. . . . Radio created national crazes across America, taught Americans new ways to talk and think, and sold them products they never knew they needed. Radio brought them the world." -Source: Tom Lewis, historian, "'A Godlike Presence': The Impact of Radio on the 1920s and 1930s," 1992

the widespread adoption of the television in the mid-twentieth century The television and the radio had similar impacts on American society. Both triggered national crazes and fads for people of all ages and contributed to the rise of a consumer culture as advertisements played during popular radio and television programs.

Northern Whigs

they thought that the federal government should play a major role in helping economic development. They fully embraced business and factory owners because they thought that these people did the most to improve society, and they courted the middle class by saying if the whigs were allowed to help the economically they would have a better chance of moving up in class.

"Religious identity . . . allowed women to assert themselves, both in private and in public ways. It enabled them to rely on an authority beyond the world of men. . . . In contrast to the self-abnegation required of women in their domestic vocation, religious commitment required attention to one's own thoughts, actions, and prospects. . . . No other avenue of self-expression besides religion at once offered women social approbation, the encouragement of male leaders (ministers), and, most important, the community of their peers." -Source: Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835, 1977

women's growing participation in antebellum reform movements Cott, the author of the passage, argues that religious identity allowed women to have their own thoughts and opinions, rather than upholding the thoughts and opinions of their husbands. Women often relied on religious arguments to create voluntary organizations that aimed to solve social issues, like alcoholism and slavery.