American History 1 Final

Massachusetts Bay Colony

1630—The Puritan colony, established at Boston. This is the colony that would expand to become New England in later years (Mass., Conn., Rhode Island, New Hampshire). Intended as a religious experiment, Puritan Massachusetts was supposed to become a model religious commonwealth, which would perhaps persuade people in England to reform the Church of England, making it into a Calvinist church like the Congregational Church of the Massachusetts Puritans. Though the colony was founded by a joint-stock company (the Massachusetts Bay Company), it was never intended as an exercise in capitalism. The company's charter and the company's board of directors came with the first group of settlers as a way of divorcing the Puritan settlers from interference in England. "Starving times" were not experienced by the settlers of Boston, who came in large enough numbers, initially, to avoid the problems that smaller numbers of disorganized settlers had experienced in Virginia in earlier years. Massachusetts also did not experience the shortage of women that affected Virginia and other colonies since the Puritan settlers came as families. Under the direction of the colony's leaders, the colony developed in a highly organized and disciplined way, ensuring that the Puritan settlers would not starve or lack for shelter. John Winthrop served as the colony's governor for most of its first two decades.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Author of such essays as "Nature," and "Self-Reliance," he became the leader of the intellectual movement in America known as Transcendentalism in the 1830s. This movement would influence and inspire generations of intellectuals and scholars in America.

John Cabot

Explorer who claimed land along east coast of North America for England in 1498

Henry Hudson

Explorer who discovered the Hudson River valley and claimed it for the Netherlands (Holland) in 1612

Winfield Scott

Known as "old Fuss'n' Feathers," he was the top-ranking general in the U.S. Army from the 1840s until his retirement in 1861. He unsuccessfully ran for President for the Whig Party in 1852.

Frederick Douglass

This African-American was a literate former slave who became the most influential black male spokesperson for the abolitionist movement during the 1840s and 1850s. His autobiography has become an American literary classic.

Sojourner Truth

This African-American woman was a former slave who became the most influential black female abolitionist during the 1840s and 1850s. Though illiterate, she was a powerful and effective speaker who could bring personal testimony to bear on the subject of slavery's evil effects.

"Mad Anthony" Wayne

This American general defeated the Ohio Valley Indian tribes at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. This led to the Treaty of Ft. Greenville and a decade of peace with the Indians of the Ohio Valley.

James I

the first of the 17th century Stuart kings of England - he tried, but failed, to become an absolute monarch. He authorized the Protestant English Bible (the King James Bible) in 1611.

Common Sense

- 1776 -- This was the propaganda pamphlet of Thomas Paine that persuaded large numbers of colonials to become patriots in support of the revolutionary cause. The pamphlet kept the message simple: Instead of explaining the complicated changes in British policy toward the colonies that had produced this revolution, Paine simply blamed everything on the King and declared that if the colonists were to have the liberties they deserved to have, then they must overthrow the rule of this tyrant, the king. In propagandizing the general colonial public, this proved to be the most successful strategy to take. Even Jefferson, in later writing the Declaration of Independence, used the same approach that Paine had employed in Common Sense by listing a series of grievances perpetrated on the colonies by the king. Common Sense was successful in bolstering support for the revolutionary cause at a time, in 1776, when this was sorely needed.

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

- A Lieutenant-General in the Confederate Army, Jackson became the army commander that Robert E. Lee usually relied on to conduct offensive military operations. Jackson's prominent role in Lee's victories over Union armies made him a hero in the South second to none. His death following the Battle of Chancellorsville meant that Lee would undertake the Gettysburg campaign without his best offensive general. His absence at the Battle of Gettsyburg contributed to the Confederate defeat there.

Andrew Jackson

- As a general during the War of 1812, Jackson led the forces that defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1813 and defeated a British force at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He became controversial for his unauthorized invasions of Spanish territory in Florida in 1814 and in 1817. He later became President of the United States.

James Buchanan

- From Pennsylvania, he was the other doughface, elected in 1856. It was Buchanan who got the Supreme Court involved in the issue of slavery in the territories after he failed to end the violence in Kansas by supporting the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution. Although he tried not to be, he was the president on whose watch the Union began to break apart.

Dred Scott

- He is the slave who sued to try to gain his freedom. However, the Supreme Court ruled, in the Dred Scott decision (as it is usually called), that Scott had no standing in court because he was not a citizen

Roger Taney

- He was the Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the court's opinion in the case of Dred Scott v Sanford of 1857. This is the case that overturned the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional and which repealed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, making popular sovereignty a dead issue. The court ruled that slave-owners could bring their slaves to any territory just as they could bring any other property that they owned.

George Gordon Meade

- He was the commander of the Union army at the Battle of Gettysburg. However, he was relieved of this command after failing to follow up his victory and to prevent General Lee from escaping with his army back to Virginia.

Preston Brooks

- This Congressman from South Carolina became infamous in 1856 for his caning of Senator Charles Sumner. Apparently this was in defiance of Sumner's abolitionism and in retaliation for the harsh words Sumner had used in speeches against Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, against the state of South Carolina, and against the South as a whole.

Anne Hutchinson

- another dissident from Massachusetts who was forced to leave Massachusetts because of disagreements with the Puritan ministers

2nd Continental Congress

--1775 -- The members of this Congress were brave men, to have assumed leadership of a revolution which, in 1775, seemed to have little likelihood of success. As far as they knew, the end result of the revolution might have been suppression of the rebellion by British troops, followed by their own arrests and hangings. The 2nd Continental Congress had to rely on the various colonies for monetary gifts in order to supply the Continental Army. Funds were always in short supply. The Congress was also involved in diplomacy, trying to win a foreign ally, because, without an ally, the revolution had no chance of success.

Jefferson Davis

-A former Governor and Senator from Mississippi (and former Secretary of War), he became the one and only President of the Confederate States of America in February, 1861. It is interesting to note that Davis was born in Kentucky in a log cabin located about 60 miles from the log cabin in Kentucky where Abe Lincoln was born.

Quartering Act

1765—This was another law of Parliament that became unpopular in the colonies. It made colonies responsible for the upkeep of British soldiers stationed in the colonies. This was unpopular among colonials because they didn't want the British "redcoats" to be in the colonies in the first place (for several reasons). Army soldiers had been sent to the colonies during the French and Indian War. Afterward, they were not all returned home. Many were left in garrisons in such larger colonial towns as Boston and New York, where the soldiers had little to do and often competed with colonials for part-time jobs. Colonials resented the soldier's presence for that reason and also for the reason that colonials came to understand that the soldiers were here to enforce new rules that the British government had been unable to enforce in the past (when there were no British soldiers in the colonies and it would have been too costly to send them over). Colonists understood that the British government was beginning to assume more control over the colonies than in the past and that the troops were here to enforce rules that the British government knew would be opposed by colonial citizens. So, not only were troops present in the colonies against the wishes of the colonial citizens, but the colonies were required to pay for their upkeep.

Suffolk Resolves

1774 -- A town meeting in Boston (in Suffolk County) produced resolutions (or resolves) to the effect that the people of Boston would not pay for the tea and if the British tried to force them to they would fight. The Resolves called for the creation and training of new militia units and for the stockpiling of arms and ammunition in anticipation that the colonists' stand might lead to a fight with the British of General Gage, who was the commander of the troops in Boston as well as the Royal Governor of the colony.

Intolerable Acts (Coercive Acts)

1774--These acts of Parliament were designed to single out and punish Massachusetts (Boston in particular). The acts shut down the port of Boston until such time as the people of Boston paid for the tea they had destroyed during the "tea party." Without the commerce of the port of Boston, the entire New England economy would suffer.

Braxton Bragg

After the Battle of Shiloh, Bragg was the general assigned by President Davis to replace Albert Sidney Johnston as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Technically, he was under the direction of Joseph Johnston, but Johnston and Bragg did not like each other and Johnston usually left Bragg to his own discretion. This was unfortunate, since Bragg was an unsuccessful general who is often criticized by Civil War historians who blame him for the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Chattanooga in 1863.

William Clark

Along with Meriwether Lewis, this brother of George Rogers Clark (of Revolutionary War fame) led the expedition across the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean. He later became Governor of the Missouri Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

Roger Williams

Along with other dissidents from Massachusetts, he founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1637. He was an advocate of church/state separation.

William Wirt

Although a former Mason, he was the presidential candidate in 1832 of the Anti-Masonic Party, the first important third party in American history.

John Pemberton

Although from Pennsylvania, this general had married a southern girl and lived in the South when the Civil War began. He joined the Confederate army and became the commander of Confederate forces at Vicksburg. He is not the same man (also named John Pemberton) who later invented Coca-Cola.

Eli Whitney

Although it was he who first proposed the idea of making manufactured items with identical, interchangeable parts, Whitney is more famous for the invention of a cotton gin in 1793. This cotton gin would make it possible for cotton cultivation to spread throughout the American South, thereby extending the economic viability of American slavery.

Thomas Pinckney

American diplomat from South Carolina—He negotiated Pinckney's Treaty with the Spanish in 1795.

Benedict Arnold

American general during the revolution—He helped defeat Burgoyne and the Battle of Saratoga but later turned traitor and became a British officer. His name is still synonymous in America with the word "traitor."

Daniel Morgan

American general in Greene's command. He commanded the Patriot forces who defeated Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens in 1781

Samuel Adams

American revolutionary leader -He founded the Sons of Liberty and agitated for revolution long before most other colonial leaders

Robert Morris

As Superintendent of Finance for the U.S. government under the Articles of Confederation, he raised money to support the Continental Army by selling bonds in the early 1780s.

Stephen F. Austin

As leader of the American colony in Texas, he provided government and military protection, organizing a group of armed colonists who would evolve into the Texas Rangers after 1825. By 1835, over 11,000 Americans had come to Austin's Texas colony and the Mexican government had decided to stop American immigration into Texas since it had become impossible to regulate. Conflict with the settlers in Texas developed quickly after 1835 and Austin then led the efforts of Americans in Texas to establish their independence.

John Burgoyne

British general who surrendered his 7,000 man army to Gates at Saratoga in 1777.

William Howe

British general who was the commander of all British forces in America from 1776 until his removal after the Battle of Saratoga.

Charles Cornwallis

British general who was unsuccessful in eliminating Patriot resistance to Britain in the Carolinas in 1780. The revolution ended in 1781 after his surrender at the Battle of Yorktown.

Battle of Fredericksburg

Dec. 1862—Lee's defensive position was attacked by Burnside, resulting in the most lop-sided battle of the war: a major Union defeat in which the Union suffered 13,000 casualties as compared to 5,000 for the Confederates. Burnside was then replaced by Joseph Hooker.

Jacques Cartier

French explorer who discovered the St. Lawrence River valley and claimed it for France about 1532.

Samuel Champlain

French explorer who established the first French colony in America at Quebec in 1608.

Count Rochambeu

French general and commander of the 7,000 French soldiers sent to aid the American cause after 1778. He was present at the Battle of Yorktown, which resulted largely from his planning.

Marquis de Lafayette

French nobleman who came to America (all on his own) to support the American Revolution. He became an aide to George Washington and helped influence people in France to support the American Revolution.

Compromise Tariff of 1832

Henry Clay's compromise tariff that helped to defuse the nullification crisis. When other southern states accepted the compromise tariff, this left South Carolina alone in refusing to enforce the tariff. This marked the second time in Henry Clay's career that this statesman from Kentucky introduced a compromise that helped in ending a sectional crisis (the Missouri Compromise being the first).

George Washington

His attack on Fort Duquesne in 1754 started the French and Indian War. Later, he became commander of the American Continental Army during the American Revolution.

Battle of the Alamo

In 1836, Americans living in Texas as citizens of the country of Mexico revolted against the Mexican government. Americans living in Texas had become unruly and unwilling to abide by Mexican laws, so the Mexican dictator, General Santa Anna went north in 1836 with an army and with the determination to make those Texans toe the line that he was going to set for them. The Texans responded by forming an army under Sam Houston. When Santa Anna reached present-day San Antonio, he was confronted there by a small force of Texans who were holding out in the mission church complex known as the Alamo. Although Santa Anna succeeded in defeating these American opponents (such as William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett), indeed in wiping them out, he was slowed down long enough to allow Sam Houston to form an effective army with which to oppose Santa Anna a few days later at the

John C. Fremont

In 1846, he was among the Americans who rebelled against Mexican authority in California and founded the Bear Flag Republic. In 1856, Fremont became the first presidential candidate of the new political party, the Republican Party.

Indentured Servitude

In early American colonies, land was plentiful, but labor was cheap. African slavery, though first introduced in Virginia in 1619, did not become common or widespread until after 1700 (first in South Carolina and then in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland). Until slaves became the basis of the labor supply, the southern colonies fulfilled their labor needs through indentured servants. These were English commoners who could not afford passage to the colonies from England by ship. If a land-owner in a colony, however, paid his way he could pay that land-owner back by working for him for an agreed-upon period of years. The most common contracts between indentured servants and land-owners called for terms of service of either 5 or 7 years. Eventually, as cities developed in the colonies, it became easy for indentured servants to escape their obligations by leaving and getting lost in the crowd in cities like Philadelphia or Boston. As this occurred, then African slaves came to be more and more appealing as a supply of labor, even though slaves were relatively expensive.

Opechancenough

Indian chief who succeeded Powhatan and started war with Virginia colonists in 1622

Battle of Gettysburg

July 1,2,3, 1863—This 3-day battle was the biggest of the war with a total of 52,000 casualties on both sides. 24,000 Union casualties was a serious blow, but the loss to Lee of 28,000 casualties was more than one-third of his whole army and this would end Lee's invasion of the North and prevent him from even thinking about another invasion for the future. Lee will have to limp back down to Virginia after this battle and become involved in a strictly defensive posture for the remainder of the war. Gettysburg is usually regarded as the most important battle of the war in that it represented the South's last good chance to achieve its objectives. Failure at Gettysburg, coupled with the fall of Vicksburg one day later, were disasters from which the Confederacy could not recover. After testing the Union's flanks during the first two days of this battle, Lee sent an attack by 15,000 men at the center of the Union line on the last day of the battle. This is what is known as Pickett's Charge, since it was the fresh troops of General George Pickett who led the assault. This charge was thrown back with heavy casualties.

Vasco da Gama

Portuguese explorer who established trade route to India in 1498

Abraham Lincoln

Regarded by many as one of the nation's greatest presidents, it was his task to guide the Union through the Civil War. Despite the Confederacy's gallant war effort and heavy opposition in the North to the war, Lincoln kept a majority of northerners in support of the war long enough to enable the Union's military the time it needed to drag the Confederacy down and eventually win the war. This not only preserved the Union, but also brought about the end of slavery in the United States.

Harriet Tubman

She was the best known and most successful of the "Underground Railroad's" "Conductors." A former slave herself, she risked capture and re-enslavement 19 times in order to return to the South and help runaways reach freedom in Canada.

Seminole Wars

The First Seminole War occurred in 1814 when Creeks fleeing from Andrew Jackson joined forces with the Seminoles in northern Florida. Jackson chased the Creeks into Florida (even though this was an invasion of foreign territory). This fighting ended in late 1814 when Jackson was called away to assume command of the American defense of New Orleans against the British. However, by 1817, Jackson would be sent by the U.S. government to return to control raiding by the Creeks and Seminoles from across the border of Florida into Alabama. Again, he violated Spain's territorial integrity and invaded northern Florida. This incident helped convince the Spanish they should cede Florida to the U.S. in 1819. Other Seminole Wars would be waged in the 1830s and 1840s. Each time, the Seminoles avoided outright defeat by escaping into the swamps of southern Florida. To this day, the Seminoles remain the only Indian tribe never to be completely subdued by the U.S. army.

New England

The New England colonies all originated from the earliest colonies of the Pilgrims and Puritans in Massachusetts. Eventually, offshoots of these Puritan colonies branched off in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire to become separate colonies in their own right, but these colonies were all similar to Massachusetts in terms of geography, economics, and culture. Today, New England is generally everything in the U.S. east of the Hudson River and it is still as distinct a region of the U.S. as it was during colonial times.

Tecumseh's Confederacy

after 1806—Tecumseh, a Shawnee Indian leader, never succeeded in his efforts to organize a confederacy of all the tribes as a way of preventing the continuation of American westward settlement. Tippecanoe broke up his confederacy and his fighting with the British during the War of 1812 failed to revive the idea of such a confederacy. Tecumseh's death in 1813, during the War of 1812, meant the end of all efforts to organize an Indian confederacy.

Domestic Slave Trade

after 1808—Congress made American participation in the international slave trade illegal in 1808. No longer being able to buy cheaper slaves from Africa, those in the market to purchase slaves had to buy them from among slaves already here in the United States. Suddenly, as a result of the end of the foreign slave trade, domestic slaves (American slaves) became much more valuable monetarily and the sale of slaves became a lucrative business. As cotton cultivation spread, new plantation areas of Miss., La., etc. became buyers of slaves from Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, etc. The major slave market was in New Orleans. Protection of this domestic slave trade from Congress was one of the concessions given the South as part of the Compromise of 1850.

Ernie Canal

completed 1824—This artificial waterway connected Lake Ontario (at Buffalo, New York) to the Hudson River in New York. This allowed goods to travel back and forth between New York City and the whole growing region of the United States that Americans today call the midwest. It would lead to the rapid growth of New York City as the most populous and most important American urban center. Its impact on the economies of whole regions of the country led to the idea that such internal developments as the Erie Canal should be expanded upon and that the federal government should become responsible for funding and carrying out more such projects for the benefit of the entire country's economic health. This idea became a central plank in the platform of the Whig Party. Even though Democrats opposed the idea of federal sponsorship of such projects, Democrats argued that individual states should sponsor improvements in infrastructure, such as roads, railroads, bridges, and canals.

Battle of Vicksburg

ended July 4, 1863 after a lengthy siege of the city—The fall of Vicksburg was a major defeat for the Confederacy. It represented the success of one part of the Union's Anaconda Plan, indicating that the Union was winning the war and that the Confederacy was losing, at least in the Trans-Mississippi West. The fall of Vicksburg isolated La., Ark., and Tex. from the rest of the Confederacy and shut down an important supply route from Mexico through Tex. and La. (across the Miss. River at Vicksburg).

Powhatan

father of Pocahontas - Indian chief who established peaceful relations with colonists in Virginia

Pocahontas

her marriage to John Rolfe helped to establish peaceful relations between Indians and the Virginia colonists

The Fall Line

is a north-south line that divided the eastern and western regions of colonies from each other. In the South, the Fall Line separated the Tidewater areas of colonies from the Piedmont, or back-country areas. The location of the line was determined by the location of rapids, or water-falls along rivers that generally ran eastward from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. In the western, or back-country, areas of colonies like Virginia or South Carolina, rivers were not navigable, because of the presence of rapids and falls. However, where the rivers broadened out and became tame (east of the fall line), streams were navigable and were used to get crops to market in cities on the coast. These more prime farming areas (east of the fall line) where rivers could be used to transport crops to market were known as the Tidewater. Most of the plantations were in the Tidewater and hence most of the richest colonial citizens (who tended to dominate the colonial legislatures) were from the Tidewater areas of colonies. The Piedmont, or back-country areas were populated mostly by small independent farmers who generally developed political grievances with the Tidewater people who dominated the colonial government and economy. The Scotch-Irish, in particular, tended to gravitate to the back-country areas west of the fall line. Farther north in New England, the mountains tended to be so close to the sea that a fall line, as in the South, did not really exist. Consequently, east-west political tension was not usually as typical of northern colonies (later states of the U.S.) as it was of southern colonies.

Thirteenth Amendment

ratified 1865--This is what ended slavery (everywhere) in the U.S.

Force Bill

the act of Congress that authorized President Jackson to use military force against South Carolina if that state continued to refuse to comply with the tariff.

William and Mary

the co-rulers of England after the Glorious Revolution: Queen Mary II and King William III (formerly William of Orange of the Netherlands).

George I

the founder of the Hanover Dynasty—He became king in 1715 of England but could not speak English

Convention of 1846

with Britain—By this convention, Great Britain recognized the Oregon Territory (later to become the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) to be an American possession. This territory had been jointly claimed by both the U.S. and Britain since the early years of the 19th century, but Britain relinquished its claims in 1846 because, by this time, far and away the most people living in the territory were Americans. However, James Polk had campaigned for the presidency in 1844 on the campaign slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" This meant that the U.S. would be willing to go to war with Britain over Oregon if the British didn't agree to giving the U.S. the Oregon Territory all the way northward to the latitude line 54 degreees, 40 minutes. This would include in the Oregon Territory most of what is present-day British Colombia and Alberta. But when Polk and the U.S. became involved in war with Mexico in 1846, the idea of war with Britain too seemed stupid. Accordingly, Polk and his diplomats dropped the claim to 54-40 and quietly agreed to British recognition that Oregon south of the 49 degree line of latitude was American territory. The 49th parallel had been the border between the Lousisiana Purchase part of the U.S. and Canada. The Convention of 1846 simply extended that line westward to the ocean and defined Oregon as everything south of that to the border with California (to define an area that is now Washington, Idaho, and Oregon). The 49th parallel still makes up (today) most of the border between Canada and the U.S. west of Lake Superior.

James II

younger son of Charles I, brother of Charles II. He is the king overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688

Battle of antietam

(Battle of Sharpsburg)—Sep. 1862—This was the battle that ended Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North, forcing him back down to Virginia, and gave Lincoln the opportunity he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. This was also the battle that ended George McClellan's leadership of the Army of the Potomoc, resulting in his replacement by Ambrose Burnside. Antietam was a one-day battle with over 23,000 casualties to both sides, making the day of this battle the single bloodiest day of the entire war. Casualties at this battle were four times more than the number of American casualties sustained at the D-Day invasion of France during World War Two.

The South

(Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, which all origninated from the first English settlements in the area of Chesapeake Bay) of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia were all colonies engaged in production of plantation products that were important to the English system of mercantilism. Tobacco was the main colonial product of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, whereas indigo and rice became the staple crops of South Carolina and Georgia. Because of the importance of plantation agriculture to the southern colonies, these colonies were the ones that developed a reliance on slavery as the best way to provide the labor needed to sustain the colonial plantation economy (once indentured servants came to be seen as unreliable). In later years, as residents of these colonies moved westward, they brought slavery and their plantation economy with them to new areas (such as Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.) This development promoted the appearance of an entire region of the United States (after 1776) that was both culturally and economically different from other parts of the United States (because of its reliance on slave labor and plantation agriculture). Differences between North and South leading to the Civil War, then, were not differences that suddenly appeared in the 19th century, but were differences that originated in colonial times and had a long history prior to the 19th century.

Middle Colonies

(Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, New York, which all originated from colonies of the Swedes and Dutch that were taken over by the English by the 1670s) were known as "middle" colonies because they represented colonial territory in the middle of or between New England and the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia. These were the colonies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware. All of this territory had formerly been controlled either by the Netherlands or by Sweden (from where the log cabin was introduced into American history). The Swedish controlled areas were taken over by the Dutch by the 1650s and then the whole area was taken over by England by 1674. When this happened, England now had control over a continuous line of colonies along the east coast of North America whereas, formerly, New England and the southern colonies had been separated by the colonial possessions of other European countries. The middle colonies eventually became known as the breadbasket of the American colonies, because a lot of grain crops were produced here, in addition to cheese and other dairy products, as well as livestock.

Adams-Onis Treaty (Transcontinental Treaty)

(otherwise known as the Transcontinental Treaty)—1819—This treaty between the U.S. and Spain ceded East Florida to the United States (for $5 million), established the Sabine River as the dividing line between Louisiana and Spanish Texas, and settled the boundary between Spanish California and Oregon as the line that serves as that boundary today. Oregon was not yet American property, though the U.S. claimed it (it was also claimed by the British until the British agreed to let the U.S. have Oregon in a convention of 1846). But in this case, at least Spain recognized American territory as extending all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The main term of this treaty, however, was the American acquisition of Florida, as a result of the threat that if Spain did not cede Florida, Americans would militarily seize it. Due to Andrew Jackson's invasions of Spanish Florida during the Creek War and during the 2nd Seminole War, this was not an idle threat.

Bank Controversy

(over the second Bank of the U.S.)—1828 to 1835—Jackson opposed the national bank and promised to let its charter expire in 1836 without renewal. In 1832, Henry Clay made renewal of the bank's charter the main issue of the 1832 election. When Jackson got re-elected, he assumed he had an electoral mandate to see to it that the national bank did not get renewed. But rather than just wait for the bank's charter to expire in 1836, Jackson decided to try to kill the national bank ahead of that time, in 1834. He began refusing to deposit federal money into the national bank, which deprived the bank of enough capital with which to operate, so that the bank would go "bankrupt." Although this worked and people in the states were happy that their state banks started receiving federal deposits (the banks getting these deposits became known as Jackson's "Pet Banks"), the unnatural death of the national bank would help cause an abnormal amount of land speculation on the frontier that led to major economic problems.

Treaty of Tordesillas

1494 - This treaty, negotiated between Spain and Portugal by the Pope, divided the world between Spain and Portugal. In the New World, the treaty line separated Portuguese Brazil from the rest of Spanish South America. In the Far East, the East Indies (modern Indonesia), on one side of the line, became Portuguese controlled and the Philippines, on the other side of the line, became a Spanish colony. 1494 was a time before any other European country was able to challenge either the Spanish or the Portuguese for control of trade routes or colonies in other parts of the world. Since, for a time, Spain and Portugal held the field to themselves, this treaty was a way to prevent these neighboring Catholic countries from competing with each other in other parts of the world, helping to keep them at peace with each other. Other European countries did not recognize this treaty, especially later when they became able to compete with the Spanish and Portuguese for foreign sources of wealth.

Headright System

1618 in Virginia -- This was introduced by the London Company that ran Virginia up to 1624. Once tobacco had been introduced as the colony's favored cash crop (by 1612), it became a matter of getting more settlers to Virginia so that more tobacco could be grown—so that the company might finally have a means of making enough money to pay off its debts and investors after years of failure. Under this system, one was rewarded by paying one's own way to Virginia by being given 50 acres of land for himself and 50 more acres for each member of his family. Land was used as enticement to persuade more settlers to come to Virginia and to become tobacco farmers. Also, a land-owner would receive 50 acres for each indentured servant he paid to come over.

House of Burgesses

1619 - This was the lower house of the Virginia legislature. It was elected by the people and controlled taxes. Because the governor's salary was paid by the legislature, the legislature could usually (and often did) politically control the governor. The House of Burgesses in Virginia is important as the first elected colonial legislature, which served as a model for the legislatures of all the other colonies in later years. Colonial self-government, which became typical of all the colonies began first in Virginia with the House of Burgesses.

Plymouth colony

1620 -- in Massachusetts by settlers led by Calvinist "Separatists," who could not accept membership in the Church of England and sought a new place to find freedom of worship. The Separatists who led this venture, but who made up only 35 of the original 102 colonists, organized a joint-stock company and were authorized by the English crown to settle in Virginia. However, when the settlers came over on the Mayflower, they landed 200 miles north of where they should have been. They stayed because it was too late in the year to go looking for another site. This colony found means of making enough money to pay off all the company's investors by 1628, so that the colonists could be completely free of all connections to the mother country and concentrate on making the colony a religious experiment. Later, the larger Puritan colony (Massachusetts Bay Colony) grew up all around Plymouth. By the 1670s, Plymouth ceased being a separate colony and had been subsumed by Massachusetts Bay. Unlike the Puritans of the rest of Massachusetts, however, the pilgrims at Plymouth maintained good relations with local Indians, so that the origins of Thanksgiving were in Plymouth, not in the Massachusetts Bay colony.

English Civil War

1642-1649 - King Charles I insisted on being an absolute ruler, leading to a revolt against him by Parliament, which was led by a faction of Puritans under Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell's victory over the king led to the execution of Charles I in 1649 and England being ruled by a Puritan-led Parliament (without a monarch) until 1660 (when the monarchy was restored under King Charles II in what became known as the Restoration). The English Civil War was an important event in the century -long struggle between Parliament and King in England over which would have the ultimate power over English government. That is, the struggle was over whether or not England would have an absolute monarch or a monarch who shared power with the Parliament. Despite what happened to Charles I, his successors, Charles II and James II, both worked to become absolute rulers themselves. Consequently, the English Civil War had not solved the problem between king and Parliament and there would have to be another rebellion against the king to settle, once and for all, who had the greatest share of power over English government. This last rebellion was the

Bacon's Rebellion

1676 -- Led by Nathaniel Bacon, back-country settlers in Virgina became unhappy with the colonial government in Jamestown. When the governor of Virginia (William Berkeley) and the colonial legislature became unsupportive of back-country people's interest in warfare against Indians (in order to seize more land), the back-country people, organized by Bacon, marched on Jamestown and took over the government. Unfortunately, Bacon became ill and died soon after this and the rebellion lost leadership and focus. A counter-attack organized by Berkeley resulted in the capture and execution of many of those involved in the rebellion. The importance of this rebellion is in the way that it shows the tension that existed between back-country and Tidewater people in the southern colonies (the earliest development of what would later become typical in the South as rednecks versus planters).

King Phillip's War

1676—This was a war between New England settlers and a confederacy of Algonkin tribes, led by a Wampanoag Indian chief known to the English colonists as King Phillip. As with all such wars between Indians and Europeans, the Indians lost and were displaced from land as a result, but this war was particularly savage and destructive to both sides. Seen from the standpoint of numbers of casualties as a percentage of the population that existed at the time, King Phillip's War is still the most deadly of all American wars.

Dominion of New England

1680s - This was an arrangement of colonies by King James II. It combined the colonies of New York along with the colonies of New England into one single colony headed up by a governor appointed by the king. This was strongly opposed in the colonies so that when the Glorious Revolution took place in England—and James II was overthrown—a similar revolution took place in the colonies against Edmond Andros, the governor of the Dominion of New England. In the aftermath of the overthrow of both Andros and James II, the Dominion of New England was dissolved and New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts all became separate colonies once again. The Dominion of New England was a strong attempt to bring colonies directly under the greater control of the king. The hatred of James II that developed in England, however, led to Parliament's undoing of James II's method of colonial control. After 1688, Parliament generally supported colonies against any new efforts to bring colonies under greater English governmental control. All this changed, however, at the end of the French and Indian War, after which Parliament adopted the view that colonies needed to be controlled more strictly.

Board of Trade

1698 and afterwards-- The Board of Trade was a body of men in the English government who advised the king on colonial matters as part of the process by which the colonial policy of the English government came to be. Because the king was not an absolute ruler, the Board of Trade had to convince Parliament, as well as the king, in order to have great influence. In general, the Board of Trade influenced the king's thinking on matters of colonial policy, but had little influence over Parliament until after the French and Indian War (which ended in 1763). The Board of Trade advocated that the lax enforcement of the rules of mercantilism (which had been typical of the English colonial system) was a bad thing and that the English government should seize stronger control over what happened in the colonies. Because Parliament opposed that idea until 1763, the Board of Trade had little direct influence over colonial policy for a long time. But when Parliament, along with the king, both developed agreement with the Board of Trade that greater control over colonies needed to be developed (after the French and Indian War), then great changes in colonial policy began to be introduced. These changes, however, would be very unpopular in the colonies and would help lead to the American Revolution's outbreak by 1775.

Queen Anne's War

1702-1713—This was one of four major wars between the English and the French (and their various allies) fought between 1689 and 1763. The first three of these wars, including Queen Anne's War, ended without a decisive victory for either side. The French and Indian War (the last of these four wars from 1754-1760) ended in a decisive British victory over France that resulted in England gaining control over all of France's colonies in North America (except for some islands in the Caribbean). However, Queen Anne's War, known in Europe as the War of the Spanish Succession, did result in a part of French Canada (Acadia) becoming English-controlled (and renamed Nova Scotia). The unpopularity of English rule there would lead in subsequent years to an exodus of French-speaking people from Nova Scotia to other places, most notably southern Louisiana, marking the origins of the people of South Louisiana known today as the Cajuns.

The Great Awakening

1730s,40s-- This was a religious awakening, involving the development of evangelism as a new style of religion that inspired many people to become converted to religious practice at a time during the 18th century when the Enlightenment had led to much disinterest in religion. The consequence of the Great Awakening in America was that evangelism became very pronounced, especially in back-country areas and the Baptist and Methodist faiths became significant new influences on American culture. Also, because the Great Awakening caused many colonists in America to begin seeing Americans as God's new chosen and to begin seeing America itself as a new "promised land," American evangelicals began to develop a separate identity with America (and not with England or Europe) that had not existed before. That is, in trying to identify when Americans started seeing themselves as Americans (and not as Englishmen living in America), the Great Awakening is a time in American colonial history when an American nationalism could be seen as developing for the first time, at least among some Americans, even though most Americans probably still saw themselves primarily as Englishmen up until the outbreak of the American Revolution.

King George's War

1744-1748 - Like Queen Anne's War, this third of the four major English-French wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, ended without a decisive victory for either side. The importance of this war, however, is that the focus of the fighting, by the end of the war, was control of territory in North America. The first three of these four major English-French wars all began in Europe and then the fighting spread to the colonies and French colonists in Canada (along with their Algonkin allies) would fight against English colonists (and their Iriquois allies). But the focus of the fighting usually remained the problem in Europe that started the war. Not so with King George's War. This war was known in Europe as the War of the Austrian Succession, but by 1748 (when the war ended) most of the fighting was taking place in the colonies, not in Europe, and the focus of the fighting had nothing to do with Austria but was concerned, instead, with control of land in North America. Not surprisingly, then, the next war (the French and Indian War) would begin in 1754 in the colonies and then spread to Europe (instead of starting in Europe and spreading to the colonies).

Albany Plan of Union

1754 - in Albany, New York. Delegates from the various English colonies met at Albany to discuss what to do about the French and Indian War that had broken out in 1754. At this Congress, Ben Franklin proposed the Albany Plan of Union, which would have created a colonial central government that would have had the power to raise money (by taxing the colonies) to recruit a common colonial army for defense against the French and Indians. Each colonial legislature, however, was jealous of its own power over taxes in each colony and the Albany Plan of Union was voted down. This caused the British government to recognize that the war in America might not go well if the British side was represented by militias of the various colonies all acting independently of each other without central command or organization. The failure of the Albany Plan of Union convinced the English government to send the regular army from England across the Atlantic to conduct the war in America against the French and their Indian allies. Though this would lead to British success in the war, it would create some problems after the war. One reason that the English were lax in enforcing mercantilism in the colonies is that they lacked enforcement authority (and it was seen as too expensive to send troops over to the colonies to develop an enforcement capability). But once the English had sent troops over to fight in the French and Indian War, the decision was made—after the war—to simply leave many of those troops in the colonies instead of returning them all home to Britain. Now, after 1763, that an enforcement capability existed, the English government became more emboldened to change colonial policy in the direction of increasing the mother country's control over the colonies. This development, however, would cause the colonials to resent the change and to oppose the "redcoats" that were left in the colonies to enforce the new rules—and the revolution would break out.

Battle of Quebec

1759—Quebec was the main French stronghold in Canada. It was the first French settlement in Canada (in 1608) and remained the administrative, religious, military, and financial center of French Canada. Its fall to the British army of James Wolfe in 1759 virtually assured British victory in the French and Indian War, even though the fighting in North America did not stop until Montreal also fell in 1760. Both Louis Montcalm (the French commanding general) and James Wolfe (the British commander) died in the Battle of Quebec.

Pontiac's Rebellion

1763—Pontiac was an Indian chief who organized a rebellion against English authority by many tribes in the Great Lakes region. It was one thing for France to surrender at the end of the French and Indian War and to sign a treaty giving England control of North America east of the Mississippi River. It was another thing for France's Indian allies to recognize that treaty. Pontiac could not understand how France could give control of Indian land to England. He maintained the land was still Indian land and not English territory. Though Pontiac's resistance was put down by the British in 1763, the British understood the resentment on the part of France's former Indian allies and would try not to antagonize them any further, because the English government understood that to do so would cause more warfare with the Indians. As a result of this, the British government introduced the Proclamation of 1763, which told English colonists that they could not settle west of the Appalachians—for the time being—even though the reason for the French and Indian War (in the first place) was the desire of colonial citizens to settle westward and even though the English had won the war. The English government did not want continued warfare with the Indians and Pontiac's Rebellion showed them this is what would occur if English settlers poured across the Appalachians and began settling on Indian land. Of course, this Proclamation of 1763 would become a grievance that England's colonists would have against the government of the mother country in succeeding years.

Currency Act

1764 - This act of Parliament outlawed the colonial practice of issuing paper money as currency. Some of the colonies had been utilizing paper money since the 1750s (during the French and Indian War) and the convenience of it made paper money popular among colonists. But colonial paper money was virtually worthless by 1763. When colonials paid British merchants with worthless paper money, it was tantamount to stealing from them. Because of this, British merchants complained to Parliament which responded by outlawing paper money in the colonies. This made sense but it was another thing that angered colonists.

Boycotts

1764 and afterwards—boycotts against the products sold in the colonies by British merchants (to American merchants) were the most effective form of protest against the mother country's new policies after 1763. When British merchants suffered as a result of the boycotts, they became the most effective lobbyists against the Stamp Act in Parliament. Boycotts, however, would also hurt American merchants, which is why American merchants were happy to call off the boycotts in 1770 when Lord North seemed to be interested in good faith compromise with the colonies.

Stamp Act Congress

1764—Colonists knew that the Stamp Act was to go into effect in 1765. Before this happened, delegates from the various colonies met in Philadelphia as the Stamp Act Congress to draw up a formal declaration of protest against the act (on the grounds of no taxation without representation). This protest was less effective, perhaps, than the extra-legal action taken against the Stamp Act by violent colonial groups (such as the Sons of Liberty), but it became one of the reasons why Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766.

Sugar Act

1764—This was one of the Navigation Acts, which was legislated to replace the Molasses Act of 1733. The act dealt with colonial trade with British sugar islands in the Caribbean. In the past (after 1733), colonial merchants who acquired barrels of molasses from Caribbean sugar plantations had to pay an import duty of 5 ½ pence per barrel in order to import the molasses to make rum of the stuff. The rum was then traded to fishermen off the Grand Banks (near Newfoundland) for fish, which colonial merchants then sailed across the Atlantic to exchange with the Spanish or Portuguese for wine—which was then sailed to England and exchanged for manufactured products that could be brought back to New England and sold to American colonists. The problem is that colonial merchants never actually had to pay such a high import duty as 5 ½ pence per barrel. Instead, they had been paying bribes to customs officials in the colonies who allowed the merchants to pay an import duty on molasses of only 1 ½ pence. Otherwise, payment of the full import duty would have made it unfeasible for merchants to make rum out of the molasses and to continue the trade that made importing the molasses profitable in the first place. The Sugar Act of 1764 represented Parliament's realization that 5 ½ pence was too high an import duty on molasses and the act replaced it with a duty of 3 ½ pence, perhaps without realizing that merchants had actually been paying only 1 ½ pence. Also, the act provided that there would be no bribe-taking (that the 3 ½ pence had to be paid). This made colonial merchants mad because it ruined their trade. They couldn't pay 3 ½ pence and make a profit. Why oh why, they thought, couldn't Parliament leave things as they were before the Sugar Act? This became just another of the series of unpopular laws that would lead the colonies to protest and revolution.

Sons of Liberty

1765 and later - Founded by Samuel Adams in Boston, this direct-action (terrorist) group opposed the Stamp Act by threatening to physically harm British agents in charge of distributing the stamps in the colonies--or by burning down warehouses containing the stamps. After the temporary lull in protests against England (after 1770), Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty were among the few people in the colonies who were already committed to the idea of revolution. Their thinking was that as long as the British government maintained the right to tax the colonies, it was only a question of time before that taxation authority would rob the colonists of any independence.

Stamp Act

1765—This was the act of Parliament that the colonies hated the most, because it represented a direct tax, levied by Parliament on colonial citizens. This was a violation of the long-standing principle in Britain (since the 13th century) of "no taxation without representation." In other words, since the time of the Magna Carta (1215), British government had operated on the principle that the only government body that can legitimately tax people is the government body composed of people that had been elected by the people being taxed. That is, it was OK for people in Britain (who voted for the members of Parliament) to be taxed by Parliament and it was OK in the colonies for colonial citizens to be taxed by colonial legislatures, but it was not OK in the colonies for colonial citizens to pay taxes that had been legislated by Parliament (since colonial citizens had not voted to elect the members of Parliament). Because the Stamp tax was such a tax, colonial citizens protested against it.

Townshend Duties

1766-1770—When Parliament repealed the stamp tax, which was a direct tax in that colonists had to shell out money to purchase the stamps (and this money went directly to the British government), Parliament then replaced the stamp tax with a series of indirect taxes known as the Townshend Duties. Named after Charled Townshend, the acting Prime Minister from 1766-1770, these import duties on such imported products as lead, paint, glass, and tea were not directly paid by colonists. Merchants who sold these products paid the import duty but then raised the cost of the product to consumers in order to recover the price of the import duty. If merchants had not made colonists aware of the Townshend Duties, they might not have recognized them as taxes. But they did, and the boycotts that had been effective in gaining repeal of the stamp tax now continued against the Townshend Duties. In 1770, when Lord North replaced Townshend as Prime Minister, the Townshend Duties were repealed (except for the duty on tea, which continued to be collected). The remaining duty on tea accomplished the same purpose of showing the colonies that the mother country hadn't completely backed down on the subject of taxes as had the Declaratory Act a few years before.

Boston Massacre

1770—The death of five colonial citizens (including Crispus Attucks, a black man) in Boston at the hands of British soldiers became known as the "Boston Massacre." In actuality, the soldiers were being accosted by an angry crowd of colonials and fired into the crowd as a means of protecting themselves. In their subsequent trial for manslaughter, six of the eight soldiers who had been arrested were acquitted, thanks to the able representation of their lawyer, the future president John Adams. Two soldiers were convicted, however, but their punishment was just having a hand branded before being released. Though such advocates of revolution as Samuel Adams made a big deal of the "massacre," most colonials overlooked the incident and accepted Lord North's concessions—and peace was generally restored to the colonies (until 1773).

North's Concessions

1770—The main concession of Lord North to the colonies was the repeal of the Townshend Duties. Even thought the duty on tea was left in place, American merchants saw the removal of the duties on other products as a compromise that they could accept. Since American merchants had also been hurt by the boycotts of the preceding few years, they were looking for a way to get back to business in a normal way. If the price of normality was a small tax on tea, that was acceptable. For the next 3 years, there would be very little colonial protest against England and everything would return to normal (for the most part). But this was only temporary as the Tea Act of 1773 would inflame the colonies against the mother country once again, helping lead to outright revolution by 1775.

Boston Tea Party

1773—The most obvious protests against the Tea Act were in the form of "tea parties," the most famous (and the first one) which was the Boston Tea Party. This event involved nearly unanimous action by all merchants from the city of Boston in protest against the Tea Act. They disguised themselves as Indians, boarded a ship of the British East India Co. that had sailed into Boston harbor with a load of tea to be sold in the colonies, and dumped that tea into the harbor. This represented destruction of tea valued (in terms of 2002 dollars) at over $15 million. Of course, the company compained to Parliament about this. When members of Parliament (and Lord North) heard about the incident, it angered them because they thought they had been very lenient in their policies toward the colonies. They had repealed the Stamp Act when colonists protested against it, they had repealed the Townshend Duties (except for the one on tea), and now they had made tea cheaper than before and still the colonists were protesting. It was the last straw for many in the English government who now began to insist that the colonies be made to understand that they were colonies who must do the bidding of the mother country. Punitive legislation, designed to put the colonies in their place, would follow in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party (and to other tea parties in other port cities in 1773).

Battle of Bunker Hill

1776 -- This was the first big battle of the Revolutionary War. It involved the attempt by colonials to gain possession of high ground north of Boston on which to place cannon--which could be used to barrage the British garrison in Boston and to force the British to evacuate the city. Although Americans have always claimed the battle a victory, on the basis of over 1200 British casualties compared to a couple of hundred Americans, the battle was technically a British victory since the Brits remained in control of the hill at the end of the day. Eventually, however, the colonials gained control of high ground south of the city (the Dorchester Heights) and used cannon to force the British out of the city in early 1776. When Congress signed the Declaration in 1776, New England had already been liberated from British military government.

Tea Act

1773—This act was not a tax on tea. The tax on tea in place since 1766 (one of the Townshend Duties) was still in place and had nothing to do with the Tea Act. The Tea Act was an act passed by Parliament in order to exempt a British joint-stock company from the normal rules of mercantilism in order to help save that company from bankruptcy. The company was the British East India Company, which was involved in the lion's share of British conquests of parts of India. Since the British government was in debt following the French and Indian War, it did not want to spend money on troops to be used in the conquest of India. It was much more cost-effective to give the British East India Co. the authority to conquer India for Britain. For its part, the company would receive a legal monopoly over the trade coming out of India. But the company was suffering financially in 1773 and Lord North (and Parliament) wanted to save the company so that the company could continue to conquer India for Britain. The Tea Act exempted the British East India Co. from the Navigation Acts, allowing the company to use its own ships and merchants to market tea from Asia directly to its markets (including the American colonies) instead of having to sell the tea to merchants from England, who would then sail the tea to England and package the final product before other English merchants would then sell the tea to people in the empire's markets (such as to American merchants who sold the tea to American colonists). In this case, the Tea Act eliminated all middlemen in the tea trade, such as all English merchants and also any American merchants who used to sell tea. By enabling the British East India Co. to sell the tea directly to people in the markets, however, it meant that the company could increase the price it charged in selling tea, but the people buying tea in the markets would actually pay less for the tea than they used to pay (because the profits of all the middlemen in the tea trade had been eliminated). Lord North and Parliament thought the Tea Act was a wonderful piece of legislation because it enabled them to kill two birds with one stone. It allowed them to save the company that represented Britain in India (so the company could keep on doing that) and it actually reduced the price of tea in the American colonies, where a few people were still complaining about the tea tax. It seemed like a good solution to the problem of having to save the British East India Co. from bankruptcy and it would also cause colonial protesters to lose face. However, North and Parliament did not count on the American merchants who had been eliminated from the tea trade getting as angry about it as they did and they did not count on other American merchants supporting the tea merchants in organizing protests against the Tea Act.

1st Continental Congress

1774 -- Delegates from the various colonies met in Philadelphia to discuss what to do about the punitive legislation that Parliament had inflicted on the colonies in 1774. The Congress adopted the Suffolk Resolves, meaning that all 13 colonies would now start training militia in anticipation of a possible fight with the British army. A new plan of union (the Galloway Plan of Union) was proposed, but rejected. This plan of Joseph Galloway (from Pennsylvania) was very similar to the one proposed at Albany by Franklin in 1754. Jealousy over the control of taxes by the legislatures of each colony led to the failure to adopt the Galloway Plan, which would mean that the colonies were not well-coordinated when the revolution began.

Quebec Act

1774 -- This act of Parliament affected all the colonies, not just Massachusetts. It made the area of land west of the Appalachians (north of the Ohio River) that colonists had wanted to settle since the 1750s a part of the colony of Quebec, which was the former French colony that was now a British colony since the end of the French and Indian War. Quebec was ruled by a governor without any legislature and the established religion was the Catholic Church. In other words, the British ruled the people of French Canada in the same way that the French had done. Even though this act voids the Proclamation of 1763 and allows settlement into the Ohio Valley, it allows settlement on terms that the colonists do not like (and this was by design). Because this act angered colonists from most of the 13 colonies, it might be more responsible for the revolution that followed than the Intolerable Acts.

Lexington & Concord

1775 -- After adjournment in November, 1774, the First Continental Congress agreed to meet as the Second Continental Congress in May of 1775. When the 2nd Congress came together in Philadelphia, the revolution had already started in Massachusetts with the events surrounding Lexington and Concord during April, 1775. A British detachment of troops dispatched to march to Concord (30 miles from Boston) to confiscate arms stored there scattered a militia unit at Lexington along the way. Having killed several of the Lexington militia, the British troops resumed their march to Concord six miles away but never achieved their purpose. They would return to Boston quickly after constant sniping from "minutemen" from all over New England who had begun to converge on the scene after receiving news of what happened at Lexington. When the troops returned to Boston, they found themselves surrounded by New England militia and under siege. The Second Continental Congress would dispatch George Washington to come to Boston to assume command of the patriot forces surrounding Boston. This attempt by patriot forces to liberate Boston (and all of New England) from British military control would lead to the Battle of Bunker Hill, which was the biggest early battle of the Revolutionary War.

Olive Branch Petition

1775 -- This refers to an offer made to the king by the 2nd Continental Congress in 1775: to end the revolution if the British government removed all policies and legislation imposed since 1763. The petition indicated that the colonists were not yet committed to independence until Jefferson introduced his Declaration and that they would be happy to remain subjects of King George III if the relationship between colonies and mother country could return to the way things were before 1763. The King rejected the petition, declared the colonies in rebellion, and directed the military to suppress the rebellion. With this, the war was on. Two years later, after the disastrous British defeat at the Battle of Saratoga, Lord North (the British Prime Minister) offered to accept the Olive Branch Petition, but the colonists were now committed to independence and rejected the offer.

Declaration of Independence

1776 -- This famous document was produced by a committee of five men appointed by the Continental Congress: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Jefferson wrote it, and a few changes proposed by the other committee members were incorporated by Jefferson to produce the finished document. This was intended as a more formal statement of the resolution for independence proposed by Richard Henry Lee and adopted by the Congress on July 2, 1776. It is a good thing, after all, that the Congress insisted on the more formal statement of independence, which they adopted on July 4, since Jefferson's document is a masterful restatement of Locke's Social Contract theory and an eloquent statement of the principles on which the United States was founded.

Continental Army

1776 and later -- Instead of relying on just the various colonial militias, the Continental Congress wanted to create a unified army under a unified command. Washington was appointed the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, but this was a pitiful army during its first years in existence. Under-funded, under-supplied, undisciplined, and poorly trained, the army was little more than a rabble that Washington could not trust would fight if he took on the British in a large open engagement. Finally, after a few years (and after the training regimen introduced by Friedrich von Steuben) the Continental Army became a real army capable of more than just hit and run raids and limited engagements,

Battle of Saratoga

1777 -- Fought in upstate New York, this battle was the important turning point of the Revolutionary War. Colonial troops and militia under the command of Horatio Gates surrounded and captured a 6,000 man British army under the command of John Burgoyne. For Britain, the surrender of a whole army was a military disaster and an embarassment. For the U.S. it was the victory the country needed to convince France that an alliance with the U.S. was not necessarily equivalent to boarding a sinking ship. The French were interested in vengeance against the British because of the way the French and Indian War had ended, but were reluctant to join the American cause as long as that cause seemed hopeless. Saratoga suddenly made the French see the American Revolution in a different light. Because of it, the French agreed in 1778 to an alliance with the U.S. and the U.S. now had the foreign source of supply that it desperately needed.

Battle of Yorktown

1781-- This was the final major battle of the war. A British force under Charles Cornwallis, which had failed to eliminate Patriot resistance in the Carolinas, was resting and being re-supplied on a peninsula jutting out from the James River (where the river empties into the Chesapeake Bay). Cornwallis chose this site so that the British navy could evacuate his men if that became necessary to do. The commander of a French army that had been sent to help the Americans--Count Rochambeau--hatched a plan to trap Cornwallis on the Yorktown Peninsula. It involved contacting a French fleet down in the Caribbean, commanded by Admiral DeGrasse, and getting it to sail to Yorktown. If the French fleet could lose a British fleet that was chasing the French fleet, and if the French fleet could arrive off the Virginia coast at the same time that the armies of Washington and Rochambeau could arrive to block off Cornwallis' land retreat from the peninsula, then a stunning victory could be won. The timing of such a plan was impossible to pull off except by accident, but everything went exactly as Rochambeau and Washington had hoped. The British fleet tired of chasing the French fleet and sailed north to New York to resupply, unaware that the French fleet had left the Caribbean and was on its way to trap Cornwallis' army at Yorktown. Amazingly, DeGrasse's ships arrived just as the 17,000 men of Washington and Rochambeau arrived to confront Cornwallis' 7,000 men. Cornwallis had no choice but to surrender. After this, Parliament had to decide whether to continue the war or let the colonies go. They chose the latter, leading to the Treaty of Paris of 1783 by which Britain recognized the independence of the U.S.A.

Battle of Cowpens

1781--Following the defeat at Saratoga, the British changed strategy. Instead of trying to re-conquer New England, which was the British strategy before Saratoga, the British now concentrated (after 1779) on trying to pacify Patriot resistance in the southern colonies. Charles Cornwallis was the commander of the British force charged with this task. But the Patriots in the Carolinas waged a successful guerilla campaign against Cornwallis, who proved unable to draw the colonials out into the open in a large engagement (in which he might destroy them). One of the few battles involving a sizeable number of men during Cornwallis' Carolinas campaign was the Battle of Cowpens. In this battle, a Patriot force commanded by Daniel Morgan defeated a British force commanded by Banastre Tarleton, the commander of Cornwallis' cavalry. In losing this battle, the British missed a good chance to break the morale of the Patriot side. Instead, it encouraged more men in the Carolinas to join with either the Patriot army of Nathanael Greene (Morgan's superior officer) or the forces of guerilla leaders such as Thomas Sumter and Frances Marion (Marion being the model for the character played by Mel Gibson in The Patriot).

Shay's Rebellion

1785-86--This rebellion of farmers in western Massachusetts against their state government (because of the unfairness of taxes that fell too heavily on people in the western part of the state) influenced people in Massachusetts and in other states to fear for the future of the country if a stronger central government were not adopted. The fear was that such rebellions as Shays' would proliferate because of a lack of nationally enforced standards and that, because the central government was weak (no military), nothing could ever be done to prevent such rebellions from eventually causing states to grow apart and to separate from each other. This being the case, the historical impact of Shays' Rebellion was to convince people in the U.S. to support the movement for a new constitution--which led to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.

3/5 Compromise

1787--The only other major issue at the Constitutional Convention concerned how to count slaves as a part of the population of southern states. If they were counted in the same way as the free population, then southern states would have more Representatives in Congress than if they weren't counted. Yet, if they weren't counted, then southern states would get off light when it came to federal taxes levied on the states. The compromise on this issue, then, was to count a slave as 3/5 of a person so that southern states were not so blatantly over-represented in Congress and still paid their fair share of the taxes. Unfortunately, however, this provision of the Constitution to count slaves this way, for the purposes of determining representation and taxation, is what wrote slavery into the U.S. Constitution.

Northwest Ordinance

1787--This is the only Congressional legislation of the Confederation period that has lasting significance into the future. This law provided for the organization of the area known as the Ohio Valley (north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, south of Canada, and west of the Appalachians) into the Northwest Territory. The law prohibited slavery in the NW Territory and provided for at least 3 and at most 5 states to eventually come from this territory--and the law outlined how this process would unfold. Most of the lasting significance of the law comes from the way it outlines how a state evolves from a territory. The law applied specifically only to the area that would later become Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. However, the method it outlined about how a territory can apply for statehood once a population level of 60,000 had been reached, would become standard procedure for the statehood of all the others of the 50 states after that time. Also, this law provided for the division of public land in a territory to be in blocks of 640 acres, each composed of 36 sections, taxation from the 16th section to be reserved for public education. This provision would influence the way all other American territories were organized. Because the law prohibited slavery north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, it was understood that slavery would not be prohibited from territories south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. Otherwise, southern states such as Virginia and the Carolinas would not have relinquished their claims to land west of the Appalachians and would not have allowed Congress to assume control over the way these lands were organized, sold to settlers, and developed into territories and states. Consequently, this law has a lot to do with the way the USA east of the Mississippi River developed into two separate sections divided by slavery and by differing economic practices.

Constitutional Convention

1787--the delegates at this convention were authorized to revise the Articles of Confederation, but apparently had the wisdom to realize that it was better to scrap the Articles and to start with a brand new constitution (even if that meant exceeding their authority). These delegates were largely younger men under the age of 45who were mostly lawyers with experience in government. They were all familiar with the natural rights and social contract philosophy of John Locke--and they were all familiar with Montesquieu's conception of republican government. That is to say, the framers of the U.S. Constitution were largely men of common experience, training, and education who pretty much agreed on what they wanted to accomplish in framing a new constitution. Little controversy or disagreement marred the proceedings at this convention, presided over by George Washington. James Madison was the most active delegate (and would later become known as the "father of the U.S. Constitution" for his role in coordinating the way that different groups of delegates came to see how the parts of the Constitution (on which they were working) would come together as a whole.

Federalist Papers

1788--85 essays (50 written by Alexander Hamilton, 30 by James Madison, and 5 by John Jay) that explain the Constitution that the framers had produced with a view toward encouraging voters to ratify the Constitution. During 1788, after 9 states had ratified the new Constitution, it could be put into effect. But Americans were hesitant to start a new governmental system in a situation in which New York and Virginia had failed to ratify. These were the two largest states and hardly anyone wanted to start the nation on a new career without these states in the Union. The Federalist Papers were an effort to persuade voters in these states to ratify. The aim was to explain the Constitution and to assuage fears of the stronger central government that the Constitution would create. In the end, the Federalist Papers failed to accomplish this purpose as Virginia and New York ratified the Constitution only on the promise that the first Congress would amend the Constitution with a Bill of Rights (to protect individuals from the threat of abuse by the government). Still, the Federalist Papers continue today to be useful in that, often, lawmakers and courts must try to determine the original intent of the framers when interpreting the Constitution--and the Federalist Papers is the best source of original intent.

Bill of Rights

1789--In keeping with the promise to voters of New York and Virginia, the first Congress under the new Constitution added ten new amendments to the Constitution, all of which were designed to define and to protect the rights of individual citizens of the United States of America. Since the new government under the new Constitution was much stronger than under the Articles of Confederation, there was fear that this new government would abridge individual liberties. The Bill of Rights was introduced to provide guarantees against this. Ratification--the process by which the Constitution was approved by the states. This was done either by vote of the people in a special plebiscite (or election) or by vote of delegates to a convention within a state, held for the purpose of either rejecting or approving the Constitution.

National Bank (First Bank of US)

1791--Chartered in 1791 by Congress for 20 years, the national bank lasted until 1811 when the Madison Administration allowed its charter to expire and Congress did not renew it. The national bank was controversial in 1791, becoming one of the issues that separated the first two political parties in American history. Initially, the bank was capitalized mostly by private sources of money, but would eventually be capitalized to a much greater extent by public money. The bank was to act as the place where the U.S. government deposited money it collected from taxes or tariffs and the bank was a source of loans to the U.S. government whenever loans were needed.

Hamilton's Funding Plan

1791-1797 (during the Washington Administration) This was the plan by which Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, championed a plan of legislative action that would create a national bank and raise taxes so that the nation's debt could be retired and the nation's credit rating restored. The pitiful state of the nation's finances was the most pressing problem facing the first administration of George Washington. For this reason, Hamilton (as Secretary of State) was the most active member of Washington's cabinet. Much of Hamilton's plan became controversial. When opponents to his plan became identified, they tended to come together in political support of each other, giving rise to two political parties--one in support of Hamilton's Funding Plan and the other in opposition to it. So, not only did Hamilton's efforts retire the national debt and place the country on a sound footing financially, for the future, but it also created the political debate that produced the country's first political party system--that of Federalists (supporters of Hamilton) and Democratic-Republicans (opponents of Hamilton).

Federalist Party

1791-1816-- Alexander Hamilton and John Adams were the early leaders of this party that favored Hamilton's Funding Plan and showed belief in an activist federal government. Federalists wanted to promote military power and the conquest of an American empire so that the U.S. would join the front rank of world military and economic powers and become a nation much involved in commerce and manufacturing as opposed to becoming a nation of farmers. This meant raising federal taxes and giving the government a source of credit in the creation of the Bank of the United States (the first national bank). Federalists favored federal tariffs, extensive economic regulation, a pro-British foreign policy, and an expansion of military power. They also favored the idea of interpreting the Constitution less literally (or as strictly) as their political opponents, the Democratic-Republicans. The view here is that instead of doing only what the Constitution specifically says can be done, do what needs to be done so long as the Constitution does not specifically forbid it. Although George Washington did not believe in political parties, he supported Hamilton's Funding Plan--which means that the Washington Administration was a Federalist administration. Washington's successor, John Adams, was also a Federalist. There were no other Federalist presidents.

Democratic-Republicans

1791-1828--This party, led in its early years by Thomas Jefferson and by James Madison, is also known as the Jeffersonian Party. It is laissez-faire in principle, which means that the belief is in a governmental system that is largely uninterested in regulation of the economy or in interfering in the affairs of citizens. Jefferson believed that the U.S. was a nation of farmers and that it took little government action to make farmers do the things they do. He was against a policy of taxation to raise money for the purpose of expanding military power and then using that power to conquer colonies. Instead, Jefferson believed the U.S. would expand naturally as the frontier moved westward and extended agriculture to a largely unoccupied virgin continent. He thought the creation of the national bank, as a source of loans to the federal government, was both unconstitutional and un-necessary. His opposition to the national bank on constitutional grounds represented the Democratic-Republican belief in "strict construction." This was the idea that in interpreting the Constitution, one should act only according to what the Constitution specifically authorizes one to do, whereas Jefferson's opponents believed in "loose construction," the idea that one can do whatever the Constitution does not specifically forbid. The Democratic-Republican Party became dominant in the U.S. with the election of Jefferson to the presidency in 1800 and the laissez-faire doctrine of the Jeffersonians would dominate American political practice for the rest of the century.

Neutrality Proclamation

1793--the Franco-American Alliance of 1778 was due to run until 1798. Consequently, when Britain declared war on the revolutionary government of France in 1792, the French expected Americans to act as their allies (as the French had done during the American Revolution). But the French Revolution had grown very radical and violent after 1792 and the Washington Administration was pro-British in stance anyway. Accordingly, in 1793, President Washington announced that the U.S. would abrogate American responsibilities under the Franco-American Alliance of 1778 because that alliance had been concluded with the French monarchy and not with the radical government currently in place. Pro-French Democratic-Republicans would oppose this move, but neutrality became American policy and would remain American policy until 1917 when the U.S. entered World War One on the side of France and Britain against Germany.

The Cotton Gin

1793—Invented by Eli Whitney, this device made the cultivation of short staple cotton feasible throughout the South. Unlike the long-staple variety of cotton, which had few seeds but could be grown only on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the short-staple variety could be grown anywhere in the South yet had too many seeds that had to be removed from the cotton fiber in order to make growing it worthwhile—until the cotton gin made removing the seeds easy and cost-effective. This led to the widespread cultivation of short-staple cotton across the South. Because cotton prices were good (due to the demand for cotton by the British textile industry), cotton production soared once the cotton gin made the crop economically viable. More than anything else, this development would cause southerners to become even more dependent than formerly on slavery as the basis of the southern labor supply.

Whiskey Rebellion

1794--Hamilton's Funding Plan had called for immediate payment of all government debts. The money to accomplish this was borrowed by the government from the National Bank. Then, this debt was to be paid off from the collection of federal taxes on the American people. The Whiskey Tax was one such tax. But because this tax fell most heavily on people in a certain area of the country (western areas where crops could not be easily transported--so they were converted into bottles of whiskey) opposition to the tax soon arose. In this case, opposition to the Whiskey tax in western Pennsylvania produced the first rebellion against the government of the U.S. since the ratification of the new Constitution. The Washington Administration took this seriously and sent a large military force to put down the rebellion--because Washington believed it was necessary to prevent future rebellions through deterrence--by showing what the federal response to any rebellion would be. In this case, though, the rebellion was not serious and the response amounted to overkill which caused the administration political embarrassment.

Jay's Treaty

1794--Whereas the Treaty of Ft. Greenville made the Federalists look good, Jay's Treaty was a political embarrassment. This was a treaty between the U.S. and Britain in which the U.S. agreed not to wage war against Britain even though the British did not promise to end any of the evil practices that they had been perpetrating on Americans--such as the boarding and confiscation, at sea, of American merchant ships. American merchant ships were getting caught up in a war between France and Britain in which both sides violated Americans' trading rights as neutrals. Because the Federalists were pro-British in their views of foreign policy, they wanted a treaty with Britain that would keep the peace between the U.S. and Britain, even if the treaty was one that virtually gave Britain the right to violate American neutrality at sea. It was a bad treaty that did keep the peace with Britain but only because it made no demands of any kind on the British. This treaty, coming a year after the Neutrality Proclamation in which the U.S. backed out of our treaty obligations with France, would lead to bad relations with the French and the possibility of the outbreak of war with France

Pinckney's Treaty

1795--This treaty with Spain was one in which the Spanish agreed to allow Americans to use the port at New Orleans (which was then a Spanish city) for the purpose of getting crops to markets by ship. Settlements west of the Appalachians had difficulty reaching markets on the east coast because of the mountains. This made use of barges on the Mississippi River important to getting crops to market. But because the U.S. did not control any land along the Gulf Coast, including such ports as New Orleans, the U.S. needed Spanish permission to use their ports. The Spanish had refused to allow this in the past, but agreed in 1795 because the new American government had a military while the previous government (under the Articles of Confederation) had no military (and consequently no military threat).

Treaty of Fort Greenville

1795--Towards the end of the Washington Administration, this was an important treaty with the Indian tribes of the Ohio Valley (or NW Territory). It resulted from the military defeat of the tribes in 1795 at the Battle of Fallen Timbers by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. It meant that American settlement of the Ohio Valley could proceed without fear of sparking more conflict with the Indians of the region--at least until after 1806, when Tecumseh began to incite Indian hostility to American settlement once again. But the treaty was important in 1795 in strengthening the political position of a Federalist administration in the year before the presidential election of 1796 took place.

XYZ Affair

1798--Once the U.S. had broken our treaty with the French (with the Neutrality Proclamation) and had concluded a one-sided treaty of friendship (Jay's Treaty) with France's enemy, the British, then the French became increasingly hostile towards the U.S. (after 1794). A state of undeclared warfare between the U.S. and France existed by 1796 on the open seas. In the late 1790s, both France and the U.S. lost over 200 ships to fighting taking place between American and French sailors on merchant and military ships on the oceans of the world. Although no formal declaration of war had taken place, Americans and French were constantly in conflict with each other. President John Adams sent diplomats to negotiate peace with the French but these diplomats were insulted by agents of the French government. Adams referred to these French agents as "X, Y, and Z" in his explanation to Congress of the "XYZ Affair" as it became known. In short, the affair amounted to American diplomats being asked to give large bribes to X,Y, and Z in order to be allowed to talk to the French Foreign Minister. This was an intentional insult. The French knew the bribes would not be offered and so it was just a way of getting the Americans to leave without having to talk to them. Members of the Federalist Party (the party of John Adams, the President) were so incensed by this affair that they wanted President Adams to ask for a formal declaration of war with France (and Congress, dominated by the Federalist Party in 1798, would certainly have voted in favor of such a declaration). Adams, however, did not want war and became willing to seek avenues for peace even though it meant alienating members of his own political party and even though it meant that Adams was ruining his chances of getting re-elected President in 1800. For taking this politically ruinous stand, Adams deserves high praise. Not many presidents in American history have had the guts to stand up for what they believed was the right thing to do (on principle) when they knew that this stand would be politically unpopular or politically damaging. In this case, the stand that Adams took in 1798 made him a one term President but the stand he took was probably the right stand to take in that a war with France was probably not in the best interest of the country at that time in 1798. By contrast, President Madison (leader of the Democratic-Republican Party in 1812) would cave in to the demands of his party to declare war on Britain. Fortunately, the War of 1812 turned out well for the U.S. in the end, but it was, by no means, clear in 1812 that that would be the case. Madison's legacy was saved by the fact that the war ended without a military disaster, but it is very doubtful that Mr. Madison asked for war with Britain in 1812 out of a conviction that such a war was good for the country. In a comparison of the similar circumstances of 1798 and 1812, John Adams emerges looking very much more the idealist, standing on the high ground of principle, than does Madison.

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

1798--These were resolutions adopted by the state legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky, which were adopted in response to (in opposition to) the Sedition Act. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolution while Madison wrote the Virginia Resolution. Both resolutions stated the idea that, in the case of a law of Congress--such as the Sedition Act--which is judged by a state's legislature to be unconstitutional, then the state should have the right to declare the law unconstitutional and to protect the people of that state from being subject to that law. These resolutions were statements of states' rights that would provide precedence later for the development of the theory of nullification by John C. Calhoun. This concept of states' rights would also underpin the ideas upon which secession from the Union became justified in the South in 1860 and in 1861.

Marbury v Madison

1803--Supreme Court decision that established the power of judicial review as a power of the Supreme Court. This power of the court to review laws of Congress and to strike down laws that are judged to be unconstitutional was not a power given to the Supreme Court by the U.S. Constitution. Rather, this power was assumed by the Supreme Court after 1803 as a result of the way that Chief Justice John Marshall and the rest of the Supreme Court decided this court case.

Louisiana Purchase

1803--The size of the U.S. was nearly doubled with the purchase, from France, of Louisiana for 15 million dollars. Louisiana was much larger than the state of Louisiana that joined the Union in 1812. Louisiana, as a colony purchased from the French, stretched from the Louisiana Gulf Coast northward all the way to the western edge of present-day Montana. See map in textbook. This was a wonderful real estate deal (at 3 cents an acre). The 15 million dollars of 1803 is equivalent to 236 million dollars in 2002 dollars. Even after all of the inflation since 1803, this is still a fantastic deal. Little wonder Jefferson couldn't resist violating his own political principles in order to seal this deal with Napoleon before the French dictator changed his mind! Obviously, this purchase looms large in any explanation of the way that the continental U.S. developed during the 19th century.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

1804-1806--This expedition, sent out to explore the Louisiana Purchase (and the land beyond to the Pacific Ocean) was led by Jefferson's personal secretary Merriwether Lewis and by William Clark, who was the much younger brother of Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark. With this expedition, Americans learned much about what is now the western part of the U.S. but which was largely unknown and unexplored territory early in the 19th century.

Chesapeake Affair

1806--This incident represents the beginning of foreign policy problems with European countries (especially Britain) leading up to the War of 1812 during the 2nd administration of Thomas Jefferson. The Chesapeake was an American naval vessel which was attacked and boarded by British sailors from the British naval vessel HMS Leopard. In this boarding incident, three sailors from the Chesapeake were "impressed" by the British into service with the British navy. Since the British believed that many of their sailors had deserted from service in the British navy to service in the American navy or in the American merchant marine, they assumed the right to "impress" such sailors as they could find back into service with the British navy. The British assumed the right to stop and to search American vessels in order to accomplish this. Americans thought it was wrong that the British did this and began to see this British practice as a pretext for war, especially since sometimes the British impressment gangs made mistakes and kidnapped Americans who had never been in the British navy (and were not British deserters).

Orders-In-Council

1806—These were British laws that set up the naval blockade of Europe that the British navy tried to maintain against Napoleon-dominated Europe after 1806. By this time, the war in Europe between France and England had become a military stalemate in which Britain was supreme on the seas while France was superior on land. As such, neither side could defeat the other and the war became an economic war in which each side tried to deny the other from getting access to trade with the outside world. In the case of the British, they tried to deny the French from having access to trade with anyone else in the world (including Americans) by setting up a naval blockade. This meant stationing warships off the European coast which would stop ships trying to reach the French. When the British repealed the orders-in-council on June 16, 1812 they were telling the U.S. that they would no longer interfere with American attempts to trade with France—in effect, they were telling the U.S. that they did not want war with the U.S.on top of the war they were already in against the French. But communications were so bad in those days that the U.S. did not receive word of this until war had already been declared against the British (on June 18).

Peaceable Coercion

1807 -This was Jefferson's policy of trying to get the British to respect American neutrality without having to declare war on Britain. This idea led to the Embargo Act of 1807 and to President Madison's versions of Peaceable Coercion, such as the Non-Intercourse Act and Macon's Bill #2.

Embargo Act

1807--Enacted by Congress at the request of President Jefferson, this act represented the enactment of what Jefferson called the policy of "peaceable coercion," by which economic sanctions would be used to make Europeans respect the rights of Americans on the seas--instead of resorting to war over anger caused by impressment and by the seizure of American ship cargoes, or by other violations of American neutrality on the high seas. Jefferson did not want to go to war in 1807 over such incidents as the Chesapeake Affair, but he had to respond in some way. Remembering how effective boycotts had been during the years preceding the American Revolution, Jefferson thought that denying American trade to Europeans would bring the Europeans to change their evil ways vis a vis Americans overseas. The Embargo Act shut down all American ports to trade with the outside world until such time as the French and the British (the Europeans who had been guilty of violating American neutrality) declared their intentions to respect American neutral trading rights. Unfortunately, it did not succeed in changing the practices of the Europeans and mostly had the effect of impoverishing Americans who had been dependent on commerce for their livelihood in the past. By leaving this policy in place until the end of his second term, Jefferson became quite an unpopular outgoing President and left his successor, James Madison, with a sticky problem with which to deal as soon as he occupied the White House in 1809. In the end, the policy of peaceable coercion seemed to have failed and the U.S. would declare war on the British in 1812.

War Hawks

1808—A significant number of new members of Congress were elected in 1808. Most of these were Democratic-Republicans who were anti-British in their outlook toward foreign policy. They did not see that "peaceable coercion" might work and agitated instead for war with Britain. Although the War Hawks recognized that France violated American neutrality, they pointed out that war with both France and Britain was probably not wise and that Britain was more guilty than the French in that only the British impressed seamen and only the British were engaged in inciting Indian uprisings in the Ohio Valley.

Non-Intercourse Act

1809—This legislation followed repeal of the Embargo Act. It opened up trade again with everyone in the world except the British and the French. In the case of these two countries, if one suddenly declared that they would begin to respect American neutrality, then the U.S. would start to trade with that country, but not with the other. It was a failed attempt to use economic leverage as a means of getting France and Britain to respect American neutrality.

Macon's Bill #2

1810—Following the failure of the Non-Intercourse Act to persuade either France or Britain to respect American rights to international trade, Macon's Bill #2 tried to accomplish that purpose in a new way. Whereas Non-intercourse had allowed trade with everyone except France and Britain, Macon's Bill #2 restores trade with everyone in the world, including France and Britain. But if either one began to respect American neutrality, then we would continue to trade with that country, but would cut off trade with the other. France, for its part, responded in 1810 by telling the U.S. they would respect the neutral rights of American merchant ships (they didn't really, just said they would) and the U.S. then responded by cutting off trade with Britain, which made the British angry and led to more instances of impressment and confiscation of ship cargoes by the British. By 1812, it did not seem that this method of peaceable coercion was working and Congress began to clamor for war against Britain. Even though France was also guilty of violating American neutrality, Congress preferred to push for war with Britain (and not with France) because only the British were involved in inciting Ohio Valley Indians to become hostile and only the British were impressing American seamen into service with their navy. A great irony is that trade sanctions against Britain (such as with Macon's Bill #2) actually had begun to make an impact on the British by 1812. British merchants were lobbying Parliament to repeal the legislation that had justified British violation of American shipping rights. Unfortunately, Americans did not learn of the British Parliament's repeal of the Orders-in-Council in 1812 until the U.S. had already declared war on Britain. However, had Congress known about the British repeal of the Orders-in-Council, which indicated that Macon's Bill #2 was finally having the desired effect in changing British practice towards American merchants, the U.S. would probably not have declared war on Britain.

Annexation of West Florida

1810—The area that comprises the coastal regions of modern Alabama and Mississippi, plus the area of southeastern Louisiana composed of the "Florida parishes" was once known as West Florida (East Florida is what we know today as the state of Florida). West Florida revolted from Spanish rule and became the Republic of West Florida for a brief time before the area was annexed by the United States. With this annexation, the United States (as it now exists) east of the Mississippi River came together except for the 1819 addition of East Florida.

Battle of Tippecanoe

1811—This concerns the Indian tribes of the Ohio Valley (mainly in what is now Indiana) and the conflict that had been developing between the tribes led by Tecumseh and the forces of the Ohio Territory governor William Henry Harrison. While Tecumseh was away on a diplomatic trip to visit Indian tribes in the South, Harrison attacked and defeated the Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe. This broke Indian resistance in the Ohio Valley and became a major barrier to Tecumseh's efforts to organize a confederacy of Indian tribes

Creek War

1813-14—This was a war within a war (an Indian war in the South during the War of 1812). The Creeks were the Indians who lived mostly in what is today the state of Alabama (but was then part of the larger Mississippi Territory until Miss. Became a state in 1817, followed by Alabama in 1819). Their hostility towards white settlement in the Miss. Territory resulted in military forces under the command of Andrew Jackson being sent to defeat the Creeks. Jackson defeated the Creeks in 1813 at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Many Creeks then escaped across the border into Spanish East Florida, where they joined their relatives, the Seminoles.

Hartford Convention

1814—This meeting of Federalist Party delegates, mostly from New England, expressed opposition to the War of 1812. Although no one officially espoused the idea of secession at the Hartford Convention, some of the delegates did discuss the idea that Federalist-dominated states from New England might be better off if they seceded from the Union. When the War of 1812 turned out well for the U.S., Federalists who had opposed the war seemed unpatriotic to many voters. Federalists found it hard to get elected and the party died out soon after the elections of 1816.

Tallmadge Amendment

1818—Introduced by James Tallmadge of New York, this was an amendment to the bill that would have approved the statehood of Missouri, but on terms that would have provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in Missouri. Because of the Tallmadge Amendment, southerners refused to vote to admit Missouri as a state in 1818 and a compromise between North and South would become necessary in order to admit Missouri as a slave state in 1820.

The American System

1820s,30s—These are the ideas of Henry Clay that will eventually become the main ideas of the Whig Party, once that party is in place by 1834. Clay was concerned about sectionalism destroying the nation's unity. It had been Clay, after all, who wrote the Missouri Compromise in 1820. In order to keep the nation from dividing over economic issues, Clay wanted a political system that would encourage sections of the nation to become economically dependent on each other. In the case of the North, this section's needs included tariffs to protect the fledgling industries created there since the beginning of the War of 1812. The South was expected to support the tariff because Clay wanted northern textile mills to become the market for southern cotton. This was one of the problems with the American System in that northern industry never grew fast enough to become the primary market for southern cotton—and most southerners would become opponents of the tariff. Another way that Clay wanted an American System to promote intersectional dependency was by having the federal government become responsible for promoting internal development projects (for the purpose of improving the country's infrastructure and transportation facilities, so as to encourage the movement of goods and services from one section of the country to another). This would mean, however, federal taxation and an activist federal presence in the economy that would run counter to the laissez-faire doctrine of the Democratic-Republican Party and of the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson that became the heir to Democratic-Republican party. In effect, the Whig Party became the heir to the Federalist Party in that the Whigs were the ones after 1834 interested in supporting a national bank and federal activism, while their opponents (the Jacksonian Democrats) opposed the national bank and argued against all federally-sponsored infrastructure projects

Missouri Compromise

1820—This compromise, proposed by Henry Clay of Kentucky, temporarily settled the problem of what to do about slavery west of the Mississippi River. The issue came up at this time because Missouri became the first state west of the Mississippi to apply for statehood. Before this time, slavery was not an issue between North and South, since the Northwest Ordinance had made it clear that slavery would exist south of the Ohio River all the way westward to the Mississippi at the same time that it forbade slavery north of the Ohio River. When Missouri applied for statehood for the first time in 1818, it was the first territory west of the Mississippi to apply for statehood and the first territory to which the Northwest Ordinance's ban on slavery did not apply. It was not at all clear whether or not slavery was to be allowed in Missouri and so this became an issue in Congress very quickly—one that divided North and South and brought the Era of Good Feelings to an end. The terms of the compromise was that the balance of free and slave states would be kept even in that Missouri would be admitted as a slave state at the same time as Maine was admitted as a free state. For the future, the area of the Louisiana Purchase would be divided at the line that formed the southern boundary of Missouri (the 36 degree, 30 minute line of latitude). With the exception of Missouri itself, slavery would be forbidden north of this line. This remained the agreement over slavery until the Mexican War brought new western territory under the control of the United States and re-opened the question of whether these territories would be slave or free (because the 36-30 line as the dividing line between slave and free applied only to the Louisiana Purchase and did not extend all the way to the Pacific).

The Marshall Court

1820—This compromise, proposed by Henry Clay of Kentucky, temporarily settled the problem of what to do about slavery west of the Mississippi River. The issue came up at this time because Missouri became the first state west of the Mississippi to apply for statehood. Before this time, slavery was not an issue between North and South, since the Northwest Ordinance had made it clear that slavery would exist south of the Ohio River all the way westward to the Mississippi at the same time that it forbade slavery north of the Ohio River. When Missouri applied for statehood for the first time in 1818, it was the first territory west of the Mississippi to apply for statehood and the first territory to which the Northwest Ordinance's ban on slavery did not apply. It was not at all clear whether or not slavery was to be allowed in Missouri and so this became an issue in Congress very quickly—one that divided North and South and brought the Era of Good Feelings to an end. The terms of the compromise was that the balance of free and slave states would be kept even in that Missouri would be admitted as a slave state at the same time as Maine was admitted as a free state. For the future, the area of the Louisiana Purchase would be divided at the line that formed the southern boundary of Missouri (the 36 degree, 30 minute line of latitude). With the exception of Missouri itself, slavery would be forbidden north of this line. This remained the agreement over slavery until the Mexican War brought new western territory under the control of the United States and re-opened the question of whether these territories would be slave or free (because the 36-30 line as the dividing line between slave and free applied only to the Louisiana Purchase and did not extend all the way to the Pacific).

Monroe Doctrine

1823—If the Neutrality Proclamation was one cornerstone of American foreign policy during the 19th century, the Monroe Doctrine became the other cornerstone. This unilateral statement by the United States warned Europeans to leave alone the host of new independent republics that appeared in Mexico and in Central and South America as a result of the disintegration of Spain's New World empire between 1807 and 1824. The doctrine, mostly the idea of John Quincy Adams (who served as Secretary of State for James Monroe), stated basically that if Europeans left the western hemisphere alone, Americans would leave Europe alone. If they didn't, it would mean trouble with the United States. Although the U.S. was far too militarily weak in the 19th century to enforce the doctrine, the British became willing to enforce it for the U.S. in exchange for American willingness to share the trade of Latin America with the British. The Monroe Doctrine was farsighted, however, in that it envisioned a time when the U.S. would become a world power and would become the economic and military leader of the western hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine called the U.S. to fulfill this role long before the country was able to do so, yet it gave the country a mission and a direction in which to grow.

Anti-Masonic Party

1826-1832—This party, organized mostly in New York state, opposed the influence on government of Masonic organizations. The idea was that prominent politicians were also Masons and used Masonic lodges as places beyond the view of the public where political deals were made and public policy shaped. The Anti-Masons tried to stop this by organizing what became one of the first and most influential third party organizations in American history. Because Andrew Jackson was a mason, the Anti-masonic Party in New York became an anti-Jackson party. In New York, the party was fairly successful in influencing elections. Because of this, when opponents of Jackson became interested in organizing a national anti-Jackson party, they used the Anti-Masonic Party as the model for the party they intended to create. As such, the Anti-Masonic Party became the model (almost the parent) of the Whig Party. The Anti-Masonic Party introduced into the American system of politics the idea of holding nominating conventions in order to determine candidates. By 1832, the anti-Jackson emphasis of the party had become much more important than the anti-mason emphasis. In fact, the man who ran for President in 1832 as the candidate of the Anti-Masonic Party (William Wirt) had to resign his membership in a masonic lodge in order to accept the Anti-Masonic Party's nomination.

Tariff of Abominations

1828—The tariff of 1816 had been revised in 1824 and again in 1828. Because the tariff had become something many southerners opposed by 1828, a tariff as high as the one legislated in 1828 was characterized as an abomination in many areas of the South, particularly in South Carolina. Andrew Jackson, however, in order to attract needed votes in New York promised to support this high tariff, a promise he would keep. New York's electoral votes were essential to getting elected President in the years before 1856 and, in this case, it caused Jackson to support the tariff even though he probably was against it in principle (being a southern plantation owner). It was John Calhoun's opposition to this tariff that would cause him to develop the nullification theory that would also cause a political split between Calhoun and Jackson (and nearly between North and South).

Nullification Theory

1828—This was the idea of John Calhoun who was Jackson's Vice President in 1828. Calhoun developed the doctrine of nullification as a way in which the South could protect slavery from its political enemies in the North into the future. Because the South was agricultural and rural as opposed to the increasingly urban and industrial North, the population of the South was much smaller than that of the North. This meant that the North had dominance over the South in the House of Representatives, based on population. Calhoun and other southerners knew that the South's equality in the Senate was the only thing that ensured the South's ability to protect slavery from those in the North who might seek to legislate it out of existence. But even that equality in the Senate depended on the country's growth into western areas taking place in such a way that slave states would be added to the union in the same numbers as free states. Given how mountainous and desert areas dominated the west, it did not seem possible that slave states could remain equal in number as free states into the future. So Calhoun wanted a way to ensure that the South could protect its peculiar issues (such as slavery and opposition to the tariff) even once the North had become dominant in the Senate as well as in the House. He did this by returning to the ideas of Jefferson and Madison that had been expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions—that states had the right to declare federal laws unconstitutional. In the case of the tariff that Calhoun opposed, if a southern state "nullified" it, then the federal government could overcome that nullification by passing a constitutional amendment making acceptance of the tariff a constitutional requirement. But because a constitutional amendment needs to be ratified by ¾ of the states, the likelihood that other southern states would ratify such an amendment was small. In this way, if South Carolina nullified the tariff and Congress made the tariff part of the Constitution with an amendment, ratification of the amendment would fail because most southern states would agree with South Carolina and would refuse to ratify the amendment. The argument against nullification by Webster and others that nullification would lead to states having to secede from the Union was not really an accurate assessment of the nullification idea. Had Calhoun not been opposed by President Jackson, he might very well have succeeded in getting nullification accepted by enough of the southern states that secession would not have been necessary. Rather than lose a whole section of the country over the tariff, the North would have acquiesced. And if nullification had become accepted as a legal practice by states, then the only way for Congress to over-ride a state's authority would have been through the process of amending the Constitution. If this had become reality, then the South would have had the means to protect slavery into the future simply by nullifying federal laws against slavery or by sticking together as a section and causing ratification of any anti-slavery amendment to fail by not mustering support of ¾ of the states. But Jackson had said in 1828 during the election campaign that he would support that tariff. He stuck to his word and told Calhoun to stop pressing the nullification idea as part of his opposition to the tariff. Calhoun split with Jackson, resigned the Vice Presidency and his membership in the Jacksonian Democratic party and went back home to South Carolina to get elected as a U.S. Senator. In this position, Calhoun led South Carolina's 1832 effort to nullify the tariff. Jackson obtained passage of the Force Bill from Congress that would have given him authority to use troops to force South Carolina to accept the tariff. This might not have been more than a bluff if other southern states had joined South Carolina in this nullification effort. But other southern states accepted a Compromise tariff proposed in 1832 by Henry Clay (this tariff was lower than the 1828 tariff but higher than the 1824 tariff). Without support from the rest of the South, South Carolina came to believe that Jackson was not bluffing and would, indeed, use force. Under these circumstances, South Carolina backed down and the controversy over nullification ended. But the idea it represented would be revived in December of 1860 when South Carolina seceded from the Union. This time, however, South Carolina was not alone, as 6 other southern states also quickly seceded. Eventually, of course, four more would also secede and the Confederacy attempted its separation from the Union, though Lincoln would succeed in convincing the North to fight to prevent it.

Eaton Affair

1829—Peggy Eaton, who had a sordid personal reputation as something of a "gold-digger" (a woman of bad repute, if you will) was married to John Eaton, who became Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War in 1829. Floride Calhoun, the wife of Vice President John Calhoun, among others, began to ostracize Peggy Eaton and refused to attend banquets, etc. if Peggy was going to be in attendance. Wives of Congressmen, etc. who opposed Peggy began putting pressure on their husbands to get President Jackson's ear to ask the President to fire Eaton if he didn't get rid of Peggy. This angered Jackson very much, because he liked Peggy (and John) and saw Peggy being unfairly treated in much the same way that Jackson's wife Rachel had been treated during the campaign of 1828 (with all those charges of bigamy). Jackson recognized that John Calhoun's wife Floride was the ringleader of the campaign against Peggy and he told Calhoun to control Floride, but this was not possible. This incident became one of several things that drove a wedge between Calhoun and Jackson, leading to Calhoun's resignation as Vice President and returning to South Carolina to lead the nullification movement there. But when he leads South Carolina into nullification of a federal law (the tariff), Jackson became determined to enforce that law, partly because of his anger toward Calhoun.

Temperance Movement

1830s to 1920s--This was a spin-off of abolitionism. As women who were involved with abolitionism became aware of organizational talents and abilities [they didn't know they had], due to the things they were doing in support of abolitionism, and became interested in other reforms, then they applied their talents to those causes as well. Temperence was one of these, along with women's rights, asylum reform, public education, and even a little labor union organization. Temperance was the idea of prohibiting alcohol consumption because it caused so many social problems. It would remain one of the causes of women's rights advocates and would eventually result in the appearance of many dry counties across the nation (esp. in the South) during the 19th century and ultimately, to the ratification in 1918 of the 18th Amendment (Prohibition).

Oregon Fever

1830s,1840s—Oregon Fever is the reason why most people in Oregon, by 1846, were Americans. Beginning with a group of Methodist missionaries who went west to the Willamette Valley in the 1830s, Americans back east were increasingly made aware of how nice Oregon was. This caused a movement to develop in the 1830s in which thousands of Americans suddenly became determined to brave the difficulties of the Oregon Trail and move to the Oregon Territory. That is, thousands of American easterners caught "Oregon Fever" and became determined to travel across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains in covered wagons despite all the dangers and hardships involved. Oregon Fever, however, resulted in so many Americans moving west that the British could not really dispute anymore that Oregon was an American territory.

Trail of Tears

1830s-- The forced removal of the southeastern Indian groups onto reservations in Oklahoma. These tribes included the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, the Creek, the Seminole, and the Cherokee. The removal of the Cherokee is the one that has been most connected as THE Trail of Tears, for the hardships that members of this tribe had to endure during the forced march to Oklahoma.

Maysville Road Veto

1830—Opponents of Andrew Jackson, who became the members of the Whig Party by 1834, called themselves the "Whigs," because they began to accuse Jackson of trying to be a king. In English history, the members of Parliament, who traditionally had tried to limit the powers of the monarch, had traditionally been known as the Whigs. So, American opponents of "King" Andrew called themselves Whigs too. One reason the Whigs accused Jackson of overstepping his authority was because of the way that Jackson used his veto power to try to dictate policy to Congress. In the 1830s, the prevailing view was that Congress shaped policy by making the laws and the President just enforced those policies. But Jackson vetoed anything he didn't like and did this often. Because it is hard to over-ride a veto (it takes 60 percent of the vote in Congress), Jackson often got his way in disputes with Congress. Jackson vetoed more bills as President than all six presidents before him, combined, had done. He seemed to want to be more than just President to his political enemies. The Maysville Road veto was a veto of a bill to authorize construction of a federal road that would run mostly through Henry Clay's state of Kentucky. Clay was the leader of the anti-Jackson forces in Congress and a proponent of the idea that roads, canals, and such internal improvements as this should be sponsored by the federal government. Jackson, however, disagreed. He believed that internal development projects should be financed and carried out by the states, and not by the federal government. So when Clay got Congress to pass the bill authorizing the Maysville Road in 1830, Jackson vetoed the bill (as he had done with many other bills) and when Congress did not have enough votes to over-ride the veto, the measure died, and Jackson won this confrontation with Clay.

Worcester v Georgia

1830—Supreme Court case dealing with the state of Georgia's attempt to force Indians in Georgia off their land so that white settlers could claim it. The Supreme Court said that Georgia could not legally do this. But Andrew Jackson, as President, (who was sympathetic to the white Georgians) refused to enforce this court decision and the Indians were pushed off anyway. This was very similar to what might have happened in 1958 if President Eisenhower had not thought it his responsibility to enforce the Brown decision in the attempt to desegregate Little Rock, Arkansas' Central High School. In other words, the Supreme Court can declare what the law is in cases where that must be determined by interpretation of the Constitution (as in Worcester v Georgia or as in Brown), but the court cannot enforce its decisions. The legislative or executive branches must do that and the court's decision doesn't get enforced if the people responsible for doing it refuse to. So, in 1830, the Indians of Georgia had the highest court in the land on their side, but they still got kicked off of their land and eventually removed to reservations in Oklahoma. This was done under federal authority under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 (which the Supreme Court did not overturn) and not by the state of Georgia. Worcester v Georgia did not apply to the federal Indian Removal Act, so Jackson did not violate the law, though the federal Indian Removal policy obviously ran counter to what the Supreme Court thought should happen. The Supreme Court could have over-ruled the Indian Removal Act, but didn't, largely because the Court did not want to engage in conflict with President Jackson, who made it clear he would go ahead with Indian Removal without regard to the Court's opinion because he had the support of a majority of Congress (and probably of the people).

Hayne-Webster Debate

1830—in the U.S. senate between Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina (a protégé of John Calhoun) and Daniel Webster of New Hampshire on the merits (or lack thereof) of Calhoun's Nullification Theory. Webster seemed to have won the debate by developing an argument that equated nullification with secession (with the breakup of the Union) and by developing a doctrine of support for the Union as a matter of patriotism and, almost, of religious nationalism. Webster's defense of the Union in this debate created a nationalistic set of ideas that would be very helpful in later years to President Lincoln. Lincoln, of course, would face a formidable challenge in trying to convince northerners to wage war in order to prevent the South from seceding and becoming a separate country. Had it not been for precedents set by Webster and by Andrew Jackson (who also opposed nullification), Lincoln might not have succeeded in mobilizing support for a war to preserve the Union in 1861.

Abolitionism

1831 until the abolition of slavery in 1865 by the 13th Amendment—This was the idea, almost exclusively, of northerners that slavery was sinful and immoral—and should be abolished, even in the cotton South. In the 1830s and 1840s, abolitionists were outside the pale of mainstream politics. Leaders of both major political parties thought that abolitionists should be ignored because their message could never be accepted in the South—and therefore was a divisive message that could only lead to trouble (and possibly the break-up of the Union). Abolitionists were considered to be extreme political radicals, even by most northerners.

South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification

1832—South Carolina attempted to nullify the federal tariff. Had other southern states joined South Carolina in this effort to challenge the federal government's authority over states, what would President Jackson have done about it? Would Jackson have taken the view he ultimately did—that the federal law needed to be enforced? Jackson did not take that view in the case of Worcester v Georgia. He did decide to enforce the tariff against South Carolina, but South Carolina was the only southern state attempting to nullify the tariff. Other southern states accepted the compromise tariff proposed in 1832 by Henry Clay. But if they hadn't, the force that Jackson promised to use on South Carolina would have to have been used against the whole South. Would Jackson—could Jackson—have done that in 1833? It is one of the interesting questions that arise from the whole controversy over nullification. In the end, Jackson promised to use force to make South Carolina comply with the federal tariff. South Carolina, no doubt, believed the threat was not a bluff and backed down. To his credit, though, Jackson ignored South Carolina when that state nullified the Force Bill that had authorized Jackson's use of force on South Carolina.

Whig Party

1834-1852—The emergence of this party by 1834 meant the emergence of a new two-party system in America to replace the old Federalist vs. Dem.-Rep. System that had broken down after the War of 1812 (because of the death of the Federalist Party). The reason for the emergence of the Whig Party was the growing opposition to Andrew Jackson and to the states' rights, anti-national bank emphasis of Jackson's Democratic Party. Jackson established what he believed in and what his party would promote. Anybody who disagreed now had a party to join. Although the Whigs complained about the corruption of the "spoils system" that the Democrats had adopted, they employed the system whenever they won elections, such as in 1840 and in 1848. Like the Democrats, the Whigs needed to be organized nationally in every ward of every county in every state in the Union. Like the Democrats, the Whigs were unable to reward campaign workers with money, but could offer government jobs whenever they won elections.

"Pet Banks"

1834—Rather than let the national bank die a natural death in 1836, when the bank's charter came due to expire, President Jackson tried to kill the bank by denying it government funds. Instead of depositing federal tariff and tax collections in the national bank, Jackson began depositing federal money into certain banks in each state of the Union. The banks he chose to favor became known as "pet banks."

Specie Circular

1836—When the national bank effectively went out of business in 1834 (because of Jackson's anti-bank policies), there was no longer anything in the way of a national force to prevent local banks in frontier areas from becoming very irresponsible in their lending policies (which became very liberal in order to fuel land speculation on the frontier). The national bank had been able to exercise some control over irresponsible banks in the past, but not after 1834. This led to rampant land speculation, lots of inflation of the money supply and too much money being loaned out (without adequate collateral) by irresponsible banks. This represented a threat to the nation's economy because it damaged the value of paper currencies and caused the possibility of the drying up of investment capital if too many irresponsible banks went out of business (for failure to collect back the money they had loaned out on terms that were too easy). President Jackson tried to stop the land speculation that his killing of the national bank had caused by issuing the Specie Circular in 1836. This made it unlawful to purchase public land from the government with anything but specie (gold or silver). Since no one had enough gold or silver with which to buy land, the sale of public land came to a screeching halt in 1836. This, however, would ruin land speculators. The whole idea of land speculation is to buy land and then wait until land values rise, then sell and make a profit. But if no one is buying land (because of the Specie Circular), then land values will not rise. This is disaster for land speculators who had borrowed money in order to purchase land. If land values didn't rise, or even declined, then they wouldn't be able to pay back their loans when those came due for repayment and they couldn't sell the land they had bought because no one wanted to buy land under these circumstances. It was also disaster for banks who had loaned out too much money (without collateral) to land speculators. It meant they wouldn't be able to collect the money back and the banks would go broke and be forced out of business. Anyone who had money deposited in such a bank lost their money when the bank went out of business (the federal government would not guarantee bank deposits until 1933). When this happened to a lot of banks in 1836 (all because of the Specie Circular, which was an over-reaction to conditions caused by Jackson's killing off of the national bank in 1834), it had the effect of drying up investments in the U.S. (at least temporarily). When few people are willing to invest in business, then there is an economic slow-down (depression). This occurred as the result of a stock market panic in 1837. The lack of investments caused stock prices to decline. Declining prices of stock investments caused the holders of stocks to seek to sell their stocks, but new investors willing to buy were hard to find. This led stock prices to decline even further until the bottom dropped out of the market and many investors lost their shirts. This made new investors leery of entering the investment market for several years and helped to cause a depression in the years from 1837 to 1842. President Jackson may have had good political reasons to oppose the national bank, but the way he killed it off in 1834 led to too much land speculation and to too much irresponsibility in the practices of too many banks. The Specie Circular was too drastic a cure for this problem, leading to bank failures that dried up investment capital and caused a depression.

Gag Rule

1836—the gag rule was a rule put in place by members of Congress by which petitions concerning slavery would simply be ignored by Congress. This was agreed to by the leaders of both political parties because neither party wanted to deal with the issue of slavery—because it was a divisive issue. Both parties wanted to be organized in both the North and in the South. Therefore, both parties tried to avoid the slavery issue. Because, if a party argued against slavery in the North to win votes there, it would only lose them votes in the South. Since the Missouri Compromise had settled the question of slavery in the territories (until the Mexican War would revive this question by causing the U.S. to acquire new territories), Congress didn't see the point in entertaining argument over a question that promised no political gain. Slavery might be an issue of concern to many people in the North, but neither political party wanted to confront that issue. Eventually, the rise of the anti-slavery movement in the U.S., along with the corrupt nature of the gag rule (after all, Congress is supposed to be responsive to the people of the U.S. and shouldn't be allowed to simply ignore lawful petitions), led John Quincy Adams to lead a successful effort to remove the gag rule in 1844.

Anti-Slavery Movement

1840s,50s—This is the idea that slavery was OK where it already existed, but that it should not be allowed to spread into new territories. Because of the Missouri Compromise's settling of the issue of slavery in the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, anti-slavery will not arise as an important political issue until the annexation in 1844 of Texas and the acquisition of more territory from Mexico as a result of the Mexican War (by 1848). Though there had been southerners as late as the 1820s with an interest in ending slavery and colonizing blacks back to Africa, by the 1830s southerners had become re-committed to slavery due to the spread of cotton cultivation across the South. Anti-slavery, then, was exclusively a northern movement.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

1842—This treaty settled some outstanding differences between Britain and the U.S. (such as disputes over the Caroline Affair, over the Creole Incident, and over border disputes between Maine and New Brusnswick in Canada). Daniel Webster was the only member of Harrison's cabinet not to resign in protest over the anti-Whig policies of John Tyler in 1841. Webster stayed on as Secretary of State until he had completed his negotiations with Lord Ashburton of Britain (the British Foreign Secretary) by 1842—then he resigned. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, however, is important because of the way it led to agreement over Oregon by 1846 and to the development of a special relationship between the U.S. and Britain after this time. By this time in the early 21st century, Britain is still the U.S.'s most valuable ally in international affairs. This is the result of a good relationship that began to develop after the War of 1812, but which became cemented by Webster and Lord Ashburton in 1842.

Liberty Party

1844—This was a third party, an anti-slavery party, which ran James Birney as its presidential candidate in the Election of 1844, which is the election in which James Polk won the presidency in a close race over the Whig candidate Henry Clay. Although the Liberty Party got only 2 percent of the vote nationwide in 1844, the party did well enough in the state of New York to deny Henry Clay a win in New York. Without New York's electoral votes, Clay lost the election and the Liberty Party had had a major impact on the election's outcome. This was a harbinger of things to come as the anti-slavery movement would continue to grow due to the Mexican War.

Mexican War

1846-1848—President Polk tried to purchase California from Mexico, but the Mexicans wouldn't sell. So Polk sent troops under Zachary Taylor to Brownsville, Texas, which was right across the Rio Grande River from a garrison of Mexican troops in the town of Matamoras, Mexico. Taylor's troops were in territory that Americans claimed was a part of Texas, but it was a territory that Mexico claimed was not part of Texas, but was instead a part of the country of Mexico. That is, Mexico claimed that the southern boundary of Texas was formed by the Nueces River, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico a good bit north of Brownsville at what is now Corpus Christi, Texas. The U.S. claimed that the southern boundary of Texas was formed by the Rio Grande River, which is the boundary today. By sending troops into this disputed territory, President Polk hoped that the Mexicans at Matamoras would attack Zachary Taylor's men. He could then claim to Congress that Americans had been attacked on American soil (even though the Mexicans didn't recognize it as such) and he could then get a declaration of war with Mexico. This way it wouldn't matter that Mexico wouldn't sell California. This way the U.S. could defeat Mexico in war and take California as a prize of war, along with Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and portions of present-day Wyoming and Colorado. The plan worked. An incident occurred, American blood was spilled by Mexican soldiers. Congress approved Mr. Polk's war and, in less than two years, Mexico was defeated and forced to cede the above-mentioned territories to the U.S. and to recognize Texas as American territory all the way southward to the Rio Grande. In this war, Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, both members of the Whig Party, became military heroes. Much to the Democrat James Polk's chagrin, the war lasted long enough to make heroes of both Scott and Taylor, leading to a successful run for the presidency by Taylor in 1848. Also, during the war, northern anti-slavery politicians began to become opponents of the war and to initiate political controversy and division on the grounds that Mr. Polk had started this war with Mexico in order, not only to gain California, but to gain new territories into which to spread slavery. This charge, moreover, was accurate as the Mexican War became highly popular among the people of the South, who saw the war as a means of acquiring new territories into which to spread slavery. It isn't unfair to say that President Polk, a slaveholder himself, from Tennessee, saw things this way, too. Because of this, the anti-slavery movement in the North would gain more adherents and become politically much stronger in 1848 than it had been in 1844.

Popular Sovereignty

1848-1857—This was an idea of Lewis Cass, who was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the election of 1848. The growing influence of the anti-slavery movement had become a serious problem to the two major political parties. Some Congressmen up North were finding, by 1848, that they might lose their congressional seat if they didn't take a stand against the spread of slavery into the territories. But if northern Democrats or northern Whigs became anti-slavery in their rhetoric it became a problem for the parties to disassociate themselves from the anti-slavery idea in the South. Popular Sovereignty became a way that the Democrats could avoid having to deal with the problem of slavery in the territories. Popular sovereignty allowed the Democrats to maintain unity in their party between North and South because popular sovereignty took the issue out of the hands of men in Congress. Popular Sovereignty meant that the people living in territories out west should determine for themselves whether they would have slavery (or not) in their territories. This way, Democrats in Congress would have nothing to say about it. This way, both northern and southern Democrats could avoid the issue of slavery in the territories by saying it did not matter what they thought if the issue was going to be decided by the people out in the territories. That way, northern Democrats never had to come out in favor of anti-slavery (or against it) It allowed the Democratic Party to maintain its unity between North and South. Eventually, the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court (1857) would end the career of popular sovereignty. But, for about 10 years, popular sovereignty as an idea associated with the Democratic Party was an idea that helped the party avoid splitting up into northern and southern factions, as had happened to the Whigs by the early 1850s.

The Gold Rush

1848—Once gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in northern California, California became the destination of many thousands of people from the U.S. and from the rest of the world, people who came in order to try to get rich by prospecting for gold. With the recent acquisition of a large amount of territory from Mexico as a result of the Mexican War, the question of whether or not these new American territories would have slavery or not had become a big issue. Just as the application for statehood by Missouri had created a controversy back in 1818, there was likely, now, to be controversy over the first territory (from the area taken from Mexico) to apply for statehood. Whether this territory applied for admission as a slave or a free state did not matter. Either way, a controversy would develop in Congress. Congressmen hoped that it would be years before any new applications for statehood came before them, which would force them to have to deal with the issue of slavery in the territories. But the Gold Rush in California brought so many people to California so quickly that California applied for admission to the Union as a free state in 1849. Because of their popular sovereignty idea, this had less impact on the Democratic Party than on the Whigs but whether or not to allow California into the Union as a free state still became an issue between northern and southern Congressmen—an issue that would require a political compromise: The Compromise of 1850.

Seneca Falls Convention

1848—This convention in Seneca Falls, New York was called by the first important women's rights activists: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. It marks the founding of an organized women's rights movement in the United States. The main women's rights goal identified at this convention was women's suffrage. This, of course, was slowly and gradually achieved, first on the local and state levels in the West, beginning with the Wyoming Territory in 1869. By 1900, several states, all in the West, had allowed women to vote in local and state elections but women could not vote in any federal elections until ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1919.

Free Soil Party

1848—This was the anti-slavery third party that ran former president Martin Van Buren as its presidential candidate in 1848. Whereas the Liberty Party candidate, James Birney, had gotten 2 percent of the national vote in 1844, Van Buren of the Free Soil Party got 10 percent of the national vote in 1848. This party advocated a prohibition on slavery in western territories and called for a Homestead Act that would allow individual settlers to move out west and claim land without having to buy it. The Free-Soilers advocated "free soil, free labor, and free men." The Whigs of Zachary Taylor won the election but the South had to realize that anti-slavery was becoming a powerful political phenomenon in the North and this threatened to break up the unity of the political parties between North and South. As anti-slavery candidates began winning the seats of northern Democratic and Whig Congressmen, it forced some northern candidates to become anti-slavery advocates in order to win. But this was divisive, because if northern Whigs became proponents of anti-slavery in order to win elections in the North, it only served to hurt the chances of Whigs trying to win elections in the South. The Gag Rule of 1836 had tried to eliminate slavery as an issue in Congress, but the growth of the anti-slavery movement was beginning to make slavery an issue that could no longer be ignored—especially when California suddenly applied for admission into the Union (in 1849) as a free state.

Filibustering Expeditions

1850s—The term "filibuster" usually applies to the technique used by Congressmen to waste time during a congressional session in order to prevent voting on a bill before the session ends, thus killing the bill. But, in the context of the 1850s, filibustering expeditions were military expeditions of conquest organized by private citizens who hoped to conquer foreign areas and then apply to have these areas annexed by the U.S. One such expedition to seize Cuba was believed to have the backing of the Pierce administration (resulting in the threat to Spain known as the Ostend Manifesto), but the expedition was called off when the Kansas-Nebraska Act created such political anger in the North that southerners and the Pierce administration did not want to risk antagonizing politicians in the North any more than the Kansas-Nebraska Act had already done. One filibuster, named William Walker, led an expedition that succeeded in 1856 in conquering Nicaragua. But the British opposed his government there and the U.S. did not give him recognition. He was eventually kicked out of Nicaragua, mostly because of British opposition to his government there. He later returned to Honduras with the intention of leading another expedition of conquest in Nicaragua, but was captured by the British navy and turned over to Honduran authorities, who executed him. Southerners viewed filibusters like Walker as heroes, while northerners thought them to be pirates. The word "filibuster" comes originally from a Spanish word that means "pirate." It was just something else that drove the wedge between North and South a little deeper.

Nashville Convention

1850—Delegates from all the slave states attended this convention to discuss the South's reaction to the Compromise of 1850. Many delegates at Nashville argued that the Compromise should be rejected and began to argue in favor of secession from the Union, but most decided it would be best to wait and see if the compromise could preserve the peace and work to preserve the interests of the South. But this convention is significant in that, for the first time, a significant number of southerners either became committed to the cause of secession or became willing to at least consider the idea.

Ostend Manifesto

1854—A group of American diplomats threatened diplomats from Spain with the idea that the U.S. would take Cuba from Spain militarily if the Spanish didn't sell it to the U.S. Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only colonies that Spain had left in the New World after the series of revolutions that culminated with the emergence of many new Latin American republics by 1824. Ostend was the city in Belgium where the discussions over Cuba between Spain and the U.S. took place. At the time, in 1854, a filibustering expedition was just waiting for authorization from the Pierce administration to go off and conquer Cuba. But that authorization never came. The anger in the North caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act caused the Pierce administration to disassociate itself with the Ostend Manifesto because a military expedition to seize Cuba in order to spread southern slavery would surely have caused even more anger and consternation in the North than Kansas-Nebraska had already done. So the expedition to Cuba never happened. But it is interesting to note that the South was very interested in organizing such expeditions. Had the South been successful in separating from the Union, it is likely that the Confederate States of America would have sponsored such expeditions to spread southern slavery to new territories in the Caribbean and into Central America and perhaps beyond into South America in later years.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854—This, more than anything else, caused the organization of the Republican Party in 1854—because it angered everyone in the North who had anti-slavery feelings and led to pulling together into one party former Free-Soilers, anti-slavery Whigs, and some former Democrats who were not anti-slavery before the Kansas-Nebraska Act but became anti-slavery in their feelings because of it. Remember that anti-slavers did not advocate the abolition of slavery where it already existed, but instead advocated stopping the spread of slavery into new territories. This is the primary position of the new Republican Party and the primary political view of Abraham Lincoln as the candidate of the Republicans in 1860. Kansas-Nebraska was an act of Congress that had been sponsored by Stephen Douglas of Illinois. It involved organizing Kansas and Nebraska as territories, which had not yet happened because no one really wanted to live on the Great Plains in the middle of the 19th century. Although the Great Plains eventually becomes the site of much farming (wheat, especially), most early settlers of the West wanted to move on beyond the Great Plains to California or Oregon because the Great Plains were so desolate and treeless and devoid of water. Because the ground was so hard-packed, it would actually require the invention of a new kind of plow to enable farmers to till the soil of the Great Plains. It would take the invention of barbed wire to enable farmers to fence off their crops so that herds of cattle or buffalo didn't trample them. Finally, it would take the western extension of the railroads to enable farmers to get crops to markets. In other words, the Great Plains was a hard sell to pioneers and Kansas and Nebraska were not going to become quickly organized as had been the case with some other areas of the United States. But Douglas wanted to organize these territories so that construction of a railroad westward across the Great Plains could begin. Along with construction from San Francisco eastward, this would eventually result in the completion of the first transcontinental railroad (which eventually was completed in 1869). Douglas wanted the first transcontinental to take this route toward distant San Francisco because that would better link the cattle ranches and farms of the West to Chicago, which was emerging as a major center for meat-packing and the distribution of manufactured goods from further east. This would be good for Illinois, the state that Douglas represented in the U.S. Senate. To get the Kansas-Nebraska Act to pass Congress, however, Douglas would need the support of southern Congressmen, many of whom were more interested in supporting a transcontinental that linked New Orleans to Los Angeles. So—in order to get southern support for his bill, Douglas proposed that Kansas and Nebraska be organized under a provision that popular sovereignty would apply there. This meant that the people living in those territories would decide whether slavery could or could not exist in their territories. At this stage in the story of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, recall the provisions of the Missouri Compromise of 1820—that everything north of the 36-30 line (except Missouri) would be free territory. By applying popular sovereignty to Kansas, the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened up the possibility that slavery might spread to Kansas and thus represented the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This is what angered people in the North who were anti-slavery in their feelings. They thought the question of slavery within the area of the Louisiana Purchase had been settled and that only Arkansas would become a slave state from all that territory. But now?

Bleeding Kansas

1856 and afterwards—As anti-slavery people from the North moved to Kansas after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and pro-slavery people from the South began to move there with slaves, violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery communities of people became increasingly prevalent. The idea of popular sovereignty in Kansas (as part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act) was that the people living in Kansas would decide whether slavery would exist there or not—and this would keep the issue out of Congress. But it did not work this way. Two separate territorial legislatures were elected in Kansas in 1856. One was a pro-slavery legislature elected by the pro-slavery communities of people. The other was an anti-slavery legislature elected by anti-slavery northerners living in Kansas. Each legislature eventually developed a potential state constitution for Kansas and attempted to apply for Kansas statehood. In this situation, popular sovereignty had not succeeded in keeping the issue of slavery out of Congress since now it would have to be Congress to decide whether Kansas would be admitted to the Union under an anti-slavery constitution or under a pro-slavery constitution. This would, of course, cause the Democratic Party more trouble than it would cause the Republicans (because the Republican Party was a purely northern anti-slavery party while Democrats had to try to stick to a common party line in both North and South). In some ways, the violence in Kansas, such as the massacre by followers of John Brown of pro-slavery people at Potawattamie Creek, represented a prelude to the Civil War itself. Also, of course, it represented another issue driving that wedge between North and South even deeper between them.

Dred Scott Decision

1857—The Supreme Court's opinion in this case was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who was a southerner and who was pro-slavery in his beliefs. President Buchanan had seen the trouble that Congress would have over Kansas and asked the Supreme Court to take on a case that might settle, once and for all, this issue of slavery in the territories. Buchanan hoped that this might prevent the break-up of the Union from occurring on his watch. Dred Scott was a slave who was owned by a Missouri physician who had had occasion to visit free states and territories (and had brought Dred Scott with him). Following the death of the doctor, Dred Scott sued to gain his freedom on the basis that he should have been set free upon his arrival in any free territory. The court ruled, however, that because Scott was not a citizen he did not have the right to sue in court for his freedom and must remain a slave owned by the heir of the deceased doctor. Further, the court ruled that the doctor had been within his rights in bringing Dred Scott to free territories without setting Scott free. In the opinion of the court, anyone should have the right to go anywhere they want to and to bring any property they own (including chattel slaves) with them. This meant that slave-owners had the right to bring slaves into any territory. In that case, it also meant that popular sovereignty was now a dead issue. There was no longer anything for the people in a territory to decide about slavery since the court had ruled that slaves could be brought virtually anywhere (perhaps even into free states with anti-slavery constitutions). In other words, by killing the application of the idea of popular sovereignty, the Dred Scott decision made the Kansas-Nebraska Act unconstitutional. This was the first time that the power of judicial review was actually used by the Supreme Court since the case of Marbury v Madison back in 1803. If Kansas-Nebraska and the Ostend Manifesto had angered northerners, this decision of the court in 1857 really riled them up and galvanized anti-slavery support for the Republican Party above the 41st parallel

Freeport Doctrine

1858—At Freeport, Illinois (one of the places where Douglas debated Lincoln) Lincoln asked Douglas a question that forced him into a statement (by way of answering Lincoln) that has come to be known as the Freeport Doctrine. This doctrine would cost Douglas the political support of many southerners and would help lead, in 1860, to the splitting of the Democratic Party into southern and northern factions. The question was this: In light of the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case, which made popular sovereignty a dead issue, would it even be possible for slavery to be excluded from a territory? Douglas could answer either that it was possible to exclude slavery from a territory (which would anger southerners) or that it was impossible (which would anger many northerners). Either way, Douglas' answer would cost him politically. What he said (and what became the Freeport Doctrine associated with Stephen Douglas) was that slavery is an institution that requires a complex set of laws to support its existence and that without a slave code, slavery (as an institution) could not exist. Therefore, if the people of a territory wanted to exclude slavery, all they had to do was to refuse to enact the laws that would be necessary to govern a system of slavery. Then, some people might still bring slaves into the territory, but not many would because the lack of a slave code would cause too many problems for slave-owners. Although this answer satisfied many northerners and helped get Douglas re-elected to his Senate seat, it made him lasting political enemies in the South and would hurt his chances to become President in 1860. On the other hand, Lincoln became much more famous as a result of forcing Douglas into developing his Freeport Doctrine.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

1858—In a contest for the senate seat from Illinois, Stephen Douglas (the incumbent) accepted an invitation to debate his challenger (the leader of Illinois' Republicans, Abraham Lincoln). Because of Douglas' stature as a potential presidential candidate in 1860, the debates attracted interest from people all over the country, who followed the course of the debates carefully in the newspaper accounts of the time—as these were reported to the people from each of the cities in Illinois where the debates were held. In the end, Douglas retained his Senate seat, but Lincoln's performance in these debates elevated his stature within the Republican Party and resulted in his nomination for President by the Republican Party in 1860.

Harper's Ferry Raid

1859—The fanatic abolitionist John Brown led a raid on a federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. His idea was to steal weapons from the arsenal and to distribute these to slaves on Virginia plantations, thereby starting a massive slave rebellion that would sweep across the slave South and result in the final destruction of slavery as a system. He was captured by a military detachment commanded by Robert E. Lee and tried under charges of treason against the U.S. -and then he was hanged. But the growth of sectional tension led to an outpouring of sentimental support for John Brown in the North, where many people felt saddened that Brown was executed because, even though they could not condone his actions, they shared with Brown the feeling that slavery was an evil that should be done away with, maybe even by violent action. Southerners, of course, viewed John Brown as the anti-Christ.

Anaconda Plan

1861—This was the war plan of the Union, which was authored by Winfield Scott before he retired from service, and then approved by the Lincoln administration. Just as an anaconda squeezes its prey, the Union intended to squeeze and constrict the South into submission. The parts of the plan were as follows: apply naval blockade of southern coastline to deny the South the ability to conduct trade with the outside world gain control of the Mississippi River in order to divide the Confederacy and divorce Ark., La., and Tex. from the rest of the Confederacy. Divide the Confederacy again (once the river was in Union hands) by taking Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Savannah Take the Confederate capital at Richmond, Va. Although it took four years, the plan unfolded pretty much as Scott had planned it would.

Ten Percent Plan

1862—Reconstruction, the political process of rebuilding the Union after the war, actually began during the war, in places in the South where Union occupation occurred as early as 1862—such as in southern Louisiana, Tennessee, and the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina. Lincoln developed the fiction that secession was illegal and therefore had never really taken place. In that case, nothing extraordinary would have to be done to restore southern states to their proper relationship in the Union among the other states. Lincoln's idea of Reconstruction, therefore, was to implement a policy of leniency toward the South. Under the ten percent plan, all that would be required of southern states—in order to send their representatives to Congress and to assume their place among the states—was for ten percent of those who had voted in the 1860 election to take an oath of allegiance to the Union. Nothing more than that. Because this plan was initiated by President Lincoln and carried on, after his assassination, by President Johnson, this lenient policy of Reconstruction is part of the package of Reconstruction policies known as Presidential Reconstruction, dated from 1862-1867.

George Whitefield

18th century Anglican minister, whose evangelical style of preaching started the "Great Awakening" in America in the 1730s and 1740s.

The Enlightenment

18th century-- This is the intellectual movement in Europe known also as the Age of Reason. The development of a scientific method during the 17th century had led to such stunning scientific advances that European thinkers of the 18th century came to think that reason and science would allow people to cure all ills, solve all problems, and create paradise on Earth. Eventually, most people would come to see that science, though good in many ways, is also limited in what it can do for people and the optimism in science of the Enlightenment would give way to the Romantic movement in the 19th century. Americans, as colonists from Europe, were heavily influenced in the 18th century by the Enlightenment. Nearly all of the educated elite in America were influenced by the Enlightenment to respect the power of human reason, not only in the way that reason could further scientific achievement, but also in the way that reason could further man's understanding of his methods of government and economics. That is, most of the founding fathers of the United States of America were people whose belief systems were grounded in the ideas of the Enlightenment. It is a big reason why these men were so attached to the philosophical ideas of John Locke and viewed government as having a Social Contract with the people. It is also a big reason why the founding fathers were against mercantilism and were generally in favor of the idea of laissez-faire in economics

The Great Compromise

787--This refers to settlement of the issue between those at the Constitutional Convention who preferred a plan favoring representation of small states and those who backed the plan that favored large states. The compromise produced the U.S. Congress as we know it: a bicameral legislature in which state representation in the lower house (from which tax bills originate) is according to population while all the states are equally represented in the upper house, or Senate.

Wilmot Proviso

846—Right after the beginning of the Mexican War, Congress was presented with a bill to authorize appropriation of funds to pay for military supplies and other things that the army would need to prosecute the war. It was not anticipated that anyone in Congress would oppose this bill. But David Wilmot, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, who was anti-slavery in his beliefs, added a rider, or amendment, to this bill that became known as the Wilmot Proviso. The Wilmot Proviso stated that in any territory taken from Mexico as a result of the war with Mexico, slavery would be prohibited. It was Wilmot's hope that, by attaching this rider to a military appropriations bill, southern congressman (who all favored the war) would not read the bill all the way through and would help vote it into law (and hence would also unwittingly vote into law a prohibition against slavery in the West). It didn't work. The South refused to vote for this bill with that rider attached to it. But many northerners approved of Wilmot's attempt to prohibit slavery out west and the whole incident led to more northerners joining the anti-slavery movement than before. It showed the South that any attempts to spread slavery would meet opposition in the North

Treaty of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo

848—This is the treaty that ended the war between Mexico and the U.S. The U.S. acquired California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and portions of present-day Wyoming and Colorado, but agreed, oddly enough, to pay Mexico 15 million dollars for it all. With this treaty, America's Manifest Destiny had been completed (except for the Gadsden Purchase).

James Longstreet

A Lieutenant-General in the Confederate Army, Longstreet became the army commander that Robert E. Lee usually relied on to prepare Confederate defenses against attack by Union armies. Following the death of Stonewall Jackson, he became Lee's top subordinate. Longstreet became controversial for the way that he tried to persuade Lee to break off from the battle at Gettysburg and became a Scalawag after the war.

James Birney

A former slaveholder in Alabama, he freed his slaves and moved to Ohio to publish an abolitionist newspaper. In 1844, he became the presidential nominee of the Liberty Party, an anti-slavery third party. Though he gained only 2% of the national vote, Birney's voter support in New York made the difference in a close election there between Henry Clay and James Polk, costing Clay the electoral votes of New York (which cost him the election nationally).

Robert Y. Hayne

A friend of John Calhoun, this Senator from South Carolina argued the case for nullification in his debate with Webster in 1830.

Congressional Reconstruction

A minority of Republican Congressmen, known as the Radical Republicans, opposed Presidential Reconstruction as being too lenient toward the defeated South. When southerners took advantage of the lenient policy and tried to deny the freedom of former slaves through a series of southern state laws known as the "Black Codes," the more moderate majority of Congressmen came to agree with the Radical Republicans that the policy was wrong. Congress, led by the Radicals, then tried to wrest control of Reconstruction policy away from the President through such legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the series of laws of 1867 called the Reconstruction Acts. By 1867, following passage of the Reconstruction Acts, Congress was successful in gaining control of policy away from the President, who had been impeached, and would implement a much harsher policy designed to punish the South for transgressions against the freedmen, to make the South respect freedmen as the political equals of southern whites, and to make it much more difficult for southern states to rejoin the Union on equal terms with the other states. Southerners, however, would resist these new congressional policies and the Reconstruction era would be one of violence and political chaos in the South.

Irish Immigration

A prominent topic in the social history of the U.S. in the early years of the 20th century involves the cultural changes and economic impact of millions of immigrants from areas of the world that were primarily poor and Catholic. By 1920, a lot of anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic sentiment had developed in many areas of the nation and many Americans had come to believe that immigrant populations were the cause of many of the nation's problems. The arrival of Catholic Irish people in large numbers toward the end of the 1840s and during the 1850s (as a result of the potato famine in Europe) represented the first wave of such immigration into the U.S. by people who were both poor and Catholic. The reaction to the Irish immigrants by Americans was not as severe in the 1850s as anti-immigrant feeling would become by 1920. But it was the beginning of that same process of nativist opposition to people who were different from the rest that results in the immigration restrictions put in place by Congress during the 1920s.

Grant's War of Attrition

After the fall of Vicksburg, Grant was promoted to become commander of all Union armies west of the Appalachians. He oversaw Rosecrans at Chattanooga. In 1864, Grant was placed in command of all Union armies. Even though Meade had been successful against Lee at Gettysburg, he failed to follow up that victory. Had he been more alert to the situation that existed he might have been able to finish off Lee's army before it could escape back into Virginia, because the crossing of the Potomoc became a difficult exercise due to the river being at flood stage. At any rate, Lee's army was vulnerable as it attempted this crossing and Meade should have been there to at least harass the crossing. Although Meade remained commander of the Army of the Potomoc, Grant went east in 1864 and personally took command over Meade and the commanders of other Union armies advancing against Richmond in Virginia. Beginning in the spring of 1864, Grant launched attacks against Lee's army, which was dug in and committed to the defense of the Confederate capital, Richmond. It would be Grant's job to keep attacking Lee, knowing that casualties would be enormous, but knowing also that every attack would also inflict heavy casualties on Lee's army. In such a war of attrition, Grant could afford to lose every battle because he could replace whatever he lost in a battle (in terms of both men and equipment) while Lee could not replace anything he lost. Lee's only hope was to make his defense of Richmond so strong that Union attempts to take it would be so costly that the Union would give up the effort. That was not to be the case, however. By this time, late in the war, the Union had too much of a human investment in the war to give up now. There had just been too many casualties and the North was not going to give in now and risk having all those battle casualties go for nothing. Lee could dig in and hang on for a year and a half, but he couldn't win. Grant knew this and kept pressing the attack. Grant's campaign in Virginia in 1864-65 involved such battles as The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and Cold Harbor. His casualties were enormous and his critics in the North called him a "butcher" but he knew he would win in the end because a war of attrition favored the North. Finally, on April 9, 1865 Lee gave in and surrendered to Grant.

Firing on Fort Sumter

April 12, 1861—Fort Sumter, on an island commanding the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, was a federal installation much like many other federal installations that were being taken over by the Confederate government everywhere in the eleven states of the Confederacy. Fort Sumter, however, had federal troops who would not hand the fort over. Confederate forces were moved in to initiate a siege of the fort. When President Lincoln determined to use the navy to keep the fort supplied so that a siege would not work, then the South decided to attack the fort and take it by force. This worked into the hands of Lincoln, who wanted the South to fire the first shot because this would make it much easier for him to motivate the North into support of a war to preserve the Union. The fighting that began at Fort Sumter would not end until nearly four full years later.

Battle of Shiloh

April 1862—This was the first big battle of the Trans-Mississippi theater of the war. The Trans-Mississippi theater was the western theater in which Union armies known as the Army of the Cumberland and the Army of the Tennessee were involved in trying to defeat the Confederate Army of Tennessee and to divide the Confederacy, first by taking control of the river by seizing Memphis and Vicksburg, and secondly by seizing control of Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Savannah in order to divide the Confederacy again. The Battle of Shiloh occurred in southern Tennessee, not far from the city of Corinth in Mississippi. After advancing down the valley of the Tennessee River from near Paducah, Kentucky (where the Tennessee River flows into the Ohio River), the Union Army of the Tennessee moved south to capture control of a railroad junction at Corinth, Miss. The plan was for the Army of the Cumberland, another Union army advancing southward from Nashville, to link up with the Army of the Tennessee (commanded by U.S. Grant) and for this combined force to seize Corinth, which would cut off the avenue of supply to Memphis, leading to a Union capture of that important river city. The Confederate commander, Albert Sidney Johnston, did not wait for the two Union armies to combine against him and moved north into Tennessee from Corinth to surprise Grant's force and defeat it. The two-day battle that ensued resulted in over 23,000 casualties to both sides. This was, by far, the highest casualty figure to that time. Since this battle was the first to take place with the large armies that had now been created, Shiloh became an indication to both sides that there would be many such battles in the future. One main importance of the Battle of Shiloh is that both sides had a fairly clear idea about what the rest of the war would be like and both now came to realize that the war would probably not end soon, but would instead become a long drawn-out affair. Another important result of this battle is that it placed the South in a bad position in the Trans-Mississippi West, giving the North the advantage in its continuing campaign to control the Mississippi River. Also, Albert Sidney Johnston, regarded by many in the South to be the South's best general (yes, even better than Lee) was killed at Shiloh.

Lewis Cass

As Andrew Jackson's campaign manager in 1828, Cass had been involved with the leadership of the Democratic Party from its beginnings. In 1848, he became the party's nominee for President. Though he lost the election, his concept of "popular sovereignty" became the position of Democratic Party officeholders in both North and South over the next decade. Popular Sovereignty, as a position on the issue of slavery in the territories, would make it possible for the Democratic Party to avoid splintering between North and South on the slavery issue and to dominate the national government through most of the 1850s.

Roger Taney

As Secretary of the Treasury for Andrew Jackson in 1834, he withheld federal government money from being deposited in the national bank and deposited these funds, instead, into "pet banks" in each of the states of the Union. This deprived the national bank of capital and led to the bank's collapse in 1834.

John Adams

As the other prominent leader of the Federalist Party (with Hamilton), Adams ran for President (and won) in 1796. The positive part of his legacy as President was the way he kept the U.S. out of war with France. The negative party of his legacy came from his signing the Sedition Act of 1798 into law.

Peggy Eaton

As wife to John Eaton, she was ostracized by the wives of many prominent government officials in Washington, D.C., leading to efforts to have President Jackson dismiss John Eaton as Secretary of War. Jackson's refusal to do so and his support for both John and Peggy helped cause the split between President Jackson and Vice President John Calhoun.

Railroads

Beginning in the 1830s, but much more prominently in the late 1840s and 1850s, railroads would begin to proliferate across the country, especially in the northern areas of the country. The improvement in transportation of freight as well as of travelers represented by the railroads was so important to the subsequent history of the country that the impact of the railroads on American history probably can't be exaggerated. Railroads were of incalculable importance to the economic development of the whole nation over the next century of time and they would do much to stimulate the onset of a full-fledged industrial revolution after 1865

"Wage" Slavery

Being subject to sale and relocation from the upper South to the Deep South was, for slaves, a bad aspect of the domestic slave trade. Relocation to developing plantation areas of the Deep South generally meant much more work for slaves than back east in Virginia or North Carolina, because of the work involved in clearing new land for cotton cultivation. Although few whites in the South were plantation owners, most slaves in the South lived and worked on plantations, because the few plantation owners there were had large numbers of slaves. Consequently, for slaves, life on a large plantation was more typical than life as a slave for a small farmer and this meant that what was also most typical for slaves was hard, sustained work. Southern slave-owners and apologists for slavery in the South were always interested in pointing out that slaves were treated well because they were so valuable. Some went so far as to claim that life for slaves in the South was better than life for "wage slaves" working in factories in the North. Certainly, conditions in factory areas of northern cities were bad, but the claim that chattel slaves lived better than factory workers seems not to be able to hold water. It is hard to imagine that a "wage slave" working in a factory in New Jersey in 1855 would have been willing to trade places with a chattel slave working on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. However, it is not hard to imagine the chattel slave being willing to go North and be free to spend money he earned working in a factory.

George Grenville

British Prime Minister from 1763-1765. His policies led to many new government initiatives, such as the Stamp Act, that were very unpopular in the American colonies and led to much protest.

William Pitt

British Prime Minister who implemented the strategy that was successful in winning the French and Indian War for Britain in 1758

Banastre Tarleton

British cavalry officer in Cornwallis' command. He was in command of the British troops who lost the Battle of Cowpens in 1781

Thomas Gage

British general who was the Royal Governor of Massachusetts in 1775. He also commanded the garrison of British troops who became involved in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. He was hated in Boston for his enforcement of the Intolerable Acts.

James Wolfe

British general whose forces were victorious at the Battle of Quebec in 1759 (though he was killed in this battle).

Democratic convention of 1860

Charleston, S.C.--When southern delegates demanded planks in the platform to guarantee slavery—and northern delegates (who constituted the majority of the delegates) voted down the southern platform, southern delegates walked out. A separate southern Democratic convention at Richmond, Va. Approved the southern platform and nominated John Breckenridge of Kentucky for President. The northern delegates convened in Baltimore, Md. and nominated Stephen Douglas for President. It seems that the Dred Scott decision's rendering of popular sovereignty into a dead issue sealed the fate of the Democratic Party, leading to the party's split over slavery in 1860. What happened to the Democratic Party in 1860 is similar to the way that the national Methodist conference split into northern and southern groups in 1844 and similar to the splitting up of Baptists in 1845, leading to the appearance of the still extant Southern Baptist Convention.

Treaty of Ghent

Dec. 1814—This treaty ended the War of 1812. Britain did not agree to any American demands that Britain should respect American trading rights. However, the British pointed out to the Americans that they would not have any reason to violate American neutral trading rights now that Napoleon had been defeated in 1814. Without the necessity of maintaining an economic blockade of Europe, the British would no longer have any reason to stop American ships or to impress American sailors. Therefore, why should the fighting continue. By December of 1814 (after 3 months of negotiating) American and British diplomats came to the agreement that the fighting should stop. But neither side became the "winner" of the war as a consequence of this treaty. For Americans, however, the great victory won at New Orleans in Jan. 1815 made it seem as though the war had been "won." Second Bank of the U.S. -1816—Upon the outbreak of war in 1812, at a time when the U.S. had been lowering taxes and weakening the military for the past 10 years, money with which to wage war seemed desirable to the Madison Administration. However, there was little money with which to build a military and the first Bank of the United States (the 1st national bank) went out of existence in 1811 (when the Madison administration and a Democratic-Republican Congress allowed the bank's charter to expire without renewal. Madison and members of Congress came to regret having done this during the war, since the bank would have been a convenient source of loans for the U.S. government at a time when money was needed and in short supply. After the war, Democratic-Republicans abandoned their opposition to the idea of a national bank and chartered the 2nd national bank (or Second Bank of the United States) in 1816 with a 20 year charter due to expire in 1836.

"Citizen" Genet

Edmund Genet was a French government official who came to the U.S. in 1793 to organize American privateers to be used in defense of French island possessions in the Caribbean against the British. He did not consult anyone in the U.S. government before doing this, which prompted his arrest and President Washington to issue the Neutrality Proclamation of 1793, in which the U.S. abrogated its treaty obligations to the French.

Humphrey Gilbert

English nobleman whose effort in 1583 to found a colony in America failed, leading to the loss at sea of all the colonists in a hurricane

Moses Austin

Father of Stephen F. Austin, he began recruiting American settlers as part of an effort by the country of Mexico to populate Texas in the 1820s. He died in 1821 before the recruitment effort was complete and his son would lead the first 300 families of American settlers into Texas in 1825.

George McClellan

Following the first Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1861, Lincoln placed McClellan in charge of recruiting and training a bigger and better army than the one that had been defeated at Bull Run. This became the Army of the Potomoc, commanded for a time by McClellan, which opposed Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in a series of important Civil War battles in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. McClellan was eventually replaced as the commander of the Army of the Potomoc following the Battle of Antietam because Lincoln believed McClellan was not willing enough to aggressively commit his troops to battle. Later, McClellan became the presidential candidate defeated by Lincoln in the Election of 1864.

James Madison

For the important role he played at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Madison is known as the "father" of the U.S. Constitution. He became an important leader of the Democratic-Republican Party by 1791. He was involved in the important court case of Marbury v Madison in 1803 as Secretary of State in President Jefferson's administration and became a two-term President after 1808. He served as President during the War of 1812.

Meriwether Lewis

Formerly President Jefferson's private secretary, Lewis became Jefferson's choice to be co-leader of the expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase territory and the Oregon Territory in 1804-1805. The Lewis and Clark expedition returned with much useful geographical and scientific knowledge of a large area that would eventually become at least 10 states of the Union.

Algonkin Tribes

From Virginia northward to New England and Canada there were over 100 Indian tribes, who spoke different languages, had different customs, and sometimes fought between themselves. All of these tribes, however, had a common heritage dating back hundreds of years as best indicated by the fact that all of these tribes spoke languages that had words of common origin. All 105 tribes were members of the same language family (the Algonkin language family). This did not mean that members of one tribe could understand the language of a neighboring tribe, but the common heritage did mean that there were similarities in customs between the Algonkin tribes that caused them to tend to band together in warding away invasion by members of tribes who did not speak Algonkin languages. Such an invasion (by tribes of the Iriquois language family) was taking place in what is now the American Northeast at about the same time (during the early 17th century) that Europeans began to invade from the sea. Algonkin tribesmen often became involved in trapping to sell furs to the French in Canada. Because the French relied on Algonkins for furs, they tended to be friendly with them, whereas English settlers generally saw the Algonkin Indians only as pagan heathens who occupied land they wanted. Consequently, whenever wars developed in Europe between France and England—and then spread to the French and English colonies in North America—the Algonkins usually allied with the French in Canada and waged war against British settlers along the frontier.

Walter Raleigh

Funded the effort in 1587 to found the "lost colony" of Roanoke

Thomas Jefferson

He authored the Declaration of Independence in 1776

Thomas Paine

He authored the pamphlet Common Sense in 1776, which was a propaganda piece that helped expand support in America for the revolution

Robert E. Lee

He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War, becoming the Confederacy's most successful major army commander. His defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy and his surrender to U.S. Grant at Appamatox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865 is usually regarded as the event that ended the war. The property on which he lived with his wife in Arlington, Virginia prior to the war later became the site of Arlington National Cemetery, as a result of a decision to begin burying Union war dead on Lee's abandoned property just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C

Nathaniel Greene

He commanded the Patriot forces in the Carolinas who opposed Cornwallis in 1780 and 1781.

William Lloyd Garrison

He founded and edited The Liberator, a printed periodical that became the main voice in the U.S. of the movement for the abolition of slavery (beginning in 1831).

Edwin Packenham

He is the British general defeated by Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in January, 1815. His decision to attack Jackson's dug-in forces from across open ground proved a tragic mistake. He died in the battle.

Toussaint L'Overture

He led the slave revolt on Hispaniola that the French owners of the island twice failed to defeat. Although Toussaint was captured by the French and died in a French jail in 1797, the revolt he started led to the modern independent republics of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The French failure to recapture the island in 1802 prompted Napoleon's sale of Louisiana to the U.S. in 1803.

Benjamin Franklin

He proposed the Albany Plan of Union at the Albany Congress in 1754 and then went on to become a prominent member of the Continental Congress during the American Revolution as well as a prominent early American scientist.

James Monroe

He succeeded Madison as President as the last of the Virginia Dynasty of Presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe). The Monroe Doctrine is named for him though it was Monroe's Secretary of State John Quincy Adams who wrote it. Monroe was President during the Era of Good Feelings.

John Tyler

He succeeded to the Presidency after the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841. Although a Whig, his policies were more in keeping with those of a Jacksonian Democrat, prompting all the members of the Cabinet (who had been appointed by Harrison) to resign in protest from Tyler's administration. He vetoed bills from Whig Congressmen to restore the national bank.

John C. Calhoun

He was Vice President during Andrew Jackson's first term and then a Senator from South Carolina. He proposed the theory of nullification in the late 1820s in opposition to the Tariff of 1828, initiating a political crisis that led President Jackson to threaten military force in order to make South Carolina comply with federal law in 1833.

John Slidell

He was a diplomat sent by President Polk to Mexico in 1845. He tried to persuade Mexico to sell California to the U.S. In early 1846, he returned to Washington to inform President Polk that the Mexicans would not sell and that, if the President wanted California he would have to seize it with military force.

Nat Turner

He was a slave preacher who organized a conspiracy among slaves in Virginia in 1831 that became known as Turner's Rebellion. This slave uprising led southern states to become increasingly restrictive of slaves prior to the Civil War

Charles Townshend

He was acting Prime Minister from 1766-1770. He tried to collect taxes in the colonies indirectly through the Townshend Duties on lead, paint, glass, and tea.(which led to more protests and boycotts).

Nicholas Biddle

He was the Director of the second Bank of the United States. He was unsuccessful in his efforts to save the national bank from being destroyed by President Jackson.

John Eaton

He was the Secretary of War in Andrew Jackson's Cabinet (much involved in carrying out Jackson's Indian Removal policy) and received much opposition and criticism for his marriage to Peggy Eaton (formerly Peggy Timberlake).

John Jay

He was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1789. He negotiated the unpopular treaty with Britain (known as Jay's Treaty) in 1794 and was later elected governor of the state of New York.

Alexander Hamilton

He was the first Secretary of the Treasury after 1789. His funding plan to clear the nation's debt became controversial and led to the emergence of political parties in the United States. By 1791, Hamilton had become the leader of the Federalist Party. He never ran for President because he was ineligible due to the fact that he was not born in the U.S. He was killed in 1804 in a duel with Aaron Burr.

John Quincy Adams

He was the son of the former President John Adams and became President himself as a result of the Election of 1824. He was perhaps the most academically qualified President of the 19th century. He is the only former president to return to Washington later as a member of the House of Representatives.

Winfield Scott

He was the top Union general at the beginning of the Civil War, having held that position since the 1840s. Scott believed he was too old to lead the Union war effort and retired, but not until he had drawn up the Anaconda Plan, which was the plan that the Union followed in winning the war.

William Henry Harrison

He was the winner of the 1840 election over Martin Van Buren. He was the first Whig Party member elected to the presidency, which encouraged the Whigs to think they could now bring back the national bank and implement Henry Clay's American System. However, Harrison gave his inaugural speech in a cold drizzle, caught a cold that turned into pneumonia, and died after only six weeks in office

Strict and Loose Construction

If one takes the view of the Jeffersonians (of strict construction), this means that one takes a literal view of the Constitution and will not believe it is constitutional to take any action that the Constitution does not specifically authorize. In that case, to do anything that the Constitution does not say can be done, means to amend the Constitution with an amendment giving authority to do it. This would mean constant additions to the Constitution that would amount to constant tampering with the document. But, if one takes the Federalist (or Hamiltonian) view of loose construction, then one takes the view that constant amending of the Constitution is both un-necessary and unwise. Instead, the Hamiltonian says that one should assume that something can be done if there is nothing in the Constitution that says you can't do it--even if there is also nothing in the Constitution that says you can do it. The national bank became the issue that first clarified this debate in that Jeffersonians claimed the bank was unconstitutional, since there is nothing in the document authorizing a national bank, while Federalists saw nothing wrong with the national bank because the Constitution did not specifically say that a national bank was unauthorized. Eventually, the loose-construction idea would prevail in this debate because the strict-construction idea meant constant amending of the Constitution (which would be wasteful of Congress' time and energy and would cause the Constitution to become different than it was when framed. Jefferson himself bore out the truth to this when he found it necessary to violate his own idea of strict construction in 1803. In that year, Jefferson had to decide whether to accept France's offer to buy Louisiana (the Constitution does not authorize the President to purchase land from foreign countries) or put Napoleon off by going to Congress to get an amendment passed which would give the President authority to make the purchase. If he did the latter, it would have been a lengthy procedure, which would have taken even longer because of the necessity of having the states vote to ratify the amendment before it could go into effect. By the time all that was done, would Napoleon's offer to purchase Louisiana still be on the table? The Louisiana Purchase was such a good deal that Jefferson couldn't risk losing it, so he bought the Louisiana Purchase from France--even though the Constitution did not say he could do that. In other words, by making the purchase, Jefferson had become a loose constructionist. Since that time, the practice of loose construction is what has prevailed in interpreting the meaning of the Constitution.

Fort Duquesne

It was an attack on this French fort in western Pennsylvania (where Pittsburgh is today) by a group of colonial militiamen under the command of George Washington that precipitated the outbreak in 1754 of the French and Indian War. Fort Duquesne was the easternmost of a string of forts built by the French in the Ohio Valley. The intention was that these forts would give the French (and their Indian allies) the ability to militarily resist the spread of English settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. The French thought they could contain the English colonies east of the Appalachians, allowing for French control of all the land west of those mountains. However, the desire of English colonists to expand westward and to settle on new lands led to conflict and war. Fort Duquesne would later be renamed Fort Pitt, in honor of the English Prime Minister who led England during the French and Indian War. The English settlement that then grew up around the fort eventually became Pittsburgh. William Pitt was important as a war leader in that it was Pitt who formulated the basic British strategy during the French and Indian War (which ultimately proved successful since Britain won the war). This strategy was to obtain a European ally against France (which was Prussia) in order to keep some of the French army tied down in Europe (to fight the Prussians) while Britain concentrated everything it had in the colonies—giving the British an advantage in the fighting in America. This advantage led to victory in the war once the French strongholds along the St. Lawrence River in Canada were captured by English forces during 1759 (Battle of Quebec) and 1760 (Battle of Montreal)

Battle of New Orleans

Jan. 1815—This biggest battle of the War of 1812 took place 3 weeks after the peace treaty ending the war had been agreed to in Ghent, Belgium. Word of the treaty did not reach the states in time to prevent this battle from taking place. It was a lop-sided American victory that made a national hero of Andrew Jackson and made it seem to Americans that the U.S. had won the war. The British forces of General Edwin Pakenham (7500 strong before the battle) suffered about 2000 casualties compared to only about 20 for the victorious Americans. Most Americans read about this victory in the newspapers before word arrived from Belgium that the war was over—making most Americans assume that the U.S. had won the war, when that was not really the case.

First Battle of Manassas (First Battle of Bull Run)

July 1861 in Virginia—This very first battle of the Civil War with armies of any size resulted in a rout of the Union forces. However, the victorious southern forces became so disorganized in attempting to chase the Union units as they retreated, that the Confederate army was unable to follow up its success. The main result of this battle, aside from bolstering the confidence of the Confederates, was to show both sides how badly they needed larger, better-trained armies with men enlisted for terms much longer than those of the many militiamen who participated in the battle at Bull Run. Though the casualties of this battle were nothing like the casualties of later battles, each side lost between 2 and 3 thousand men, which were shocking figures at the time. Such figures were far larger than anything Americans had experienced in previous wars. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning of much more to come. It was the beginning of a conflict that would result in the death of at least 620,000 soldiers, which is close to the amount of deaths the U.S. has suffered in all of its other wars combined. If the figure of 620,000 combat dead is looked at as a percentage of the total population of the time, a modern conflict with the same percentage of deaths today would result in over 5 million dead this time.

Zachary Taylor

Known as "Old Rough and Ready," he was a war hero (second in rank only to Winfield Scott during the Mexican War), victor over Mexico in the Battle of Buena Vista, and became President of the U.S. in 1848. He died just over a year into his term as President (1850).

Battle of Chancellorsville

May 1863—Hooker tried his turn to take on the Army of Northern Virginia and was also badly defeated in what was probably Robert E. Lee's best tactical battle. Even though Hooker's losses of 17,000 casualties were far greater than the 13,000 Confederate casualties sustained at Chancellorsville, Hooker's losses were only 15 percent of his army while Lee's losses (even in victory) were 22 percent of his forces. This convinced Lee that he would have to try again to invade the North—that he would have to beat a northern army on northern soil in order to create a favorable outcome of the war. If he continued to wage a defensive struggle, he would lost the war even if he won every battle. But a Confederate victory in the North would allow Lee's army to resupply with the fruits of northern farms and factories, would hurt the morale of northern civilians (leading to Lincoln's defeat in the 1864 election) and might cause Great Britain to recognize the Confederate States of America and become its ally against the Union. After the wins at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the morale of Lee's army was never higher and Lee judged that his men would be able to win despite the problems that a northern invasion would create. But this invasion would have to occur without the services of Stonewall Jackson, who was accidentally killed by his own men near the end of the Battle of Chancellorsville. This was a big blow to the Army of Northern Virginia, because Jackson was the Confederate commander who was best at leading men in the kind of offensive tactics that would be necessary in an invasion of the North. Later, Confederates would wonder whether they might have won the Battle of Gettysburg (and maybe the war) had Stonewall Jackson lived long enough to take part in Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863.

The Border States

Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were the border states. They were crucial to the outcome of the war. Had these states changed their minds and joined the CSA it could have changed the outcome of the war. Also, as states of the Union, the votes from these states were important to the outcome of the 1864 election—important as to whether or not Lincoln and his administration were to be re-elected. Robert E. Lee's invasions of the North in 1862 and 1863 were intended, at least partially, to try to influence the border states to leave the Union and to join the Confederacy.

Jamestown

Named for the reigning King James I, this colony was established in Virginia near where the James River empties into Chesapeake Bay in 1607. It was founded by the London (or Virginia) Company, a joint-stock company interested in colonialism as a possible means of creating wealth for the company's investors. The colony did not fare well in its early years because of the colony's direction by a board of directors across the Atlantic Ocean--who did not know anything of the actual conditions in Virginia and who encouraged colonists to search for non-existent mineral resources or trade routes instead of building defenses against Indians, building shelters, and storing food for the winter. Because of the problems this caused, eventually the company allowed the colony to be governed by its own elected citizens.

Sherman's March to the Sea

Nov., Dec., 1864—From Atlanta, the Union army that conquered Atlanta, now under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman, left behind its supply lines and marched straight toward Savannah on the Atlantic coast, where Union naval ships could re-supply his army. Normally, cutting supply lines this way and marching straight into hostile territory would be very risky, but Sherman knew that the Confederate opposition was now too weak to challenge him. Sherman's army fanned out in about a 60-mile wide front and destroyed everything in its path all the way to Savannah. This was done to show the civilians of Georgia that "war is hell" as Sherman had been maintaining. It was done also to demonstrate to the Confederacy that they should quit, since Sherman was able to run amok in the heart of the Confederacy without the Confederates being able to do anything to stop it. Altherough Sherman spared Savannah from destruction, his army resumed its destructive swath through Georgia and South Carolina as Sherman's army began to make its way northward towards Virgninia in order to link up with Grant's army in Virginia and to finish off Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The war ended before Sherman got there.

Battle of Chattanooga

November, 1863—After the fall of Vicksburg, then the Union tried to divide the Confederacy again. The first step in achieving this was to take Chattanooga as a prelude to taking Atlanta and then Savannah on the coast. Chattanooga was heavily defended by Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee, which had had four months to dig in and to prepare defenses. The Union army of William Rosecrans attacked that strong defensive position with 22,000 men led by the troops of General George Thomas and succeeded in a situation similar to the one at Gettysburg in which Pickett's Charge had failed. The fall of Chattanooga put Atlanta at risk because the Confederate army in its way was no longer strong enough to seriously threaten the Union forces bearing down on Atlanta. The fall of Atlanta would follow by Sep., 1864 and then Sherman would make his march to the sea, successfully dividing the Confederacy once again.

Indian Removal

One of Jackson's main ideas as President was to use military threats against Indian tribes in order to force them to sign treaties turning their land over to the U.S. government. The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of 1832 was one such treaty in which the Choctaws in Mississippi turned over most of their land to the U.S. They were then forcibly resettled in Oklahoma on reservations there. The removal of groups like the Choctaw (but especially the Cherokee) became known as the Trail of Tears.

Joseph Johnston

One of the Confederacy's top army commanders (outranked only by Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Robert E. Lee), Johnston was the top-ranking Confederate general in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) in 1861. Later he was placed in overall command of the Confederate armies in the west, including the Army of Tennessee (commanded by Braxton Bragg) and the Confederate army of John Pemberton defending Vicksburg. Johnston is often criticized by Civil War historians for not doing enough in 1863 to prevent the fall of Vicksburg and for not doing enough in 1864 to prevent the fall of Atlanta.

Edmund Ruffin

One of the original "fire-eaters" who advocated southern secession throughout the 1850s, Ruffin was given the honor of firing the ceremonial first shot that started the Civil War at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on the morning of April 12, 1861. However, the actual first cannon shots on the fort had already been fired earlier that morning. After the Confederacy lost the war, Ruffin committed suicide.

Joint-stock Companies

Originated in the 16th century by the Dutch, joint-stock companies became one of the prime ways that capital for business purposes was raised during the 17th and 18th centuries (particularly in Protestant countries). Just as modern public corporations raise money by selling stock, joint-stock companies raised capital by attracting investment from many small investors, which spread risk around to enough people so that no one was necessarily ruined by the failure of a joint-stock company. In the case of England, it was joint-stock companies that were involved in the founding of the first successful English colonies in the New World (and not the British government). The British government's lack of involvement became one of the reasons for the early establishment of colonial self-government in English colonies of North America.

Bartholomieu Dias

Portuguese explorer who first successfully rounded the tip of Africa in 1488

Lord North

Prime Minister after 1770 who repealed all of the Townshend Duties (except for the one on tea) but who stimulated more colonial protest with passage of the Tea Act in 1773. He remained British Prime Minister until the end of the American Revolution.

Compromise of 1850

Proposed by Henry Clay (who else?), this was a compromise between North and South that tried to settle the issue of slavery in the territories once and for all. That the Civil War occurred in 1861 is the best evidence that the compromise didn't work, but, in 1850, it was a good try. The main parts of the compromise were that California was admitted to the Union as a free state, popular sovereignty would apply to the New Mexico and Utah territories, and a stronger fugitive slave law was enacted by Congress. Minor elements of the compromise involved banning of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, Congress agreed not to pass any laws governing the interstate slave trade, disputed land between Texas and New Mexico went to New Mexico (as if Texas needed to get any bigger!), and the U.S. government paid off debts owed by the state of Texas from before the time that Texas was annexed by the U.S. Really, the North got the better of this deal, in that California became a free state, making the number of free states 16, as opposed to only 15 slave states at that time. Additionally, the next state to enter the Union, Minnesota, also came in as a free state. All that the South got out of this was a stronger Fugitive Slave Law—and this didn't seem like much a few years later when it became apparent that many northern law enforcement authorities could not be counted on to enforce the law. Instead of returning runaway slaves to the South as they were supposed to do, many northerners refused, which would anger southerners and hasten the day when the Compromise of 1850 would come to be seen as an utter failure.

"Baron" Fredrich von Stueben

Prussian drillmaster who came to America and helped Washington to train the Continental Army after 1778. His efforts helped to make the American army a more disciplined and more reliable fighting force.

Oliver Cromwell

Puritan general in the English Civil War who became Lord Protector (dictator) in England in 1653

John Winthrop

Puritan leader of the Massachusetts Bay Company and long-time governor of the Mass. Bay Colony

William Penn

Quaker nobleman from England who was the founder and proprietor (1670) of the colony of Pennsylvania

Emancipation Proclamation

Sep. 1862—President Lincoln was concerned in 1862 about the political situation in the North. He needed to do something to help motivate northerners to continue to support the war effort (which had not been going as well as anticipated). The Emancipation Proclamation was that "something," but Lincoln wanted to introduce it following a military victory so that he would not seem desperate. The Battle of Antietam was not the decisive victory he had hoped for, but it was a battle that could be claimed as a victory, despite heavy casualties. The Proclamation was due to go into effect on Jan. 1, 1863. After that time, the Proclamation declared that all slaves behind the lines of the Confederates were to be free in the eyes of the Union. Of course the Confederates did not see it that way and so the Proclamation did not really free very many people. It had no effect on slaves in places under Union control, such as the slaves in Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland. It offered Confederate states a chance to rejoin the Union, in which case slavery would be ended gradually and with compensation to slave-owners by the U.S. government. No southern state took the deal and the January deadline passed. In this case, the deal was that at the end of the war, slavery would be abolished in southern states without compensation to slave-owners. So, although the Emancipation Proclamation did not really free anyone, it did change the focus of the war. Instead of being a war fought only to preserve the Union, it now became a war to end slavery in addition to being a war to preserve the Union. It would lead to tremendous disruption of the labor supply in the South as many slaves would seek to resist or to escape after hearing that President Lincoln had declared them free. Many slaves who escaped behind Union lines would join the Union army and return to the South as participants in the Union's military defeat of the Confederacy.

William Bradford

Separatist (Pilgrim) leader of the Plymouth Company and long-time governor of the Plymouth Colony in America.

Dorothea Dix

She was a political activist of the 1830s and 1840s, associated with women's rights and abolitionism. She became a one-woman crusade to persuade the legislatures of the different states in the Union to reform their laws governing treatment of inmates at insane asylums and prisons

Lucretia Mott

She was one of the first leaders of the women's rights movement and organized (along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton) the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, at which the women's rights movement identified women's suffrage as the main goal of the movement.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

She was one of the first leaders of the women's rights movement and organized (along with Lucretia Mott) the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, at which the women's rights movement identified women's suffrage as the main goal of the movement.

Army of the Potomoc and Army of Northern Virginia

Since one of the Union's goals was the capture of Richmond, there would be a lot of battles fought in and around Virginia as a Union army known as the Army of the Potomoc attempted to capture Richmond while a Confederate army known as the Army of Northern Virginia attempted to defend Richmond from capture. The Army of Northern Virginia is the army that came under the command of Robert E. Lee during the summer of 1862 and remained under his command until the end of the war. The Army of the Potomac was commanded by several Union generals, most of whom were replaced for their failure to defeat Lee's army and to capture Richmond. George McClellan was the general who built the Army of the Potomoc and commanded it in unsuccessful campaign (known as the Peninsular Campaign) in Virginia in 1862 and was also the Union commander at the Battle of Antietam. He was then replaced by a succession of commanders who also failed to accomplish the defeat of Lee's army. John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and George Meade were among these. Finally, U.S. Grant assumed command and initiated the strategy of attrition that succeeded, finally, in forcing Lee's surrender by April, 1865. One reason that the Army of the Potomoc was so often unsuccessful against the Army of Northern Virginia was that they were capably opposed by General Lee and his talented staff of field commanders (led most notably by James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson, among others). But another important reason involved the nature of the Civil War, which was the first of the modern wars in that large armies involved in big, bloody battles became the rule rather than the exception. In such battles, the defending side had a great advantage over the side that was forced to do the attacking. Because it was incumbent upon northern armies to attack southern armies, northern casualties were shocking and victory was hard to attain. Throughout the Civil War, the greatest number of battles were won by the side on the defense. In the case of Lee, his only two major defeats, Antietam and Gettysburg, were the two battles in which it was incumbent upon Lee to be the aggressor. Still, the Army of Northern Virginia became a very fine fighting force despite the disadvantages it had in terms of smaller numbers of men and lack of supplies of all kinds, including ammunition.

Southern Secession

South Carolina led this movement, just as this state had tried to lead a nullification movement 28 years before. In 1832, South Carolina was not joined by any other southern states but, this time, six other southern states would join South Carolina in an effort to leave the Union and to form a separate nation, the Confederate States of America, with a capital at Montgomery, Alabama. The seven initial members of the Confederacy were the seven Deep South states, the states that contained most of the slaves and most of the plantations. They were South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. After Lincoln's inauguration in March, 1861, the other slave states in the Union became forced to make a decision as to whether to join this Confederate cause or not. When it became clear that war was to take place, then Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia joined the Confederacy. The capital was then moved to Richmond, Virginia. Slave states who chose not to join the Confederacy were Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Also, when Virginia seceded, the western part of that state seceded from Virginia and rejoined the Union—eventually becoming the state of West Virginia. Just because southern states began to secede and to break up the Union, this did not necessarily mean that war was inevitable. The North could, after all, have let the South go without a fight. But Lincoln followed in the footsteps of Andrew Jackson—who had promised South Carolina a fight in 1833 if that state did not accept federal authority over it—and Lincoln now promised the Confederate states a fight in order to bring them back into the Union.

Cotton Diplomacy

Southerners were confident at the beginning of the Civil War that the British would join the southern cause against the Union in order to restore an uninterrupted supply of cotton to British textile mills. But this never happened. Perhaps if Lee had been more successful in his invasions of the North, the British may have changed their minds but, as it was, British people became more interested in friendship with the Union in order to trade for northern wheat than they were interested in insuring their supply of cotton. Cotton diplomacy failed and the British never did come to the aid of the Confederacy as France had come to the aid of the U.S. after the Battle of Saratoga in 1778. This meant that the Confederates were never able to overcome the effects of the Union blockade and the Anaconda Plan would unfold as Winfield Scott had drawn it up.

Ferdinand Magellan

Spanish explorer who led voyage to circumnavigate the globe in 1520

Proclamation of 1763

The British government forbade colonials from settling in the Ohio Valley (land north of the Ohio River and west of the Appalachians) for an unspecified period of time. England saw that a flood of settlement would occur, if it wasn't stopped, and that this would cause continued warfare with Indians of the region. Britain's government wanted time to negotiate peaceful settlements with the Indians before English settlement into the region would be allowed. However, this was an unpopular policy with England's American colonies. These colonies had started the French and Indian War back in 1754 in order to clear the way for westward settlement. Years later, the war had been won but the mother country's government was now forbidding westward settlement. This becomes one of several grievances against the mother country that the colonies would develop in the 1760s.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

The author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1851. This novel was critical of the southern slave system and this increased southern sensitivity toward northern criticisms of slavery as the abolitionist and anti-slavery movements grew in the North.

Confederate States of America

The constitution of the CSA was based on the US Constitution, except that it contained specific guarantees that slavery would be protected. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was the one and only President of the CSA, which started out with seven states (S.C., Ga., Fla., Ala., Miss., La., and Tex.) with the capital at Montgomery, Ala. By April, 1861, the CSA had grown to 11 states with the addition of Ark., Tenn., N.C., and Va. Although most Confederate leaders seem not to have thought that secession would lead to war, once war came the addition of these last 4 states of the Upper South were crucial to the Confederacy's chances of asserting independence. The chances would have been even greater had the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland also joined the Confederacy, but as it was, the addition of Virginia was most important. Although most of the cotton plantations and slaves were in the 7 Deep South states, the Upper South was where the largest number of white southerners lived. The Upper South is also where most of the mules, food crops, and industry existed. Even though the South, as a whole, contained only 15 percent of the nation's industry, all of the South's industries were in the Upper South. In addition, Virginia was the most populous of southern states and the home of many of the military officers whose service would prove crucial to the South. The South lost the war, of course, but came close to succeeding. Without the Upper South states being involved with the Confederacy there would have been no chance

Franklin Pierce

The first of the 2 "doughface" presidents of the 1850s (Buchanan being the other), he was a northern Democrat from New England who, as President, was so fearful of angering the southern wing of his party that he rarely did anything he knew southern Democrats would disapprove of. He signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law in 1854.

Chartered Colony

The first type of colony was that founded by a joint-stock company, which obtained a charter from the king's government authorizing the company to establish a colony on land claimed by England. Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay were all chartered colonies initially. Because both the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay companies used this form of colonization only as a method to establish colonies that were intended to become divorced from English interference, as a way of getting away from religious interference in particular, King Charles I quit granting colonial charters to companies and, instead, began granting colonial charters to individual proprietors.

Panic of 1837

The lack of investments caused stock prices to decline. Declining prices of stock investments caused the holders of stocks to seek to sell their stocks, but new investors willing to buy were hard to find. This led stock prices to decline even further until the bottom dropped out of the market and many investors lost their shirts. This made new investors leery of entering the investment market for several years and helped to cause a depression in the years from 1837 to 1842.

Manifest Destiny

The main idea involved in this concept is western expansion across America's natural frontiers all the way to the Pacific Ocean. When the Oregon Territory became undisputed American territory in 1846 and when California (and everything else east of it to the borders of the U.S.) were acquired as the result of war with Mexico by 1848, then the U.S. (minus Hawaii and Alaska) was pretty much in final form. The Gadsden Purchase (a tiny portion of present-day southern Arizona bought from Mexico in 1853) represented the final acquisition of what is now the original 48 states and the completion of America's manifest destiny. Another concept involved in the idea of manifest destiny is that the U.S. was destined to lead other countries in the world (by our example and success) into becoming democracies. By the late 20th century, this too had come to fruition.

Ulysses Grant

The most successful of Union generals during the Civil War, Grant first gained attention for his victories at the Battles of Shiloh and Vicksburg. For these successes, Lincoln put Grant in charge of all Union armies for the rest of the war. Grant became criticized in the North for his strategy of attrition in 1864 and 1865. However, despite heavy casualties at many battles, this strategy was successful in forcing Lee to surrender by April, 1865. Grant then entered politics after the war and was elected President in 1868. He served two terms, both of which were dominated by issues surrounding Reconstruction in the South. Although Grant was personally honest, his administration was noteable for a high level of corruption. Grant made bad financial decisions in his personal life and eventually had to spend his last years writing memoirs in order to earn enough money to keep his family out of poverty.

Underground Railroad

The term for the abolitionist organizations that tried to help runaway slaves reach freedom. People who went South to aid runaways and show them the way to safe-houses and safe shelters along the way northward were called "conductors." The most famous of these was Harriet Tubman, a former slave herself, who returned to the South to help others escape 19 separate times---and was never caught!

The Slave Trade

The trade in African slaves, first developed by the Portuguese in the 15th cenury, came under the control of the Dutch during the 17th century, and eventually by the English by the end of the 17th century. Over a period of nearly 500 years, millions of Africans were transplanted by the slave trade from their African homes to become labor on plantations in the New World. Most slaves went to the Caribbean islands or to South American plantations, but the commitment to African slavery by the southern colonies of the English in North America (Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia) after 1700 was not insignificant. By the time of the Civil War in 1861, there were four and a half million African slaves in the American South, even though Congress had outlawed the introduction of any more slaves from Africa in 1808. The reliance on African slave labor developed in the southern colonies meant that the economic and social differences that divided the North and the South, leading to war in 1861, had their origins in colonial times, long before.

Southern Planters

There are different definitions of this term. But whether you consider holders of 20 or more slaves to be planters or whether you consider only holders of 50 or more slaves as planters, you are still talking about a small percentage of the southern white antebellum population. Using the more liberal definition of holders of 20 or more slaves, there were about 10,000 families across the slave South who qualified as members of the "planter" class. This represented a small percentage of the 11 million or so people (4 ½ million of them slaves) who populated the South on the eve of the Civil War. In fact, planters represented a small percentage even of the southerners who owned slaves. About 75 percent of white southerners owned no slaves at all, although the percentage of slave-holders varied from place to place. About half of white people in Mississippi and South Carolina were slave-owners, while only about one-third were slave-owners in Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. The percentages were smaller in the upper South. In considering just owners of slaves, 88 percent owned less than 20 slaves (meaning the planters constituted 12 percent of the total number of slave-owners-who are only 25 percent of the southern white poulation as a whole). 72 percent of slave-holders owned less than 10 slaves each, and about 50 percent of all slave-owners held less than five. In other words, the vast majority of white farmers in the South were small farmers who either had no slaves or less than five slaves. It was difficult to rise to the status of planter because it was difficult to obtain the amount of land needed to establish a plantation and harder still to acquire the large numbers of slaves required to do the work (when prime field hands could cost as much as $1200 to purchase). But for that small percentage of southerners who did belong to the planter class, their wealth and political influence tended to create a wide gap between them and other southerners. They constituted the elite group who held the highest levels of education and tended to dominate politics on the local, state, and congressional levels. Their position in society is what others aspired to—and the only way to achieve that position was to become a planter: to acquire enough land and slaves to grow enough cotton to become wealthy. For that reason, even people who did not have slaves themselves were usually not opposed to slavery as an institution. They usually did not oppose slavery because slavery was part of the way that they would become wealthy (if that were in the cards for them) or the way that their children might become wealthy. Slavery was just seen by most southerners as an integral part of the southern economy, an economy that was heavily dependent on the price of cotton. In the antebellum years, cotton prices were generally good and so cotton was what the southern economy revolved around. To oppose slavery was tantamount (in the minds of most southerners) to advocating the depression of the southern economy, so few southerners opposed the institution even though most of them personally had nothing to do with slavery.

Navigation Acts

These were the laws of the British Parliament that regulated trade everywhere within the British Empire. Accordingly, they dictated how trade between the mother country and its colonies could be conducted. Beginning with legislation of 1653 and reinforced by laws in 1660 and later, the Navigation Acts determined that articles of trade produced by colonial plantations should be placed on an Enumerated List of trade articles. These colonial products could only be sold to English merchants who came to transport the products across the ocean in English ships. Articles on the enumerated list, such as tobacco from Virginia, could not be sold to merchants from France, Spain, or the Netherlands—only to English merchants who held a legal monopoly on that trade item within the British Empire. The Navigation Acts ensured that manufacturing of expensive items occurred in the mother country and not in the colonies. One consequence of mercantilism is that money tended to drain out of colonies on its way to the mother country. Lack of any kind of currency was a constant problem in colonies, but as long as the colonies were underdeveloped (compared to the mother country) and could not really produce anything except raw materials, colonists did not complain about the relationship between the mother country and its colonies. Colonists recognized that, to some extent, it had to be this way and, besides, the mother country could be counted on to use its military to help protect colonists—and this saved colonists the expense of building and maintaining their own navy.

Stephen Kearney

This American general seized control of Santa Fe (capital of the New Mexico Territory) in 1846 during the early stages of the Mexican War. He then led a small force to California (having heard that Americans had taken over there) and eventually became the military governor of the Territory of California after the war.

Horatio Gates

This American general was the commander of the American forces who were victorious at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.

Oliver Hazard Perry

This American ship captain commanded the naval forces that defeated British Forces on Lake Erie during the War of 1812. This prevented Britain from launching a land invasion of the U.S. from Canada.

Henry Clay

This Congressman from Kentucky was the Speaker of the House in 1824 and had influence over the way the House of Representatives concluded the election for President of John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson. Clay proposed the sectional compromise known as the Missouri Compromise in 1824, later became a U.S. Senator, helped found the Whig Party, proposed the Compromise Tariff of 1832, and unsuccessfully ran for President three times.

John Breckenridge

This Kentuckian was the Southern Democrats' nominee for President in the 1860 election. A vote in 1860 for Breckenridge was a vote in favor of southern secession. During the war, Breckenridge became a brigadier general in the Confederate Army.

Daniel Webster

This Massachusetts Senator engaged in a famous debate in 1830 with Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina on the subject of nullification. He opposed nullification by arguing that it would lead to the breakup of the Union, which Webster staunchly defended. In 1834, he and Henry Clay founded the Whig Party. As Secretary of State for Presidents Harrison and Tyler, he negotiated an important treaty with England (Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842).

James Tallmadge

This New York Congressman proposed the amendment to a statehood bill for Missouri in 1818 that has become known as the Tallmadge Amendment. It proposed gradual abolition of slavery in Missouri and was opposed by southern Congressmen. The controversy over Missouri statehood was eventually settled by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Aaron Burr

This New Yorker became Vice President in 1801 after he contested the Presidency with Thomas Jefferson in the House of Representatives in the election of 1800. He later became infamous for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel and for his involvement in an alleged plot to cause western lands to secede from the U.S. and become a monarchy. This plot did not materialize because Burr was arrested and charged with treason (though acquitted).

Martin Van Buren

This New Yorker replaced Calhoun in 1832 as the number two man in Jackson's Democratic Party. He served as Vice President during Jackson's second term as President and succeeded Jackson as President of the U.S. by winning the Election of 1836.

Clement Vallandigham

This Ohio Congressman was the leader of the Peace Democrats in the North (also known as Copperheads) who opposed the war. In order to limit his influence, Lincoln eventually jailed Vallandigham even though he had no constitutional right to do that. Vallandigham was released after a short period of time, but this incident showed the extent to which President Lincoln was willing to bend the rules in order to keep the North mobilized in support of the war.

Tecumseh

This Shawnee Indian leader dreamed of creating a Confederacy of all of the American Indian tribes because he believed that whites would push Indians off of their land unless Indians could unite against them. He did not succeed in organizing his confederacy after 1806, leading to defeat of the Shawnees by William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe and Tecumseh's siding with Britain during the War of 1812. He was killed in Canada at the Battle of the Thames in 1813.

Sacajawea

This Shoshone Indian woman helped save the Lewis and Clark expedition from disaster through her ability to communicate with the tribes that Lewis and Clark encountered during their explorations.

Andrew Butler

This South Carolina senator blamed northerners for the violence in Kansas, which provoked a speech by Charles Sumner, blaming southerners for the violence there. Butler felt he was too old and infirm to challenge Sumner to a duel for Sumner's personal criticisms of him. This led Preston Brooks to take it on himself, as a younger man (and as a Congressman from Butler's home state of South Carolina) to defend Butler's honor and (as he saw it) that of South Carolina and of the South as a whole in his attack on Sumner in 1856.

John Bell

This Tenneseean was the unionist candidate for President in the South in the 1860 election. A vote for Bell and his Constitutional Union Party was a vote to keep the South in the Union.

Ambrose Burnside

This Union general replaced George McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomoc following the Battle of Antietam. He promised to be the aggressive commander that McClellan had not been, but this led to a campaign concluded by the Battle of Fredericksburg in December, 1862, which was a disastrous Union defeat and the most lop-sided major battle of the war. Burnside was aggressive, but unintelligent, and is usually regarded by Civil War historians to be the worst Union army commander of the war.

William T. Sherman

This Union general was a top subordinate of Grant at Shiloh and at Vicksburg. Following the Vicksburg command, Sherman destroyed rail lines in Mississippi from Vicksburg eastward all the way to Meridian. He later commanded the Union forces that took Atlanta in September, 1864 and then embarked on his "march to the sea" to Savannah, Georgia with an army of 60,000 men (who left their supply lines and destroyed everything in their path in an effort to persuade the Confederacy to surrender). This was the doctrine of "total war" associated with Sherman.

Sam Houston

This Virginian later became the governor of Tennessee, before moving to Texas in 1832 and getting caught up there in the revolution by American settlers against Mexico. In 1836, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Texan army and led the Texans to independence with his great victory over the Mexican general Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. He later became the only American to have been governor of two separate states when he became Governor of Texas following Texas statehood in 1844.

Sedition Act

This act of Congress demonstrated for the first time in history that the "guarantees" of liberty, represented by the Bill of Rights, can circumvented by Congress, if Congress chooses to do so. In this case, the Sedition Act made it illegal to criticize or to publicly chastise John Adams or the Federalist-dominated Congress. Although the Sedition Act is a clear violation of the guarantee of free speech under the 1st amendment, it was nevertheless legislated and used to silence the Federalist Party's political opponents. Several newspaper editors who were supportive of the Federalists' political opponents, the Democratic-Republicans, were arrested in violation of the Sedition Act, fined heavily, and jailed. Later, during World War One, in order to silence opposition to the war effort, Congress enacted another Sedition Act, this one in 1918. Both sedition laws were repealed within two or three years of their passage, but they nevertheless show that constitutional rights are not necessarily "guaranteed" under the American system of government.

Battle of San Jacinto

This battle was a defeat for Santa Anna and resulted in the formation of the independent Lone Star Republic with Sam Houston as its President. Eight years later, Texas' application to become American territory was approved by Congress and Texas was annexed as American territory. But because Texas was a slave territory, anti-slavery northerners in Congress approved the annexation of Texas only on the agreement that Texas never be divided into smaller territories. This way, when Texas applied for statehood (in 1845), it would apply as one large slave state instead of as many as five smaller slave states. Northern opposition to the idea of Texas becoming several slave states is the reason, consequently, for the large size of the state of Texas today.

Election of 1828

This campaign between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (won by Jackson and his Democrats) was a mud-slinging campaign that modern Americans would also find familiar. Rachel Jackson, the general's wife, was accused of bigomy because her divorce from a former husband was apparently not legally finalized before she married Andrew. The Adams campaign dragged her through the mud for this, causing her great anguish. Jackson believed that her death, shortly after this campaign, was at least partially caused by the campaign—and he never forgave his political enemies for it.

Horace Mann

This educational reformer was the major influence leading Massachusetts to create a system of free public schools in 1834. Other states then began to follow the lead of Massachusetts until all the states had adopted a public school system by 1850. Attendance was not compulsory in Massachusetts until 1852 and not compulsory in all states until 1918.

Treaty of Paris of 1783

This ended the American Revolutionary War. Britain recognized American independence and agreed that the new country's borders would be British Canada to the north, the Mississippi River to the west, and Spanish Florida to the south. Americans were denied the right to trade in British ports, but the British agreed to evacuate forts in the Ohio Valley as long as Americans who owed money to British merchants paid off their debts.

Henry David Thoreau

This essayist, author of "On Civil Disobedience," and friend of Emerson, was another important influence in the Transcendentalist movement. His ideas about civil disobedience would later influence the development of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s strategy of non-violent opposition to segregation.

John Brown

This fanatical abolitionist believed it was proper to use violence in opposing slavery. He was involved in a famous incident in which pro-slavery people were killed in the Pottawatamie Creek "massacre" of 1856 in Kansas. He also led a group of men in an 1859 effort to raid a federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, which he intended as the first step in a wider effort to start a slave rebellion he hoped would spread across the South and end the system of slavery there in one bloody uprising. He was caught by the military and hanged for treason in 1859. However, he became seen as a martyr to the cause of abolitionism and became the subject of much sympathy by northerners, which angered southerners who viewed Brown as something of an anti-Christ.

Daniel Shays

This farmer from Massachusetts led a rebellion against taxes levied by the Massachusetts legislature in 1785. Shays' Rebellion would cause many American political leaders to see the need for a new national constitution.

William Henry Harrison

This governor of the Indiana Territory led the military force that won the Battle of Tippecanoe against Ohio Valley Indians in 1811. As a general during the War of 1812, he led the American force that won the Battle of the Thames in 1813. This battle ended Indian resistance to white settlement in the Ohio Valley. He later became President of the United States.

Transcendentalism

This is the American version of Romanticism, which was a reaction to the Enlightenment of the previous century. The optimistic viewpoint coming out of the Enlightenment that science would eventually cure all of man's problems and create heaven on earth has changed by the middle of the 19th century. The Romantics (Transcendentalists in America) understood better the limitations of science and understood better the role of religion and moral philosophy in answering important human questions that were beyond the purview of science or logical reasoning. They understood better the need to live in greater harmony with nature instead of just attempting to control or tame nature. They were also intensely individualistic. In America, the Transcendentalists were also a religious and spiritual movement of protest and revival that influence a generation of writers and artists. Leaders of the movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. Their main significance is in the creation of a vision of the world in which God and the material world exist in an intimate symbolic relationship within which humans have a central place of importance. It is this spiritual view of the central importance of humans that helped to nurture the work of generations of artists who have been busy expanding the collective American artistic imagination all the while that Americans have been evolving an intensely materialistic and non-spiritual culture. So, the importance of the Transcendentalists is not so much in the essays and culture of civil disobedience that they produced, but in the way that their vision of life continued to influence generations of creative Americans up to present times.

Franco-American Alliance

This is the alliance between France and the new U.S.A. that was to run from 1778 to 1798. Without this alliance with a foreign commercial power the American Revolution would probably have failed.

Judicial Review

This is the power of the Supreme Court to review laws of Congress and to strike down laws judged to be unconstitutional. Another court case in 1810 extended the power of judicial review to laws of the states' legislatures as well.

Election of 1824

This is the second election in American history in which the House of Representatives had to decide the winner. In this case, the House had to decide between Andrew Jackson, who had the most votes of the four main candidates (but no majority) and John Quincy Adams, who came in second in the popular vote count. Henry Clay, another of the candidates in this election, was in a powerful position, as Speaker of the House, to help decide between Adams and Jackson. Andrew Jackson's followers would claim that a dirty deal between Clay and Adams resulted in Adams' election over their hero Andrew Jackson. Beginning with Madison's succession to Jefferson, a pattern emerged in which whoever served as Secretary of State became the next president. So when John Quincy Adams appointed Henry Clay to become Secretary of State following the election in the House of Representatives, Jackson followers charged that Clay used his influence as Speaker of the House to get Adams elected over Jackson in exchange for the appointment as Secretary of State—which would set up Clay to become the next president after Adams.

Treaty of Paris of 1763

This is the treaty that ended the French and Indian War. It gave French Canada and Louisiana east of the Mississippi River (except for New Orleans) to England and it gave Spanish Florida to England. In other words, because of this treaty, England now controlled everything in North America east of the Mississippi River, except for the city of New Orleans, which went, along with the rest of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, to the control of Spain. A disaster for France, because of the loss of so much colonial territory, this treaty represented a corresponding victory of great magnitude for England.

Napoleon Bonaparte

This man became the military dictator in France in 1799. His interest in acquiring Louisiana as a French colony led him to end the undeclared naval war between France and the U.S. by negotiating an understanding with the U.S. in 1800 known as the Peace of Mortefontaine. When he failed in 1802 to regain control of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, he lost interest in Louisiana and became willing to sell it to the U.S. (as the Louisiana Purchase).

Charles Talleyrand

This man was the Foreign Minister of the French government for much of the time between 1790 and 1820. In 1798 his effort to insult American diplomats in Paris led to the XYZ Affair that almost resulted in war between France and the U.S.

"Revolution of 1800"

This refers to Thomas Jefferson's election to the presidency in 1800. Since Jefferson was the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party and became President at the same time that his party replaced the Federalist Party as the majority party in Congress, Jefferson commented that a revolution, of sorts, had taken place. It was the first time in American history that a transition of power, from one party to another, had taken place. A significant fact concerning this transition of power from the Federalist to the Democratic-Republican Party was that the transition was a peaceful one. This was significant in that it was not assumed that power could be transferred peacefully in America until it had happened. Since then, a peaceful transition of power has occurred many times whenever one political party has replaced the other as the dominant party in control of Congress, or of the White House, or of both. For example, even though many Democrats did not approve of the way that George Bush, a Republican, was elected in 2000, they accepted the result and did not seek to overturn the election's results through violence or revolution. Prior to 1800, it was not clear that the kind of serious competition taking place between political parties in elections could result in a peaceful transition. But it did in 1800--and in every other important election since.

The "Black Legend"

This refers to the dismal record of the Spanish in their relations with the indigenous people they conquered in the New World. It particularly applies to Spanish relations with the Caribs, the native people of the islands of the Caribbean, who were pretty much wiped out by the Spanish within a hundred years of Columbus' arrival. A Spanish priest named Bartolome de las Casas started the "black legend," the idea that the Spanish had been particularly cruel to indigenous peoples, in writings of the early 16th century. Although the Spanish record concerning the Caribs (and others) is dismal and indicative of much cruelty and greed on the part of the Spanish, it is doubtful that the Spanish treated indigenous people in the Americas worse than did other Europeans, such as the English and French. Though it may be well to recognize the extent to which the "black legend" is true, it should not be used to make the French or English look good by comparison. Native peoples suffered at the hands of these Europeans, too.

"King Cotton"

This refers to the fact that cotton dominated the southern economy in the middle of the 19th century. If it didn't have to do with the price of cotton, it probably wasn't important.

Age of the "Common Man"

This refers to what is otherwise called the Age of Jackson, during the 1820s, 30s, and 40s. A major political trend during this time was the adoption by state after state of universal male suffrage. In other words, state after state dropped property qualifications and made it possible for all adult males over the age of 21 to vote. This greatly expanded the electorate and changed American politics. General Jackson was the first politician to take advantage of the changes in the electorate by developing a political party designed to get the vote out for their candidate in a more systematic way than ever before. Because many new voters were illiterate, campaigning in the old style was no longer feasible (that is, printing your views in newspaper articles for voters to read was fine for Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe but times had changed). What was now required was an organization organized from the ward and county level on up to the state and national levels. Such an organization could sponsor political rallies, offer free whiskey, and supply speakers to make sure that the candidate's message got out to the "common men" who didn't read the papers, but had votes. Jackson's Democratic Party was the first such political party in the election of 1828. But because Jackson couldn't pay all the people who worked to get him elected, he initiated what became called the "Spoils System" as a way of rewarding the people in his party with government jobs (if they won the election). By 1828, the Democratic-Republican Party had splintered into several groups (a consequence of the demise of the Federalist Party). Jackson's followers represented one such group. Their victory in the 1828 election effectively killed off challenges from any other group and Jackson's followers became the Democrats. The Whigs would come together a few years later as an effort to organize all those who opposed the Jacksonian Democrats. In order to compete with the Democrats, the Whigs would have to organize on local as well as state and national levels the same way the Democrats had done—and the 2 party political system in America had taken shape along the same lines that modern Americans would recognize today.

French Revolution

This revolution against the French monarchy, started in 1789, had become radical by 1792, which caused other European nations (including Britain) to declare war on France out of fear that the revolution in France might spread to other countries. The Jacobins who took power in France in 1792 executed King Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette and began executing everyone who opposed their policies--making the guillotine very busy indeed during 1793 and 1794 because the Jacobins had many political enemies. All of this confusion in France changed the relationship between France and the U.S. from one of friendship to one of enmity and it would cause American merchant shippers to get caught up in the war in Europe--in that, if an American tried to trade with the French, the British tried to prevent that trade from happening and if an American tried to trade with the British, then the French tried to interfere with the trade. Because this war between the British and French would last, on an off, until Napoleon was finally removed to St. Helena Island in 1815, this would cause continuing violations (by both the French and British) of American neutral trading rights for a long time. As long as the Federalists were in power in the U.S., American government was more interested in improving relations with the British, causing hostility from the French. When the Democratic-Republicans assumed power in the U.S. after 1800, American policy became increasingly pro-French and anti-British. Finally, in 1812 the U.S. would declare war on Britain because of British violations of American neutrality (even though the French were equally guilty of the same offense) and the War of 1812 was on.

Stephen Douglas

This senator from Illinois was the sponsor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and Lincoln's opponent in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. In the 1860 election, he was the nominee for President of the Northern Democrats, though he was soundly defeated in this election by the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. Throughout the 1850s, Douglas was the staunchest supporter of the concept of popular sovereignty in the territories.

Charles Sumner

This senator from Massachusetts, an abolitionist, was the victim of Preston Brooks' assault with a cane on the floor of the Senate in 1856. He was badly beaten in this incident, leading to an outpouring of northern enmity toward Brooks and toward the South (as Brooks became a southern hero for this incident). After the war, Sumner became the leader in the Senate of the "Radical Republicans."

James Polk

This slaveholder from Tennessee was a protégé of Andrew Jackson who succeeded Tyler as President of the U.S. (elected 1844). Polk was an expansionist, whose policies led to war with Mexico and the acquisition of much new territory in the 1840s.

Proprietary Colony

This type of colony was actually owned by a proprietor, such as Lord Baltimore in Maryland or William Penn in Pennsylvania. It became a way for the king to settle debts with English noblemen (by giving them proprietorship of a colony). The proprietor was responsible for attracting settlers to the colony. The settlers, in turn, supported the proprietor by paying him an annual quitrent on the property they inhabited within the colony. Eventually, the practice of paying quitrents faded away, and so did the proprietary and chartered forms of colonies. By the 18th century, the British government began to do away with colonial charters and with proprietary grants and began making "royal" colonies out of the colonies in North America. Just as chartered colonies were allowed by the boards of directors of the companies to become self-governed by elected legislatures along with a colonial governor and his council of appointed men, proprietary colonies also developed elected legislatures. As in chartered colonies, the legislatures of the proprietary colonies tended to dominate colonial government because, in every case, it was the lower house of the colonial legislature that controlled taxation in the colony. Because the legislature controlled the purse-strings of the colony, it had the greatest voice and often dominated governors. The same will be true of the relationship between governor and legislature in royal colonies

Roanoke Colony

This was a failed attempt to establish an English colony in 1587. Known as the "lost colony" of Roanoke, the venture was financed by Sir Walter Raleigh, who lost a lot of money when the colony failed. This would dissuade other rich individuals from financing colonies in the future (and lead to colonial efforts by joint-stock companies instead). A plan to re-supply (in 1588) the colonists left on Roanoke Island (off the coast of North Carolina) in 1587 fell through because of the nationalization of all ships by the English government in order to fight off the Spanish Armada in 1588. By the time supply ships did arrive (in 1590) there was no trace of the colonists and no clue as to what had happened to them. Consequently, Jamestown became the first permanent English colony in the New World (in 1607).

Uncle Tom's Cabin

This was a novel, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1851. It was strongly anti-slavery in message and became a best-seller in the 1850s (outsold in the North only by the Bible). It helped to spread anti-slavery feelings and thus helped to cause the polarization between North and South that led ultimately to the failure of the Compromise of 1850 to prevent the southern movement for secession and the outbreak of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln, when introduced to Mrs. Stowe during the Civil War, supposedly said to her: "So you are the little lady who started this great big war?" Obviously, that would have been an exaggeration, but Uncle Tom's Cabin was a factor, among many, that caused the South to become increasingly estranged from the cultural and political currents developing in the North.

Toleration Act of 1649

This was an act of the colonial legislature in Maryland in 1649. It attempted to guarantee religious toleration to all citizens of the colony. It was an attempt by Catholics in Maryland to prevent Protestants from persecuting them during the years of Oliver Cromwell's Puritan domination of England. Unfortunately, the act did not prevent Protestants from taking over control of the Maryland legislature and did not prevent Protestants from using their new power to discriminate against Catholics, even though Maryland was originally conceived as a haven for Catholics seeking to get away from persecution in England. The main importance of the Toleration Act of 1649 is that it was an early example of colonial interest in religious freedom. Along with the separation of church and state put in place in Rhode Island by 1644, the idea of religious toleration through law influenced American thinking on the subject of religion. Eventually, such ideas would result in the United States becoming a democracy with constitutional guarantees of freedom from religious persecution. Be aware, however, that religious freedom was not universal in America during colonial times. For example, even though the Puritans came to America in order to find the freedom to practice religion their own way, the Puritans of New England did not tolerate other religious groups. Quaker missionaries, for example, were executed in Massachusetts during the 17th century when they did not abandon their missionary work after being told by colonial government authorities to do so. When the United States wrote religious freedom into the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the U.S. became the first and only country in the world where true religious freedom existed. This concept of religious freedom, however, owed its existence to ideas of religious freedom and toleration that originated in earlier times, such as in 1649 with the Toleration Act.

Tariff of 1816

This was another example of the Democratic-Republican Party adopting issues formerly connected with the Federalist Party. First, Jefferson adopted the loose construction idea in purchasing Louisiana from Napoleon. Then, the Democratic-Republicans regretted killing the national bank in 1811 and chartered a new national bank in 1816. They regretted eliminating taxes after 1801 that had led to a smaller military (when the lack of a military became a problem during the War of 1812). Consequently, a larger military would be maintained after 1815. Now, because the War of 1812 had stimulated the development of factories in New England, a tariff to protect them from foreign competition was passed by Congress in 1816. Even though a protective tariff represents the kind of governmental regulation associated with the Federalist Party, it was a Democratic-Republican majority in Congress that enacted the tariff. In 1816, there was political consensus in favor of protecting American manufacturers from foreign competition, but the tariff would increasingly be opposed by southerners over the next decade until the tariff had become a sectional issue of importance. In 1816, the idea existed that northern textile mills would be supplied by southern cotton and North and South could be made economically dependent on each other. So southerners supported the tariff that would protect northern mills from British competition. By 1828, however, it would become apparent to southerners that the growth of textile mills in the North could not keep pace with the growth of cotton production in the South. By 1828, most southerners realize that most southern cotton will have to be sold to the British anyway, because the few American mills (protected by tariffs) could utilize only a small fraction of the southern output of cotton. Now, southerners begin to wish that they could buy manufactured products from the British at the cheaper price that would apply if the tariff could be gotten rid of. Southerners begin to see tariffs as a process in which money is taken from their pockets in order to line the pockets of northern manufacturers and they become opposed to tariffs.

Fugitive Slave Law

This was one of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850. Northerners were bound by federal law to cooperate with the South in the capture and return to slavery of runaway slaves. But as anti-slavery sentiment grew in the North, even northern law enforcement authorities sometimes ignored the fugitive slave law and allowed runaways to get away to freedom in Canada (Canada was still a British colony and the British had outlawed slavery in their empire in 1832). This angered southerners, helping to convince more southern people to support the idea of secession from the Union.

Articles of Confederation

This was the first federal constitution of the U.S.A. It was in operation from the end of the Revolutionary War (from 1781) until 1788. Under this constitution, the U.S. was less the nation it would later become and more a loose confederation of 13 sovereign states. The central government under the Articles of Confederation had no executive branch (no president or prime minister), had no power to tax the states, had no power to regulate trade, and had no army or navy. This was a very weak central government, which created serious problems for the young country. However, it is easy to see why the Continental Congress adopted this constitution and created such a weak federal structure. Colonial complaints against the British had been these: The King was a tyrant (so no executive branch that might install an American tyrant was allowed). The British were unfairly raising taxes on the colonies (so the new American government was not given the power to tax the states). The British were enforcing rules of trade (the Navigation Acts) that were seen as unfair (so the new American government was not allowed to regulate trade). The British had maintained a standing army of redcoats in the colonies after the French and Indian War--and Americans had seen the presence of these British redcoats as proof that the British government intended to restrict colonial freedom--(so the new American government was not given the authority to maintain a military force). Unfortunately, under the Articles of Confederation, the new American government had so little power that it could not provide the states with things that they needed from a federal authority--as events in the 1780s would make clear. By 1787, the recognition that the governmental structure of the U.S. was faulty led to a convention in Philadelphia which would produce a new constitution--a new constitution that would create a much stronger federal government capable of performing the tasks that Americans needed their government to perform.

Lecompton Constitution

This was the pro-slavery constitution developed by the pro-slavery legislature in the Territory of Kansas in 1856. President James Buchanan backed this constitution following the announcement of the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857. Northern Congressmen, however, blocked Kansas statehood for now. Eventually, after the South left the Union, Congress approved statehood for Kansas as a free state (1861).

Mayflower Compact

Though not actually a constitution, this document provided for the means by which citizens of the Plymouth Colony (who agreed to the document by signing it) would be governed. Because the colony was founded on land well north of where they should have settled (and where there was not pre-existing governmental authority) some of the non-Pilgrims (or non-Separatists) aboard the Mayflower questioned whether anyone had any authority over them. Even though only 41 of the original 102 settlers of the Plymouth colony signed the Mayflower Compact, nevertheless, the Compact outlined principles by which the colony would be governed in later years and there was little conflict over it, probably because the Compact provided for leadership by people who were elected by the larger group of colonists. Along with the establishment of the House of Burgesses in Virginia in 1619, the Mayflower compact provided for self-government in Plymouth and helped to set a precedent for colonial self-government that every other English colony in North America would adopt in later years. William Bradford served as the colony's elected governor for most of the colony's first two decades.

Copperheads

Throughout the war, a northern opposition existed. These northerners who thought it would be best to let the South go rather than go to war to save the Union were known as Copperheads. They were numerous and represented a political threat to Lincoln in the 1864 election. Had the war gone worse for the Union than it did, the numbers of Copperheads might well have grown large enough to unseat Lincoln and to elect a Copperhead President who would have ended the war and allowed the Confederacy to go its own way. An indication of how much Lincoln felt threatened by the Copperheads is the way the President unlawfully imprisoned Copperhead leaders in order to shut them up and to minimize the political damage they could do to the President's administration. Lincoln went so far as to suspend the writ of habaeus corpus (which guarantees one's right to be charged with a crime and brought to a speedy and fair trial) in order to throw such Copperhead leaders as Clement Vallandigham in jail and to leave them there without bringing charges against them or bringing them to trial for any wrongdoing. This was blatant disregard for the constitutional rights of citizens but Lincoln felt the emergency conditions of the war justified his actions.

Albert Sidney Johnston

Unrelated to Joseph Johnston, this Confederate general was the most highly regarded general in the Confederacy at the beginning of the war. His death at the Battle of Shiloh in April, 1862 was a serious blow to the Confederacy's fortunes in the Trans-Mississippi theater of operations (west of the Appalachians).

Nathaniel Bacon

Virginia colonist who led a rebellion against the colonial government of Virginia in 1676

John Rolfe

Virginia colonist who married Pocahontas and developed a marketable strain of tobacco in 1612.

Turner's Rebellion

Virginia, 1831—This was a slave rebellion in Virginia that spread among several plantations, involving hundreds of slaves and resulting in the killing of dozens of whites. The rebellion was led by a slave preacher named Nat Turner. Some plantation owners had begun encouraging slaves to find religion because it made them happier and easier to handle. They encouraged church services on Sundays and gave slaves the day off. Sometimes it was hard to find a white preacher to come to minister to the slaves and so slave preachers began to appear from among the slaves themselves. Eventually, slaves preferred their own ministers to those provided by the plantation owners. Nat Turner was one of these and became so influential among slaves in the entire region of Virginia where he lived that he became able to plan and to carry out a large-scale insurrection of the slaves. In the bloody aftermath of the rebellion (in which vigilante action resulted in the death of many innocents in addition to the 80 or so slaves who were involved in the rebellion) Virginia and the rest of the slave South began tightening the slave codes and restricting the movements and activities of blacks, both slave and free. As a result of Turner's Rebellion, the South became something of a police state in which fear of slave revolts was never far from the minds of many southerners.

Appamatox Courthouse

Virginia—This is where the war ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at the house of Wilmer McLean, whose previous house had served as the HQ for General Beauregard at the First Battle of Manassas early in the war.

Declaratory Act

When Parliament repealed the Stamp tax, it also passed the Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament still maintains that it has the right to tax the colonies.

Glorious Revolution

Whereas King Charles I had enough support in 1642 to form an army willing to fight to support his cause, King James II had no such support in 1688. Consequently, the Glorious Revolution did not start a civil war, as had occurred in the 1640s, but led, instead, to the king having to leave the country to avoid being imprisoned or executed. The Glorious Revolution is important for several reasons. It established that the Parliament was the main power in English government (not the king) and it affirmed that the Parliament had the right to control taxes in England. Since it was the House of Commons within Parliament that controlled taxes, this meant that the common people of England (who elected the members of the House of Commons) had an important influence over English politics. In fact, the English Bill of Rights was introduced at the end of the Glorious Revolution in order to guarantee the natural rights of England's people. All of these developments had profound impact, not only on people in England, but on the people in the colonies as well. In later years, such as during the American Revolution, the founding fathers of the U.S. acted on beliefs about individual rights and personal liberty that originated with the Glorious Revolution and with the philosophical ideas of John Locke (which justified what was done by Parliament in overthrowing King James II). One of the ideas of John Locke that was used as justification for the Glorious Revolution was the idea of the Social Contract. This was based on Locke's belief that governmental power originated with the people. If that is the case, then Locke held that government is responsible to the people in seeing that their basic rights (as humans) are maintained. He held, further, that if government fails to protect the people's basic, natural rights, then the people have the right to overthrow such an unfair government. It was on the grounds that King James II violated the Social Contract that he was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution. Afterward, the introduction of an English Bill of Rights was intended to prevent the abuse of power by government from happening again. However, Americans of the 17770s would accuse the English government of being in violation of the same Social Contract and this idea would justify the American Revolution against England and her king. The Social Contract idea would also justify the French Revolution against Louis XVI in 1789 and many other revolutions later. Consequently, the Social Contract of John Locke is a very powerful historical idea that leads, ultimately, to the establishment of democratic government around the world by the 20th century. It would happen first, however, in America and American democracy would be based on ideas of government that surfaced first in England during the Glorious Revolution.

Slave Patrols

after 1831 (after Turner's Rebellion)—In many areas of the slave South, especially in counties with large plantations or many slaves, local governments made it the duty of local citizens to participate in the slave patrols. Perhaps one night a month or so, even non-slave-owning citizens had to join a patrol of whites on horseback who patrolled the areas where slaves lived to make sure that nothing strange or dangerous (like a slave rebellion) was going on. This added to the police mentality that developed within the slave South in antebellum times.

Era of Good Feelings

after the War of 1812 until the dispute over Missouri's statehood, beginning in 1818—This term refers to the fact that, as the Federalist Party died out and as the Democratic-Republican Party adopted all of the Federalist Party's issues, there were no serious political disputes or confrontations in the United States for a short while, until North-South tension over slavery began to develop as a result of Missouri's application for statehood.

Universal Male Suffrage

all males over the age of 21 can vote. This became the trend of changes in voting rules in American states during the 1820s and 1830s. The U.S. became the first country in the world with an electorate that was not economically restricted in some way. More true democracy, however, would have to await women's suffrage in the 20th century

The General Court

is the name for the legislature in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Bay colony is often thought to have been almost run by Puritan ministers, but this was only the indirect result of the influence that Puritan ministers had on the people who were elected to serve on the legislature. In Puritan Massachusetts, full citizenship (including the ability to run for elected office) was available only to full church members, or saints, who were the members of congregations believed by others to have been predestined by God to go to heaven. These people were heavily influenced by the ministers. However, the hold of Puritan religion on the people of Massachusetts, very strong with the first generation of Puritan settlers, began to diminish among the second and third generations of people who were born and grew up in New England as the children and grandchildren of the original settlers. The Salem witch trials, which resulted in 1691 in the hanging (as witches) of 19 innocent people represented the last straw for many people in New England, in terms of their adherence to the ideas of the religious leaders. It resulted in a great loss of influence by the ministers in the region who were now discredited as a source of political inspiration. Government in New England became more secular during the 18th century.

French and Indian War

known in Europe as the Seven Years War, started over English and French rivalry in North America and this rivalry over control of colonies remained the focus of the war throughout. Indeed, it became a war to decide who would control North America: France or England. England's victory led to France's loss of Canada and Louisiana and would indirectly lead to economic problems ending in revolution against the King of France in 1789. Although the French and Indian War was a disaster for France, the loser of the war, it was an important victory for England, which emerged from the end of the war with a bigger empire than before—a bigger empire that would lead, in time, to England becoming the world's economic super-power during the 19th century. Unfortunately for England, however, its success in the French and Indian War led the English government to change its colonial policy, which would lead to the American Revolution and the loss of some of its colonies.

Triangular Trade

refers to a complex pattern of trade conducted by merchants from colonial areas, such as New England. It involved trade originating in North America and then expanding to the Caribbean and areas across the Atlantic Ocean, including England itself. Normally, a mercantilist colonial system would not allow a colony to possess its own merchant fleet and would not allow colonial merchants to be involved in such extensive trade. England, however, made exceptions to the normal rules of mercantilism and allowed its North American colonies much latitude. One reason why was so that British sugar plantations on islands in the Caribbean could be sustained by food imports from North America. Britain could not feed those islands and British mercantilists wanted the islands to be used to grow as much sugar as possible (because it was a very profitable crop in the 17th and 18th centuries), meaning that valuable space on these islands would be lost if food had to be grown to feed the labor supply on the islands. Colonies, though, had little money (since mercantilism tended to drain money to the mother country) so sugar plantation owners could only pay for food from North American colonial merchants with molasses (liquified sugar). Since colonial merchants had little use for this, they made rum from it for sale to fishermen of the Grand Banks (off the coast of Newfoundland). In exchange for the rum, the fishermen gave the colonial merchants fish, which could be exchanged for wine in places like the Canary or Cape Verde Islands. Wine obtained there could then be exchanged in England for manufactured products that could be sold to colonial citizens back in North America. This example of one triangular trade pattern (of many) demonstrates how complex it was and how unusual it was for merchants from a colony to be involved in such trade all over the Atlantic. But it was the only way that England could feed its sugar islands without having to sacrifice too much growing space on the islands. Accordingly, the British government allowed such exceptions to mercantilism to take place and this became typical of the British imperial system. Moreso than either the French or Spanish, the British were very lax in enforcement of mercantilism. This is one reason why English colonists in North America were among the most free people anywhere in the world during the 17th and 18th centuries (even before independence). Also, until England became interested in cracking down and becoming more controlling in its relationship with colonies by about 1763, England's colonies had a generally good relationship with the mother country. In North America, colonial unhappiness leading to revolution started only with the changed conditions of 1763 and later. Before that time, England's colonies were not at all rebellious because the English system of mercantilism was not seen in the colonies as too restrictive or unfair, despite the cash flow problem that always existed in the colonies. The triangular trade was a way around that problem.

Iriquois Confederacy

refers to eight tribes of Indians who were newcomers, in the 17th century, to land occupied by Algonkin tribes. They were fierce tribes, however, who succeeded in gaining a foothold on land mostly in what is now New York state. Iriquois tribes were normally enemies of Algonkin tribes. The first time that French soldiers from Canada became involved in joining Algonkins in a fight against Iriquois, it ensured that the French became lasting enemies of the Iriquois. Consequently, whenever warfare broke out between English and French colonists, the Algonkins normally allied with the French against the English, but the Iriquois normally allied with the English against the French. Unfortunately, much of the bloodiest and most disastrous fighting in the colonial part of European wars was done by Indians against each other in the backwoods. This, along with the devastating impact of European diseases, resulted in so much death and disruption of tribal life among Indians that tribes often lost the ability to transmit their culture from one generation to the next—and became dependent on trade with Europeans in order to obtain guns and metal implements in order to be able to hunt successfully enough to survive. It was the beginning of the tragic consequences of European settlement on the indigenous Native Americans that would ultimately result in conquest and displacement from their homelands onto reservations for all tribes in what is now the USA.

The Starving Times

refers to the early years of the first English colonies, particularly Virginia. An individual's success in Virginia was primarily dependent on survival from year to year in a situation in which a majority of the colony's settlers usually died the winter before more settlers arrived to bolster the population the next spring. Disease and Indian hostility were among the causes of high mortality rates but an important cause, as well, was the fact that Virginia was not well organized, initially, and suffered from a failure of the leadership for several years.

Charles II

son of Charles I who was restored to the throne by Parliament in 1660. Although he promised to keep England Protestant and to respect limits to his power, he secretly plotted to become an absolute ruler. He concluded the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV of France but died in 1685 before his plans could be acted upon.

George III

son of George II -He was king in England at the end of the French and Indian War and during the whole of the American Revolution.

George II

son of George I—He was king in England during King George's War and the beginning of the French and Indian War.

Charles I

son of James I—he also tried to become an absolute ruler but was executed by Parliament at the end of the English Civil War in 1649

Election of 1840

the "log cabin" campaign in which William Henry Harrison won the presidency for the Whig Party. In this campaign, the Whigs stole the strategy that had worked in the past for the Democrats: They ran a military hero and Indian fighter (Harrison) and tried to appeal to the common man by portraying their candidate as a man who lived in a log cabin (even though this wasn't true). And why not, Andrew Jackson wasn't a common man either, but this had never hurt his ability to appeal to common men in American society. So the Whigs, in 1840, beat the Democrats at their own game. Unfortunately, Harrison's untimely death due to pneumonia (after only 6 weeks in office), brought John Tyler to the presidency (Harrison's Vice President). Tyler was a former Jacksonian Democrat who left the Democratic Party over the tariff issue when Calhoun left the party in 1832. He joined the Whig campaign in 1840 to help Harrison and the Whigs win votes in border states like Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, but his personal views were not those of the Whig Party's platform. Tyler did not believe in a national bank and would veto all bills passed by Congress to recreate the national bank. He did not believe in federal sponsorship of internal development projects and vetoed such projects just as Andrew Jackson used to do. In other words, John Tyler was a Democrat in Whig clothing. Even though the Whigs won the Election of 1840, the premature death of Harrison brought Tyler to the White House and Tyler acted like a Democrat. Nearly all of the Whig Cabinet members that Harrison had appointed would resign in protest to Tyler's actions within the next two years.

Royal Colony

the first royal colony was Virginia in 1624. This came about when the company that had established Virginia went bankrupt, forcing the British government to assume control of the colony even though the British government did not want to be much involved with overseas colonies. This disinterest on the part of the British government is another of the reasons why England's North American colonies became, and remained, self-governing entities. In a chartered colony, the governor is either elected by the colonial citizens or appointed by the company's Board of Directors. In a proprietary colony, the governor is appointed by the proprietor or elected by the people. In a royal colony, the governor is appointed by the King of England. In all three types of colonies, however, the elected part of the legislature (the lower house) was the dominant political power in the colony, by virtue of the legislatures' control of taxes.

Queen Anne

the last monarch of the Stuart Dynasty—Her death in 1715 led to the founding of the Hanover Dynasty

Cecilius Calvert

the second Lord Baltimore and son of George Calvert (the first Lord Baltimore) who became the proprietor of the colony of Maryland, which was founded in 1632 as a refuge for Catholics persecuted in England

Mercantilism

the term for the system of economics enforced by governments of nearly all European countries during the 17th and 18th centuries. In the English system, the laws of Parliament that were designed to regulate a system of mercantilism were known as the Navigation Acts. These laws date from 1653 on. The idea behind mercantilism is that a country should sell more expensive products than it buys. In other words, it should have a favorable trade balance. If so, then the country is wealthier than before and the king's government has more to tax. With greater revenue coming in, because of a mercantilist system, governments have more money with which to improve the power and size of their militaries and hence become more able to conquer their rivals and become even more rich and powerful. That was the theory, anyway. Because a favorable trade balance is essential, colonies came to be seen as increasingly important. Colonies came to be seen as a source of raw materials for the industry of the mother country and as additional markets for finished goods produced by the mother country. Unfortunately, mercantilism meant that countries tried to avoid trading with each other. Since it was only OK to sell expensive products to other countries, and not to buy anything from them, other countries refused to buy what you had to sell (since they were mercantilist too). In this situation, each country's economic system became a closed system that tried to be as self-contained (within its imperial system of colonies) as possible. This stifled international trade and prevented the cultural exchange and political cooperation that economic interaction would have caused. By making European countries rivals of each other in terms of economics and in terms of competition for colonies, mercantilism was a prime cause of much of the warfare that afflicted Europe and European colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries.

John Marshall

this Virginian was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801-1835. The Court took on the power of judicial review under his leadership. As Chief Justice for over 30 years during the early history of the United States, Marshall had more influence over the development of public policy than all five of the presidents during his tenure as Chief Justice.

Conquistadors

were 15th and 16th century Spanish noblemen who led expeditions of conquest in the Americas for the King of Spain. Cortes, who conquered the Aztecs in Mexico, and Pizarro, who conquered the Incas in Peru, are the best examples of Spanish conquistadors. They were motivated by the three G's: God, Gold, and Glory. Missionaries always accompanied and followed the conquistadors. Latin America is still mostly Catholic today. Sources of mineral wealth were of special interest to conquistadors (though it did not have to be gold; silver, for example, worked well for Pizarro in Peru). The failure of Coronado and DeSoto to find mineral wealth in North America above Mexico is primarily why the Spanish were not as heavily involved in North America as they were elsewhere. In addition to God and Gold, conquistadors were also very much interested in their own fame, or glory.

The Scotch-Irish

were the group of colonial people in the English colonies who were the largest single group next to immigrants from England itself. The Scotch-Irish were important, culturally, because of their large numbers and because they tended to concentrate together in the back-country areas of colonies. They did so because they were generally poor when they came to America. Because they could not afford land in the Tidewater, they became back-country people and generally remained poor. They were orginally people from Scotland who had been colonists in northern Ireland, hence the term Scotch-Irish. Unhappy with conditions in Ireland, many of these former Scots moved again to America. As a large portion of the back-country people of the English colonies, the Scotch-Irish had a big impact on colonial cultural development. During the 18th century, when evangelical religion began developing in America in a big way, the Scotch-Irish of the back-country areas of the southern colonies, in particular, became the most ardent evangelicals. It is among this group of people that the Baptist and Methodist faiths began to evolve as evangelical churches during the 18th century.