APUSH Unit 5 Terms
Kansas Nebraska Act
January 1854/ introduced by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, chairman of the Committee on Territories, with the initial intent of making a feasible Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad/disputed by the powerful southern faction in Congress and convinced Douglas to split the land into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and to repeal the part of the Missouri Compromise (above 36'30'') that would make it a free state/ slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty/ North got extremely angry/ "In this manner the nation took the greatest single step in its blind march toward the abyss of secession and civil war." significance: led to increased sectional tension and "bleeding kansas"
Greenbacks
Name for Union paper money not backed by gold or silver/Value would fluctuate depending on status of the war/ the greenbacks let Lincoln finance the unpopular war//(Greenback Party)formed in the 1870s whose platform included various measures like expanding money supply to benefit farmers in the W and S/ In 1878 Greenback candidates got more than 1 million votes and 14 seats in Congress
Horace Greeley and the Liberal Republicans
Nominated by both the Liberal Republican Party and the Democratic Party for the presidential election in 1872/lost to President Grant/ (Liberal Republican Party) Founded in 1872/Formed in response to the corruption of the US government as well as in opposition to military reconstruction (opposed grant)
Shiloh
On April 6th 1862 Albert Sidney Johnston led 40,000 Confederate men to strick at Shiloh, Tennessee, 20 miles N of Corinth/Grants men stood their ground and Confederates fell back/Grant allowed the enemy to escape because he was so shaken and tired by the attack despite his victory/ additional consequences included staggering casualties and the Confederates lost 10,699 including General Johnston in brutal carnage////The two day battle at Shiloh produced more than 23,000 casualties and was the bloodiest battle in American history at its time.
Thaddeus Stevens
Part of the Radical faction of Republicans/ 1861 Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania was the rising power in the House/he and Sumner were uncompromising and they insisted not merely on abolition but on granting full political and civil rights to blacks/the other Republicans were Moderate Republicans who objected to treating blacks as equals and apposed making abolition a war aim
Stephen A. Douglas
Senator from Illinois who ran for president against Abraham Lincoln in 1860/Wrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Freeport Doctrine/wanted to expand westward and give Chicago a railroad/destroyed the Missouri Compromise of 1820/popularized idea of popular sovereignty
Freeport Doctrine
Stated by Stephen A. Douglas during the Lincoln-Douglas debates that exclusion of slavery in a territory (where it was legal) could be determined by the refusal of the voters to enact any laws that would protect slave property/ eventually led to his loss in the 1860 presidential election/angered S Democrats/ basically said that slavery could only exist if popular sovereignty deemed it to be/argued that a territory had the right to exclude slavery despite contrary U.S. Supreme Court decisions
John Brown
"the scourge of Kansas," made his second contribution to the unfolding sectional drama on October 1859/gathered a group of 18 white and black followers and staged an attack on Harpers Ferry, VA, a town on the Potomac River in order to attract local slaves and create a black republic but totally failed/also murdered five men at Pottawatomie just for shits and giggles/ considered fanatical and mentally unstable, yet a lot of Northerners considered him to be a great contribution and very courageous/VA ended up charging him with treason, conspiracy, murder, and he was hanged.
Free Soil, Free Labor
(Free Soil Party) founded by Van Buren; formed from the remnants of the Liberty Party in 1848/ adopted a slogan of "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men," it opposed the spread of slavery into territories and supported homesteads, cheap postage, and internal improvements/ It ran Martin Van Buren (1848) and John Hale (1852) for president and was absorbed into the Republican Party by 1856/dedicated to opposing slavery in Oregon territory //// election 1856- "free soil, free labor, Fremont!"
Morrill Land Grant Act 1862
1862/provided the states with land at the rate of 30,000 acre for each member of Congress to support state agricultural colleges///grants of land to states to finance the establishment of colleges specializing in "agriculture and the mechanic arts." //Named for its sponsor, Vermont Congressman Justin Smith Morrill
Vicksburg
1863; Battle for control of Mississippi River/ Union's goal to split Confederacy and restore free commerce to NW/ An attempt to take Vicksburg, Mississippi by water and from N/ they failed/ Grant decided to take it from South and opened siege; Confederate forces unable to unite, and after about six weeks Vicksburg's defenders surrendered on July 4, 1863 (Grant won it for everyone! nice!)
Emancipation Proclamation
1863; On September 22 Lincoln made the public Emancipation Proclamation and claimed that after January 1, 1863, all slaves in areas in rebellion against the US be free/did not apply to border states or to the sections of the Confederacy like New Oreleans, VA, etc/proved to further certain peoples' political agendas; the point was that even though lots of people hated slavery they did NOT want blacks to have equal rights and tried to contain the ex-slaves in the South
Reconstruction
1865-1877/ Period after the Civil War during which Northern political leaders created plans for the governance of the South and a procedure for former Southern states to rejoin the Union/Southern resentment of this era lasted well into the twentieth century.
Black Codes
1865/1866; enacted by the new Southern governments to control former slaves/alarmed the N/codes considered an improvement over slavery but they prohibited blacks from bearing arms, being employed in occupations other than farming and domestic service, and from leaving their jobs without forfeiting back pay/outraged Northerners (under johnson)
Carpetbaggers
1870s; Northerners who went to the South as idealists eager to help the freed slaves, as employees of the federal government, or more commonly as settlers hoping to improve themselves/ many Northern blacks became carpetbaggers and some had office but their influence was limited
scalawags
1870s; Southerners willing to cooperate with the Republicans because they accepted the results of the war and to advance their own interests/ most were ordinary people who had supported the Whig party before secession
Swing Around the Circuit
A disastrous speaking campaign undertaken by U.S. President Andrew Johnson August 27 - September 15, 1866, in which he tried to gain support for his mild Reconstruction policies and for his preferred candidates (mostly Democrats) in the forthcoming midterm Congressional election/The tour received its nickname due to the route that the campaign took.
Constitutional Union Party
Also known as the "know-nothings" or American party/changed their name in the 1860 election/ it was a middle of the road group that feared for the Union- consisted mostly of Whigs and Know-Nothings, met in Baltimore and nominated John Bell from Tennessee as candidate for presidency-the slogan for this candidate was "The Union, the Constitution, and the Enforcement of the laws."
Appomattox
Appomattox Court House/place where Lee and Grant met on April 9 1865 by prearrangement where Lee was noble in defeat and Grant sensitive and magnanimous in victory/Grant outlined his terms and required that all the Confederate soldiers lay down their arms and could return to their homes in peace (Lee surrenders to Grant)
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
Came from the Compromise of 1850/ paid federal commissioners were appointed and given authority to issue warrants, gather, posses and force citizens to help catch runaway slaves; the slaves could not testify inthier own behalf, "Man-Stealing Law"/shocked a lot of moderates into being anti-slavery/made it a crime to help runaway slaves
James Buchanan
Democrats replaced Pierce with James Buchanan primarily because he had been out of the country serving as minister to Great Britain during the Kansas drama/ Buchanan won election as the 15th president and served right before the Civil War/ he attempted (and failed) to make peace between pro-slavery and anti-slavery supporters////ran against fremont in election 1856//president from 1857-1861
Election of 1860
Democrats split into S. and N. Democrats; S. Dems nominate Breckenridge to support Dred Scott decision, N. Dems nominate Douglas, Constitutional Unionists (formerly the Know-nothings/american party) nominate John Bell, Republicans nominate Lincoln. Alabama formally resolved that the state would secede if a republican was elected president/extremism was more evident in the South/North was growing at a faster rate /N and S Democrats met at Charleston, SC, and couldn't agree on who to nominate for president; N nominated Douglas and S nominated John C. Breckinridge of KY/Republicans met in Chicago and proposed a platform attractive to all classes and sections of N and W states; high tariff/free land for settlers/Pacific railroad/no slavery in the territories (wilmot proviso); Abraham Lincoln wins - SIGNIFICANCE: Signaled northern dominance of the political processes (bc lincoln won by so much)
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott was the personal servant of Dr. John Emerson of St. Louis/ after Emerson's death, that Scott and his wife, Harriet, argued that they were free because they were residents of Illinois which barred slavery under the Northwest Ordinance/ case reached Supreme Court and on March 6, 1857, Roger B. Taney claimed the blacks were not citizens so Scott couldn't sue/ Dred Scott decision convinced thousands that the South was engaged in an aggressive attempt to extend slavery
Gadsden Purchase**
Gadsden Purchase 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; also showed the American belief in Manifest Destiny/ The heated debate over this issue in the Senate demonstrates the prevalence of sectional disagreement. (pierce's administration)
Wade-Davis Bill
more extreme version of Lincoln's moderate 10% Plan/July 1864/ Congress passed the Wade-Davis bill which provided for constitutional conventions only after a majority (50%) of the voters in a S state had taken loyalty oath/prohibited slavery/repudiate Confederate debts/ Lincoln pocket-vetoed this/eventually passed with the Reconstruction Acts
Uncle Tom's Cabin
novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852/ "...Stowe was neither a professional writer nor an abolitionist and had almost no firsthand knowledge of slavery...(Uncle Tom's Cabin) avoided the self-righteous, accusatory tone of most abolitionist tracts and did not try to make readers believe in racial equality," rather is forced people to ask themselves, "Is slavery just?"
Whiskey Ring
scandal exposed in 1875/ a group of officials who were importing whiskey and using their offices to avoid paying the taxes on it, cheating the treasury out of millions of dollars/uncovered in Grant's administration
Force Acts of 1870
struck at the KKK with these basically; placed elections under federal jurisdiction and imposed fines and prison sentences on persons convicted of interfering with any citizen's exercise of the franchise///series of four acts passed by Republican Reconstruction supporters in the Congress between May 31, 1870, and March 1, 1875, to protect the constitutional rights guaranteed to blacks by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The major provisions of the acts authorized federal authorities to enforce penalties upon anyone interfering with the registration, voting, officeholding, or jury service of blacks; provided for federal election supervisors; and empowered the president to use military forces to make summary arrests.
Tweed Ring
super duper rich landowner in the north; Corrupt New York City political machine led by "Boss" Tweed/ used tactics such as bribery, graft, and fradulent elections; in 1871, the New York Times published evidence of Tweed's corruption and illegal activities, leading to his arrest and conviction.///"The Tweed ring at its height was an engineering marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points: the courts, the legislature, the treasury and the ballot box. Its frauds had a grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure: money-laundering, profit sharing and organization."
Crittenden Compromise
1860; group of moderates headed by Senator John J. Crittenden of KY proposed a constitutional amendment in which slavery would be recognized as existing in all territories S of latitude 36'30'' and promised that no future amendment would tamper with the institution in slave states/totally failed
Charles Sumner
1850s; Angsty Senator who was super against slavery and called anyone who criticized him and supported slavery some terribly creative bad words/long story short he beat this dude with a cane because he was so impassioned with his love for the anti-slavery cause/considered a hero by anti-slavery Northerners and a heathen by pro-slavery Southerners
"Bleeding Kansas"
1854-1861/ a series of violent political confrontations caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act/ made the territory of Kansas a testing ground for popular sovereignty; stated by law that the people of Kansas were "perfectly free" to decide on the institution of slavery in their region/ outsiders from the North and South sent settlers into the area to influence the vote/ November 1854 a large band of Missourians crossed over specifically to vote for a proslavery man and elected him easily (they were called "border ruffians")/ 1856 two governments existed in Kansas; one fraudulent, the other extralegal/caused John Brown to steal the settlement on Pottawatomie Creek and murdered five unsuspecting men and created increased irregular fighting/ responsibility of the chaos was taken by the Pierce Administration who had failed to regulate voting (the ripple effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act)
Ostend Manifesto
1854/ A declaration by a group of southerners who met with Spanish officials in Belgium to attempt to get more slave territory because they felt this would balance out congress/tried to buy Cuba but the Spanish would not sell it (because they knew it would be slave territory)/ Southerners wanted to take it by force and the Northerners were outraged by this thought.///The Ostend Manifesto proposed a shift in foreign policy, justifying the use of force to seize Cuba in the name of national security. It resulted from debates over slavery in the United States, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, as slaveholders sought new territory for slavery's expansion.
New England Emigrant Aid Society
1854/ created to pay antislave settlers to go into Kansas, so when the state voted on whether or not to allow slavery the vote would be on the antislavery side/sent about 2000 people to the S; "Beecher's Bibles" During the Kansas border war, the New England Emigrant Aid Society sent rifles at the instigation of fervid abolitionists like the preacher Henry Beecher. These rifles became known as "Beecher's Bibles".
Lecompton Constitution
1857; written in response to Topeka Constitution 1855; proslavery leaders convened a constitutional convention at Lecompton but the Free Soil forces refused to participate in the election of delegates/during this convention they drafted a proslavery constitution but refused to let the Kansas settlers fairly vote on it/President Buchanan decided to ask congress to admit Kansas to the Union with this document as its frame of government instead of rejecting the Lecompton Constitution/brought Buchanan head on against Stephen A. Douglas and the repercussions shattered the Democratic party/ Congress rejected the bill
Sumner-Brooks Affair
1858; Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts who was a severely tormented and angst-ridden soul was a gifted orator and used reform movements as an emotional release/ characterized the Kansas administration as "tyrannical, imbecilic, absurd, and infamous, and demanded that Kansas be admitted to the Union at once as a free state"/ so long story short Sumner criticized elderly Senator Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina, who was a gentle, slave-loving-soul, and Butler's nephew, Congressman Preston S Brooks (who Garraty describes as "probably as mentally unbalanced as Sumner") walked up to Sumner in the Senate and basically beat him with a cane until he fell, unconscious and bloody, to the floor/ Brooks resigned and the North made Sumner a hero
Gettysburg
July 1 1863 a Confederate division clashed with two brigades of Union cavalry in the NW part of the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania /both called for reinforcements but the Confederates won control of the town/Union army, commanded by General George G. Meade at the time, positioned themselves to the S of the town/fate of the Union was probably decided at this battle/by nightfall on July 3 the Confederate army was spent and bleeding and the union lines unbroken/////////In the summer of 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee launched his second invasion of Northern territory. Like his last foray that ended at bloody Antietam, Lee sought to score politically meaningful victories, take the war out of the ravaged Virginia farmland, and gather supplies for his army. He was pursued first by Union Gen. Joseph Hooker, and then by Gen. George Meade, who replaced Hooker in late June. (Lee failed; battle resulted in many casualties; Lee was forced to withdraw his battered army toward Virginia on July 4.) Significance: This is the turning point of the war - - union is now winning
Election of 1864
Lincoln vs. McClellan/Lincoln wants to unite North and South/ McClellan wants war to end if he's elected/citizens of North are sick of war so many vote for McClellan but Lincoln wins/ In this election, five political parties supported candidates for the presidency; War Democrats, Peace Democrats, Copperheads, Radical Republicans, and the National Union Party/Each political party offered a different point of view on how the war should be run and what should be done to the Confederate states after the war/ The National Union Party joined with Lincoln won the election on the recent northern victories against the South. /////// A group of Republican dissidents who called themselves Radical Republicans formed a party named the Radical Democracy Party and nominated John C. Frémont as their candidate for president. Frémont later withdrew and endorsed Lincoln. In the Border States, War Democrats joined with Republicans as the National Union Party, with Lincoln at the head of the ticket. The National Union Party was a temporary name used to attract War Democrats and Border State Unionists who would not vote for the Republican Party. It faced off against the regular Democratic Party, including Peace Democrats.
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
March 2, 1867/passed by joint committee--1st law divided the former Confederacy into 5 military districts, each controlled by a major general and gave those officers almost dictatorial power to protect the civil rights of all persons in order to maintain order and justice/ in order to rid themselves of military rule, the former states had to adopt constitutions guaranteeing blacks the right to vote and disfranchising broad classes of ex-Confdereates/had to ratio the 14th Amendment and then military rule ended/ Johnson attempted to veto the act but was easily overriden/ proved so vague that it was hard to implement/did not spell out the process by which the new constitutions were to be drawn up/S white preferred the status quo even if it meant being under army control/ Congress passed a 2nd that required military authorities to register voters and supervise election of delegates to constitutional convention/ 3rd act further clarified procedures ///also passed to limit the power of the president (johnson later broke one of these rules and was nearly impeached - tenure in office act)
Jefferson Davis
President of the Southern Confederate States from 1860 to 1865 after their succession from the Union/ struggled to form a solid government for the states to be governed by/ worked hard with solidating the civil government and carrying out military operations/ On February 9, 1861, after Davis resigned from the U.S. Senate, he was selected to be the provisional President of the Confederate States of America/ elected without opposition to a six-year term that November/took charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to stop the larger, more powerful, and better organized Union/His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, and he paid little attention to the collapsing Confederate economy, printing more and more paper money to cover the war's expenses/ supported a well-knit government, but this was opposed by states' rights supporters which led him less able to exercise arbitrary power/ unpopular due to his defiance of public opinion.
Border Ruffians
Pro-slavery Missourians who traveled in armed groups to vote in Kansas' election during the mid-1850's, in order to make it a pro-slavery government
John C. Freemont
Republican/"Pathfinder of the West", "Kansas-less"/Against extension of slavery in territories/an american military officer, explorer, the first candidate of the Republican party/free soil party for president in election of 1856/first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform in opposition to slavery.
Disputed Election of 1876
Republicans nominated Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio; former general with unsmirched reputation/Democrats picked Governor Samuel J. Tilden of NY; wealthy lawyer who had gotten national recognition for breaking up the Tweed Ring in NYC/ long story short the Republicans anticipated that their candidate was going to receive possible losses in FL and SC so they were prepared to use their control of the election machinery in those states to throw out the Democratic ballots to alter the results/ they invalidated the Democratic ballots and filed returns to show Hayes was the winner and so the Democrats got hella angry and filed their own returns/ lol Garraty calls it " a disgraceful picture of election shenanigans," and so both sides were shamefully corrupt/Hayes was elected because he promised the Democrats that he would remove the troops and allow S states to manage their internal affairs by themselves
Ku Klux Klan Act
SAME THING AS THE FORCE ACTS 1870/1871 (originated from the secret terrorist society; the KKK that originated in Tennessee in 1866) series of acts that Congress struck at the KKK with/placed elections under federal jurisdiction and imposed fines and prison sentences on persons convicted of interfering with any citizen's exercise of the franchise/troops were dispatched and by 1872 federal authorities had arrested enough Klansmen to break up the organization
Know-Nothing Party
The American, or "Know-Nothing" party (cotton whigs, anti-immigrant) split from the whig party around 1854 /important in the S and N/adopted dominant view of slavery in S/won string of local victories in 1854 and elected more than 40 congressman
Geroge B. McClellan
Union General who was given command of the Army of the Potomac in 1861 (union) /brilliant, thirty-four year old West Pointer/a superb organizer and drillmaster, and he injected splendid morale into the Army of the Potomac./ consistently believed that the enemy outnumbered/ overcautious and he addressed the president in an arrogant tone/fought against General Robert E. Lee in the Seven Days' Battle(failed)/Frustrated by McClellan's overly cautious tactics, Lincoln removed him from command of the Army of the Potomac in late 1862./ candidate against Lincoln in the Election of 1864
Tenure of Office Act
chief issue that prohibited the president from removing officials who had been appointed with the consent of the Senate without first obtaining Senate approval/ POTUS Johnson violated this in 1868 when he dismissed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and promptly impeached him but failed to actually remove him from office/
Freedmen's Bureau
established March 1865 to care for refugees/branch of War Department was exercising considerable coercive and supervisory power in the S/ Congress used its authority to protect the black population in the S/guaranteed education for freedmen and support to south after the war/Johnson vetoed it/
Homestead Act 1862
gave 160 acres to any settler who would farm the land for five years/passed by N Congress that had previously been opposed by the S - - gave land to war vets after the war to "make up" for everything; allowed anyone to have land at little cost
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
late 1850s; Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of seven debates/Douglas epitomized efficiency and success / Lincoln was a man of the people and traveled around like a normal person/their goal was to win votes and exaggerate their differences (which weren't that extreme); neither wanted to see slavery in the territories and neither thought it was economically efficient, but neither sought to abolish it by political action or force; both believed blacks to be inferior to whites/Douglas tried to make Lincoln look like an abolitionist and Lincoln tried to make Douglas seem like proslavery and defender of the Dred Scott decision/Douglas won the election but Lincoln gained popularity and political stance
Robert E. Lee
leader of the Army of Northern Virginia/leader of the Confederate Army/reluctant supporter of secession and superb soldier/S General at the end of the Civil War/ Eventually Lee returned home on parole and eventually became the president of Washington College in Virginia (now known as Washington and Lee University). He remained in this position until his death on October 12, 1870 in Lexington, Virginia. ///lost the battle of gettysburg, surrendered at the appomatox court house