APUSH Units 1-6 IDs
Protective tariffs
(Tariff act of 1789). A tariff is a tax on imports or exports internationally. Hamilton and others wanted tariffs to discharge the debts of the united states and for the encouragement and protection of domestic manufacturers.
Abraham Lincoln
"Honest Abe" born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky, Lincoln grew up in Kentucky, then moved to Illinois at age 21. He worked as a store clerk in Illinois until he volunteered to fight Indians in the Black Hawk War. Then he became a local Postmaster and lawyer, and served 4 terms in the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. He was elected in 1846 to the U.S. House of representatives, but his position on the Mexican War (Anti-war) made him lose re-election. Was then nominated in 1858 to run against Douglas for the senate. Even though he lost, his 7 debates with Douglas made him well known on a national scale and a front runner for the upcoming Presidential Election. He was nominated by the republican party in the election of 1860 for president. He won 39.9% of the popular vote and 180 electoral college votes, making him the winner. As president he said that he would not interfere with slavery where it already was, but he opposed the expansion of slavery. Lincoln thought War was inevitable, and wanted to make the Confederacy responsible for starting it. NOT AN ABOLITIONIST, but he said that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong".
The Liberator
"I will be heard" Newspaper written by William Lloyd Garrison, one of the most controversial white abolitionists. Blacks should have civil equality with whites, not be freed and sent to Africa. Wanted immediate emancipation, but did not believe it was possible. Most subscribers were African-American.
Tariff of Abomination
"Tariff of 1828" was a protective tariff passed by the Congress of the United States on May 19, 1828. It was labeled the Tariff of Abomination by its southern detractors because of the effects it had on the antebellum Southern economy. The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the northern United States which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods by taxing them. The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the U.S. made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South. The reaction in the South, particularly in South Carolina, would lead to the Nullification Crisis that began in late 1832.
Dominion of New England
(1686-1689) An administrative union of English colonies that was imposed by King James in the New England region of North America (which includes: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire). He wanted to expand it eventually to include New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey and put them under one rule as well. By doing so, he's taking away some rights of the people in those colonies, by restricting their voice in their own government. The dominion was unacceptable to most colonists, because they deeply resented being stripped of their traditional rights. Under Governor Sir Edmund Andros, the Dominion tried to make legal and structural changes, but most of these were undone, and the Dominion was overthrown as soon as word was received that King James had left the throne in England. - English effort at centralized control similar to the efforts made by spain, but the colonists deeply resent it and it fails
Thomas Whately
(1726 - June 1772), an English politician and writer, was a Member of Parliament (1761-1768), who served as Commissioner on the Board of Trade, as Secretary to the Treasury under Lord Grenville, and as Under- secretary of State under Lord North (1771-1772). As an M.P. he published a letter on the reasonableness of the Stamp Act, 1765, which earns him a place in the events that led to the American Revolution.
Basic Land Ordinance
(1785) This ordinance issued by the federal congress was an effort to raise money by selling land. It talks about how to divide up land. Additionally, it said that each town must have 36 lots and miles square in area, and each section is set to support 4 families so each family can buy a part of a section and have plenty of land. Also, one lot must be set aside for a school in every township.
Federalist Papers
(1787-1788) a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton (51), James Madison (26), and John Jay (5) that tried to convince people to support the ratification of the constitution. In general, it went through different parts of the constitution and the _____'s position and explained why they were good for the United States.
Battle of Fallen Timbers
(1794) The final battle of the Northwest Indian war, which was over control of northwest territory between the Indians associated with the Western Confederacy and the United states.) The battle was over quickly when Gen. Anthony Wayne's men closed in on the Indians, winning a decisive victory for the united states that ended hostilities until Tecumseh's War and the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.
Virginia and Kentucky Resolves
(1798) the resolutions written by Jefferson and Madison that declared that the alien and sedition acts are unconstitutional, argued for more state's rights and a strict interpretation of the constitution. The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 argued that each individual state has the power to declare that federal laws are unconstitutional and void. The Virginia Resolutions of 1798 refer to "interposition" to express the idea that the states have a right to "interpose" to prevent harm caused by unconstitutional laws. The Virginia Resolutions contemplate joint action by the states.
Treaty of San Ildefonso
(1800) Treaty on October 1, 1800, in which Spain ceded the Louisiana territory to France, which was becoming a foremost military power. Threat of French expansion was the result of Jefferson's goal to obtain the territory, not for expansionism, but the opportunities of trade by New Orleans as a sea port.
John Brown
(1800-1859) anti-slavery advocate who believed that God had called upon him to abolish slavery. May or may not have been mentally unstable. Devoted over 20 years to fighting slavery, due to misunderstanding, in revenge he and his followers (his sons and others) killed five men in the pro slavery settlement of Pottawatomie Creek. Triggered dozens of incidents throughout Kansas some 200 people were killed. Was executed, still debated over whether he is a saint or killer.
Marbury v Madison
(1803) Important supreme court case in which Marbury sought a writ of Mandamus because Madison didn't give him his comission. Marshall wanted to make sure that he didn't give Madison the option of ignoring a Supreme Court decision, so in order to maintain the checks and balances he did not order a writ of mandamus.
Louisiana Purchase
(1803) The purchase of a large amount of territory west of the Mississippi river, (828,000 square miles) from France for $15 million. Originally, Jefferson told the delegates to only spend about $10million on gaining New Orleans and some of Spanish Florida, but when Napoleon offered the whole territory for $15 million, he knew it was too good of a deal to pass up. Jefferson wanted to spread democracy, wanted to remove the french from their borders so that they wouldn't have to ally with england if france got pissed, and also wanted to secure the new orleans port.
Lucretia Mott
(1803-1880) Early feminist, who worked constantly with her husband in liberal causes, particularly slavery abolition and women's suffrage. Her home was a station on the underground railroad. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she helped organize the first women's rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848.
Joseph Smith
(1805-1844) founded the Mormon Church; in a series of religious experiences that began in 1820, Smith came to believe that God had singled him out to receive a special revelation of divine truth; in 1830 he published The Book of Mormon, & he proceeded to organize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; he revived traditional social doctrines such as patriarchal authority within the family & encouraged practices that were central to individual success in the age of capitalist markets & factories-frugality, hard work, & entrepreneurial enterprise; his goal was a church-directed society that would inspire moral perfection; the Mormons eventually settled in Nauvoo, Illinois which, by the 1840's, had become the largest utopian community in the US; Smith refused to abide by any Illinois law of which he didn't approve, asked Congress to turn Nauvoo into a separate federal territory, & declared himself a candidate for president; Smith also claimed to have received a new revelation that justified polygamy; in 1844 Illinois officials arrested Smith & charged him with treason for allegedly conspiring with foreign powers to create a Mormon colony in Mexican territory; an anti-Mormon mob stormed the jail in Carthage, Illinois, where he & his brother were being held, & murdered them
Embargo Act
(1807) An embargo from Congress against Britain and France during the Napoleonic Wars; in response to impressment and the Chesapeake Leopard affair; It laid an embargo on all ships in US jurisdiction, required a bond or surety from merchant ships on a voyage between U.S. ports, allowed the president to make exemptions and made exemptions for warships. A failure because it hurt the US economy much more than France or Britain
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882) American poet that was influenced somewhat by the transcendentalism occurring at the time. He was important in building the status of American literature, and is regarded as one of the greatest American poets of all time.
Non-Intercourse Act
(1809) In the last sixteen days of President Thomas Jefferson's presidency the United States Congress replaced the Embargo Act of 1807 with the almost unenforceable Non-Intercourse Act of March 1809. This Act lifted all embargoes on American shipping except for those bound for British or French ports. The intent was to damage the economies of the United Kingdom and France. Like its predecessor, the Embargo Act, it was mostly ineffective, and contributed to the coming of the War of 1812. In addition, it seriously damaged the economy of the United States.
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849). Orphaned at young age. Was an American poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. Failing at suicide, began drinking. Died in Baltimore shortly after being found drunk in a gutter. "the raven"
Macon's Bill No. 2
(1810) was intended to motivate Britain and France to stop seizing American vessels during the Napoleonic Wars. This bill was a revision of the original bill by Representative Nathaniel Macon, known as Macon's Bill Number 1. The law lifted all embargoes with Britain and France (for three months). If either one of the two countries ceased attacks upon American shipping, the United States would end trade with the other, unless that other country agreed to recognize the rights of the neutral American ships as well.
John Humphrey Noyes
(1811-1886) praised the Shakers as the true "pioneers of modern Socialism" & was inspired by their marriage-less society to create a community which defined sexuality & gender roles in radically new ways; after being dismissed from his church, he turned to perfectionism (an evangelical movement that began in the 1830's which believed that the Second Coming of Christ had already occurred & that people could therefore aspire to sinless perfection in their earthly lives); he believed that the major barrier to achieving this ideal state was marriage; he & his followers embraced complex marriage (all members of community married to one another) partly because he wished to free women from being regarded as property of their husbands; in the late 1830's, Noyes established a community in Vermont which then moved to Oneida, NY where 200 people lived by the 1850's; Oneida became financially successful when the inventor of a highly successful steel animal trap joined & the community diversified into the production of silverware from there; After Noyes fled to Canada in 1879, the community died down
Battle of Horseshoe Bend
(1814) was fought between Americans and Indians during the war of 1812. In central Alabama, Major General Andrew Jackson led an american force to defeat a part of the creek indian tribe. The indians were resisting American expansion, but this defeat marked the end of the Creek War
Battle of New Orleans
(1815) The British attacked with a 8,000 man army and expected to wipe the americans out. Andrew Jackson assembled a ragtag army of French Pirates, Choctaw Indians, Western militia, and freed slaves. The american forces were able to inflict 2036 British casualties while sustaining only 8. A huge american victory that occurred two weeks after a peace treaty had been signed... awkward.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(1815-1902) A suffragist who, along with Lucretia Mott, organized the first convention on women's rights, held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Issued the Declaration of Sentiments which declared men and women to be equal and demanded the right to vote for women. Co-founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony in 1869.
Panic of 1819
(1819-1821) The first major peacetime financial crisis in the United States followed by a general collapse of the American economy persisting through 1821. It announced the transition of the nation from its colonial commercial status with Europe toward a dynamic economy, increasingly characterized by the financial and industrial imperatives of laissez-faire capitalism. It provoked popular resentment against banking and business enterprise, and a general belief that federal government economic policy was fundamentally flawed. Americans, many for the first time, became politically engaged so as to defend their local economic interests. The New Republicans and their American System- tariff protection, internal improvements and the BUS - were exposed to sharp criticism, eliciting a vigorous defense. This widespread discontent would be mobilized by Democratic-Republicans in alliance with Old Republicans, and a return to the Jeffersonian principles of limited government, strict construction of the constitution and Southern preeminence. It marked the end of the Era of Good Feelings and the rise of Jacksonian nationalism.
Susan B. Anthony
(1820-1906) Women's rights crusader, also active in Abolition movement. Author of the Declaration of Sentiments at the Seneca Falls Convention. An unmarried Quaker who had been active in the temperance movement, shortly thereafter assumed the leadership role in the drive for legal equality and the right to vote. Progress was limited in these years, however. More than a dozen states, led by Mississippi in 1839, granted some property rights to married women.
McIntosh v. Johnson
(1823) The supreme court decides that the US has the right to give titles, or to sell any land within it's borders. Native americans cannot be citizens of the united states, they are only temporary residents, therefore they cannot own land. Private citizens cannot purchase land from native americans, because native americans do not have the right to own land. They would have to go to the government to receive the title.
Indian Removal Act
(1830), Jackson's aggressive policy against native americans. He ordered the removal of Indian Tribes still residing east of the Mississippi to newly established Indian Territory west of Arkansas and Missouri. Tribes resisting eviction were forcibly removed by American forces, often after prolonged legal or military battles.
Trail of Tears
(1830-1838) Seminole, cherokee, creek, chickasaw, choctaw indian tribes are thought to be savages with a culture that can't be assimilated and contact with whites will only lead to violence. Whites want more land, so the government becomes more interested in removing Indian tribes. A quarter of them will die from disease or exhaustion as they are driven out of their land at gunpoint.
Cherokee Nation v Georgia
(1831) Cherokees try to sue Georgia because white people keep coming in and selling their land and/or using it for their own purposes. They claim that because they are a foreign nation, they are not subject to Georgia's jurisdiction. Supreme court declares that the Cherokee Nation is not a foreign nation, and therefore the court has no jurisdiction so you are on your own against Georgia. They say the the Cherokees are dependent on the U.S.and are not independent
Border States
(1860's) During the war, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware were referred to as border states. They were slave states that remained part of the Union. Their support for the Union demonstrates that most Northerners (with the exception of committed abolitionists) believed they were fighting to preserve the Union, not to defeat slavery.
Worcester v. Georgia
(1832) Worcester is a white missionary who is supportive of the Cherokee people, he says that the states are encroaching on the national authority because Georgia is passing laws regulating what can happen on Native American land. Supreme court declared that states could not pass laws interfering with federal indian treaties, and that the federal government had a responsibility to exclude whites from Indian land. Cherokee indians are entitled to protection against individual state action, but following the decision President Jackson says to the supreme court to hell with you, disagree I'm siding with Georgia, so this decision is not enforced and is basically ignored. (Jacksons dad was killed by natives so... he hates them)
Specie Circular
(1836) The major component of Jackson's crusade against the national banking system and the use of paper money. In this crusade, Jackson decides that all sales of land needs to be through the use of gold or silver. Because of Jackson's crusades the people temporarily prospered while the state debt rose significantly and inflation increased dramatically, leading to the great financial depression in the Panic of 1837.
James K. Polk
(1845-1849) Pro-slavery and pro-expansionism president. The Mexican War starts in 1846. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ends the war in 1848. Wanted to settle Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain. Wanted to acquire California and to incorporate Texas into union, while reducing the tariff and re-establish an independent treasury system.
Mexican-American War
(1846-1848) Began after President Polk attempted to buy the Southwest Territory from Mexico. When the Mexican government refused, Polk provoked the country until it attacked American troops at the Rio Grande in May 1846. Whigs and abolitionists opposed the conflict, with the latter fearing that new states would allow slavery and disrupt the balance of slave vs. non-slave states. In 1847, Winfield Scott decides to go by water from New Orleans to Vera Cruz (Mexico). They then move West towards Mexico City, which is a key takeover of the war. The war ended when the United States invaded Mexico City and Mexico ceded control of much of the modern Southwest in exchange for $15 million ($10 million less than what Polk would've paid)
Kansas-Nebraska Act
(1854) Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas; Allowed Kansas and Nebraska Territories to be organized and stipulated that they would be open to slavery if enough of the residents supported slavery (popular sovereignty). Allowed the land in Kansas and Nebraska to be surveyed for the purpose of railroad construction. Pushed the country closer to civil war. Led to armed conflict in Kansas. It destroyed the Whig Party, divided the Democratic party, and led to the creation of the Republican party.
James Buchanan
(1857-1861) Democrat. The *Confederate States of America* formed in 1861 - 1860 *secession* of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined them. He tried to maintain a balance between proslavery and antislavery factions, but his moderate views angered radicals in both North and South. Lecompton Constitution supporter. Wins the 1856 presidential election over John Freemont. Doesn't do much to keep the Southern States from seceding.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
(1858)- Abraham Lincoln, a trial lawyer and former member of Illinois legislature, challenged Stephen Douglas for the Senate seat of Illinois. Nationally, the Republican candidate was unknown compared to the "Little Giant," the champion of popular sovereignty. Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but against the expansion of slavery (moral issue). Lincoln delivered the "house-divided" speech that won him fame. "Government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free." Douglas tried to portray him as the radical Southerners viewed him as. In several campaign debates, Lincoln shared the platform with Douglas. Republicans challenged Douglas' seeming indifference to slavery as a moral issue. Lincoln challenged Douglas to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision, forcing him to take a stance. In Douglas' response, the Freeport Doctrine, he states that slavery cannot exist in a community if local citizens don't pass laws maintaining it, basically saying you can get rid of slavery if you want. This angered Southern Democrats who thought he didn't go far enough in supporting the implications of Dred Scott. Douglas won his campaign for reelection, but lost ground in his own party by alienating Southern Democrats. Lincoln emerged as a national figure and a leading contender for Republican nomination in the presidential election in 1860.
Tariff of 1816
(April 27, 1816-June 1819) The first tariff passed by Congress with an explicit function of protecting U.S. manufactured items from foreign competition. Prior to the War of 1812, tariffs had primarily served to raise revenues to operate the national government. Another unique aspect of the tariff was the strong support it received from Southern states. The bill was conceived as part of a solution to the purely domestic matter of avoiding a projected federal deficit reported by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas. A tariff on manufactured goods, including war industry products, was deemed essential in the interests of national defense. Northern efforts to establish permanent protection in 1820, after tensions with Great Britain had eased, provoked a backlash among Southern legislators.
Powhatan
(Confederacy) The union of village communities in Chesapeake Bay that was made up of an estimated 14,000 people. It was led by Wahunsonacook, whom the Jamestown colonists liked to call "King Powhatan." They were eager to form an alliance to gain access to supplies of metal tools and weapons. The colonists only survived because of this group's help, but as more colonists arrived and demands increased, they stopped giving help and as a result, many colonists died that winter. Consequently, the Jamestown colonists led a protracted war against this group and captured King Powhatan's daughter ( Matoaka aka Pocahontas), forcing King Powhatan to sign a peace treaty.
Hartford Convention
(December 1814) a meeting of Federalist delegates who protested the war of 1812. They recommended a series of Constitutional Amendments to restrict the power of congress to wage war, regulate commerce, and admit new states. Also supported a one-term presidency and the abolition of the 3/5ths clause because it made the south too powerful. After the war when news of the convention got out, many people branded all Federalists as traitors, and the federalist party practically ceased to exist afterward.
Crittenden Compromise
(December 1860)- Proposed by a Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden. It was a last-ditch effort to appease the South. He envisioned a constitutional amendment to reactivate and extend the Missouri Compromise of 1820 line to the Pacific Ocean. The federal government was to indemnify owners of fugitive slaves whose return was prevented by anti slavery elements in the North; "squatter sovereignty" (the right to decide if slavery should exist or not) in the territories was to be sanctioned; and slavery in the District of Columbia was to be protected from congressional action. On March 2, 1861, the plan was narrowly defeated in the Senate. Two months earlier, he introduced a resolution calling for a national referendum on these proposals, but the Senate never acted on this resolution. Lincoln could not agree to the compromise because it disagree with the republican principles of preventing the expansion of slavery into western territories.
Monroe Doctrine
(December 2, 1823) A US foreign policy regarding Latin American countries in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. At the same time, the doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. Its primary objective was to free the newly independent colonies of Latin America from European intervention and avoid situations which could make the New World a battleground for the Old World powers, so that the United States could exert its own influence undisturbed. The doctrine asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence, for they were composed of entirely separate and independent nations.
SC Ordinance of Secession
(December 20, 1860--before lincoln even steps into ofice) After the election of Lincoln, a convention was held in which all 169 delegates voted for secession from the union. The were against Republican Presidential leadership on matters of race, economics, and politics. After the vote, this document was written stating that South Carolina repealed the Constitution and its amendments and disassociated itself from the United States of America. It was followed by the drafting of a "Declaration of Immediate Causes", which explained exactly why the state seceded. They use John C Calhoun's idea that states were sovereign beings that could break away from the Union (Doctrine of Nullification).
Thirteenth Amendment
(December 6th, 1865) This amendment abolishes slavery, is ratified 8 months after the end of the Civil War. "Neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude... shall exist within the United States"
Freeport Doctrine
(Document written by Stephen A. Douglas) stated that communities would have to pass and enforce laws to protect the institution of slavery for it to exist. Caused a deeper division within the Democratic Party as Southerners felt he had not done enough to support the Dred Scott decision. While his popular sovereignty stance won won him the senatorial seat, Douglas hurt his chances in the presidential election of 1860.
Confederate States of America
(February 1861) An unrecognized secessionist union existing from 1861-65. It was originally formed by seven slave states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas) who relied upon slave labor and seceded after the election of Abraham Lincoln. The nation was formally declared in February 1861 with Mississippian Jefferson Davis as president of their conservative government. The created their own Constitution which was similar to the U.S. constitution except that the Confederacy placed limits on the government's power to impose tariffs and restrict slavery. They sought a peaceful separation, but the United States refused to accept the secession, considering the Confederacy illegal. After war began in April, four states of the Upper South (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia) also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy. The Confederacy later accepted Missouri and Kentucky as members, although neither officially declared secession nor were ever controlled by Confederate forces.
Bank of the United States
(February 25, 1791-1812). chartered for a term of twenty years by congress (ending in 1812), it was part of Hamilton's expansion of federal fiscal and monetary power. Hamilton believed a national bank was necessary to stabilize and improve the nation's credit, and to improve handling of the financial business of the United States government under the newly enacted Constitution. The bank would allow for more easily handling the collection of taxes, regulation of trade, setting of currency rates. It also allows for the government to have a centralized economy.
Northwest Ordinance
(July 13 of 1787) This ordinance divided western land into specific districts and lowered the price of land to get more people interested in buying. Congress appointed a governor, secretary, and three judges to control every area until they reached a certain population. Only an owner of fifty acres of land could vote, 5,000 adult males means you can elect a general assembly, 60, 000 people means you can apply for statehood. This ordinance also set in republican principles throughout the western territories, trial by jury, habeas corpus, benefits of common law, no slavery, freedom of religion, and proportional representation in legislatures.
NY City Draft Riot
(July 1863) The Unions first Conscription Act made all men between the ages of 20 and 45 liable for military service, but you could get out of it if you paid a 300$ fee. Poorer laborers feared that their jobs would be taken by freed blacks while they were away at war. In July 1863, riots against the draft erupted in New York City, in which a mostly Irish American mob attacked blacks and wealthy whites. Some 117 people were killed before federal troops and a temporary suspension of the draft restored order.
Daniel Dulany (the younger)
(June 28, 1722 - March 17, 1797) was a Maryland Loyalist politician, Mayor of Annapolis, and an influential American lawyer in the period immediately before the American Revolution. Although he would not go on to support the overthrow of British rule in Maryland, he was a noted opposer of the Stamp Act 1765. His pamphlet Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, which argued against taxation without representation, has been described as "the ablest effort of this kind produced in America". Despite this open and articulate opposition to the Stamp Act, he remained a loyalist, and in that vein engaged in a famous newspaper discussion with Charles Carroll of Carrollton. He was not able to rebel against the Crown he and his family had served so long.
Maysville Road Veto
(May 1830) One of Jackson's 12 vetoes in which he declined the use of federal money to construct this road, because it was wholly within one state, Kentucky (along the Ohio River), the home state of his rival, Henry Clay. Publically, he declared that such bills violated the principle that the federal government should not be involved in local economic affairs. Jackson also pointed out that funding for these kinds of projects interfered with the paying off of the national debt.
Christiana Massacre
(September 1851) In Christiana, Pennsylvania, a group of African Americans and white abolitionists skirmish with a Maryland posse intent on capturing four fugitive slaves hidden in the town. The violence came one year after the second fugitive slave law was passed by Congress. Edward Gorsuch claims that four slaves ran away from him and are hiding with these Quakers. When they refuse to return them, a fight breaks out. In this fight, Edward Gorsuch, was killed and two others wounded during the fight. In the aftermath of the so-called Christiana Riot, 37 African Americans and one white man were arrested and charged with treason under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law. Most were acquitted, and the slaves are sent to Canada (underground railroad). It highlights the creation of the "personal liberty" laws in the North, increasing sectional differences.
Saratoga
(September 19 and October 7, 1777) these two battles marked the climax of the _____ campaign giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. It was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory. British General John Burgoyne led a large invasion army up the Champlain Valley from Canada, hoping to meet a similar force marching northward from New York City; the southern force never arrived, and Burgoyne was surrounded by American forces in upstate New York. Burgoyne fought two small battles to break out. They took place eighteen days apart on the same ground, 9 miles (14 km) south of _____, New York. They both failed. Trapped by superior American forces, with no relief in sight, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army on October 17.
Samuel Adams
(September 27 1722 - October 2, 1803) A political philosopher and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, he was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was an influential official of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Boston Town Meeting in the 1760s and was a part of a movement opposed to the British Parliament's efforts to tax the British American colonies without their consent. In 1772 he and his colleagues devised a committee of correspondence system. He helped guide Congress towards issuing the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and helped draft the Articles of Confederation and the Massachusetts Constitution.
Jacksonian Democrats
(The common mans party) The political party that lasts for only one term. They lived primarily in the south and west and were often of the lower class. They opposed the inherited elites but gave little weight to education. Yet, they also heavily promoted schools and colleges. They promoted the strength of the executive branch at the expense of Congress, They hoped to broaden the public's participation in government and demanded to have elected (not appointed) judges and rewrote many state constitutions to reflect the new values. They also favored geographical expansion, justifying it in terms of Manifest Destiny. Van Buren won the presidential election in 1836 as a Jacksonian Democrats, but things go terribly while Van Buren is president.
Harriet Tubman
(c.1820-1913) American abolitionist who escaped slavery and assisted other enslaved Africans to escape; she is the most famous Underground Railroad conductor and is known as the Moses of her people.
Lewis and Clark
(expedition) (May 1804-September 1806) The first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in May, 1804 from near St. Louis on the Mississippi River, making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast. The expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, consisting of a select group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of Captain ___ and his close friend Second Lieutenant ___. The primary objective was to explore and map the newly acquired territory, find a practical route across the Western half of the continent, and establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it. The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and establish trade with local Indian tribes.
U.S. Navy, Marine Corps
(founded on November 10, 1775) traces its institutional roots to the Continental Marines of the American Revolutionary War, formed by Captain Samuel Nicholas by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress on 10 November 1775, to raise 2 battalions of Marines. At the end of the American Revolution, both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded in April 1783. The institution itself would not be resurrected until 11 July 1798. At that time, in preparation for the Quasi-War with France, Congress created the United States Marine Corps.
Headright
(grants) The a program instituted by the Virginia Company that awarded large tracts of land to wealthy colonists who agreed to transport workers from England at their own cost. Also, according to Federman, grants given to immigrants from europe who willingly gave them to plantation owners in exchange for transportation to the new world
Zachary Taylor
12th US President (1849-1850) Taylor was a general and hero of the Mexican-American war. He was elected to the presidency in 1848, representing the Whig party. He was in office during the crisis of California's admittance to the Union but died in office before a compromise could be worked out, and left vice president Fillmore to finalize a deal between the hostile north and south. Advocated admission of California and New Mexico to US.
John Cotton
1584-1652 - Influential Puritan leader and clergyman in New England. He became only partially involved in the banishment of Roger Williams, even though Williams blamed much of his troubles on cotton. Soon thereafter he became embroiled in the colony's Antinomian Controversy, when several adherents of his "free grace" theology, most notably Anne Hutchinson, began criticizing other ministers in the colony. While he tended to support his adherents through much of the controversy, it was not until near its conclusion that he came to realize that many of his followers held theological positions that were well outside the mainstream of Puritan orthodoxy, which he did not condone. Following the controversy, Cotton was able to mend fences with his fellow ministers, and he continued to preach in the Boston church until his death.
Harvard College
1636- It was established in 1636 and remained the only institution of higher education in British America until 1693, when Anglicans established the College of William and Mary. The curricula of the college, modeled on those of Oxford and Cambridge in England, was designed to rain ministers, but gradually it changed to curricula influenced by Enlightenment thinking. By the 1730s students were studying Newton and reading Locke, as well as other British texts. This was a focal point for the dissemination of Enlightenment ideas.
Bacon's Rebellion
1675 An example of the violent potential of the land crisis that also suggested how much serious trouble servants and former servants could make for planters. After this rebellion, English immigrants turned away from the Chesapeake to colonies such as Pennsylvania, where there was more land, and, thus, more opportunity. Definition from Unit 2: An English-Indian confrontation that mutated into civil war in the Chesapeake because of the old problem of land and labor. When the governor, William Berkley, declined to send the militia against the Indians (adding to the class antagonism), colonists under the leadership of wealthy backcountry planter Nathaniel _______ embarked on unauthorized raids resulting in the indiscriminate murder of many natives, including those allied with the colony. _____ became a hero to former servants, and although Berkeley fumed, he ordered the first elections in many years in an attempt to appease the people. The new assembly--including _____ who was elected by his neighbors--restored the suffrage to freemen without property. But, _____ went further by demanding the death or removal of all Indians from the colony as well as the end to rule of the aristocrat. Berkley fled but was put back in power after the death of ______ killed the rebellion with him.
Herman Melville
1819-1891 an uneducated and an orphan. Melville served eighteen months as a whaler. Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851 which was much less popular than his tales of the South seas. adventuresome years served as a major part in his writing. In addition, he rejected the optimism of the transcendentalists and felt that man faced a tragic destiny.
Gag Rule
1835 law passed by Southern congress which made it illegal to talk of abolition or anti-slavery arguments in Congress-silencing it was found unconstitutional because it violated freedom of speech.
Wilmot Proviso
1845, Dispute over whether any Mexican territory that America won during the Mexican War should be free or a slave territory. A representative named David Wilmot introduced an amendment stating that any territory acquired from Mexico would be free. This amendment passed the House twice, but failed to ever pass in Senate. The "Wilmot Proviso", as it became known as, became a symbol of how intense dispute over slavery was in the U.S. Calhoun argues against it because "the national government can't make decisions in new territories and it should be up to the state," which is a logical argument except it hasn't been the case before (for example with the Northwest Ordinance and the Missouri Compromise).
California Gold Rush
1848. Gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. These early gold-seekers, called "forty-niners," traveled to California by sailing boat and in covered wagons across the continent, often facing substantial hardships on the trip. San Francisco grew from a small settlement to a boomtown, and roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. A system of laws and a government were created, leading to the admission of California as a state in 1850
California Gold Rush
1849, started in 1848 gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. These early gold-seekers, called "forty-niners," traveled to California by boat and in covered wagons across the continent, often facing substantial hardships on the trip. San Francisco grew from a small settlement to a boomtown, and roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. A system of laws and a government were created, leading to the admission of California as a state in 1850
Uncle Tom's Cabin
1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe; deep moral conviction; displayed humanity and suffering of slaves; featured agonies of slave families and mother's journey of escape; exposed Northern racism and brought out idea of slavery when before there was not much awareness; over one million copies sold by 1853; alarmed southern whites (what if slavery outlawed?)
Albert Gallatin
4th United States Secretary of Treasury, politically active AGAINST federalists. He was an important member of the new Democratic-Republican Party, its chief spokesman on financial matters, and led opposition to many of the policy proposals of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. He also helped found the House Committee on Finance. He was later removed from office because he did not meet the nine years of citizenship requirement.
Lord Cornwallis
A British Army officer and colonial administrator. He was one of the leading British generals in the American War of Independence. In 1780 he inflicted an embarrassing defeat on the American army at the Battle of Camden, though he surrendered his army at Yorktown in October 1781 after an extended campaign through the Southern states. His surrender in 1781 to a combined American and French force at the Siege of Yorktown ended significant hostilities in North America.
Gen John Burgoyne
A British army officer, politician and dramatist. He is best known for his role in the American Revolutionary War. He designed an invasion scheme and was appointed to command a force moving south from Canada to split away New England and end the rebellion. His slow movement allowed the Americans to concentrate their forces. Surrounded, he fought two small battles near Saratoga to break out. Trapped by superior American forces, with no relief in sight, he surrendered his entire army of 6200 men on October 17, 1777. It was a great turning point of the war, because it won for Americans the foreign assistance which was the last element needed for victory.
Brigham Young
A Mormon leader that led his oppressed followers to Utah in 1846. Under Young's management, his Mormon community became a prosperous frontier theocracy and a cooperative commonwealth. He became the territorial governor in 1850. Unable to control the hierarchy of Young, Washington sent a federal army in 1857 against the harassing Mormons.
Alamo
A Spanish mission converted into a fort, it was besieged by Mexican troops in 1836. The Texas garrison held out for thirteen days, but in the final battle, all of the Texans were killed by the larger Mexican force. Less than 200 Texans died and about 2000 Mexican forces died, this leads to the battle cry of the Mexican War "Remember the Alamo".
John C. Fremont
A captain and an explorer who was in California with several dozen well-armed men when the Mexican War broke out. He helped to overthrow the Mexican rule in 1846 by collaborating with Americans who had tried to raise the banner of the California Bear Republic. Fremont helped to take California from the inside.
Robert Fulton
A colonial American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat. In 1800, he was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to design the "Nautilus", which was the first practical submarine in history. He is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the British Royal Navy. Due to his invention of the steamboat, the state of New York gave him a monopoly on trade in the canals. From here he sold rights to Ogden and this led to a later conflict with Gibbins, shown in the supreme court case.
Proprietary colony
A colony in which one family or group has sole power to appoint civil officers and was sole owner of all the land. The first example of this in America was when the Calvert family was granted their control over what would become the Maryland colony by the English monarchy.
Compromise Tariff of 1833
A compromise proposed by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun as a resolution to the Nullification Crisis. It was adopted to gradually reduce the rates after southerners objected to the protectionism found in the Tariff of 1832 and the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which had prompted South Carolina to threaten secession from the Union. This Act stipulated that import taxes would gradually be cut over the next decade until, by 1842, they matched the levels set in the Tariff of 1816—an average of 20%. The compromise reductions lasted only two months into their final stage before protectionism was reinstated by the Black Tariff of 1842.
Three-fifths Compromise
A compromise reached between delegates from southern states and those from northern states during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. The debate was over if, and if so, how, slaves would be counted when determining a state's total population for constitutional purposes. The compromise was proposed by delegates James Wilson and Roger Sherman. The compromise which was finally agreed upon—of counting "all other persons" as only three-fifths of their actual numbers—reduced the representation of the slave states relative to the original proposals, but improved it over the Northern position. An inducement for slave states to accept the Compromise was its tie to taxation in the same ratio, so that the burden of taxation on the slave states was also reduced.
Second Continental Congress
A convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress acted as the de facto national government of what became the United States.
Constitutional Convention
A convention that took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. Although the Convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention. The result of the Convention was the creation of the United States Constitution, placing the Convention among the most significant events in the history of the United States.
Yorktown
A decisive victory in ______, Virginia in October 1781 by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by British lord and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. The culmination of the _____ campaign, the siege proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War, as the surrender by Cornwallis, and the capture of both him and his army, prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict. The battle boosted faltering American morale and revived French enthusiasm for the war, as well as undermining popular support for the conflict in Britain.
Suffolk Resolves
A declaration made on September 9, 1774 by the leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, of which Boston is the major city. The declaration rejected the Massachusetts Government Act and resolved on a boycott of imported goods from Britain unless the Intolerable Acts were repealed. The Resolves were recognized by statesman Edmund Burke as a major development in colonial animosity leading to adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence from Kingdom of Great Britain in 1776, and he urged British conciliation with the American colonies, to little effect. The First Continental Congress endorsed the Resolves on September 17, 1774.
Benjamin Franklin
A delegate from Pennsylvania whom the British had appointed Postmaster General of the North American colonies and was especially sensitive to the need for cooperation. He put forth the "Plan of Union" that was adopted by the Albany Conference. His proposal would have placed Indian affairs, western settlement, and other items of mutual interest under the authority of a grand council composed of representatives elected by the colonial assemblies and led by a British-appointed president. The British feared it would be an entity they couldn't control and the colonial governments feared they would lose their autonomy so his plan was rejected by both. He was struck by the oddity that the Indians who were "savages" could form a union and yet it would be impractical for the colonies.
John Slidell
A diplomat sent by Polk to buy California, New Mexico, and Texas from the Mexicans. Mexico rejected his offer and Polk sent Taylor's army into Mexico., Polk dispatched him to Mexico City as minister in 1845 to present a maximum offer of $25 million for California and the land to the east. John Slidell was not even permitted to present his offer by the proud Mexican people. This rejection frustrated Polk and forced him to prepare a showdown. He proposed that on the basis of this rejection, along with unpaid claims, Congress should declare war on Mexico. However, two cabinet members felt that Mexico should fire the first shots, and they did in 1846.
SC Ordinance of Nullification
A document that declared the Tariff of 1828 and 1832 null and void within the state borders of South Carolina. It began the Nullification Crisis. The protest that led to it was caused by the belief that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 favored the North over the South. This led to an emphasis on the differences between the two regions. Passed by the South Carolina state convention on November 24, 1832, it led, on December 10, to President Andrew Jackson's proclamation against South Carolina, the Nullification Proclamation of 1832, which sent a naval flotilla and a threat of sending government ground troops to enforce the tariffs. In the face of the military threat, and following a Congressional revision of the tariff, South Carolina repealed the ordinance.
SC Exposition and Protest
A document written in December 1828 by John C. Calhoun, then vice president under John Quincy Adams and later under Andrew Jackson. Calhoun did not formally state his authorship at the time, though it was known. The document was a protest against the Tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations. The document stated that if the tariff was not repealed, South Carolina would secede. It stated also Calhoun's Doctrine of nullification, i.e., the idea that a state has the right to reject federal law, first introduced by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.
Burr/Hamilton Duel
A duel between two prominent American politicians: the former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr, on July 11, 1804. At Weehawken in New Jersey, Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton. Hamilton was carried to the home of William Bayard in Manhattan, where he died at 8:00 p.m. the next day.
Webster-Hayne Debate
A famous debate in the United States between Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina that took place on January 19-27, 1830 on the topic of protectionist tariffs. The heated speeches stemmed from debate over a resolution by Connecticut Senator Samuel A. Foot calling for the temporary suspension of further land surveying until land already on the market was sold (this would effectively stop the introduction of new lands onto the market).
Booker T. Washington
A former slave who decided to respond to the Jim Crow laws by adapting to them. He graduated from Hampton Institute in Virginia, and in 1881, he established and industrial and agricultural school for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama. He preached the virtues of hard work, moderation, and economic self-help to his students, all the while they learned skilled trades. He said earning money would empower African Americans more effectively than a political ballot. He went on to establish in 1900 the National Negro Business League, which established 320 chapters across the country to support businesses owned and operated by African Americans.
Citizen Genet
A french ambassador, he was sent to the United States of America to gather support for the French regime in their war against Britain. Washington and his cabinet demanded Genet be recalled, but the regime that sent Genet was no longer in power, so Genet stayed in America
Oregon Trail
A historical overland route to the western United States extending from various cities on the Missouri River to the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory. The trail was opened in 1842, and by 1845 more than 3,000 migrants had made the arduous journey. A missionary, Marcus Whitman, guided nearly 900 immigrants to Britain, with motives to offset British control. After the coming of the railroad, the trail fell into disuse and was finally abandoned in the 1870s.
Preston Brooks
A hot tempered Congressman of South Carolina took vengeance in his own hands. The nephew of Butler. He defended his absent uncle's honor by walking into the Senate chamber and beating Sumner over the head with a cane until he was restrained by other Senators. He later resigned from his position, but was soon reelected. His actions outraged the North, and the House voted to censure him. Southerners, however, applauded his deed and sent him numerous canes to replace the one he broke beating Sumner.
Jefferson Davis
A leading southern politician of the 1850s, he believed slavery essential to the South and held that it should expand into the territories without restriction. He served as U.S. senator from Mississippi (1847-1851, 1857-1861) and secretary of war (1853-1857) before becoming president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865) during the Civil War. During this time he struggled to form a solid government for the states to be governed by. From the beginning, he lacked the power necessary for a strong government because the southerners believed in states rights. Aside from being sick, he worked hard with consolidating the civil government and carrying out military operations. The truth of the matter is that no one could have pulled it off successfully. As Confederate president, he led the South in their period of rebellion against the Union.
Cotton gin
A machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, allowing for much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. the first modern mechanical _____ was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793, and patented in 1794. Whitney's ______ revolutionised the ______ industry in the United States, but also led to the growth of slavery in the American South as the demand for cotton workers rapidly increased. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Roger Williams 1603-1683
A minister at Salem who was banished from Massachusetts in 1636 for advocating religious tolerance. He and his followers emigrated to the country surrounding Narragansett Bay. He was later joined by Anne Hutchinson and her followers. He began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a haven for religious minorities.
Paxton Boys
A mob of angry Pennsylvanians that reacted in an act emblematic of anger that these backcountry settlers felt about the restrictions in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. They butchered twenty Christian Indians at the small village of Conestoga on the Susquehanna River. When colonial authorities attempted to arrest the murderers, 600 frontiersmen marched into Philadelphia in protest. It would have ended in another bloody conflict if it had not been for the negotiations of Benjamin Franklin.
Annapolis Convention
A national political convention held September 11-14, 1786, at _______, Maryland, in which twelve delegates from five states-New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia-gathered to discuss and develop a consensus about reversing the protectionist trade barriers that each state had erected. Other states, minus Connecticut, Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia, appointed commissioners who failed to arrive in Annapolis in time to attend the meeting. At the time, under the Articles of Confederation, each state was largely independent from the others and the national government had no authority to regulate trade between and among the states. The final report of the convention was sent to the Congress and to the states, which asked support for a broader constitutional convention to be held the following May in Philadelphia. It expressed the hope that more states would be represented and that their delegates or deputies would be authorized to examine areas broader than simply commercial trade.
Gilbert Stuart
A painter from Rhode Island who painted several portraits of Washington, creating a sort of idealized image of Washington. When Stuart was painting these portraits, the former president had grown old and lost some teeth. Stuart's paintings created an ideal image of him.
Free Soil Party
A party created from the remains of the Liberty Party with the sole purpose of abolitionism. They wanted to abolish slavery not because it was morally wrong, but because without a lower class (like newly freed slaves) the Northern factory worker could never move up in the economy and that went against the American Dream. This shows the disorganized political world at the time.
Quitrent
A payment that freed a tenant from feudal responsibilities
Tippecanoe
A place in Indiana. The battle of Tippecanoe (November 7, 1811) occurred when General William Henry Harrison led an american army against a confederation of native americans led by Tecumseh. 1,000 Americans won a decisive victory, burned the indian town, and went home.
Salutary Neglect
A policy that stated any colonial rules and regulations deemed contrary to good business practice were simply ignored and not enforced. Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742, pursued this policy with the belief that it made little sense to tamper with a prosperous system.
Nominating conventions
A political convention held every four years in the United States by most of the political parties who will be fielding nominees in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The formal purpose of such a convention is to select the party's nominee for President, as well as to adopt a statement of party principles and goals known as the platform and adopt the rules for the party's activities.
Boston Tea Party
A political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. The demonstrators, some disguised as American Indians, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor, ruining the tea. This protest was made in response to Parliament's passing of the Tea Act. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution.
Essex Junto
A powerful group of New England Federalist Party lawyers, merchants, and politicians. The term was coined by John Hancock in 1778 to describe the main opponents of a proposed constitution for the state of Massachusetts. Over the following years the group expanded to include politicians from other New England states who were opposed to Democratic-Republican Party policies that dominated national politics. They supported Alexander Hamilton and the Massachusetts radicals. When Hamilton declined their offer, the Essex Junto tried to vie support from Aaron Burr, who accepted the offer from the Junto to have a place in the plot to secede from the Union. After Hamilton's death, they became even more extreme, and during the War of 1812, they were called "Blue Lights."
Spoils System
A practice where a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party —as opposed to a merit system, where offices are awarded on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity. The term was derived from the phrase "to the victor belong the spoils" by New York Senator William L. Marcy, referring to the victory of the Jackson Democrats in the election of 1828, with the term spoils meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.
Cult of Domesticity/True Womanhood
A prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the nineteenth century in the United States and Great Britain. This value system emphasized new ideas of femininity, the woman's role within the home and the dynamics of work and family. "True women" were supposed to possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. The women and men who most actively promoted these standards were generally white, Protestant, and lived in New England and the Northeastern United States. The cult of domesticity revolved around the women being the center of the family; they were considered "The light of the home". Although all women were supposed to emulate this ideal of femininity, black, working class, and immigrant women did not fit the definition of "true women" because of social prejudice.
Winfield Scott
A prominent Whig, he won his party's presidential nomination in 1852 but lost the election to Democrat Franklin Pierce, mainly because the Whigs were divided over the issue of slavery. In 1855 he was promoted to lieutenant general, becoming the first man since George Washington to hold that rank. he was still commander of the U.S. Army when the Civil War broke out in April 1861, but his proposed strategy of splitting the Confederacy—the plan thta was eventually adopted—was ridiculed. Age forced his retirement the following November.
Virginia (Randolph) Plan
A proposal by Virginia delegates that was drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to assemble at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Virginia Plan was notable for its role in setting the overall agenda for debate in the convention and, in particular, for setting forth the idea of population-weighted representation in the proposed national legislature. In specific, it favored large states in representation. It set up a bicameral legislature with a lower house that was based on popular election and seats were based on the state population. The upper house was elected by the lower house and proportion based on state populations. It was supported by Madison and Randolph and included a national executive and judiciary branch.
Tallmadge Amendment
A proposed amendment to a bill requesting the Territory of Missouri to be admitted to the Union as a free state. This amendment was submitted on February 13, 1819, by James _____, Jr., a Democratic-Republican from New York. In response to the debate in Congress regarding the admission of Missouri as a state and its effect on the existing even balance of slave and free states, _______ , an opponent of slavery, sought to impose conditions on Missouri that would extinguish slavery within a generation. Congress adjourned on March 4, 1819 without acting on Missouri's request for statehood. The southern members of Congress upheld that the Tallmadge amendment was unconstitutional because it put restrictions on states as a condition of admission to the Union and that the state should get to decide whether if slavery was legal within it's borders. The proponents of the Tallmadge Amendment argued that slavery was immoral and was tolerated in the Constitution only by necessity and ought to now be restricted.
Tariff of 1832
A protectionist tariff in the United States. It was largely written by former President John Quincy Adams, who had been elected to the House of Representatives and appointed chairman of the Committee on Manufactures. It reduced the existing tariffs to remedy the conflict created by the tariff of 1828, but it was still deemed unsatisfactory by some in the South, especially in South Carolina. South Carolinian opposition to this tariff and its predecessor, the Tariff of Abominations, caused the Nullification Crisis. As a result of this crisis, the tariff was replaced by the Compromise Tariff of 1833.
Dorothea Dix
A reformer and pioneer in the movement to treat the insane as mentally ill, beginning in the 1820's, she was responsible for improving conditions in jails, poorhouses and insane asylums throughout the U.S. and Canada. She succeeded in persuading many states to assume responsibility for the care of the mentally ill. She served as the Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War.
Report on Public Credit
A report submitted by Hamilton at the request of congress, this report analyzed the financial standing of the United States of America and made recommendations to reorganize the national debt and to establish the public credit. Called for full federal payment at face value to holders of government securities - Redemption - and the national government to assume funding of all state debt ("Assumption").
Andrew Johnson
A self-taught tailor who rose in Tennessee politics by advocating the interests of poor whites and their conflict with rich planters. Only senator from a Confederate state who remained "loyal" to the union. Republicans picked him to be Lincoln's running made to encourage pro-Union democrats to vote Republican. As a white supremacist, the new president was bound to clash with Republicans in Congress who believed that the war was fought to liberate blacks.
Letter from a PA Farmer
A series of essays written by the Pennsylvania lawyer and legislator John Dickinson (1732-1808) and published under the name "A Farmer" from 1767 to 1768. The twelve letters were widely read and reprinted throughout the thirteen colonies and were important in uniting the colonists against the Townshend Acts. The success of his letters earned Dickinson considerable fame. While acknowledging the power of Parliament in matters concerning the whole British Empire, Dickinson argued that the colonies were sovereign in their internal affairs. He thus argued that taxes laid upon the colonies by Parliament for the purpose of raising revenue, rather than regulating trade, were unconstitutional.
Caroline Affair
A series of events beginning in 1837 that strained relations between the U.S. and GB. American sympathizers helped out a group of Canadian rebels, settling near the border of New York. Sir Allan MAcNab (British) is sent to seize the Caroline (boat supporting the rebels), and set it on fire and sent it over the Niagara Falls. This story was dramatized, describing the horrible deaths of a dozen American men. British is mad that US is helping the rebels.
Coercive (Intolerable Acts)
A series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. These acts included the Boston Port Act, which closed Boston's port until they repaid the government for the spilt tea, the Massachusetts Government Act, which took away MA's self-government, the Administration of Justice Act, allowed for trials of royal officials to take place in Britain instead of the colony, and the Quartering Act, which required colonists to house soldiers if necessary.
Second Great Awakening
A series of religious revivals starting in 1801, based on Methodism and Baptism. Stressed a religious philosophy of salvation through good deeds and tolerance for all Protestant sects. The revivals attracted women, Blacks, and Native Americans. It also had an effect on moral movements such as prison reform, the temperance movement, and moral reasoning against slavery. This created new denominations and also strengthened the current ones. Total church membership rose from a few thousand to over forty-thousand between 1780 and 1860. New York was the "burned over" district because of all of its religious revivals. It emphasized self conversion/religious conversion, celebration of life and religion.
Confederation of New England
A short political and military alliance of the English colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. Established May 29, 1643, its primary purpose was to unite the Puritan colonies against the Native Americans. It also provided for the return of fugitive criminals and indentured servants, and served as a forum for resolving inter-colonial disputes. The confederation was weakened in 1654 after Massachusetts refused to join the war against the Netherlands during the First Anglo-Dutch War. However the confederation gained importance during King Philip's War in 1676. The New England Confederation was highly successful in terms of bonding the colonies together, and provided a basis for the further collaboration of Colonies in times such as the American Revolution. King Charles II revoked Massachusetts's charter in 1684 as a result of colonial insubordination with trade, tariff and navigation laws. This led to the Confederation's collapse.
Declaration of Independence
A statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was unanimously approved on July 2. A committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The term "____________" is not used in the document itself.
Thomas Hutchinson
A successful merchant and politician, he was active at high levels of the Massachusetts government for many years, serving as lieutenant governor and then governor from 1758 to 1774. Despite initial opposition to Parliamentary tax laws directed at the colonies, he came to be identified by John Adams and Samuel Adams as a proponent of hated British taxes. He was blamed by Lord North (the British Prime Minister at the time) for being a significant contributor to the tensions that led the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.
Burr Conspiracy
A suspected treasonous cabal of planters, politicians, and army officers allegedly led by former U.S. Vice President _____. According to the accusations against him, _____'s goal was to create an independent nation in the center of North America and/or present-day Southwest and parts of present-day Mexico. _______'s version was that he intended to take possession of, and farm, 40,000 acres (160 km²) in the Texas Territory leased to him by the Spanish Crown. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson ordered ______ arrested and indicted for treason. _______ was acquitted of treason, but the trial destroyed his already faltering political career.
Judiciary Act of 1801
A sweeping reorganization of the nation's court system, it reduced the size of the Supreme Court from six justices to five and eliminated the justices' circuit duties, it created sixteen judgeships for six judicial circuits. The division of states to create additional circuit and district courts further encouraged citizens to rely on the federal rather than state courts.
Cabinet
A system composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, who are generally the heads of the federal executive departments. The existence of the _____ dates back to the first President of the United States, George Washington, who appointed a ______ of four persons: Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson; Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton; Secretary of War Henry Knox; and Attorney General Edmund Randolph to advise him and to assist him in carrying out his duties.
Charles Sumner
A tall and imposing figure, was a leading abolitionist- one of the few prominent in political life. Highly educated but cold, humorless, intolerant, and egotistical, he had made himself one of the most disliked men in the senate. Brooding over the turbulent miscarriage of popular sovereignty, he delivered a blistering speech titled "The Crime Against Kansas." He condemned the pro-slavery men as "hirelings picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization." He also referred insultingly to South Carolina and to its white-haired senator Andrew Butler, one of the best liked members of the Senate. The insult angered Congressmen Brooks of South Carolina, who was the nephew of Butler. Brooks walked up to Sumner's desk and beat him unconscious with a cane (treat like a master punishing a slave). Brooks became a hero in the South, and Sumner became a martyr in the North. This violent incident helped touch off the war between the North and the South.
"Talented tenth"
A term that designated a leadership class of African Americans in the early twentieth century. The term was created by Northern philanthropists, then publicized by W. E. B. Du Bois in an influential essay of the same name, which he published in September 1903. He used it to describe the likelihood of one in ten black men becoming leaders of their race in the world, through methods such as continuing their education, writing books, or becoming directly involved in social change. He strongly believed that blacks needed a classical education to be able to reach their full potential, rather than the industrial education promoted by the Atlanta compromise, and demanded equal access to higher education for this group of African Americans.
Kitchen cabinet
A term used by political opponents of President of the United States Andrew Jackson to describe his ginger group, the collection of unofficial advisers he consulted in parallel to the United States Cabinet (the "parlor cabinet") following his purge of the cabinet at the end of the Eaton affair and his break with Vice President John C. Calhoun in 1831. Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet included his longtime political allies Martin Van Buren, Francis Preston Blair, Amos Kendall, William B. Lewis, Andrew Jackson Donelson, John Overton, Duff Green, Isaac Hill, and his new Attorney General Roger B. Taney. As newspapermen, Blair and Kendall were given particular notice by rival papers.
War Hawks
A term used in politics that referred to politicians who favored war. Before 1812 in the United States, Warhawks were primarily Democratic-Republicans from Western and Southern States who wanted war with Britain because they were undermining American honor and it could clear western lands of Native Americans. Doves were the opposite, people who preferred peace.
Treaty of Ghent
A treaty signed in Ghent, Belgium that marked the end of the war of 1812. The Americans signed because they wanted peace.The british signed because the war was too expensive and they had very little to gain. Both sides agreed to return to the same conditions that existed before the war.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
A woman who was dismayed by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and was determined to expose its terrible inhumanity, especially the cruel splitting of families, to the North. She wrote the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" which was a driving political force during the Civil War. It helped to crystallize the rift between the North and South. It has been called the greatest American propaganda novel ever written.
George Washington
A young militia officer sent by the governor of Virginia to expel the French from the upper Ohio. This was the first clash with the French in the Seven Years War. He had been forced to surrender. As his extensive military career continued, this would be known as his only surrender. He served as a general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies during the American Revolution, and later became the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. He was a very influential man both to public opinion and in the continental congress.
Gibbons v Ogden
Aaron Ogden filed a complaint in the Court of Chancery of New York asking the court to restrain Thomas Gibbons from operating on these waters. Ogden's lawyer contended that states often passed laws on issues regarding interstate matters and that states should have fully concurrent power with Congress on matters concerning interstate commerce. Gibbons' lawyer, Daniel Webster, argued that Congress had exclusive national power over interstate commerce according to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation.
Grimke sisters
Abolitionists and suffragettes. The sisters came from South Carolina in an aristocratic family, with an Episcopalian judge who owned slaves for a father. Both sisters became abolitionists, and after converting to the Quaker faith, they joined Society of Friends. In 1835, Angela wrote an anti-slavery letter to Abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison, who published it in The Liberator. They spoke at abolitionist meetings. In 1837, Angelina was invited to be the first woman to speak at the Massachusetts State Legislature. Sarah and Angelina Grimke wrote the Letter on the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexes (1837) - objecting to male opposition to their anti-slavery activities.
East India Co.
British joint-stock company, formed to pursue trade with the East Indies. When they fell into financial hardship, the British Empire passed the Tea Act to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the company.
Slavery
African vs. North American slavery-> part of the family in Africa with respect, worked almost same amount of time as owners Slavery was way different in North America, slaves worked for nothing, long hours Causes (why it became necessary): demand for cheap, constant labor for crops in colonies Effects Social: Slavery altered the social system of colonial society Profits of slavery lead to rich plantation owners Creates a social hierarchy Growing sense of white solidarity, racism Political: The growing need of slavery leads it to effect the policies of Europeans and colonies alike Virginia Slave Code- need strict control of slaves Royal African Company- monopoly on African slave trade Economic: Economically slaves cause high profits for merchants and plantation owners Triangle Trade (merchants) Mercantilism Plantation owners began making monster profits
Pet banks
After being re-elected, Jackson saw an opportunity to further reduce the power of the national bank that he hated. He ordered federal funds to be diverted from the national bank to selected state banks, that became known as Jackson's "pet banks". His action causes his opponents in the senate to declare his actions unconstitutional. Congress voted to deprive banks of federal deposits, and instead sent surplus funds to states for internal financial improvement
Field Order #15
After his march to the sea, General William Tecumseh Sherman (along with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton) meets with Black community leaders and decides to set aside large portions of land so that blacks can build their own communities after being freed. This field order guaranteed blacks military protection and 40 acres of land per black family (and a mule or horse to work the land). General Rufus Saxton was to implement the act under Sherman, and he settled over 40,000 blacks. The land was confiscated from Confederal White planters. Johnson later gave presidential pardons to the planters and evicted the blacks from the land.
Gadsden Purchase-1853
After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, the U.S. realized that it had accidentally left portions of the southwestern stagecoach routes to California as part of Mexico. James Gadsen, the U.S. Minister to Mexico, was instructed by President Pierce to draw up a treaty that would provide for the purchase of the territory through which the stage lines ran, along which the U.S. hoped to also eventually build a southern continental railroad. This territory makes up the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
Corrupt Bargain
After the votes were counted in the U.S. presidential election of 1824, no candidate had received a majority of the Presidential Electoral votes, thereby putting the outcome in the hands of the House of Representatives. To the surprise of many, the House elected John Quincy Adams over rival Andrew Jackson. It was widely believed that Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House at the time, convinced Congress to elect Adams, who then made Clay his Secretary of State. Supporters of Jackson, a Senator from Tennessee at the time, who won a plurality of those popular votes which had been counted (though not necessarily of all votes) as well as the greatest number of electoral votes, denounced this as a "corrupt bargain". The "bargain" that placed Adams in the White House and Clay in the State Department launched a four-year campaign of revenge by the friends of Andrew Jackson.
Ulysses S. Grant
Aggressive commanding general in the civil war that incorporated blacks in the war effort. Led troops in the siege of Vicksburg in July 1863. 1864, Lincoln gave Grant authority over all Union armies. Confronted Robert E. Lee's confederate troops and forced them to surrender in Pennsylvania after their defeat at Gettysburg. He launched 3 major offenses: 1) Destroy farmland in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley 2) Seize Atlanta, a major southern rail center 3) Pursue Lee's army and capture Richmond, the confederate capital
Independent Treasury System
Also known as "Subtreasury," was a system in which govt. funds would be placed in an independent treasury in Washington and in sub-treasuries. This way no private banks would have the govt's money or name to use as a basis for speculation. Van Buren called a special session of Congress in 1837 to consider this proposal, which failed in the House. In 1840, the administration finally succeeded in driving the measure through both houses of Congress. This also deprived the banking system from funds that could have aided it's recovery from the Panic of 1837.
Quakers
Also known as the society of friends. Known for wanting abolition and being socially and religiously accepting. They were English dissenters who broke from Church of England and preached a doctrine of pacifism, inner divinity, and social equity. Under William Penn, they founded Pennsylvania, a colony they hoped would be a safe haven for them and religious tolerance.
Henry David Thoreau
Also living in Concord and a close friend of Emerson. To test his transcendentalist theory, he conducted a two-year experiment of living simply in a cabin in the woods outside town. He used observation of nature to discover essential truths about life and the universe. His writings from those years were published in the book for which he is best known, Walden (1854). Because of this book, he remembered today as a pioneer ecologist and conservationist. Throughout his essay "On Civil Disobedience," Thoreau established himself as an early advocated of nonviolent protest. The essay presented Thoreau's argument for disobeying unjust laws and accepting the penalty. His own act of civil disobedience was to refuse to pay a tax that would support an action he considered immoral--the U.S. war with Mexico. For breaking the tax law, he spent one night in the Concord jail. In the next century, his essay and actions would inspire nonviolent movements.
Loyalists
American colonists who remained loyal to the British Empire and the British monarchy during the American Revolutionary War. They were opposed by the Patriots, those who supported the revolution. When their cause was defeated, about 15% of the Loyalists or 65,000-70,000 (of about 500,000) fled to other parts of the British Empire, in Britain or elsewhere in British North America. Most were compensated with Canadian land or British cash distributed through formal claims procedures.
National Woman Suffrage Association
American organization, founded in 1869 and based in New York City, that was created by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton when the women's rights movement split into two groups over the issue of suffrage for African American men. Considered the more radical of the two, this organization gave priority to securing women the right to vote, and the group often stirred public debate through its reform proposals on a number of social issues, including marriage and divorce. They look in general bigger picture, voting rights are just a part of their goals. They participate in civil disobedience, such as Susan B Anthony defying the law and walking in to vote. They also want it to be a national admendment that fixes everything at all. Having invited all woman suffrage societies in the United States to become auxiliaries of the association, the group had increased its ranks considerably by the time it reunited with its sister organization, in 1890.
Walt Whitman
American poet and transcendentalist who was famous for his beliefs regarding nature, as demonstrated in his book, Leaves of Grass. He was therefore an important part for the buildup of American literature and breaking the traditional rhyme method in writing poetry.
American Woman Suffrage Association
American political organization that worked from 1869 to 1890 to gain for women the right to vote. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the association was created by Lucy Stone, Henry, Julia Ward Howe, and others when two factions of the woman suffrage movement split on the issues of tactics, philosophy, and even goals. Considered the more conservative organization, the group encouraged male officers, supported the Republican Party, sought simple enfranchisement, and counted the abolitionists among its ranks. Its members also believed in the necessity of organizing on the state and local levels. They decided they would support the abolitionists and then they could work on getting SUFFRAGE and not necessarily the wholistic picture of the NWSA. They also work at it on a state by state basis because working on a national level sucks, step by step approach. To that end, they drafted a constitution that called for a focus on achieving the vote for women. Concentrating on organizing the state and local levels, the association encouraged auxiliary state societies to be formed and provided an effective grassroots system for the dissemination of information about the woman suffrage movement. After more than two decades of independent operation, the group merged with its more radical sister group to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Eli Whitney
An American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States. Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost many profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. He also invented interchangeable parts in 1793.
Oliver Evans
An American inventor, engineer and businessman. A pioneer in the fields of automation, materials handling and steam power; his accomplishments ranged from designing the first fully automated industrial process, to building the first high-pressure steam engine and first (albeit crude) automobile in America. Evans designed a continuous process of manufacturing that did not require human labor, a novel concept that would prove critical to the industrial revolution and the development of mass production. Later in life Evans turned his attention to steam power, and built the first high-pressure steam engine in the United States in 1801. Evans had dreamed of building a steam-powered wagon and would eventually construct and run one in 1805.
William Crawford
An American politician and judge during the early 19th century. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1815 to 1816 and United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 to 1825, and was a candidate for President of the United States in 1824. He was elected President pro tempore in 1811. When Vice President George Clinton died on April 20, 1812, Crawford, as President pro tempore, became the first "Acting Vice President" until March 4, 1813. Crawford was again a leading candidate for the Democratic-Republican presidential nomination in 1824. However, Crawford was put out of the running because of a paralytic stroke he suffered in 1823 that was brought on by a prescription given to him by his physician. He finished third in the electoral vote, behind John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He thus was still in the nominal running when the Presidential election ended up in the House of Representatives, due to the provision within the Twelfth Amendment giving a line on the House ballot to each of the top three candidates, but his stroke made him a non-factor there.
John Quincy Adams
An American statesman who served as the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. He also served as a diplomat, a Senator and member of the House of Representatives. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. He played an important role in negotiating key treaties, most notably the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated with Britain over the United States' northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, and drafted the Monroe Doctrine. He is best known as a diplomat who shaped America's foreign policy in line with his ardently nationalist commitment to America's republican values. As president, he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson. Adams was elected a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts after leaving office, serving for the last 17 years of his life with far greater acclaim than he had achieved as president.
John Jay
An American statesman, Patriot, diplomat, Founding Father of the United States, signer of the Treaty of Paris, and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1789-95). He was born into a wealthy family of merchants and government officials in New York City. He joined the New York Committee of Correspondence and organized opposition to British rule, hoping to protect property rights and maintain the rule of law while resisting British violations of human rights. He served as the President of the Continental Congress (1778-79), an honorific position with little power. His major diplomatic achievement was to negotiate favorable trade terms with Great Britain in the Treaty of London of 1794 when he was still serving as Supreme Court Chief Justice. A proponent of strong, centralized government, he worked to ratify the new Constitution in New York in 1788 by pseudonymously writing five of the Federalist Papers, along with the main authors Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. As a leader of the new Federalist Party, Jay was the Governor of New York State (1795-1801), where he became the state's leading opponent of slavery.
Bronson Alcott
An American teacher, writer and philosopher who left a legacy of forward-thinking social ideas. His status as a well-publicized figure from the 1830s to the 1880s stemmed from his founding of two short-lived projects, an unconventional school and a utopian community known as "Fruitlands". A transcendentalist writer and educator. In his schools he introduced art, music, nature study, field trips, and physical education into the curriculum, while banishing corporal punishment. He encouraged children to learn by asking questions. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights. He was an early advocate of a vegan diet.
John Locke
An English enlightened philosopher. He was famous for his liberalism became known as the "father of liberalism". This is due his belief of individuals (natural) rights. He influenced both American revolutionaries and the american constitution.
Missouri Compromise
An act that was passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. The 1820 passage of Missouri Compromise took place during the presidency of James Monroe. It was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott v. Stanford case, stating that the 5th amendment barred any law that deprived someone of their property (in this case, their slaves).
William Henry Harrison
An american general who won the battle of Tippecanoe. He was an American military officer and politician who went on to become the 9th president of the United States. He was also the first president to die in office, causing a brief constitutional crisis. Before being president he was a representative in the house and senator from the state of Ohio.
Samuel Chase
An associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. His political views changed over his lifetime, and, in the last decades of his career, he became well known as a staunch Federalist and was impeached for allegedly letting his partisan leanings affect his court decisions. Chase was acquitted by the Senate.
Samuel Slater
An early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution." He brought British textile technology to America, modifying it for United States use. He learned textile machinery as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry. Immigrating to the United States at the age of 21, he designed the first textile mills, and later went into business for himself, developing a family business with his sons.
Jonathan Edwards
An early american theologian who was best known for his effect on the great awakening. Gave the speech "Sinners in the Hand of an angry god" . Brought back emotion into the church.
George Whitfield
An evangelical Anglican minister from England who made the revivals of the Great Awakening an inter-colonial phenomenon due to his preaching. He made his first of several tours of the colonies in 1738. By all accounts, his preaching had a powerful effect. He began chastising his listeners as "half animals and half devils," but he parted by leaving them with the hope that God would be responsive to their desire for salvation. He also avoided sectarian differences.
Lynchings
An extra-legal trial and punishment performed by mobs which often led to the killing of innocent people. This was very common with southern redeemer groups such as the KKK. They often lynched for no reasons, but did it as a terrorist tactic. They lynched blacks who were exercising their new freedmen rights as freedman such as voting, education and working.
Popular Sovereignty
An idea proposed by Lewis Cass as a way to settle the problem of a state being slave or free pre-Civil War. The issue would be put to a referendum in which people in the territory could decide whether to join the union as a free state or a slave state. It was meant to lower the controversy around deciding whether slavery was allowed in a state or not.
Tobacco
An important natural resource that was grown predominantly in Chesapeake Region following the starving times in 1610. As its popularity grew in Europe the cultivation of this cash crop became essential. Many slaves labored, planting and reaping these plants. It had a direct effect on the economic and social structures that would dominate Virginian society for most of (late) 1600s-1700s.
Boston Massacre
An incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five male civilians and injured six others. British troops had been stationed in Boston, capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, since 1768 in order to protect and support crown-appointed colonial officials attempting to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. Amid ongoing tense relations between the population and the soldiers, a mob formed around a British sentry, who was subjected to verbal abuse and harassment. He was eventually supported by eight additional soldiers, who were subjected to verbal threats and thrown objects. They fired into the crowd, without orders, instantly killing three people and wounding others. Two more people died later of wounds sustained in the incident.
Tuskegee Institute
An industrial and agricultural school for African Americans founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881. Here, students could learn skilled trades while Booker preached the virtues of hard work, moderation, and economic self-help. The institute rose to national prominence under the leadership of its founder, Dr. Washington, who headed the institution from 1881 until his death at age 59 in 1915. During his tenure, institutional independence was gained in 1892, again through legislation, when it was granted authority to act independent of the state of Alabama.
The Panic of 1873
Another American financial panic based on an insecure currency compounded by foolish investing. The government also switched to the gold standard with the Coinage Act of 1873. With a limited amount of gold, there was also a limited amount of money to give out, so those in debt had a harder time gaining the money they needed to pay back the debts. The move to a gold standard led to deflation, creating the economic disaster that rendered thousands of Northern laborers both jobless and homeless. Also, the overspeculation by financiers and overbuilding by industry and railroads led to widespread business failures and depression. This crisis resulted in the National Greenback Party, which believed that the value of the dollar should constantly fluctuate and not supported by gold.
Zebulon Pike
As a United States Army captain in 1806-1807, he led the ______ Expedition, sent out by President Thomas Jefferson, to find the source of the Mississippi River in what would later be Minnesota in his first trip and then explore and document the southern portion of the Louisiana territory and to find the headwaters of the Red River in his second trip, during which he recorded the discovery of what later was called _____ Peak. The _____ Expedition traveled through present-day Colorado after his party confused their location. This led to capture by Spanish, who sent Pike and his men to Chihuahua, present-day Mexico and questioned by the governor. They were released later in 1807 at the border of Louisiana. In 1810 Pike published an account of his expeditions. He later died in the Battle of York in the war of 1812.
Republican Party
As a result of Kansas-Nebraska Act, a combination of antislavery radicals, old-line Whigs, former Jacksonian Democrats, and anti slavery immigrants formed this party. It was the first sectionally divided party and was committed to barring slavery from the western territories (mainly northern party). It included those who believed blacks should receive civil rights such as voting and those who favored colonization. Despite differences, they all shared a conviction that western territories should be saved for free labor. "Free labor, free soil, free men"
Washington DC
As a result of the residence act of 1790, this district along the potomac river became the capital district of the United States, it is not a part of any state. "taxation without representation". Created on land ceded by both maryland and virginia, but the land given by virginia was eventually given back in 1846.
Lord Baltimore (Geo. & Cecilius Calvert)
As a reward for loyal service, the king granted Lord Baltimore, a Catholic nobleman, control of Maryland. Lord Baltimore wanted Maryland to be a wealthy colony as well as a safe place for Catholics. He died in 1632, leaving Maryland to his son, Cecil. Son of George Calvert, Cecil Calvert set about making his father's dream come alive in Maryland (1634) He and Leonard are responsible for the founding of Maryland and its friendliness with Indians and policy of religious toleration.
Shays' Rebellion
Autumn of 1786. Farmers in the western part of Massachusetts were upset with their STATE government because they were hit hard by high prices and low taxes. They rose in an armed rebellion under Daniel Shays, they closed the courts in BerkShire, Hampshire and Worcester so that creditors can't collect debts or foreclose on farms. They marched towards a national armory, but were stoped by the loyal militia of the state. It led to the Federal government to reconsider the extent of its own powers at the U.S. Constitutional Convention, among influencing other changes to America's young democracy
Election of 1852
BETWEEN: Franklin Pierce (Democrat) and Winfield Scott; RESULTS: WHIG party splits over nomination Fillmore v. Scott because the Anti-slavery North liked him and the Southern Whigs disliked him. This doomed Whig Party - Democratic party united under Pierce (compromise candidate)! This also leads to formation of sectional parties instead of national parties. The only real difference between the two candidates was that Scott is antislavery and Pierce refuses to take a stance on slavery. VICTORY: Franklin Pierce (Democrat). This marks the end of the Whig party. It is split into two groups the Conscience Whigs and the Cotton Whigs. Yet, neither put up a major candidate.
Rush
Bagot Agreement - a treaty between the United States and Britain limiting naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, following the War of 1812. It was ratified by the United States Senate on April 16, 1818. The treaty provided for a large demilitarization of lakes along the international boundary, where many British naval arrangements and forts remained. Marked a boundary between U.S. and British North America around the Great Lakes.
William Grayson
Basically he was a South Carolina Senate Representative who wanted nullification of the Tariff of Abominations (1828). a Representative from South Carolina; born in Beaufort, S.C., November 2, 1788; State house of representatives, 1813-1815 and 1822-1825; served in the State senate 1826-1831; elected commissioner in equity for Beaufort District in 1831 and resigned from the senate; elected as a Nullifier to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1833-March 3, 1837).
American Colonization Society
Began in 1817. They argued slavery had to end, and Americans had to send black slaves back to Africa. It challenged slavery without challenging property rights of Southerners; Slave owners would be compensated through private charities or state legislatures; blacks would be shipped out of country to establish own country. In 1822, the society established the African-American settlement in Monrovia, Liberia. This proved impractical because between 1820 and 1860 only about 12,000 African Americans were settled despite the slaves population growing by 2.5 million in the US. It was altogether unsuccessful because it was too expensive, there were too many blacks to transfer, and many blacks and abolitionists were opposed it.
Sam Houston
Born in Virginia. He became a Cherokee Indian and lived with them for 3 years. Went back to white settlement and taught school, fought in Jackson's army, studied law, was elected to Congress, and became the governor of Tennessee. Became an Indian for 4 years and moved to Texas as an Indian trader. Fought against Santa Anna.
Frederick Douglass
Born into slavery in Maryland and knew neither his father nor his exact age. Douglass was denied public education as a child because he was a slave. However, his mistress (Sophia Auld) did secretly teach him to read and write, and he later went on to even teach other slaves how to read. He was able to escape by train (2nd attempt at freedom) after meeting a free black woman (Ann Murray). Douglass disguised himself as a sailor carrying the papers of a free black friend, and succesfully escaped. He went on to become a preacher and became involved with abolitionists.He was an early follower of William Lloyd Garrison, he later advocated both political and direct action to end slavery and racial prejudice. In 1845, Douglass went to tour Britain, following the advice of his abolitionist colleagues, in order to be safer from his former owner and to gain international support for abolition. In 1847, he returned to the US and started the anti slavery journal The North Star. He gave firsthand accounts of the brutality of slavery. This journal not only spread the message supporting abolition, but also supported rights for all races and genders as well. At this point, he ideologically split from William Lloyd Garrison.
Andrew Oliver
Boston's Stamp distributor who was was strung up as an effigy along with several other British officials during the protest at the Liberty Tree on August 14th. The restless crowd then invaded and vandalized his office as well as his home.
British forts in the NW
British soldiers just never left forts that they occupied during the war and they are waiting for the U.S. government to fail so they can reclaim their colonies. The articles of confederation government cannot raise the money or army to remove the british soldiers, so they remain there.
Election of 1844
Candidates: Henry Clay (Whigs- in an upset over Van Buren) and James Polk (Democrat). Polk favored expansion, demanded that Texas and Oregon be added to the US and Clay had already spoken out against annexation. Polk won the election by the difference of one state (NY, because some of its votes went to the Liberty Party candidate, Birney, losing Clay the state). Birney was an anti-slavery candidate and Polk was an expansionist that even bought and sold slaves from The White House.
Abby Kelley
Caused controversy in a committee that was previously all men when elected into the committee.Started as a Quaker teacher in Massachusetts, then began circulating anti-slavery petitions. Then gave an abolitionist speech to a convention of antislavery women. Kelley left her teaching so she could fully be devoted to anti-slavery and women's rights. She led the way for young women in unconventional ways of life.
Prison reform
Changes in the mid-19th century aiming to transform prisoners into better people. The Auburn system (1816) separated prisoners at night but then kept them together during the day, while the Philadelphia system (1790) always kept prisoners separate so as to inspire self-reflection and reform. France began sending away its repeat offenders as the century went on.
Charles Grandison Finney
Charismatic evangelist who brought the Second Great Awakening to its crest. He abandoned a promising career as a lawyer and became an itinerant preacher. His most success came during a series of revivals in towns along the Erie Canal, that Finney called "the burned-over district". He also made the "anxious bench" for sinners to pray and was was against slavery and alcohol. He preached that people chose to sin and had control of their own fate. He encouraged followers to join in moral reforms and spoke out against slavery.
Charles Beard's thesis
Charles Beard wrote a novel, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States describing the economic motives of the Constitutional Figures. His thesis is that the Constitution was done by counter-revolutionary bond holders only interested in personal gain instead of public. It was an interpretation of how the economic interests of the members of the Constitutional Convention affected their votes and emphasized the polarity between agrarians and business interests.
Black Hawk War
Chief Black Hawk of Sauk tribe in illinois and wisconsin said that he had signed a treaty but wasnt aware that they would have to leave. They led rebellion against US; started in Illinois and spread to Wisconsin Territory; 200 Sauk and Fox people murdered; tribes removed to areas west of Mississippi
Restoration Colonies
Colonies created following the Stuart restoration in 1660 when England again took interest in America. The grants marked the resumption of English colonization of the Americas after a 30-year hiatus. They given to pay off royal debts in return for loyal citizens' support of Charles II during the restoration. The colonies enabled England to control the East Coast, Carolina, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. These colonies had governments that made a social hierarchy geared toward a dominant wealthy class.
Robert E. Lee
Commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning most of his battles, all against far superior Union armies. His aggressive tactics resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower. He surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. By this time, he had assumed supreme command of the remaining Southern armies; other Confederate forces swiftly capitulated after his surrender. He rejected the proposal of a sustained insurgency against the North and called for reconciliation between the two sides. After the war, he supported President Andrew Johnson's program of Reconstruction and intersectional friendship, while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates.
Whiskey excise tax (1791)
Congress levied a federal tax on domestic and imported alcohol, earmarked to offset a portion of the federal government's recent assumption of state debts, part of the Fiscal Plan made by Hamilton. This legislation proved wildly unpopular with farmers and eventually precipitated the "Whisky Rebellion." Washington wouldn't put up with the rebellion and rode in a command of 13,000 militia and sent the angry farmers home without killing anyone.
Brook Farm
Could a community of people live out the transcendental ideal? In 1841, George Ripley, a Protestant minister, launched a communal experiment at Brook Farm in Massachusetts. His goal was to achieve a more "natural union between intellectual and manual labor." Living at Brook Farm at times were some of the leading intellectuals of the period. Emerson went, as did Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. A bad fire and heavy debts forced the end of the experiment in 1849. But this place was remembered for its atmosphere of artistic creativity, its innovative school, and its appeal to New England's intellectual elite and their children.
Franklin Pierce
Democrat (1853-1857), Candidate from the North who could please the South. His success in securing the Gadsden Purchase was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the Ostend Manifesto, the Kansas Nebraska Act and "Bleeding Kansas." Passions over slavery had been further inflamed, and the North and South were more irreconcilable than before. He succeeded only in splitting the country further apart.
Aaron Burr
Democratic Republican party, he was the third vice-president after barely losing to jefferson in 1800, he served on numerous assemblies and councils before the apex of his career when he was vice president. He killed Hamilton in a duel, and Hamilton's death marked the end of Burr's political career, with the exception of the ____ Conspiracy.
The Alabama claims
Diplomatic dispute between U.S. and Britain. The Confederacy paid British companies to built them battle ships that could harass union naval trade. The most famous of these ships was the Alabama, which sank 58 Northern ships. The damage to Northern shipping would have been even worse had not fervent protests from the U.S. Government persuaded British and French officials to seize additional ships intended for the Confederacy. The United States demanded compensation from Britain for the damage wrought by the British-built, Southern-operated commerce raiders, based upon the argument that the British Government, by aiding the creation of a Confederate Navy, had inadequately followed its neutrality laws. The damages discussed were enormous. Britain ends up paying 15.5 million in the 1871 treaty of Washington.
Compromise of 1850
Drafted by Henry Clay. Admitted California as a free state. Allowed the territorial legislatures of New Mexico and Utah to settle the question of slavery in those areas (popular sovereignty); set up a stringent federal law for the return of runaway slaves (Fugitive Slave Law); abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia; and gave Texas $10 million to abandon its claims to territory in New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. It temporarily defused sectional tensions in the United States, postponing the secession crisis and the American Civil War. Also repealed the compromise of 1820.
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott sued for his freedom because while he was a slave at one point, he lived in both a free state and free territory so he his slave status should be erased. At first the city of St. Louis found in favor of him, then it was repealed and the state court found against him, then it was finally repealed to the national level. Decided by Chief Justice Roger Taney, a Southern Democrat. Majority of Court decided against Scott and gave three reasons. 1) he had no right to sue in a federal court because the Framers of the Constitution did not intend African Americans to be US citizens (like Marbury v Madison because they say in both you don't really have a right to do this). 2) Congress did not have the power to deprive any person of property without the due process of law; if slaves were a form of property, then Congress could not exclude slavery from any federal territory. 3) This made Missouri Compromise unconstitutional because it excluded slavery from Wisconsin and other Northern territories and basically makes slavery allowed in any territory. This decision intensified sectional strife, undercut possible compromise, and weakened the moral authority of the judiciary.
Conscription
During the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passes a conscription act that produces the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act called for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens, by April 1. Exemptions from the draft could be bought for $300 or by finding a substitute draftee. This clause led to bloody draft riots in New York City, where protesters were outraged that exemptions were effectively granted only to the wealthiest U.S. citizens.
State constitutions
Each state in the United States adopted their own one of these. The very first one was the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (October 25, 1780). Usually, they are longer than the 8,500-word federal Constitution and are more detailed regarding the day-to-day relationships between government and the people.
John Smith
Early English explorer of Virginia and one of the leaders of Jamestown. He worked hard to end the starving times and fight against the Powhatans.
Fugitive Slave Law
Enacted by Congress in 1850, it required the return of runaway slaves. Any black-even free blacks-could be sent south solely on the affidavit of anyone claiming to be his or her owner. This law stripped slaves of basic legal rights such as the right to a jury trial and the right to testify in one's own defense. A special commissioner, not a judge or jury, was paid $10 if a fugitive was returned to slavery but only $5 if the fugitive was freed. Those who refused to aid in the capture of a fugitive, interfered with a slave's arrest, or tried to free a slave already in custody were subject to a heavy fine and imprisonment. It is considered treason to not abide to this law. Widespread outrage in North -> like a bribe. Northern states enacted "personal liberty" laws and extended right of jury trial. Southerners saw this as a violation of Constitutional and federal law. Free black communities provided sanctuary and established vigilance communities. SECTIONAL TENSION
Thomas Paine & Common Sense(1776)
English American political activist who wrote most famously _______, which was about how the liberties the colonies desired would never be possibly under the rule of Great Britain. The writing explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence and inspired the people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
February 2 1848. The agreement between President Polk and the new Mexican government for Mexico to cede California and New Mexico to the US and acknowledge the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas. In return, the US promised to assume any financial claims its new citizens had against Mexico and to pay the Mexicans $15 million ($10 million less than what they would have paid earlier). The US doesn't take all of Mexico because they are different people that they do not want in their country (racism).
Lowell mill girls
Female workers who came to work for the textile corporations in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The women initially recruited by the corporations were daughters of propertied New England farmers, between the ages of 15 and 30. By 1840, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, the textile mills had recruited over 8,000 women, who came to make up nearly seventy-five percent of the mill workforce. As a result, while factory life would soon come to be experienced as oppressive, it enabled these women to challenge assumptions of female inferiority and dependence. As the nature of the new "factory system" became clear, however, many women joined the broader American labor movement, to protest the dramatic social changes being brought by the Industrial Revolution. First to go on strike (1834 and 1836)... birth of workers rights movements.
Elijah Lovejoy
Former Presbyterian minister; established a reform paper: St. Louis Observer; moved to Alton, IL. (Alton Observer); against slavery and injustices inflicted against blacks; is a martyr for the anti-slavery movement for he was killed by a mob in 1835.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)
Founded by John Smith in 1823, NY. Based of the second coming of Jesus. The coming would happen in the United States. Supported the idea of polygamy, baptism of the dead, and eternal marriage. Once Joseph Smith was killed, Brigham Young lead the group to Utah. Believed that Jackson County, Missouri is the Garden of Eden. America is the lost tribes of Israel.
Ku Klux Klan
Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party's Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black Republican leaders.
French Alliance
France fought alongside the United States, against Britain, from 1778. After the Battles at Saratoga, the French sent money, munitions, soldiers and naval forces that proved essential to America's victory over the Crown, but France gained little except large debts.The French goal was to weaken Britain, both to keep it from getting too powerful and to exact revenge for the defeat in the Seven Years' War.
March to the Sea /Shermans March
General William Sherman led 100,000 men from Tennessee on a campaign of deliberate destruction that went clear across the State of Georgia and swept into South Carolina. The troops destroyed everything in their path, burning cotton fields, barns, and houses -- everything the enemy might use to survive. Sherman took Atlanta on September 2 1864 and burned it to the ground, just in time to help Lincoln's prospects for reelection. He takes his army with a promise to get to the sea by new years and burns everything to the ground in his path. The campaign was completed in February 1865 by setting fire to Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. Before this, civilians were mainly left out of battles but Sherman said to hell with it and just completely disregarded the civilian/military lines and was very unethical. It was extremely destructive but also super effective.
Stephen Douglas
He introduced the bill to Congress for the Compromise of 1850 and later tried to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which had been set aside as a PERMANENT Indian reservation. This bill renewed the issue of slavery. He wanted to abandon the Missouri Compromise and let the settlers in each territory vote on it (popular sovereignty).
Samuel J. Tilden
He played a prominent role in the reorganization of the Democratic Party in the decade from 1865 to 1875, serving as the party chairman of New York state. During this period he played a major role in the overthrow of the notorious Tweed Ring, a circle of corrupt politicians who had defrauded New York City of an estimated $30,000,000-$200,000,000, and in the removal of several corrupt judges. Elected governor (1874) on a reform platform, he won national recognition for his efficient administration and for exposing the Canal Ring, a conspiracy of politicians and contractors engaged in defrauding the state. In 1876 Tilden was the Democratic nominee for the presidency. The bitterly fought campaign ended in a disputed election in which Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon reported two sets of returns. To settle the controversy, an Electoral Commission was created by Congress. Tilden reluctantly consented to the formation of the commission but failed to provide vigorous and direct leadership in the crisis. The commission decided all questions by a strictly partisan vote, thus giving the presidency to the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes.
Henry Clay
He represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives. He served three different terms as Speaker of the House of Representatives and was also Secretary of State from 1825 to 1829. He lost his campaigns for president in 1824, 1832 and 1844. Clay was a dominant figure in both the First and Second Party systems. As a leading Warhawk in 1812, he favored war with Britain and played a significant role in leading the nation to war in the War of 1812. In 1824, he maneuvered House voting in favor of John Quincy Adams, who made him secretary of state as the Jacksonians denounced what they considered a "corrupt bargain." He ran and lost again in 1832 and 1844 as the candidate of the Whig Party, which he founded and usually dominated. Clay was the foremost proponent of the American System and opposed the annexation of Texas. He also opposed the Mexican-American War and the "Manifest Destiny" policy of Democrats. He brokered important compromises during the Nullification Crisis and on the slavery issue. He was instrumental in formulating the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850.
Tecumseh
He was a Shawnee chief who set out to unite indian tribes against the American government. He had a rough time doing it but was able to unite some tribes under Tecumseh's confederation. He and his confederation were obliterated by General William Henry Harrison during the war of 1812. His defeat marked the end of indian resistance east of the Mississippi.
Thomas Hancock
He was a merchant in colonial Boston. He got his start as a lowly book shopkeep, but expanded into importing and exporting throughout the British Empire. He was also a smuggler, evading the British Navigation Acts by trading with Holland, which was forbidden. Thanks to lucrative contracts with the British government during King George's War and the Seven Years' War, he became one of Boston's wealthiest men. When his health failed, he passed his business and fortune to his nephew, John Hancock (dude with the big signature).
John B. Gough
He was apart of the temperance movement. When he was young, he went through many things that caused him to become a drunkard. He was eventually asked to sign the pledge by a Quaker and he became one of the greatest temperance speakers of all time.
Charles Willson Peale
He was one of the outstanding painters of the early American republic, and he painted more than a thousand portraits, mostly of American Revolution leaders. He founded the nation's first museum and first art school. His 1772 portrait of George Washington is recognized as the first authentic likeness of Washington. He continued to add paintings of national leaders like John Adams (1791-1794), Alexander Hamilton (1791), and James Madison (1792). His likenesses were realistic, accurate in detail, and sensitive to the sitter's personality.
Neal Dow
He was the prohibitionist mayor in Portland, Maine who opposed the sale and manufacturing of liquor in Maine. He supported the "Maine Law of 1851" and was criticized for the actions he took in the Portland Rum Riot.
Charles Sumner
He was the senator who had the crap beaten out of his head by a cane. Sumner returned to full time senate duties in 1859 and continued his fight for abolition. The north really liked him and the South really didn't. He was a strong proponent of the 13th amendment and fought for full political and civil rights for blacks. He even wrote the nation's first civil rights legislation.
Temperance
High rate of alcohol consumption prompted reformers to target alcohol as the cause of social ills. It began by using moral exhortation. Protestant ministers and others concerned founded the American Temperance Society. It tried to persuade drinkers to take a pledge of total abstinence. In 1840, a group of recovering alcoholics called the Washingtonians formed and argued that it was a disease that needed practical, helpful treatment. Various temperance societies had more than a million members. German and Irish immigrants largely opposed this movement, but lacked the political power to prevent government from passing reforms. Factory owners and politicians joined the reformers when they realized it could reduce crime and poverty and increase workers' output on the job.
Roanoke
In 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh helps establish this colony. This was the first British attempt at colonization. A failed "lost" colony. When Sir Walter Raleigh left in search of more supplies and returned in 1590, he found no sign of life. He saw the words CROATOAN on a tree trunk, an Indian village nearby.
Jamestown
In 1607, Virginia company sponsored English colonization in this town in Virginia. It was the first permanent English settlement. English men didn't want to work/build colony. It was a swampy area and hard to grow crops, causing them to rely on the Indians support. The Indians grew to resent this and stopped helping, causing many of the settlers in this colony to die. When more colonists were sent during the next year, they started a protracted war against the confederacy, ending after the capture of the Powhatan Chief's daughter forced the Powhatans to sign a peace treaty.
"Revolution of 1800"
In 1800, the nation had a choice between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Federalists feared that Jefferson would return power to the states, dismantle the army and navy, and overturn Hamilton's financial system. The Republicans charged that the Federalists, by creating a large standing army, imposing heavy taxes, and using federal troops and the federal courts to suppress dissent, had shown contempt for the liberties of the American people. They worried that the Federalists' ultimate goal was to centralize power in the national government and involve the United States in the European war on the side of Britain.
"Fifty-four Forty or Fight"
In 1818, the United States and the United Kingdom (controlling British Canada) established a joint claim over the Oregon Territory - the region west of the Rocky Mountains and between 42° North and 54°40' North (the southern boundary of Russia's Alaska territory). Polk won the election and agreed to take the 49 boundary because the northern land was worthless and not worth the trouble.
Thomas R. Dew
In 1832 he published a review of the celebrated slavery debate of 1831-32 in the Virginia General Assembly, Professor at William and Mary College who led the way for southerners who refused to apologize about slavery. In his Review of the Debate of the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832 (1832) he argued that: the natural increase of the slave population doomed any plan of gradual emancipation and the colonization to failure; the circumstances of southern life and conditions of human inequality (i.e. the innate inferiority of blacks) required the existence of slavery—BS; the Bible, Aristotle, and Edmund Burke all condoned slavery.
Samuel Gridley Howe
In 1832, he became the first director of the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind (now Perkins School for the Blind), the first such institution in the United States. He directed the school for the rest of his life.
American Anti-slavery Society
In 1833, William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionist founded this society. Before this starting in 1831, Garrison had been publishing The Liberator, an abolitionist movement, that started the radical abolitionist movement that led to the society's creation. The society advocated immediate abolition of slavery in every state and territory without compensating the slaveowners. Within the society, Garrison stepped up his attacks on slavery by condemning and burning the Constitution as a proslavery document and argued "no Union with slaveholders" until they repented for their sins by freeing the slaves.
Winfield Scott
In charge of the Union army. He was very smart, and he came up with the idea to block the South ports. He estimated the war would last 2-3 years. Everyone thought they were stupid, but he was right. He got fired, even though they followed his original plan.
Pottawatomie Creek
In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence (Kansas) by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers (some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles) killed five settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. This was one of the many bloody episodes in Kansas preceding the American Civil War, which came to be known collectively as Bleeding Kansas. Bleeding Kansas was due to the Missouri Compromise and Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Wade Davis Bill (1864)
In response to the 10 percent plan, congress proposed a less lenient path towards letting states back into the union. The bill required the majority of the voters of a state to take a loyalty oath and permitted only non-Confederates to vote for a new state constitution. It also required the state to abolish slavery and repudiate it's act of secession, and to refuse to honor it's wartime debts. Lincoln vetoed it.
Midnight Judges
In the nineteen days between passage of this Act and the conclusion of his administration, President Adams quickly filled as many of the newly created circuit judgeships as possible. The new judges were known as the Midnight Judges because Adams was said to be signing their appointments at midnight prior to President Thomas Jefferson's inauguration.
Western land problem
In the peace of Paris, the U.S. pushed their western border all the way to the Mississippi River. However, the Articles of Confederation government was really poor so they had to sell the land super cheap to companies such as the Ohio company and to individual families. More problems include Indians already on the land, and the Spanish who took control of the Mississippi River. Existing states claimed large portions of the area and argued with each other over it, which is bad for nationalism. People start moving west when the land is super cheap, and the northwest ordinance sets up republican principles and the opportunity for self-government. This problem was able to be solved (or at least improved upon) when colonies started ceding their land, following Virginia's lead.
Election of 1856
In this presidential election, Democrat James Buchanan (chosen to run over President Pierce and Stephen Douglas because they were too closely identified with the Kansas-Nebraska Act) defeated Republican candidate John C. Fremont. Fremont was a young explorer and "Pathfinder." The Republican platform called for no expansion of slavery, free homesteads, and a pro-business protective tariff. The Know-Nothings also competed strongly in this election with Fillmore. He won the general election by denouncing the abolitionists, promising not to allow any interference with the Compromise of 1850, and supporting the principle of noninterference by Congress with slavery in the territories. Fremont still carried 11 of 16 free states.
Literacy test, poll tax, grandfather clause
Included in the Jim Crow laws were ways to disenfranchise the African-American voters. This became extremely popular in the 1900s after redeemer violence had stopped being as successful. The three common laws that passed through most of the Southern Legislatures that allowed all White voters to continue voting while preventing blacks from the polls. One law required that everyone who attempted to vote must be literate and were given literacy tests. Literacy rates among whites was very high, so this effectively stopped many African-Americans from voting. They also began a poll tax, which was too high for many of the low-income African-Americans. Finally to allow all low income or illiterate Whites to vote, many southern legislators included a clause that grandfathered that stated that if a man's father or grandfather had voted before 1867, that they could vote regardless of any other law: This allowed all whites to vote while very little blacks could vote before 1867.
Antifederalist Papers
It is the collective name for many papers published between 1780-1790 that discussed their dislike towards the issue of having a stronger central government and the U.S. constitution. Though some soley criticized the Constitution Of 1787 and urged its rejection. Others, however, were willing to accept the Constitution upon condition that a Bill of Rights be added to it. Also, unlike the _____ Papers, this was a vast and uncoordinated movement, unlike the federalist papers.
Federalism
It is the governing concept that consists of individuals following a covenant with a representative governing head. It also describes a government that its sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central and state (or provincial) governments. It was a political system arising out of discontent with the Articles of Confederation which gave little practical authority to the federal government. The party that formed based on this was in favor of the constitution, was a part of the push to get it ratified, and supported the offices of Washington and Adams.
Sons of Liberty
It was an organization of dissidents that originated in the North American British colonies. The secret society was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to take to the streets against the abuses of the British government. They are best known for undertaking the Boston Tea Party in 1773 in reaction to the Tea Act, which led to the Intolerable Acts (an intense crackdown by the British government), and a counter-mobilization by the Patriots. Their unifying name helped to promote inter-Colonial efforts against Parliament and the Crown's actions. Their motto became, "No taxation without representation." Notable members include Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, James Otis, and Patrick Henry.
Democratic-Republicans (Party)
It was the second political party in the United States, and was organized by then United States Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson and his friend and compatriot James Madison (then serving in the House of Representatives), in 1791-93, to oppose the Federalist Party run by Alexander Hamilton. The new party controlled the Presidency and Congress, and most states, from 1801 to 1825, during the First Party System. The party advocated for states rights, despised any form of anything related to tyranny, and didn't like strong central government.
Martin Van Buren
Jackson's hand-picked successor as President. He responded to the depression in a doctrinaire way, following a Jeffersonian principle of limited government, and refused to give government aid to businesses. In 1840, he convinced Congress to adopt an independent treasury system, in which federal funds were locked up in sub-treasuries that were separate from the banking system.
Bank War
Jackson's opponents issue the bill to recharter the national bank during Jackson's term to force him take a stance on the National Bank so that Henry Clay would have a campaign issue to get people to side with him. Jackson vetoes the recharter, claiming it to be a rich man's way to get richer by the acts of Congress. During the next election, Jackson wins by a landslide and takes this as a mandate of the people to destroy the national banking system. After firing one secretary of treasury who wouldn't comply, he decided to divert federal revenue to selected state banks, known as "pet banks." He also believed the only sound currency was in gold and silver and began a crusade to end the use of paper bills, and in the Specie Circular made it mandatory to use silver and gold to buy lands. This "war" was a disaster to the economy and often Jackson was blamed for the Panic of 1837 because of this.
James, Duke of York (James II)
James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, starting on 6 February 1685. Britain's political and religious elite increasingly suspected him of being pro-French and pro-Catholic and of having designs on becoming an absolute monarch. When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension exploded, and leading nobles called on his Protestant son-in-law and nephew, William III of Orange, to land an invasion army from the Netherlands, which he did. James fled England (and thus was held to have abdicated) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was replaced by his Protestant elder daughter, Mary II, and her husband, William III.
John Dickinson
John Dickinson (November 15, 1732 [November 4 (old style)] - February 14, 1808), a Founding Father of the United States, was a solicitor and politician from Philadelphia. He is known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his twelve Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, published individually in 1767 and 1768.
John Marshall
John Marshall was the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He held the secretary of state previously, and held both for a short time before Jefferson took over office.
Lincoln's assassination
John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865. Wilkes Booth was an actor and confederate sympathizer. He shot the president in the back of the head at Ford's Theater. Lewis Paine, Booth's accomplice, attacked Secretary of State William Seward simultaneously (with a knife). However, Seward survived the attack. Booth fled to Maryland then to Virginia, where the army/secret service tracked him down to a barn. Booth did not surrender so they set the barn on fire (although John Wilkes Booth died from a self-inflicted gunshot). The assassination was part of a larger plan to kill Lincoln, Sec. of State William Seward, VP Andrew Johnson, and General Ulysses S. Grant. 8 people arrested, 4 of them were hanged, 1 died in prison, 3 were given presidential pardons. Many Northerners blamed the Confederacy.
Vicksburg
July 1-4, 1863; Ulysses S. Grant laid siege on this city in Mississippi. Vicksburg was a key point for the Confederacy to control part of the Mississippi, and after Union armies captured Vicksburg (along with Port Hudson), they had control of the Mississippi, which was key for trading, and also isolated confederate territory east and west of the Mississippi from one another. This battle also dragged down Southern morale after the federal government/Grant's victory. It was a part of the 3 most important days, the turning point, in the war (July 1-3, 1863) because at the same time Gettysburg was going on as well. Grant pulls off a risky move by attacking by coming around the river and from underneath the confederate troops to lay a month long siege on the troops. The fort surrenders to Grant and now the Union controls the trade on the Mississippi.
Bull Run
July 1861; In the First major battle of the war, 30,000 federal troops led by McDowell attacked confederate forces. Confederate General Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson counterattacked with reinforcements and the federal forces retreated back to Washington. Many elite members of society (politicians/senators, wealthy) go to watch the battle. The battle was a wake up call that ended the illusion of a short war and also promoted the myth that the rebels were invincible in battle.
Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty
June 1846 Oregon; This treaty, of which terms were the same as two prior proposed treaties, extended the boundary between Canada and the Us along the 49th parallel to the puget sound while giving England Vancouver Island and shipping rights to the Columbia River. Most people wanted and cried "54 40' or Fight," but when Polk was elected president, he decided it wasn't as important as gaining Texas (and this area would be a non-slave state area) so he compromised for less land.
Kansas Constitutional Crisis
Kansas had two rival governments, both claiming to be the only lawful one. Guerilla warfare between the two basically broke out, causing bleeding Kansas. The Lecompton Constitution, extremely pro-slavery, was written and then boycotted by the Free-soilers, who wrote their own constitution, the Topeka Constitution. Buchanan vigorously backed the Lecompton constitution in order to appease the south and suppress anti-slavery agitation in the north. Steven Douglas, realizing that popular sovereignty had not worked, opposed it. He and Buchanan became bitter enemies, and the president decided to use all the power of the Democratic organization to crush Douglass politically. The Senate eventually approved the Lecompton constitution, but the House insisted that Kansans be given a chance to vote on the entire document. The Southern congressmen did, however, pretty much bribe Kansas by saying that if they approved the Constitution, they would receive a large federal grant of land. However, they turned it down by an overwhelming margin, choosing to remain a territory rather than become a slave state. Kansas was admitted as a free state in 1861. This has a huge impact on political parties because it starts the the breakdown of the two-party system. Both Douglas and Buchanan are both very important Democrats arguing different sides, causing a split in the political party.
Redeemers
Largely former slave owners who were the bitterest opponents of the Republican program in the South. Staged a major counterrevolution to "redeem" the south by taking back southern state governments. Their foundation rested on the idea of racism and white supremacy. Redeemer governments waged an aggressive assault on African Americans.
School laws
Laws in New England that required all children to go to school to learn to read and write (mainly so they could read the bible)
Gettysburg
Lee leads another offensive into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Lee hoped to force the Union to call for peace, or at least gain foreign support. His forces surprised Union units at Gettysburg, what followed was the most crucial battle of the war and the bloodiest, with more than 50,000 casualties. The charge led by George Pickett proved futile, and Lee retreated to Virginia, never again to regain the offensive. Day one was marked by the Confederates and the Union fighting for the high ground, which the Union succeeds at doing. Day two, the Confederates attempt to go around the Union forces and attack them from the front and the back. The Union BARELY survives. Day three, the Confederates decide to attack the middle assuming the sides would now be the most heavily guarded part of the front. This plan, known as Pickett's Charge, was marked with many issues, such as walking across an open field against an army stationed behind a rock wall, which you have to climb over two picket fences to get to. They lose half of the Southern army in this battle and Lee retreats to the South, never coming to the North again.
Antietam
Lee led his army across the Potomac into enemy territory in Maryland. He wanted to convince Britain to help with a major victory. McClellan found a copy of Lee's battle plans, and intercepted the attack. 22,000 soldiers were killed or wounded, bloodiest day of combat in entire civil war. Lee retreats but McClellan had a "bad case of the slows". Technically a draw on the battlefield, but north plays it off as victory. The battle could of ended the war if McClellan wasn't so cautious. McClellan was fired. Despite the draw, this battle was significant because it was the turning point in the war and leads to the Emancipation Proclamation. This battle is the North's first "big win" as they portray it, and was exactly what Lincoln needed to show the public the Proclamation and come off as a confident move.
Judicial Review
Legislative and Executive Branches are subject to review by the Judiciary Branch. Any laws of orders that come from the Legislative and Executive Branches can be declared unconstitutional and nullified by the judicial branch.
Chesapeake
Leopard Affair (June 1807) - A naval engagement between a British Warship (Leopard) and an American Frigate (Chesapeake). The British boarded and were looking for deserters from the British Navy, and took 4 deserters from the American ship after the American captain surrendered. The United States Congress backed away from armed conflict when British envoys showed no contrition for the Chesapeake affair and delivered proclamations reaffirming impressment. Jefferson's political failure to coerce Great Britain led him towards economic warfare: the Embargo of 1807, happened in an AMERICAN HARBOR.
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln uses his powers as Commander in Chief to free all enslaved persons in the states then at war with the United States. He called it a "military necessity". It stated that "all persons held as slaves within designated State and parts of States (those in the confederacy) are, and henceforward shall be, free." It is one of the most questioned documents of Lincoln's and many question Lincoln's true motives behind it. It is also ridiculed because it does not produce results immediately and takes time and military force to began to take effect. These claims, as Guelzo (video dude) argues, are false because Lincoln had been working toward emancipation his whole office and takes time to present this more radical proclamation because he first proposed (failed) attempts towards emancipation that were more economically beneficial for the slave owners and he was threatened with the possibility of others taking away any chances for emancipation being eliminated. Yet despite this, the document ensured the "saving of the nation" because "to save the Union was to emancipate and to emancipate was to save the Union." In this moment, there is no going back on slavery, for it is now a war about morals and slavery. The war would be ended with either abolishing slavery or keeping it.
William Seward
Lincoln's Secretary of State who favored abandoning Fort Sumter to avoid provoking a civil war, but also considered the possibility of inciting a foreign war (possibly with France or Spain) as a way to reunite the country.
Middle Passage
Middle segment of the forced journey that slaves made from Africa to America; it consisted of the dangerous trip across the Atlantic Ocean; many slaves perished on this segment of the journey. Ships carried a lot more slaves than they were designed, and the trip was torturous for these slaves. The stench and sanitation on board was terrible and many died of disease. Those that didn't die were often tortured for slight misconducts. Some chose to jump ship instead of be put to the torture of their unknown future. It was estimated that 1 in 6 perished during this voyage.
Lord North
Most of North's government was focused first on the growing problems with the American colonies and later on conducting the American War of Independence which broke out in 1775, beginning with the Battle of Lexington. Following the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Lord North proposed a number of legislative measures which were supposed to punish the Bostonians. These measures were known as the Coercive Acts in Britain, while dubbed the Intolerable Acts in the colonies. By shutting down the Boston government and cutting off trade, he hoped it would keep the peace and dispirit the rebellious colonists. Instead, the acts further inflamed Massachusetts and the other colonies, eventually resulting in open war during the Boston campaign.
Continental System (Berlin & Milan Decrees)
Napoleon's attempt to stop Britain's export and re-export trade with Europe and it was outlined in two Decrees issued by the Emperor. Berlin Decrees (Nov. 1806), declared by france, which declared that Britain was in a state of blockade and that no vessel coming directly from Britain or her colonies would be allowed into any port under French control. Milan Decrees (Dec. 1807), which ordered that all ships touching British ports before sailing into French territorial waters were to be confiscated.
Pinckney's Treaty (1795)
Negotiated by Thomas Pinckney, this treaty defined the boundaries of the United States with the Spanish colonies and guaranteed the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River, after ratification by both parties separately, it was proclaimed on August 3rd, 1976.
Carolinas:
North Carolina-part of Charles II first charter grant in 1663 (after a 30 year break), which stretched along the Atlantic coast from Virginia south to the northern limits of Spanish Florida. Virginians had already begun moving into the vicinity of Albemarle Sound in the northern part of this territory, and in 1664 the Carolina proprietors appointed a governor and created a popularly elected assembly. By 1700 it included 11,000 small farmers and large tobacco planters. South Carolina-Part of Charles II first charter grant in 1663 (after a 30 year break), but settlement in this area didn't begin until 1670 with the founding of coastal Charles Town (renamed Charleston in1783). Most of it's settlers came from the sugar colony of Barbados, a Caribbean colony founded by the English in 1627 when they were encouraged by liberal grants of land. They brought their slaves with them and gave the colony a distinctly West Indian character. By 1700, the population was more than 6,000, including some 3,000 enslaved Africans.
Harper's Ferry Raid
October 1859. White abolitionist John Brown of Kansas attempted to create a major revolt among the slaves. He led a small band of followers in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. His impractical plan was to use guns from the United States Arsenal to arm Virginia's slaves, whom he expected to rise up in general revolt, but it failed. Brown's raid was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee. The South saw the raid as an act of treason, and secessionist feelings were intensified. In the North, Brown became a martyr to the northern abolitionist cause. After the raid, more and more Americans understood that their country was moving to the brink of disintegration. John Brown had originally asked Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to join him when he attacked the arsenal, but illness prevented Tubman from joining him and Douglass believed his plan would fail and did not join him for that reason.
John Hancock
On April 9, 1768, two customs employees (called tidesmen) boarded Hancock's brig Lydia in Boston Harbor. Hancock was summoned, and finding that the agents lacked a writ of assistance (a general search warrant), he did not allow them to go below deck. When one of them later managed to get into the hold, Hancock's men forced the tidesman back on deck.Customs officials wanted to file charges, but the case was dropped when Massachusetts Attorney General Jonathan Sewell ruled that Hancock had broken no laws. Later, some of Hancock's most ardent admirers would call this incident the first act of physical resistance to British authority in the colonies and credit Hancock with initiating the American Revolution.[39]
Trent Affair
On November 8, 1861, Charles Wilkes, a U.S. Navy Officer, captured two Confederate envoys aboard the British mail ship, the Trent. Great Britain accused the United States of violating British neutrality, and the incident created a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Great Britain during the Civil War. The Union celebrated this as a victory against the confederacy, but Britain declared it an illegal action. However, britain didn't want war and continued to advocated a policy of neutrality.
Nullification
On United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional. The theory of nullification has never been legally upheld by federal courts. Between 1798 and the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, several states threatened or attempted nullification of various federal laws, including the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves, the SC Ordinance of Nullification, and Wisconsin's attempt to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act. None of these efforts were legally upheld.
Shakers
One of the earliest religious communal movements, they had about 6,000 members in various communities by the 1840s. They held property in common and kept women and men strictly separate (forbidding marriage and sexual relations). For lack of new recruits, the shaker communities completely died out by the mid-1900s.
Civil Rights Act of 1866
One of the first actions of the Radical Reconstruction. It was vetoed by President Johnson but overrode by Congress. It pronounced all African Americans to be US citizens, repudiating the Dred Scott case, and attempted to provide a legal shield against the operation of the Southern states' Black Codes. They were afraid the Democrats could repeal the act if they took control of Congress, so they looked to make a constitutional amendment to confirm the act.
Nueces River vs. Rio Grande
One of the first settlers to scout the area was Cpt. Blas María de la Garza Falcón in 1766. From before the end of the Texas Revolution, Mexico recognized that the Nueces River was historically the border of Texas from the rest of the country. However, the Republic of Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its border with Mexico, citing the Treaty of Velasco signed by Mexican President Santa Anna who agreed to the Rio Grande border after losing the Battle of San Jacinto. This dispute continued after the annexation of Texas, and was one of the causes of the Mexican-American War. After Slidell gets shut down by Mexico, Polk sends American troops to the Rio Grande. Mexico starts shooting, claiming Americans are on their land, therefore allowing Polk to declare war. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the dispute, with Mexico recognizing under pressure the Rio Grande as its northern border.
George Washington
One of the founding fathers of the United States and was elected in 1789 as the first president of the United States. He oversaw the creation of a strong, well-financed national government that maintained neutrality in the wars raging in Europe, suppressed rebellion, and won acceptance among Americans of all types. Washington established many forms in government still used today, such as the cabinet system and inaugural address. His retirement after two terms and the peaceful transition from his presidency to that of John Adams established a tradition that continued up until Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third term.
Hiram Revels
One of the two African Americans the Republicans of the South sent to the Senate. He was elected in 1870 to take the Senate seat from Mississippi. His placement. along with other African Americans in positions of power, caused bitter resentment among disenfranchised ex-Confederates.
Barbary Pirates
Organized pirates who plundered ships in the mediterranean and off the coast of Africa. They were paid off (bribed) by European empires but the United States cannot afford to pay them off once Britain stops doing it for them, and US ships get attacked and raided repeatedly and can't do anything about it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Originally a transcendentalist; later rejected them and became a leading anti-transcendentalist. He was a descendant of Puritan settlers. The Scarlet Letter shows the hypocrisy and insensitivity of New England puritans by showing their cruelty to a woman who has committed adultery and is forced to publicly wear a scarlet "A".
Sharecropping
Owning and working land was important for freed slaves. Many Blacks created small farms, although that land was taken back by President Johnson and returned to Confederate landowners. Sharecropping developed as a new system of economic exploitation. White planters tried to hire Blacks through "gang labor," although freedman refused this because it would take away their independence. Families would receive 20-50 acres with a cabin and supplies while they were required to grow a cash crop (usually cotton). They would be required to give half of the crops to the landowners. These high interest rates led to dependency and poverty. However, sharecroppers still had far greater freedom than in slavery. This system also allowed women and children to spend more time in their homes rather than on the fields.
Interchangeable parts
Parts that are, for practical purposes, identical. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. Methods for industrial production of interchangeable parts in the United States were first developed in the nineteenth century. The term American system of manufacturing was sometimes applied to them at the time, in distinction from earlier methods. Within a few decades such methods were in use in various countries, so American system is now a term of historical reference rather than current industrial nomenclature.
Force Bill
Passed by Congress on March 2, 1833 at the urging of President Andrew Jackson, the Force Bill consisted of eight sections expanding presidential power and was designed to compel the state of South Carolina's compliance with a series of federal tariffs, opposed by John C. Calhoun and other leading South Carolinians. Among other things, the legislation stipulated that the president could, if he deemed it necessary, deploy the U.S. Army to force South Carolina to comply with the law.
Indentured servants
People that would, in exchange for the cost of transportation to the New World, contract to labor for a master for a fix term. Most were young, unskilled males, who served for two to seven years, but some were skilled craftsmen, unmarried women, or even orphan children (the latter were expected to serve a master until they reached the age of 21). It wasn't slavery, but these people were treated as cruelly as slaves and 2/5 died during their fixed term. Many who survived and were able to raise the price of passage quickly returned to England. Those who remained became eligible for "freedom dues"--clothing, tools, a gun, or a spinning wheel to help them get started on their own.
Presidential Reconstruction
President Johnson's plan to reconstruct the Southern United States. It normally was very different from congress vision and created strife between the branches of government. The plan called for the quick re-entry for the rebel states, granting individuals with less than $20,000 in property immediate amnesty. In order for States to rejoin the Union majority (51%) had to accept the 13th amendment, renounce succession, and pledge loyalty to the Union. It also repudiates war debts (doesn't require their repayment). The plan was overseen by the executive branch and and approved the 13th amendment while going against the freedman's bureau and field order #15. Accepted the Southern States' Black Codes which reduced black freemen into a role of dependent plantation laborers.
Erie Canal
Proposed in 1808 and completed in 1825, the canal links the waters of Lake Erie in the west to the Hudson River in the east. In order to open the country west of the Appalachian Mountains to settlers and to offer a cheap and safe way to carry produce to a market,
Quartering Act
Quartering Act is a name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the 18th century. Parliament enacted them to order local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations or housing. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area.
Thaddeus Stevens
Representative in the house from Pennsylvania. A fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against blacks (supported blacks). In strong opposition to President Johnson, he was a proponent of Radical Reconstruction and in giving whites and blacks equal rights. He even thought Lincoln was too slow and should have enacted emancipation much sooner.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes' election did not go smoothly. The November election produced an apparent Democratic victory (Hayes was a Republican), but disputed returns from Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and Oregon, whose total electoral vote was 20, threw the election in doubt. Tilden had undisputed claim to 184 electoral votes, only one short of a majority, but Hayes could still win if he managed to receive all 20 disputed votes. Since the Constitution had established no concrete method, A Special Electoral Commission was put together, which gave Hayes all the votes, making him President. There were politics behind the decisions, however. This was known as the Compromise of 1877. After the withdrawal of troops, every southern state government had been "redeemed" - political power had been restored to the Democrats. Under Rutherford, there was great Railroad Development in the South, the somewhat abusive "Convict-lease" System arose, and sharecropping and the crop-lien system emerged. However, racial strife also emerged, hand in hand with the rising black middle class. This was also the age of the birth of the Jim Crow Laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, and the restriction of the franchise of African Americans.
Second Bank of the United States
Second Federally authorized national bank, 1816-1836. A private corporation with public duties, the bank handled all fiscal transactions for the U.S. Government, and was accountable to Congress and the U.S. Treasury. Twenty percent of its capital was owned by the federal government, the Bank's single largest stockholder. Four thousand private investors held 80% of the Bank's capital, including one thousand Europeans. The bulk of the stocks were held by a few hundred wealthy Americans. In its time, the institution was the largest monied corporation in the world
Fourteenth Amendment
Section 1: The amendment passed in July 1868 that states all people born/naturalized in the US are citizens. No state can take away a citizen's rights to life, liberty, or property, without due process. Section 2: Representatives represent a state's population (excluding Indians). If any male citizens 21 or older are denied representation, then that state's representation will be reduced. Also: Declares the confederacy null and void. It declares repayment to those in the Union but not those due to the Confederacy (Mississippi cannot ask the federal government for money they used in the way. Overall: This amendment was created primarily to protect the union from the South and to make sure that Blacks were not oppressed by white landowners in former Confederate states.
Webster-Ashburton Treaty
Settled the dispute over the location of the Maine-New Brunswick border between the United States and Canada as well as the location of the border in the westward frontier up to the Rocky Mountains. US got 7/12 (>1/2) of the disputed region between the Lake of the Woods and Lake Superior. US agrees to station troops off the Coast of Africa, calling for a final end to the slave trade on the high seas, to be enforced by both signatories.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh leads an English expedition of explorers and discovers the Roanoke area in 1594. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's brother; tried another English attempt at colonization; landed in 1585 on North Carolina's Roanoke Island (this colony eventually vanished) He financially supported colonization in Virginia in 1587.
Funding & Assumption
Some States have a lot of debt, hamilton proposes that the national government assume all of the debt and congress accepts the proposal. This strengthens national unity, promotes national economic growth and is all around pretty solid. (Funding act of 1790)
Navigation of the Mississippi
Spain takes control of the Mississippi, closes the massive New Orleans port to Americans, and cuts off the only way for farmers and traders in the western united states to export their products. Congress almost agreed to a proposed treaty by John Jay that would have yielded 25 or 30 years whatever claim the United States had to the navigation of the river through Spanish territory in exchange for privileges for eastern merchants in spain but they didn't.
Federalists
Statesmen and public figures supporting the proposed Constitution of the United States between 1787 and 1789. The most prominent of the advocates at that time were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay; they published the _______ Papers, which documented the tenets of the (early) _______ movement—that is, to promote and adopt the proposed Constitution. They developed into a political party that supported the precidencies of Washington and Adams.
Annexation of Texas
Texas decides to secede from Mexico and attempts to declare its independence which eventually leads to our adoption of the land as a state although it was feared that it would cause conflict with Mexico leading to war. Southern states in support of this as Texas brought slaves with it meaning it would increase agricultural profits
Election of 1796
The 3rd american election, the first in which parties ran against each other since Washington declined 3rd term. John Adams barely wins, representing the federalist party, with jefferson close behind, representing the democratic-republican party. Jefferson became the only vice-president to be of the opposite political party.
Maryland Act of Toleration
The Act of Toleration was passed on April 21,1649. The Act of Toleration granted freedom of worship for all trinitarian Christians in Maryland, but also sentenced to death anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus. Also, the act provided less toleration than had previously existed, but it extended uneasy protection to the Catholic minority. Once the colonial era ended, Maryland sheltered more Roman Catholics than any other English-speaking colony in the New World. Some argue that this act influenced future legal protections for freedom of religion in the U.S.
Rise of the Common Man
The Age of Andrew Jackson, around the 1830s. Jackson claimed the president should do whatever it was that the people wanted. He looked to help others and glorified the role of the common man, to the point that he became known as "King Mob". To that point, politics was controlled by the wealthy, and there was a fear of the common man. Jackson, however, glorified the common man, and soon there were all sorts of changes in office holding and voting rights to get rid of property and religious requirements. Politicians changed too, as campaigns soon became geared towards winning the masses.
Appomattox
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was the final engagement of General Lee's Army. Union forces pursued and cut off the Confederate retreat at the village of Appomattox Court House. Lee launched an attack to break through the Union force to his front, assuming the Union force consisted entirely of cavalry. When he realized that the cavalry was backed up by two corps of Union infantry, he had no choice but to surrender.
Monitor v. Merrimac
The Confederate ironclad ship the Merrimac attacked and sunk several union wooden ships on March 8, 1862. The union's own ironclad, the Monitor, engaged the Merrimac in a five-hour duel. Although the battle ended in a draw, the Monitor prevented the Confederate's formidable new weapon from challenging the U.S. naval blockade. The engagement marked a turning point in naval warfare, iron is better than wood.
Credit Mobilier
The Credit Mobilier was one of the scandals during Grant's presidency involving the Union Pacific railroad company. Lincoln finances in 1864 the construction of a transcontinental railroad 1864 by Union Pacific. It creates a fake company, called Credit Mobilier, to build the railroad, saying they will do the planning and the other company will build the railroad. What they did was saying the other company (Credit Mobilier) was charging them tens of millions of dollars more than they originally thought, so they could go back to Congress to get more money that they could then pocket. Also, some congressmen were in on it because congressman Oakes Ames distributed Crédit Mobilier shares of stock at lower prices along with cash bribes to congressmen during the Andrew Johnson presidency in 1868. Despite the start during Johnson's presidency, the scandal was not revealed until Grant's presidency in 1872, when it was revealed in 1872 in the New York Sun, which was against Grant's re-election. The story was leaked by Henry Simpson McComb, a future executive of the Illinois Central Railroad and an associate of Ames after a dispute with Ames. After the revelation, the Union Pacific went bankrupt.
Declaratory Act
The Declaratory Act of 1766 was an act passed by English Parliament that secured their right to pass any and legislation in the Colonies (allowing them to tax as they want)
Puritans
The English followers of John Calvin who wished to purify and reform the English church from within. They appealed to merchants, entrepreneurs , and commercial farmers, those most responsible for the rapid economic and social transformation of England. They were also the most vocal critics of the disruptive effects of that change, condemning the decline of the traditional rural community and the growing number of men without work, produced by the enclosure of common lands. By the early 17th century they controlled many congregations and became influential at universities. James I prosecution of this religious group only stiffened their resolve and strengthened their political opposition. The campaign and political turmoil provided the context or the migration of thousands of these people to New England.
Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was a cultural movement of the 1700-1800s based on individualism and reason rather than tradition and piety. It created a further advance in knowledge and scientific method while challenging traditional ideals.
Naval battles at Tripoli
The First Battle of Tripoli Harbor was a naval battle fought on May 16, 1802 in Tripoli harbor between a combined force consisting of the American frigate USS Boston and two Swedish frigates against several Tripolitian (Ottoman empire) corsairs. The Swedish-American force was enforcing the blockade when an engagement broke out between it and Tripolitian forces. The Allied fleet damaged the Tripolitian squadron as well as the harbor fortifications before withdrawing and resuming the blockade.
Fletcher v Peck
The Georgia legislature overwhelmingly approved the land grant: the Yazoo Land Act of 1795. However, it was revealed that the Yazoo Land Act had been approved in return for bribes; after the scandal was exposed, voters repealed the law and voided transactions made under it. Robert Fletcher, and especially John Peck, were speculators in the Yazoo lands. Fletcher bought a tract of land from Peck while the 1795 act was still in force. Fletcher later (1803) brought this suit against Peck, claiming that Peck had not had clear title to the land when he sold it. Both Fletcher's and Peck's land holdings would be secured if the Supreme Court decided that Indians did not hold original title—and so Fletcher set out to lose the case. The resulting case reached the Supreme Court which ruled that the state legislature's repeal of the law was void because it was unconstitutional. The first case in which the Supreme Court ruled a state law unconstitutional, the decision also helped create a growing precedent for the sanctity of legal contracts, and hinted that Native Americans did not hold title to their own lands.
George III
The King of Great Britain. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, many of its American colonies were soon lost in the American Revolutionary War. He desperately wanted to keep the colonies, but wouldn't diminish the supremacy of Parliament, adding to the fire that would create the American Revolutionary War.
Horace Greeley
The New York Tribune, one of the earliest "penny dailies" popular in the era, was established in 1841. Greeley also would publish a weekly nationwide edition of the Tribune, which won him and his views wide recognition. The Tribune set a higher tone than its competitors by avoiding sensationalism and offering regular features such as book reviews. Greeley was an early member of the Republican Party and, after initially supporting another candidate, helped to secure the nomination for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. This effort further widened Greeley's split from Seward, who had been the nomination front runner. Greeley's views on the secession crisis were the target of much criticism. He initially argued that the South should be allowed to secede. Later, however, he became a strong supporter of the war effort, but subjected Lincoln to searing criticism for refusing to free the slaves. After the war, Greeley supported a general amnesty for Confederate officials and angered many Northerners by signing a bail bond for Jefferson Davis; subscriptions to the Tribune fell by half. In 1872 Greeley received the presidential nomination of both the Liberal Republican and Democratic parties, but his candidacy was doomed from the start. Exhausted by the campaign and distraught with his wife's death, Greeley died a few weeks after the election.
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775, in a final attempt to avoid a full-on war between the Thirteen Colonies that the Congress represented, and Great Britain. The petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and entreated the king to prevent further conflict. In August 1775 the colonies were formally declared to be in rebellion by the Proclamation of Rebellion, and the petition was rejected in fact, although not having been received by the king before declaring the Congress-supporting colonists traitors.
Stamp Act Congress
The Stamp Act Congress, or First Congress of the American Colonies, was a meeting held between October 7 and 25, 1765 in New York City, consisting of representatives from some of the British colonies in North America; it was the first gathering of elected representatives from several of the American colonies to devise a unified protest against new British taxation. Parliament had passed the Stamp Act, which required the use of specially stamped paper for virtually all business in the colonies, and was coming into effect November 1.
Starving times
The Starving Time at Jamestown in the Colony of Virginia was a period of starvation during the winter of 1609-1610 in which all but 60 of 500 colonists died. The colonists, the first group of whom had originally arrived at Jamestown on May 14, 1607, had never planned to grow all of their own food. Their plans depended upon trade with the local Powhatan to supply them with food between the arrivals of periodic supply ships from England.
Townshend Duties
The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed, beginning in 1767, by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies
House of Burgesses
The Virginia colony's ruling body that was created in 1619 in an attempt to encourage immigration. The property-owning colonists could vote to elect its representatives. The majority of all of the leaders of the House of Burgesses between 1720 and 1775 were related by blood or marriage to one or another of the dozen or so great clans. No less than 70 percent of the 110 leaders of the House were drawn from families resident in Virginia before 1690.
N.C. Regulators
The War of the Regulation (or the Regulator Movement) was an uprising in the North American British colonies of North and South Carolina, lasting from about 1765 to 1771, in which citizens took up arms against colonial officials. Though the rebellion did not change the power structure, some historians consider it a catalyst to the American Revolutionary War.
Sugar Act
The act passed by Parliament that placed a tariff on the _____ imported into the colonies. The new tax was actually lower than the one in the books, but the difference was that this time the British intended to enforce it. They also broadened the jurisdiction of the court at Halifax to prevent smuggling to avoid the duty. Both merchants and artisans view the act as a threat to their livelihoods, and there were public protests in many port towns. Boston boycotted many English goods, a tactic that many other port towns repeated. It only really affected merchants though
Tenure of Office Act
The act passed in 1867 that prohibited the president from removing a federal official or military authority without the approval of the Senate. This act was passed as a political strategy by the Radical Republicans to protect the Radical Republicans in Johnson's cabinet, such as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. It was disputed that the act was an unconstitutional violation of executive power.
"Black Reconstruction"
The actions and activities of both black and white Americans in the period immediately after the Civil War (1863-1877). It involved the transformation of Southern political, economic, and social institutions in a manner consistent with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which collectively established black freedom and equality. These social changes included the redefining of family roles, a thirst for education, and the creation of the base for the modern black community. It was accompanied by a shift from the labor of slavery to the riding of the free market and urbanization while the roots of black politics were formed and began to emerge. These were also accompanied by the legal moves of the Southern governments, bringing the the South its first public school systems, asylums, and roads. They also modernized the South by building railroads and providing social services like free public schooling through statewide taxes for education systems, including Freedmen's academies and black colleges. See Foner summary paper.
Fifteenth Amendment
The amendment passed in 1869 to secure the vote of African Americans. Section 1: Neither the US government nor any state can deny the right to vote (based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude). Section 2: Congress can enforce this with appropriate legislation. Overall: Blacks cannot be denied the right to vote (primarily in the South).
Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner
The annual fundraising celebration (dinner) held by Democratic Party organizations in the United States around February or March. It is named for Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. During presidential election campaigns, certain dinners are considered important venues for candidates to attend. Many state Democratic Parties have used the day to highlight local party leaders.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best known transcendentalist, he was a very popular American speaker. His essays and lectures expressed the individualistic and nationalistic spirit of Americans by urging them not to imitate European culture but to create a distinctive American culture. He argued for self-reliance, independent thinking, and the primacy of spiritual matters over material ones. A northerner who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, he became a leading critic of slavery in the 1850s and then an ardent supporter of the Union during the Civil War.
Anne Hutchinson
The brilliant and outspoken wife of a Puritan merchant; she criticized a number of Boston ministers in 1637. She believed that their concentration on good works led people to believe they could earn their way to heaven. She was called before the General Court, and in an extraordinary hearing, she was reprimanded, excommunicated, and banished. She and a group of followers relocated to the Williams colony on Narragansett Bay.
Burning of Washington DC
The british landed troops in the Chesapeake bay and invaded Washington D.C. The american forces were untrained and did not have great equipment and were quickly defeated. President Madison barely escaped with his life and the Declaration of Independence. The British embarrassed the U.S. by burning their capital to the ground. This was revenge for the Americans burning York (Capital of British Canada).
Freedman's Bureau (March 1865)
The bureau aced as an early welfare agency, providing food, shelter, and medical aid for those made destitute by the war, both blacks and homeless whites. At first this bureau had authority to resettle blacks on confiscated lands of confederates, but President Johnson later pardoned the confederate owners and gave them their land back. The bureau's greatest success was in education. Under the able leadership of General Oliver O. Howard, it established nearly 3,000 schools for freed blacks and several colleges. They taught an estimated 200,000 Africans Americans how to read.
William Henry Harrison
The candidate of the Whig party in the 1840 election with the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" campaign. He was a military hero whose humble backgrounds were emphasized for propaganda. This campaign also marked the start of name-calling as propaganda. His win was also partially due to the people's blame of democratic economic policies for the Panic of 1837 and he won the ballot with 53% of the vote. However, he died a month into office after catching pneumonia during his inauguration speech, being the first president to die in office, and his vice president John Tyler took over.
Dartmouth v Woodward
The case arose when the New Hampshire legislature attempted to force the college to become a public institution and thereby place the ability to appoint trustees in the hands of the governor of New Hampshire. This led to a decision from the United States Supreme Court dealing with the application of the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution to private corporations. The Supreme Court upheld the sanctity of the original charter of the college, stating that a charter is a contract and therefore a state can't alter it because it would be against the Constitution. The decision settled the nature of public versus private charters and resulted in the rise of the American business corporation and the American free enterprise system.
Plessy v. Ferguson
The case in 1896 in which the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring "separate but equal accommodations" for white and black passengers on railroads. The case was called forth because in 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law (the Separate Car Act) that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. Concerned, a group of prominent black, creole, and white New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) dedicated to repeal the law. They eventually persuaded Homer Plessy, a man of mixed race, to participate in an orchestrated test case. The Court ruled that the Louisiana law did not violate the 14th Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws." This decision supported the wave of segregation laws (Jim Crow laws) that the South began adopting in the 1870s.
Thomas Jefferson
The credited writer of declaration of independence. He followed much of Lockes beliefs on the natural right of humans , 3rd president of the United States
Electoral College
The collection of ______ that vote for president and vice president. In the original plan, the person who got the most votes, which also had to be more than half the votes, would become president and the second place winner would be the vice president. This was changed later on. The number of of ____ per state is based on the number of representatives in the House and the Senate of that state.
Georgia
The colony created to establish a buffer against Spanish invasion from Florida and make a haven for poor British farmers who could sell their products in the markets of South Carolina. Under the influence of James Oglethorpe, Parliament agreed to prohibit slavery here because it makes it harder for poor farmers to get jobs. Despite this rule, many started colonizing the area from South Carolina and brought their slaves with them. By the time Oglethorpe and his trustees opened the colony to slavery in 1752, the Georgia coast had already become an extension of the Carolina lowcountry slave system.
Joint Stock Companies
The companies or groups of investors that King James I, the English king, issued royal charters to so that the companies could fund and encourage the colonization of the mid-Atlantic region, which the English called Virginia. They raised their capital by selling shares.
7 Years (French and Indian) War
The conflict between Great Britain and France for control over North America that was part of a global conflict between England/Prussia and France/Austria/Russia/Spanish. The three major points of conflict were in the Acadia/Nova Scotia region, the border between New France and New York over Indian trade, and the Ohio country over the rich farming country. The first two years were a near catastrophe for Great Britain. Indians pounded backcountry settlements, killed thousands of settlers, and raided deep into the coastal colonies, throwing British colonies into a panic. French Canadians captured British forts in northern New York. The lack of colonial cooperation greatly hampered the British attempt to mount a counterattack. William Pitt helped reverse the conflict when he committed himself (and 20,00 British troops) to the conquest of Canada and the final elimination of French competition in North America.
Repeal of Whiskey tax
The controversial whiskey tax that had provoked a rebellion (The Whiskey Rebellion) was created by federalists, so when Jefferson became president he repealed it in 1801.
General Court
The court of Massachusetts that contained a governor (John Winthrop). In 1632, all male heads of house that were also church members were made freemen and could vote. It was a part of the procedures that provided the origins for democratic suffrage and the bicameral division of legislative authority in America.
Salem Witchcraft-1692
The cultural mistrust of women that came to the surface most notably in periodic witchcraft scares. In this case in 1692, the whole community was thrown into a panic of accusations when a group of girls claimed that they had been bewitched by a number of old women. Before the colonial governor finally called a halt to the persecutions in 1693, 20 people had been tried, condemned, and executed. It may have reflected social tensions that found their outlet through an attack perceived as outsiders, such as single women and those of different religions.
Proclamation of 1763
The declaration that the trans-Appalachian region was to be "Indian Country" that was made in order to appease the Indians tribes. British colonists had expected that the removal of the French threat would allow them to move into the West. They were outraged that the British would award territory to mortal enemies who during the war had slaughtered more than 4,000 settlers.
Panic of 1837
The economic depression that resulted because of Jackson's war on the banks and the Specie Circular, which involved a rapid increase in inflation. Some believed that Jackson was to blame because he removed vital banking policies that were necessary to check state-chartered banks. Others argue that it was out of Jackson's control because of the mass increase of cotton on the market, which aided in the depression. None the less, if Jackson wasn't completely to blame for this depression, his policies didn't aid America's recovery from it.
Ida B. Wells
The editor of the Memphis Free Speech, a black newspaper, who campaigned against lynching and the Jim Crow laws. She showed how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, often under the guise of rape charges. She was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, and traveled internationally on lecture tours. She was all for self-defence and argues that if African Americans are going to be attacked they should own a gun. Yet, death threats and the destruction of her printing press forced her to carry on her work in the North. She was also active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations.
The Election of 1876
The election between the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, and the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. Tilden won the majority of the popular vote (51% to 48%), but the electoral vote came down to three states in the South, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. It seemed that the Republicans were going to win the states, yet Tilden called it fraud because there is no way the Republicans could win the lower states, which were obviously swaying towards the Democratic side. Overall, the popular votes were so close in those states that it was heavily disputed and very controversial because without winning all states the Republicans couldn't win. It came down to the Compromise of 1877, in which Rutherford came out as the winner of the 1876 election.
Election of 1864
The fate of the Civil War depended on who would be elected president in 1864, so too did the fate of slavery/emancipation. Lincoln supported the more than 130,000 blacks fighting for the Union. Republicans joined with pro-war Democrats to create the National Union Party, which re-nominated Lincoln with VP Andrew Johnson (Dem, Ten.). Democrats chose General George B. Mcclellan, who opposed emancipation and wanted to negotiate an end to the war to bring the country back together. Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln, because of his "10 Percent Plan". These radicals nominated General John C. Fremont, although he later withdrew. At one point, lincoln confessed that he deemed it improbable that he would be re-elected. However, his poll numbers rose dramatically when Sherman captured Atlanta, and Lincoln won 55 percent of the popular vote.
James Monroe
The fifth President of the United States (1817-1825). Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation. He gained experience as an executive as the Governor of Virginia and rose to national prominence as a diplomat in France, when he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. During the War of 1812, Monroe held the critical roles of Secretary of State and the Secretary of War under President James Madison. The last president during the First Party System era of American politics. As president, he bought Florida from Spain and sought to ease partisan tensions. The Treaty of 1818 was passed during his time in office, securing the border of the United States along the 42nd Parallel to the Pacific Ocean and representing America's first determined attempt at creating an American global empire. In 1823, he announced the United States' opposition to any European intervention in the recently independent countries of the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine, which became a landmark in American foreign policy.
W.E.B. DuBois
The first African American to recieve a doctorate from Harvard and the leading black intellect of the era who would demand an end to segregation and the granting of equal civil rights to all Americans. He advocated for equality for blacks, integrated schools, and equal access to higher education for the "talented tenth" of African Americans. He also criticized Booker T. Washington for being too willing to accept discrimination.
Mayflower Compact 1620
The first document of self-government in North America. It was drafted by William Bradford to reassure the pilgrims that they were involved in decision making. It stated that all men of the expedition did "covenant and combine together into a civil body politic."
John Winthrop
The first governor of Salem, Massachusetts who called "a city on a hill," a New England model of reform for old England. In 1632, he and his advisers declared that all the male heads of house that were also church members were freemen and could vote for delegates to represent the towns in drafting the laws of the colony.
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
The first impeachment of a president that took place in 1868 after President Johnson personally declared the Tenure of Office Act unconstitutional and dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton on his own authority. The house voted to impeach him, gathering the majority vote towards impeachment. Johnson was charged with 11 "high crimes and misdemeanors," but after a 3 month trial in the Senate, the vote fell one short of the two thirds needed in the Senate for removal from office. This was because 7 moderate Republicans joined the Democrats' side because they believed it was wrong to remove a President from office for political reasons.
Lexington and Concord
The first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War, which marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen of its colonies on the mainland of British America. Brief (and kind of terrible) Summary: Americans on a field when soldiers come by (THE REDCOATS ARE COMING) to destroy military supplies in concord. Originally, the minutemen are fired upon and they disperse but later as the british are on their way back they fight again and the british are outnumbered and lose.
Bill of Rights
The first ten amendments added to the United States Constitution, the federalists added it so that the constitution could be ratified, it outlines the basic rights and natural rights of the people and protects their liberties from tyranny
NAACP
The group founded by WEB DeBois, other members of the Niagara Movement, and a group of white Progressives. The mission of the group was to abolish all forms of segregation and to increase educational opportunities for African American children. They would accept nothing less and wouldn't stop until they achieved it. By 1920, it was America's largest civil rights organization, with over 100,000 members.
Niagara Movement
The group made up of black intellectuals, including WEB DuBois, who met in 1905 in Niagara Falls, Canada to discuss a program of protest and action aimed at securing equal rights for blacks. They called for opposition to racial segregation and disenfranchisement, and it was opposed to policies of accommodation and conciliation promoted by African-American leaders such as Booker T. Washington. They called for blacks to be granted manhood suffrage and for equal treatment for all American citizens alike. Very specifically, they demanded equal economic opportunities. They detailed all of these demands in the "Declaration of Principles" drafted at their first meeting.
Virginia (London) Co.
The group of London investors that sent a small convoy of vessels to Chesapeake Bay in 1607, where a hundred men built a fort they named Jamestown in honor of the king. It would be the first permanent English settlement in North America. When the colony lost most of its population after a hard winter, the investors sent a large additional force of men, women, and livestock with a determination to prevail.
Republicanism
The ideology of governing a state with a head(s) of state that is/are voted upon and hold popular sovereignty. The Founding Fathers wanted ______ because its principles guaranteed liberty, with opposing, limited powers offsetting one another. This was also a political party founded and supported by Madison and Jefferson that opposed the Federalist Party.
Horace Mann
The leading advocate of the common (public school) movement. As secretary of the newly founded Massachusetts Board of Education, he worked for compulsory attendance for all children, a longer school year, and increased teacher preparation. The movement spread rapidly to other states in the 1840s. He and other educational reformers wanted children to learn not only basic literacy, but also moral principles.
Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
The leading feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Lucretia Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention. Some men also attended the conference (ex. Frederick Douglass). At the conclusion of the convention--the first woman's rights convention in American history--they issued a document closely modeled after the Declaration of Independence. Their "Declaration of Sentiments" declared that "all men and women are created equal" and listed women's grievances against laws and customs that discriminated against them. Following the Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony led the campaign for equal voting, legal, and property rights for women. In the 1850s, however, the issue of women's rights was overshadowed by the crisis over slavery.
Stamp Act
The legislation that required the purchase of specially embossed paper for all newspapers, legal documents, licenses, insurance policies, ship's papers, even dice and playing cards. It affected nearly EVERY colonial resident in one way or another. The Americans reaction to this act during the summer and autumn of 1765 created a crisis of unprecedented proportions because it also came during a period of economic stagnation.
William Penn
The member of the Quakers (the Society of Friends) was a part of the group who proprietary rights to the western portion of New Jersey were sold to in 1676. He intended to make the colony a haven for religious toleration and pacifism. He supervised the laying out of the port of Philadelphia in 1682. He granted religious freedom, civil liberties, and elected representation in his first Frame of Government (1682). He also attempted to deal fairly with the native peoples, refusing to permit colonization to begin until settlement rights were negotiated and lands purchased, such as his agreement with the sachem Tammany of the Delaware tribe in 1682/83. Sadly, relations between natives and colonists soured after his death.
Election of 1860
The northern and southern Democrats split on who to nominate. The northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, but the Southern Democrats didn't like him, despite his pro-slavery ideals, because of his support of popular sovereignty and nominated John C. Breckenridge instead. The Republicans saw the split between the Democrats as a chance to take the election, but they needed a candidate that could take the uncertain states (New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania), so they nominated Abraham Lincoln. The Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell. Lincoln narrowly won the race, winning only 40% of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes. Lincoln won all of the free states. While Breckinridge won 72 electoral votes, all from the deep south. Douglas only won 12, and Bell won 39. Together, the two Democrats, Douglas and Breckinridge, received many more popular votes than Lincoln, the Republican. Nevertheless, the divide between the Democrats allowed the Republicans to take over, and the new political reality was that the populous free states had enough electoral votes to select a president without the need for a single electoral vote from the South. A few weeks afterwards, South Carolina seceded from the nation.
Great Awakening
The movement that challenged the rationalist approach to religion that occurred in during the 1730s. It was the American version of the second phase of the Protestant Reformation. Religious leaders condemned the laxity, decadence, and bureaucracy of established Protestantism and sought to reinvigorate it with renewed piety and purity. People undergoing the economic and social stresses of the age found relief in the religious enthusiasm. Some promoted a theology that emphasized human choice. But the common thread was a complaint of "spiritual coldness," of ministers whose sermons read like rational dissertations. Instead, the people clamored for preaching that was more emotional. The revivals were sparked because of Jonathan Edwards and became an inter-colonial phenomenon thanks to the mass-preaching of George Whitefield.
George McClellan
The new commander of the Union army in the East. He hated the idea of taking risks in battle and was over-hesitant. He had a well trained army but wouldn't take part in any battle that he thought there was a chance he would use. He also opposed emancipation and believed the war should solely be fought to restore the union, and dropped hints to many powerful figures that a military intervention needed to take over the government. In July 1862, he presented Lincoln with a letter saying military power should not be allowed to intervene with the matter of servitude, and that the army would disintegrate and implied a possible military takeover. Lincoln ignored his efforts and two weeks later presented Congress with the first draft of the emancipation proclamation.
Carpetbaggers
The nickname given to the Northerners who had migrated South during or after the Civil War by the Democratic Southerners. Some were investors interested in setting up new businesses or former soldiers who migrated to seek a livelihood, while others were ministers and teachers with humanitarian goals. They generated hostility because they supported the Republican party and defended the civil and political rights of freedmen. They got their nickname because of the stereotype that they were dishonest fortune seekers whose possession could be put in a satchel.
Scalawags
The nickname given to the Southern Republicans, who were usually former Whigs interested in economic development for their state and peace between the sections, by their Democratic opponents. They temporarily gained power with the freedmen and carpetbaggers in every ex-Confederate state except Virginia. They also generated hostility because they defended the civil and political rights of freedmen.
Whigs
The party led by Henry Clay during the Two-Party system that arose during Jackson's presidency whom resembled the defunct Federalist Party of Hamilton. They supported the American system, which includes a national bank, federal funds for internal improvements, and a protective tariff. Their major concerns were the crimes associated with immigrants and their major base of voter support was in the New England and the Mid-Atlantic States, the Protestants of English heritage, and with urban professionals. In the election of 1836, they nominated 3 candidates from different regions for presidency hoping to send the election to the House of Representatives, but their strategy failed and Van Buren won in 1836 as a Jacksonian Democrat. In the election of 1840, they won by a landslide by blaming the Democratic economic policy for the Panic of 1837, putting William Henry Harrison in office (for less than one month). Harrison was a popular war hero. John Tyler, the vice president that took office after Harrison died of pneumonia, betrayed the party and vetoed a lot of their bills. By the 1856 election, the party was basically dispersed.
Critical Period
The period during which the United States was governed under the Articles of Confederation, from 1781 to 1789. There is a doom and gloom view because the national government had no money and no army and no way to get either. Other nations did not respect the USA and treated them like dirt, cutting off trade routes and such. However, Morgan says that when it was over, the war had been won, peace was concluded, economic depression was weathered successfully, and both population and income were increasing. He thinks this period was inevitable because starting a new nation is hard and there are inevitable problems, but they made it through successfully.
Albany Plan of Union
The plan put forth by Benjamin Franklin that was adopted by the Albany Conference. The proposal would have placed Indian affairs, western settlement, and other items of mutual interest under the authority of a grand council composed of representatives elected by the colonial assemblies and led by a British-appointed president. The British feared it would be an entity they couldn't control and the colonial governments feared they would lose their autonomy so his plan was rejected by both. The rejection of this proposal struck Benjamin Franklin by the oddity that the Indians who were "savages" could form a union and yet it would be impractical for the colonies.
New Netherland & New York
The proprietary charter granted by Charles II granting the former Dutch colony to his brother James, the Duke of York, renaming it ____ in his honor. Other than this, the English did little to disturb the existing order, preferring simply to reap the benefits of this profitable colony. Ethnically and linguistically diversified, and accommodating a wide range of religious sects, it's society was the most heterogeneous in North America. By the end of the century more than 33,000 residents lived in this colony and New Jersey combined.
Maryland
The proprietary colony that started in 1634 after King Charles granted 10 million acres at the northern end of Chesapeake Bay to the Calvert family, the Lords Baltimore. Settlement by Catholics was encouraged, unlike other colonies. Wealthy Catholic landlords were appointed to the governing council, ____'s House of Delegates (1635). It had a tobacco plantation economy like in Virginia which placed pressure on the Calvert family to provide land and labor. This ended up bringing down the colony's feudal manor system, instead adopting Virginia's headright grants system. 3/4 of the immigrants to the colony were Indentured slaves and 7% were slaves, both were treated cruelly by their masters. Men died more than women and women didn't stay single for long, even when widowed. It didn't have a good community feel and had strong emotional ties back to England. Its combined population with Virginia was nearly 90,000 by the end of the seventeenth century.
Natty Bumpo
The protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales. He is a white dude from Delaware that is adopted by and grows up living with Native Americans. This expression through writing is another source of American nationalism found at this time.
"City on a hill"
The puritans, led by John Winthrop, hoped to establish a _city on a hill_____, a New England model of reform for old England. They believed they could create this model of what a perfect society should look like and inspire the corrupt society of England to be like them.
Radical (Congressional) Reconstruction
The reconstruction that occurred in the spring of 1866 due to the displeasure of the members of Congress to Johnson's policies. It featured harsher policies on the Southern whites and more protective policies of freedmen. The first actions of this reconstruction were the Freedmen's Bureau Act and the first Civil Rights Act.
Pilgrims
The religious dissenters that formed the first English colony in New England. They were called Separatists at the time because they believed the English church was so corrupt they had to establish independent congregations. Their colonization was backed by the Virginia Company of London. They rode on the Mayflower and set up Plymouth. They created the Mayflower Compact to grant men a voice in their government. Half of them died the first winter but they survived with the help of the Indians, the Pokanokets, by forming an alliance. They supported themselves by farming and created revenue by selling fur and thrived through the cod fishery.
John Adams
The second president after serving as vice president and an american diplomat to britain who liked strong central government and was a leading federalist. During his one term as president, he encountered ferocious attacks by the Jeffersonian Republicans, as well as the dominant faction in his own Federalist Party led by his bitter enemy Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and built up the army and navy especially in the face of an undeclared naval war (called the "Quasi-War") with France, 1798-1800. The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the conflict in the face of Hamilton's opposition. In 1800, Adams was defeated for re-election by Thomas Jefferson and retired to Massachusetts. He later resumed his friendship with Jefferson.
New Harmony
The secular (nonreligious) experiment in New Harmony, Indiana, was the work of Welsh industrialist and reformer Robert Owen. Owen hoped his utopian socialist community would provide an answer to the problems of inequity and alienation caused by the Industrial Revolution. The experiment failed, however, as a result of both financial problems and disagreements among members of the community.
Black Codes
The set of laws adopted by many of the legislatures of Southern states that restricted the rights and movements of freedmen. They prohibited freedmen from renting land or borrowing money to buy land, forced freedmen into semibondage by forcing them to sign work contracts, and prohibited them from testifying in white courts. The Northerners were outraged by these laws and Northern Republicans refused to seat elected members of the house and senate from ex-Confederate states.
Peace of Paris (1783)
The set of treaties which ended the American Revolutionary War. These treaties are the Treaty of Paris and the Treaties of Versailles. The Treaty of Paris was between Britain and the United States and the Treaties of Versailles were between Britain and France/Spain, all of which were signed on September 3, 1783. There was also a preliminary treaty to end the fourth Anglo-Dutch war signed the previous day. The British lost their Thirteen Colonies and the defeat marked the end of the First British Empire. The United States gained more than it expected, thanks to the award of western territory. The Americans also agree to treat the loyalists fairly and to pay back any pre-war debt to individual Englishmen (which they later failed to do). France won a propaganda victory over Britain after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, but its material gains were minor and its financial losses huge. The Spanish had a mixed result, but the new territory was of little or no value.
Andrew Jackson
The seventh President of the United States (1829-1837). He gained national fame through his role in the War of 1812, where he won decisive victories over the Indians and then over the main British invasion army at the Battle of New Orleans. His victories led directly to the treaty which formally transferred Florida from Spain to the United States. Nominated for president in 1824, he narrowly lost to John Quincy Adams. Nominated again in 1828, he crusaded against Adams and the "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Henry Clay he said cost him the 1824 election. As president, he faced a threat of secession from South Carolina over the "Tariff of Abominations" which Congress had enacted under Adams. In contrast to several of his immediate successors, he denied the right of a state to secede from the union, or to nullify federal law. The Nullification Crisis was defused when the tariff was amended and he threatened the use of military force if South Carolina (or any other state) attempted to secede. Jackson's presidency marked the beginning of the ascendency of the "spoils system" in American politics. Also, he supported, signed, and enforced the Indian Removal Act, which unilaterally and forcibly relocated a number of native tribes to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). He faced and defeated Henry Clay in the 1832 Presidential Election, and opposed Clay generally.
McCulloch v Maryland
The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland. The Second Bank of the United States was the only out-of-state bank than existing in Maryland, and the law was recognized in the court's opinion as having specifically targeted it. The Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution. This case established two important principles in constitutional law. First, the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government. Second, state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government.
Pluralism
The system of having two or more authorities at once. (state, people, etc.) A theory of government that holds that open, multiple, and competing groups can check the asserted power by any one group. A state in which people of all races and ethnicities are distinct but have equal social standing
Mercantilism
The system of regulations that imperialists created to ensure that the great wealth produced by slavery benefited their own nation-state. The essence of this policy was the political control of the economy by the state. In Britain, the monarchy and Parliament established a uniform national monetary system, regulated wages, subsidized agriculture and manufacturing, and protected themselves from foreign competition by erecting tariff barriers. The practices of this system viewed the economy as a zero-sum game, in which total economic gains were equal to total losses and saw profit as the result of successful speculation, crafty dealing, or plunder--all forms of theft.
Military Reconstruction Act of 1867
The three acts passed in early 1867 that placed the South under military occupation. The Southern states were divided into five military districts, each under the control of the Union army. It also increased the requirements for gaining re-admission to the Union by stating the ex-Confederate states had to ratify the 14th Amendment and place guarantees in their state constitutions that all men would have the right to vote despite race.
John Tyler
The vice president of William Henry Harrison who took over in 1841 after Harrison died a month into office because of pneumonia. He was not much of a Whig and was mainly put on the Whig's ballot to appeal to the Democratic voters.He vetoed the Whigs' national bank bills and other legislation, and favored southern and expansionist Democrats during the balance of his term (1841-1845).
King Philip's War 1675
The war that took place between the Pokanokets and the Puritans when Metacom refused to grant sovereign authority to the Puritan colonies. Metacom was the son of Massasoit who forged an alliance with the Pilgrims and was called King Philip. The colonists decided they didn't have room for the Pokanokets and tried to get Metacom to relinquish control over their lands in 1671. He broke the half-century alliance and took up an armed resistance. The English arrested and executed 3 Pokanokets men, causing Metacom to try and appeal to the Narragansetts for a defensive alliance. The English sent men and burned a number of villages. Soon all of New England was in engulfed in the war. At first things went well for the Indians but by the beginning of 1676 their campaign was collapsing. They asked the Iroquois for help, but instead the Iroquois attacked and forced them back to their territory, where they were annihilated by the English in August 1676.
Fort Sumter
The war was started on April 12, 1861 at this island fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. U.S. Major Robert Anderson occupied the unfinished fort in December 1860 following South Carolina's secession from the Union, initiating a standoff with the state's militia forces. When President Abraham Lincoln announced plans to peacefully resupply the fort while informing the confederates of what he is doing, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard decides to bombard this fort on April 12, 1861 before the supplies arrived. After a 34-hour exchange of artillery fire, Anderson and 86 soldiers surrendered the fort on April 13. Confederate troops then occupied Fort Sumter for nearly four years, resisting several bombardments by Union forces before abandoning the garrison prior to William T. Sherman's capture of Charleston in February 1865. After the Civil War, the fort was restored by the U.S. military.
Jim Crow Laws
The wave of segregation laws that southern states adopted beginning in the 1870s that required segregated washrooms, drinking fountains, park benches, and other facilities in virtually all public places. Only the use of streets and most stores was not restricted according to a person's race.
Seminole War
They hold out for a while (seven years) in resistance to the trail of tears, more successful than black hawks. They hide in the swamplands of florida, joined by black runaway slaves, and practice guerilla warfare against Whites. There are 3 of them. White southerners hated the seminoles anyway because they had always encouraged the slaves to join them in resistance against USA. They are eventually pushed out as well
Committee of Correspondence
They were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of the American Revolution. They coordinated responses to Britain and shared their plans; by 1773 they had emerged as shadow governments, superseding the colonial legislature and royal officials.These served an important role in the Revolution, by disseminating the colonial interpretation of British actions between the colonies and to foreign governments. They rallied opposition on common causes and established plans for collective action, and so the group was the beginning of what later became a formal political union among the colonies. They promoted patriotism and home manufacturing, advising Americans to avoid luxuries, and lead a more simple life. They set up espionage networks to identify disloyal elements, displaced the royal officials, and helped topple the entire Imperial system in each colony.
Pennsylvania
This colony was founded in English North America by William Penn on March 4, 1681 as dictated in a royal charter granted by King Charles II. The colonial government, established in 1682 by Penn's Frame of Government, consisted of an appointed Governor, the proprietor (Penn), a 72-member Provincial Council, and a larger General Assembly. The General Assembly, also known as the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, was the largest and most representative branch of government, but had little power. William Penn and his fellow Quakers heavily imprinted their religious values on the early government. The Charter of Privileges extended religious freedom to all monotheists and government was initially open to all Christians. Until the French and Indian War Pennsylvania had no military, few taxes and no public debt. They had made mandated fair dealings with Native Americans. This led to significantly better relations with the local Native tribes than most other colonies had.
Separation of Powers
This concept is an attempt to separate the powers of the governing. In this system, the government is separated into branches (most commonly three) that have some ability to check the others in order to avoid tyranny
Checks and Balances
This falls under the idea of separation of powers, it that each branch will have the ability to watch over the other branches but also are watched by the other branches. This a method to avoid any one branch from having too much control or power, which could lead to tyranny.
Antifederalists
This is the group that opposed the idea of consolidating or strengthening the U.S. Government. They had mixed ideals differing from state and individual rights to describing the idea of a president as tyrannical. They believed that the greatest threat to the future of the United States lay in the government's potential to become corrupt and seize more and more power until its tyrannical rule completely dominated the people. To the _______the proposed Constitution threatened to lead the United States down an all-too-familiar road of political corruption and threatened the traditional belief in the importance of restraining government power. The most powerful objection raised by them, however, hinged on the lack of protection for individual liberties in the Constitution. Most of them were appeased enough by the creation of a Bill of Rights in order to get the constitution ratified.
William Lloyd Garrison
This man began publication of an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, an event that marked the beginning of the radical abolitionist movement. He advocated immediate abolition of slavery in every state and territory without compensating the slaveowners. In 1833, he and other abolitionists founded the American Antislavery Society. He stepped up his attacks by condemning and burning the Constitution as a proslavery document. He argued for "no Union with slaveholders" until they repented for their sins by freeing their slaves.
Ulysses S. Grant
This man was previously a Union General who defeated General Lee at Appomattox Court House, which ended the Civil War. In the 1868 election, Grant's triumph was surprisingly narrow against Seymour. The 500,000 new black Republican voters allowed him to win the popular vote. Republicans were able to blame the bloody war on Democrats (propaganda). During the 1872 campaign, the first of a series of political scandals came to light that would plague Grant and the Republicans for the next eight years. It involved the French-owned Crédit Mobilier construction company, which had helped build the Union Pacific Railroad. Other, lesser scandals added to the growing impression that Grantism had brought rampant corruption to the government. Compounding Grant's, and the nation's problems was a financial crisis, known as the Panic of 1873. However, the Republicans under Grant did have a few diplomatic successes, including "Seward's Folly", the purchase of Alaska (and the tiny Midway Islands), which turned to be anything but a folly. He also dealt with Alabama claims made against England. Overall, Grant's presidency was characterized by scandal and corruption, with little success.
American (Know Nothing) Party
This party was formed by New Yorker Charles Allen in 1849 in response to Catholic immigration (first nomination was in 1854). It was made up of native-born Protestant working men and called the "Order of the Star Spangled Banner." It formed the nucleus of a new political party known as this. They captured control of the legislature in parts of New England and were the dominant opposition party to the Democrats in NY, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. They became the nation's second largest party, replacing the Whigs. Abraham Lincoln denounced them. Their party was in decline by 1856 because they were unknown men with little political experience. Their legislative program (21-years before citizen and limited political office to native Americans and restricted liquor sales) was not enacted. Replaced by a party in the North, the Republicans because Northerners felt more threatened by southern slave power than by immigrants in 1856.
Indian attack of 1622
This topic is slightly controversial since one of the only accounts of this event (by John Smith) was not a first hand account. None the less a quarter of the population of Jamestown was massacred by the Powhatan confederation and Indian-American relations were strained.
War of 1812
This war was in 1812. No shit. Tension between america and Britain reached a very high point after France accepted Americas neutrality from Macon's bill # 2. There were a bunch of causes - see notes google doc - but the British were pissed off at the americans and decided to attack. The americans were very unprepared and had a very weak army and navy. They initially kept getting defeated, but they managed to scrape a few wins and make the war very difficult for Britain. Britain sent in a bunch more troops after defeating Napolean, but ragtag american armys held thier ground, and eventually Britain agreed to a ceasefire because the war was very expensive and britain had very little to gain. The two sides returned to pre-war conditions in 1815.
Bleeding Kansas
This was the popular name for the Kansas territory during 1856, when violence broke out between representatives of the free-state government in Topeka and the fraudulently elected proslavery government in Lecompton. Bleeding Kansas represented a major setback for the doctrine of popular sovereignty, as the doctrine failed to provide a clear resolution to the question of slavery's expansion in Kansas, and demonstrated that the idea of popular sovereignty can lead to violence. 1854-1858, Missouri feared being surrounded on 3 sides by free states so the western border invaded Kansas to rid the vote and discourage a free Kansas, "border ruffians", "Sack of Lawrence" where the pro-slavery destroyed other anti-slavery newspapers and other parts of Lawrence, lead to the Pottawatomic Massacre where John Brown killed 5 slave owners.
Manifest Destiny
This was the term used, throughout the 1840s, to describe Americans' belief that they were destined by God to spread their beliefs across the continent. This sense of duty created a sense of unity among the nation and stimulated westward expansion. The term itself was coined by John O'Sullivan in an 1845 magazine article. The concept justified westward expansion in all its forms and ramifications, including the Mexican War, the persecution of the Indians, and other such ethnocentric acts.
Lecompton Constitution
Those for slavery devised this constitution. Provided that the people were only allowed to vote for the constitution "with slavery" or "without slavery." Slaves would be in Kansas, despite the vote "without slavery." Angry free-soilers boycotted the pools and Kansas approved the constitution with slavery. Pro-slavery constitution suggested for Kansas' admission to the Union; Supported the existence of slavery in the proposed state and protected rights of slaveholders. It did not have the support of the majority of settlers. Buchanan asked Congress to accept the document. Congress did not do so, because many Democrats, including Stephen Douglas, joined the Republicans in rejecting it. In 1858 the proslavery document was overwhelmingly rejected by Kansas settlers, most of whom were anti slavery Republicans.
Separatists
Those, such as the Pilgrims, who believed that the English church was so corrupt they had to establish independent congregations. People who had beliefs that were different from the established church and created their own separate offshoots.
Quebec Act
Though passed at the same time as the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts, this act was considered separate because it wasn't made in direct response to the Boston Tea Party. It was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec.The provisions of the Quebec Act were seen by the colonists as a new model for British colonial administration, which would strip the colonies of their elected assemblies.
Henry Barnard
U.S. educator who studied law and entered the state legislature, where he helped create a state board of education and the first teachers' institute (1839). With Horace Mann, he undertook to reform the country's common schools; he was an innovator in instituting school inspections, textbook reviews, and parent-teacher organizations. As Rhode Island's first commissioner of education (from 1845) he worked to raise teachers' wages, repair buildings, and obtain higher-education appropriations. In 1855 he helped found the American Journal of Education.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Union general; led troops from Chattanooga and seized Atlanta on Sep. 02, 1864, a major southern rail center. Next, he led his men towards Savannah, while they destroyed, burned, and looted confederate territory. Sherman seized Savannah in Georgia, and Charleston and Columbia in South Carolina. He then moved to North Carolina and Virginia. He is a very sassy man and even offers Lincoln Savannah as a Christmas present in result of his March to the Sea.
Gen. Anthony Wayne
United States army office, statesmen, member of the house of representatives, He later served as General in Chief of the Army and commanded the Legion of the United States. He lost his seat in the house because of electoral fraud. He took an important role in the Battle of Fallen Timbers after washington ordered him to destroy the indian opposition
Hamilton Plan
Unsatisfied with the New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan, ______ proposed his own plan. It also was known as the British Plan, because of its resemblance to the British system of strong centralized government. It featured a strong executive government in which there was a "national governor" who had absolute veto power, served for life, chose the state governors, and was chosen by electors who were chosen by the people. It also featured a bicameral legislature with a lower house that serves for 3 years and would be chosen by the people and an upper house that serves for life and is chosen by electors which are chosen by the people. It also included a judiciary branch with judges that serve for life and contains courts in each state as well as a supreme court.
Peggy Eaton Affair
When Margaret's first husband died unexpectedly, rumors abounded that he had committed suicide over his wife's alleged affair with Eaton. When Eaton and Margaret married shortly after her first husband's death, the ladies of Washington society ostracized the new couple. Jackson sympathized with and supported his friend Eaton because he supported Jackson when he had unwittingly married Rachel before her divorce from her first husband was final. People advised Jackson against making Eaton his secretary of war because of Margaret's reputation. For the rest of Jackson's first term, his opponents used the Eaton Affair or Petticoat Affair, as it was known, to attack the president's moral judgment and, by extension, his administration's policies and appointees. By 1831, the Eaton Affair had proved immensely divisive and politically damaging to Jackson. In response, Eaton and Van Buren resigned in order to give Jackson the opportunity to overhaul his cabinet with new members and protect his presidency from further scandal. He then goes on to fire everyone else in the cabinet for gossiping and being "mean girls" in the words of mrs. Federman.
Liberty Party
William Lloyd Garrison along with a group of northerners formed this party in 1840 that formed because of his radicalism splitting the Abolition Movement. This creation was a part of his moral crusade because he believed that political action was more practical to accomplish this. James Birney was their candidate for president in 1840 and 1844 and their one campaign pledge was to bring about the end of slavery.
Compromise of 1877
With a president needed, due to the crisis from the 1876 election when the presidential race between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden came down to the disputed electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act that set up a commission to resolve the crisis. This commision would be made up of 15 men (from the House, Senate, and Supreme Court), 8 men were Republicans, 7 were Democrats. The Republicans had the upper hand and were heading toward victory among the disputed states. Democrats were outraged and began to filibuster to tie up the process. Finally, a deal was made in the Compromise of 1877. True to a compromise, both sides did some give-and-take. The North got Rutherford B. Hayes elected as a Republican president. While the South got a pledge that Hayes would remove the military occupation in the South, ending Reconstruction. The bad news for the freedmen was that Southern blacks were now effectively left alone to fend for themselves, despite the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Also, white Southerners began to reclaim a strong hold on power. Additionally, money would be spent on the Texas and Pacific railroad.
Election of 1848
ZACHARY TAYLOR (WHIG) vs. LEWIS CASS (DEM). President James K. Polk (democrat), having achieved all of his major objectives in one term and suffering from declining health that would take his life less than four months after leaving office, kept his promise not to seek re-election. The Democrats had a record of victory, peace, prosperity, and the acquisition of both Oregon and the Southwest. It appeared almost certain that they would win unless the Whigs picked Taylor. His victory made him one of only two Whigs to be elected President before the party ceased to exist in the 1850s; the other was William Henry Harrison. The choice of Taylor was made almost out of desperation; he was not clearly committed to Whig principles, but he was popular for leading the war effort. Other candidates were Martin Van Buren (Free Soil) and Lewis Cass (Democrat). Cass proposes the idea of popular sovereignty. Free soil party started because Taylor supported slavery, though only got 10% of the popular vote. Two-party system falling apart over the issue of slavery. Taylor wins because Southern Democrats would rather support a slaveholder than Cass from Michigan. :*:*:
Gen William Howe
a British army officer who rose to become Commander-in-Chief of British forces during the American War of Independence. After leading British troops to a costly victory in the Battle of Bunker Hill, he took command of all British forces in America from Thomas Gage in September of that year. His record in North America was marked by the successful capture of both New York City and Philadelphia. However, poor British campaign planning for 1777 contributed to the failure of John Burgoyne's Saratoga campaign, which played a major role in the entry of France into the war.
Halfway Covenant-1662
a Form of partial church membership which was more lenient than previous memberships. It was created to increase church membership, which was declining. Reverend Solomon Stoddard promoted it because he felt the english colonies were drifting away from their original purpose. The Half-way Covenant applied to those members of the Puritan colonies who were children of church members, but who hadn't achieved grace themselves. The covenant allowed them to participate in some church affairs.
Alexis de Tocqueville
a French political thinker and historian best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these, he analyzed the improved living standards and social conditions of individuals, as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after his travels in the United States, and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.
Creole Affair
a bunch of slaves uprise in mutiny on a slave ship and they take it over and go to the Bahamas. The Bahamas are controlled by the British who have a no-slave policy and let the rebels go. U.S.A is upset because they consider the slaves property and the British have let their property go. U.S calls for extradition of the slaves: they want the right to try the criminal in the state which he committed the crime. British refuse this request for extradition, and let all the slave rebels go, which creates even more tension.
Charles River Bridge v Warren Bridge
a case regarding the two bridges of Boston, Massachusetts, heard by the United States Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (Taw-nee). In 1785, the Charles River Company had been granted a charter to construct a bridge over the Charles River connecting Boston and Cambridge and collect tolls. When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sanctioned another company to build the Warren Bridge, chartered 1828, the proprietors of the Charles River Bridge claimed that the Massachusetts legislature had broken its contract with them (reference to Dartmouth v Woodward). The owners of the first bridge claimed that the charter had implied exclusive rights to the Charles River Bridge Company. The Court ultimately sided with Warren Bridge because public contracts from a state are in order to benefit the public, because the original contract did NOT say it was exclusive, if there's any ambiguity you have to go with the interests of the people as a whole.
First Continental Congress
a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Congress met briefly to consider options, including an economic boycott of British trade; rights and grievances; and petitioned King George III for redress of those grievances. The Congress also called for another Continental Congress in the event that their petition was unsuccessful in halting enforcement of the Intolerable Acts. The delegates also urged each colony to set up and train its own militia.
Whiskey Ring
a group of distillers and public officials who defrauded the federal government of liquor taxes. Soon after the Civil War these taxes became very high, in some cases to eight times the price of the liquor. Large distillers, chiefly in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Chicago, bribed government officials in order to retain the tax proceeds. The Whiskey Ring was a public scandal, but it was considered impregnable because of the strong political connections distillers had with public officials. The Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow resolved to break the conspiracy. To avoid warning the suspects, he assigned secret investigators from outside the Treasury Dept. to collect evidence. Striking suddenly in May, 1875, he arrested the persons and seized the distilleries involved. Over $3 million in taxes was recovered, and of 238 persons indicted 110 were convicted. Although President Grant's secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was acquitted through the personal intervention of the President, many people believed that the Whiskey Ring was part of a plot to finance the Republican party by fraud.
Washington's Farewell Address
a letter, printed September 19, 1796, from washington to the people of the united states towards the end of his second term. This address had a few key features, the first of which was announcing to the citizens his resignation. It also warned Americans of the political dangers they can and must avoid if they are to remain true to their values and told them of his vision for America, unity at home and independence abroad, and how to make the vision come true. It also addressed the idea of Washington being a "republican king," saying yes he might of been, but it was necessary and he will be the only one. It was also a Metaphor for the collective effort that Washington was urging, as it used Madison's 1972 version, Hamilton's 1976-ish version/revisions to Madison's version, and was all of Washington's ideas minus his request for a national university.
Town meeting
a town-wide meeting to decide on issues facing the village and choose a group of people to govern the town for the coming year, restricted to adult male residents
Nat Turner
a male slave born in 1800 in Southampton County, VA. A gifted preacher, he believed that he had been chosen to lead his people out of bondage. In August 1831, he and 80 followers rebelled, attacking four plantations and killing almost 60 white inhabitants before being captured by state and federal troops. He was eventually tried and hanged. This rebellion strengthened the resolve of Southern whites to defend slavery and to control their slaves.
Era of Good Feelings
a period in the political history of the United States that reflected a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.[2] The era saw the collapse of the Federalist Party. The designation of the period by historians as one of "good feelings" is often conveyed with irony or skepticism, as the history of the era was one in which the political atmosphere was strained and divisive, especially among factions within the Monroe administration and the Republican Party. The phrase Era of Good Feelings was coined by Benjamin Russell, in the Boston Federalist newspaper, Columbian Centinel, on July 12, 1817, following Monroe's visit to Boston, Massachusetts, as part of his good will tour of America.
Star Spangled Banner
a poem written by a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key. Francis was a captive on a British ship who witnessed the bombardment of McHenry. The giant american flag waving throughout the battle inspired him to write the poem which eventually became the United States national anthem
XYZ Affair
a political and diplomatic episode in 1797 and 1798, early in the administration of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to an undeclared war called the Quasi-War. The United States sent a diplomatic commission to France but when the French representatives demanded bribes and a loan before formal negotiations could begin it failed. The Americans were offended by them, and eventually left France without ever engaging in formal negotiations.
New Jersey (Patterson) Plan
a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787. The plan was created in response to the Virginia Plan. It made congress stronger on a national level by giving it the power to collect taxes on stamps and imports, regulate trade, and reinforce requisitions upon states with military force. It also somewhat created an executive and judiciary branch through a plural executive where a council elects 3-4 people to be the executive and the executive then elects judges. It's legislature was unicameral and would have equal representatives for states. This was done to gain more power for the smaller states while taking it away from large states.
Lincoln's Ten percent plan
a state could be reintegrated into the Union when 10 percent of the 1860 vote count from that state had taken an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by emancipation. Citizens of former Confederate states would be given the opportunity to swear allegiance to the government in Washington (high-ranking Confederate military and civilian authorities would not be offered this opportunity) and would be given a pardon if they did this and accepted emancipation. The state was afforded the chance to form its own state government, a state legislature could write a new constitution but it also had to abolish slavery forever. If all of these happened, Lincoln would recognize the reconstructed government. It would be enforced by the executive branch, specifically Lincoln himself, if it passed. It favors the 13th amendment, Freedman's Bureau, and Field Order #15.
Adams-Onis (Transcontinental) Treaty
a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that gave Florida to the U.S. and set out a boundary between the U.S. and New Spain (now Mexico). It settled a standing border dispute between the two countries and was considered a triumph of American diplomacy
Convention of 1818
a treaty signed in 1818 between the United States and the United Kingdom. allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country, marked both the United Kingdom's last permanent major loss of territory in what is now the Continental United States and the United States' only permanent significant cession of North American territory to a foreign power. Britain ceded all of Rupert's Land south of the 49th parallel and west to the Rocky Mountains, including all of the Red River Colony south of that latitude, while the U.S. ceded the northernmost tip of the territory of Louisiana
Toussaint L'Ouverture
aka black napolean, he was the leader of the haitian revolution. He was very smart and wise and transformed an entire society of slaves into the independent state of Haiti. This changed how the world viewed slavery
Nicholas Biddle
an American financier who served as the second and last president of the Second Bank of the United States. He is the one who, at the urging of Henry Clay, ordered the recharter of the bank early, hoping to force Jackson to take a side. Jackson vetoed the bank in return. He responded to Jackson's pet banks by reducing loans and calling in debts. Biddle was very stubborn and hated Jackson's effort to reduce the national bank, and said that Jackson will not have his way with the national bank.
Henry Clay
an American Lawyer and politician, was a house rep and senator from Kentucky. He was speaker of House and Sec of State, ran for president 3 times and lost. He was a leading war hawk. He was a strong supporter of the American system. He kept fighting for an increase in tariffs to foster industry in the United States, the use of federal funding to build and maintain infrastructure, and a strong national bank. He opposed the annexation of Texas, fearing it would inject the slavery issue into politics. He was the "Great pacificator". Also, Abraham lincoln liked him a lot and supported Clay's economic policies.
Oliver Hazard Perry
an American naval commander who served in numerous wars (quasi-war, barbary pirates...etc). His is most noted for his role in winning the Battle of Lake Erie, because he beat British ships, which was very hard to do with a crappy American navy. He got a congressional gold medal.
Articles of Confederation
an agreement between the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. Its drafting by the Continental Congress began in mid-1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. The formal ratification by all 13 states was completed in early 1781. Even when not yet ratified, the Articles provided domestic and international legitimacy for the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with Europe and deal with territorial issues and Native American relations. Nevertheless, the weakness of the government created by the Articles became a matter of concern for key nationalists.
Great (CT) Compromise
an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It retained the bicameral legislature as proposed by Roger Sherman, along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states. Each state would have two representatives in the upper house.
American System
an economic plan derived from Hamilton's ideas. There were 3 major parts. a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other 'internal improvements' to develop profitable markets for agriculture." Congressman Henry Clay was the plan's foremost proponent and the first to refer to it as the "American System".
Aroostook County War
an undeclared confrontation in 1838-39 between the United States and Great Britain over the international boundary between British North America (Canada) and Maine. The dispute resulted in a mutually accepted border between the state of Maine and the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec. It is called a war because not only were tensions high and rhetoric heated in Maine and New Brunswick, but troops were raised and armed on both sides and marched to the disputed border. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott to work out a compromise. A neutral area was created and the controversy gradually died down. There was no actual confrontation between military forces, and the dispute was soon settled through negotiations between diplomats from Britain and U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster who secretly funded a propaganda campaign that convinced Maine leaders that a compromise was wise. The final border between the two countries was established with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which gave Maine most of the disputed area, and gave the British a militarily vital connection between provinces.
Navigation Acts (1660,1663)
assertion of british control over the colonies, colonies must only trade with england and only use english ships A series of acts passed by Parliament between 1651 and 1696 that created the legal and institutional structure of Britain's eighteenth century colonial system. They were passed as a reaction to the complaints of English manufacturers that the nation's trading monopolies too frequently carried foreign products to colonial markets. These acts defined the colonies as both suppliers of raw materials and as markets for English manufactured goods.
Andrew Jackson
at age 13, he was a courier during the Revolutionary war and he was captured and mistreated by the british. He later became a lawyer, then a house representative, then a colonel of the Tennessee militia. He also owned hundreds of slaves and killed a guy in a duel, but more importantly he gained national fame after winning huge victories for the U.S. during the war of 1812, such as the Battle of New Orleans. He went on to become the 7th president of the United States.
Alexander Hamilton
born dirt poor, rose to become Washington's secretary of treasury, he proposed many financial policies and single handedly financed the United States. He owed allegiance to no state, only to the entire nation so he advocated for national unity. His fiscal plan included creating a National Bank, having the government assume and pay all state debt, imposing tariffs protecting domestic manufacturers, and a tax on Whiskey. The only one that is not passed is the imposing tariffs, and it was considered a win for Jefferson, who was against all of Hamilton's plans. He eventually gets shot by Burr in a duel and dies.
Judiciary Act of 1789
created a separate federal judiciary branch and said that "judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court," and all inferior courts must follow the decisions of the federal court, however it let congress decide what the supreme court would look like and who would elect it
Jay's Treaty (1795)
designed by hamilton, but supported by lead negotiator john jay, this treaty facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain. Also included the withdrawal of British Army units from pre-Revolutionary Forts, the Americans were granted limited rights to trade with British possessions in India and colonies in the Caribbean in exchange for some limits on the American export of cotton; upset Southern plantations owners because they were not compensated for slaves that fled to Britain in the Revolution
Naturalization Act of 1802
directed the clerk of the court to record the entry of all aliens (foreigners) into the United States. The clerk collected information including the applicant's name, birthplace, age, nation of allegiance, country of emigration, and place of intended settlement, and granted each applicant a certificate that could be exhibited to the court as evidence of time of arrival in the United States. This act repealed the Naturalization Act of 1798.
Peace of Paris (1763)
end of the seven years war, signed by Great Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal. Great Britain gained much of France's possessions the new world, and agreed to protect roman catholicism The treaty that ended the Seven Years' War. In this treaty, France lost al its possession on the North American mainland, ceding to Great Britain all its claims east of the Mississippi, with the exception of New Orleans, which was passed to Spain, along with other French claims to the trans-Mississippi region. In exchange for the return of its Caribbean and Pacific colonies, Spain ceded Florida to Britain. Three centuries of European rivalry in eastern North America ended with complete victory for the British Empire.g
Federalists (Party)
first american political party, initially formed as support for ratification of the constitution and then as the party that wanted more national power and less state power. The party was formed by George Washington, and between 1789-1797 it was built mainly with the support of bankers and businessmen in order to support Hamilton's fiscal policies. These supporters grew into the Federalist Party committed to a fiscally sound and nationalistic government. The United States' only Federalist president was John Adams; although George Washington was broadly sympathetic to the Federalist program, he remained an independent during his entire presidency. The Federalists controlled the government until 1801.
National (Cumberland) Road
first federal highway in the United States and for several years the main route to what was then the Northwest Territory. Built (1811-37) from Cumberland, Md. (western terminus of a state road from Baltimore and of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal), to Vandalia, Ill., it forms part of the present U.S. Route 40. In April 1802 Congress appropriated land-sale funds to finance an overland link between the Atlantic Coast and the new state of Ohio.
Impressment
forcing men into service in the navy without their consent, the British did this a lot. Britain did not recognize naturalised American citizenship, and treated anyone born a British subject as still "British" — as a result, the Royal Navy impressed over 9,000 sailors who claimed to be American citizens.
Neutrality Proclamation
formal announcement issued by President George Washington in May 1793, declaring the united states neutral in the conflict between France and Great Britain, isolationist policy because the US is too weak to intervene and has very little to gain
Alien and Sedition Acts
four bills passed (sedition act, naturalization act, alien act, alien enemies act) by the federalists and signed into law by president John Adams in the aftermath of the quasi-war. They strengthen national security. With the Alien Act the president could deport people deemed threatening or with the Alien Enemies Act the president could deport anyone of a country they are at war with who is a threat. The Naturalization Act makes citizenship requirements tougher (must be a citizen for 14 years instead of 5). Finally, the Sedition Act made it a crime to attack the government with "false, scandalous, or malicious" statements or writings. Many saw these as unconstitutional and therefore contributed to Jefferson's later win in the Presidential Election of 1800.
Factionalism
partisan factions with own self interests. The colonies experienced a time where governments were defined by this and there was a "ruthless competition for dominance, power, and economic advantages among rival groups of leading men, groups which were largely ad hoc and impermanent." It often mirrored the colonies' unsettled social and economic structure. But in the end this gave way to more stable and predictable types of political activity.
12th Amendment
provides the procedure for electing the President and Vice President. It replaced Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, which provided the original procedure by which the Electoral College functioned. Problems with the original procedure arose in the elections of 1796 and 1800. The Twelfth Amendment refined the process whereby a President and a Vice President are elected by the electors of the Electoral College. The amendment was proposed by the Congress on December 9, 1803, and was ratified by the requisite three-fourths of state legislatures on June 15, 1804.
Strict construction
refers to a particular legal philosophy of judicial interpretation that limits or restricts judicial interpretation. For Example, a strict interpretation of the constitution gives the federal government only the powers that the constitution specifically outlines. Jefferson was known to have this in reference to the Constitution, while Hamilton was the opposite.
Election of 1800
rematch of the 1796 election. This time Jefferson wins partly due to the unpopularity of Adam's handling of the quasi-war. Each elector who voted for Jefferson also voted for Burr, resulting in a tied electoral vote. The election was then put into the hands of the outgoing House of Representatives, which, after 35 votes in which neither Jefferson nor Burr obtained a majority, elected Jefferson on the 36th ballot.
Matthew Lyon
served as a United States Representative from both Vermont (1797-1801) and Kentucky (1803-1811). He brawled with one Congressman; and was jailed on charges of violating the Sedition Act for drunkenly speaking out against the administration. He went on to win re-election to Congress from inside his jail cell.
Treaty of Greenville
signed on August 3, 1795 at Fort Greenville, Ohio; it followed negotiations after the Indian's loss at the Battle of Fallen Timbers a year earlier. It ended the Northwest Indian War in the Ohio Country and limited strategic parcels of land to the north and west. It established what became known as the Greenville Treaty Line, which was for several years a boundary between Indian territory and lands open to European-American settlers. The latter frequently disregarded the treaty line as they continued to encroach on Indian lands. The treaty also established the "annuity" system: yearly grants of federal money and supplies of calico cloth to Indian tribes and thus institutionalized continuing government influence in tribal affairs, giving outsiders considerable control over Indian life.
Board of Customs Commissioners
the Commissioners of Customs Act of 1767 established the American Board of Customs Commissioners, which was modeled on the British Board of Customs. The American Customs Board was created because of the difficulties the British Board faced in enforcing trade regulations in the distant colonies. Five commissioners were appointed to the board, which was headquartered in Boston. The American Customs Board would generate considerable hostility in the colonies towards the British government
Power of the purse
the ability to control a group by withholding or stipulating funding. In the federal government of the United States, the power of the purse is vested in the Congress as laid down in the Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 (the Appropriations Clause) and Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 (the Taxing and Spending Clause). The power of the purse plays a critical role in the relationship of the United States Congress and the President of the United States, and has been the main historic tool by which Congress can limit executive power.
Antinomianism
the belief that there are no moral laws that god expects christians to obey. However, many followers believe that Christians will obey the moral law despite their freedom from it. The Antinomianism Controversy, also known as the Free Grace Controversy, was a religious and political conflict in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. The controversy pitted most of the colony's ministers and magistrates against some adherents of the free grace theology of Puritan minister John Cotton. The one of the most notable free grace advocates was the charismatic Anne Hutchinson.
54th Massachusetts Regiment
the first military unit consisting of black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War. The adoption of the Emancipation Proclamation in December of 1862 provided the impetus for the use of free black men as soldiers and, at a time when state governors were responsible for the raising of regiments for federal service, Massachusetts was the first to respond with the formation of the Fifty-fourth Regiment. This sparked a lot of controversy and was a very public matter, but it went on to fight in the war anyway.
Hudson River School
the first real American art movement: a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by landscapes and realism. The paintings for which the movement is named depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area. Paintings showed bright opportunities for expansion. Motivated people towards westward expansion.
Loose construction
the opposite of strict, a document can imply things and be interpreted even though it is not explicitly stated in the document. Hamilton was known to have this in reference to the Constitution, while Jefferson had the opposite.
Report on Manufactures (1791)
the third report to congress by hamilton, it recommended economic policies to stimulate the new republic's economy and ensure the independence won with the conclusion of the Revolutionary War in 1783. Hamilton wanted tariffs, issued in moderation would raise revenue to fund the nation, and subsidies to industry, which would rely on funds raised by moderate tariffs, subsidies would be the best means of growing manufacturing without decreasing supply or increasing prices of goods. Congress rejected to impose tariffs.
Implied powers
those powers authorized by a document (from the Constitution) which, while not stated, seem to be implied by powers expressly stated; powers not explicitly stated but are necessary and proper to execute the powers which are. When arguing for the Constitutionality of the National Bank, Hamilton argued that the sovereign duties of a government implied the right to use means adequate to its ends.
Selectmen
those who were chosen in the town meeting to govern the town for the next year, usually those high up in the church
James Fenimore Cooper
was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. He was also in the U.S. Navy after he was kicked out of Yale University.
Tea Act
was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Its principal over objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of tea smuggled into Britain's North American colonies. This was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament's right of taxation. The Act granted the Company the right to directly ship its tea to North America and the right to the duty-free export of tea from Britain, although the tax imposed by the Townshend Acts and collected in the colonies remained in force.
Washington Irving
was an American author and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846.
Thomas Jefferson
wrote the declaration, was a strong advocate for states rights, third president of the united states. He was a spokesman for democracy, and embraced the principles of republicanism and the rights of the individual with worldwide influence. In opposition to Alexander Hamilton's Federalism, Jefferson and his close friend, James Madison, organized the Democratic-Republican Party. Elected Vice President in 1796, Jefferson opposed Adams, and with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts. Elected president in what Jefferson called the Revolution of 1800, he oversaw acquisition of the vast Louisiana Territory from France (1803), doubling the size of the United States,, and sent out the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806). In 1803, he also initiated a process of Indian tribal removal to the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi River, having opened lands for eventual American settlers. In 1807 he drafted and signed into law a bill that banned slave importation into the United States. His second term was beset with troubles at home, such as the failed treason trial of his former Vice President Aaron Burr and damaging American trade with an attempted economic warfare with Britain and France through his embargo laws.