APUSH Unit 5

Lincoln - Douglas Debates

1858 Senate Debate, Lincoln forced Douglas to debate issue of slavery, Douglas supported pop-sovereignty, Lincoln asserted that slavery should not spread to territories, Lincoln emerged as strong Republican candidate. Although he lost the election, Lincoln became a well-known national figure.

Homestead Act

1862 - provided free land in the west as long as the person would settle there and make improvements in five years.

Wade-Davis Bill

1864 Proposed far more demanding and stringent terms for reconstruction; required 50% of the voters of a state to take the loyalty oath and permitted only non-confederates to vote for a new state constitution; Lincoln refused to sign the bill, pocket vetoing it after Congress adjourned.

Tenure of Office Act

1866 - enacted by radical congress - forbade president from removing civil officers without senatorial consent - was to prevent Johnson from removing a radical republican from his cabinet.

Scalawags

A derogatory term for Southerners who were working with the North to buy up land from desperate Southerners.

Credit Mobilier

A joint-stock company organized in 1863 and reorganized in 1867 to build the Union Pacific Railroad. It was involved in a scandal in 1872 in which high government officials were accused of accepting bribes.

Frederick Jackson Turner - Frontier Thesis

American historian who said that humanity would continue to progress as long as there was new land to move into. The frontier provided a place for homeless and solved social problems.

Popular Sovereignty

Concept that people hold the power in government. It was brought up in the slavery debate, as some believed that a state's citizens should have a right o vote on whether they wanted to be a slave state or a free state, regardless of the state's location.

Wilmot Proviso

Dispute over whether any Mexican territory that America won during the Mexican War should be free or a slave territory. A representative named David Wilmot introduced an amendment stating that any territory acquired from Mexico would be free. This amendment passed the House twice, but failed to ever pass in Senate. The "Wilmot Proviso", as it became known as, became a symbol of how intense the dispute over slavery was in the U.S.

Republican Party

Emerged out of opposition to of slavery and comprised of Whigs, Northern Democrats, and Free-Soilers, in defiance to the Slave Powers.

Compromise of 1877

Ended Reconstruction. Republicans promise 1) Remove military from South, 2) Appoint Democrat to cabinet (David Key postmaster general), 3) Federal money for railroad construction and levees on Mississippi river.

Compromise of 1850

Forestalled the Civil War by instating the Fugitive Slave Act , banning slave trade in DC, admitting California as a free state, splitting up the Texas territory, and instating popular sovereignty in the Mexican Cession.

Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan

Former Confederate states would be readmitted to the Union if 10% of their citizens took a loyalty oath and the state agreed to ratify the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery. Not put into effect because Lincoln was assassinated.

Abraham Lincoln

He felt slavery was morally wrong, but was not an abolitionist. He felt there was not an alternative to slavery and blacks were not prepared to live on equal terms as whites. He did not wish to abolish slavery in the slave states, but wanted to stop the spread of slavery to other states existing and not yet formed.

Jim Crow Laws

Limited rights of blacks. Literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes limited black voting rights. "Separate but Equal".

Election of 1860

Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery. As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who went to the South after the Civil War to profit financially from the confused and unsettled conditions.

Radical Reconstruction

Reconstruction strategy that was based on severely punishing the south. Provided for dividing states into military districts with military commanders to oversee voter registration that included adult African-American males for state conventions; state conventions to draft constitutions that provided for suffrage for black men; state legislatures to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.

William Seward

Secretary of State who was responsible for purchasing Alaskan Territory from Russia. By purchasing Alaska, he expanded the territory of the country at a reasonable price. People called it "Seward's Folly" because they saw little use in Alaska, but it turned out to be the biggest bargain for the U.S. since the Louisiana Purchase.

Sharecropping

System in which landowners leased a few acres of land to farm workers in return for a portion of their crops. Used by southern planters after the Civil War.

California GoldRush

The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848 unleashed the largest migration in United States history and drew people from a dozen countries to form a multi-ethnic society on America's fringe. The promise of wealth forever altered the life expectations of the hundreds of thousands of people who flooded California in 1849 and the decade that followed. The gold also fired up the U.S. economy and fueled wild dreams like the construction of a cross-country railroad line.

Peace democrats

The name the copperheads gave to themselves. Many democrats within this group hoped that the Union could be salvaged, not through military means. Believed that the North was responsible for pushing the South into secession, Lincoln was a tyrant, war should be ended.

General McLellan

Unconfident of his men's competence against the Confederate's, was very slow to act and when he did its was in a very roundabout manner

Andrew Johnson's Impeachment

Was impeached by Congress basically because they disagreed with him; all he did was firing several military commanders who supported Radical Reconstruction. Charged with violating the Tenure of Office Act.

Reconstruction

the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union. The south strongly opposed it.