HIST 1483 #3

Adams-Onis Treaty

This Treaty with Spain, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, was negotiated by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Luis de Onis, Spanish minister to the United States, and was signed in 1819. By this agreement Spain recognized U.S. possession of West Florida and ceded East Florida to the United States for $5 million. In addition, the southwestern border of the Louisiana Territory was set along the west bank of the Sabine River from its mouth to the 32nd parallel, then due north to the Red River, then along the south bank of the Red River to the 100th Meridian, then north to the Arkansas and along its south bank to its source, then north to the 42nd parallel and due west to the Pacific Ocean. By the terms of this treaty, the U.S. also gave up her claims to Texas, while Spain abandoned her claims to Oregon.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

A series of seven formal political debates between the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, and Democratic candidate, Stephen A. Douglas, for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 1858 which discussed the issue of slavery. Although Lincoln lost the election, these debates launched him into national prominence which eventually led to his election as President in 1860. In responding to Lincoln's charges concerning the weakness of his stand on slavery in Freeport, Douglas issued the Freeport Doctrine, which alienated the Southern wing of his party and ultimately contributed to his defeat in 1860.

Compromise of 1850

Also known as the Omnibus Bill of 1850, it was a response to the national secession crisis of 1850 which grew out of the question of whether slavery should be allowed in the new territories acquired from Mexico at the end of the Mexican War (1846-1848) and the need to organize California in the wake of the Gold Rush of 1849. When northerners, led by the Free Soilers and the Young Guard, advocated the Wilmot Proviso and banning slavery from these territories, the South threatened secession. The bill admitted California as a free state, organized the rest of the Mexican Cession into the New Mexico and Utah territories without restrictions on slavery, settled the Texas-New Mexico border in favor of New Mexico with a $10 million payment to Texas, abolished the slave trade (but not slavery) in the District of Columbia, and passed a new, more vigorous Fugitive Slave Law (1850). The compromise was adopted only with great difficulty. Initially proposed by Henry Clay as a single bill, it was finally passed in the summer of 1850 under the leadership of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois who built majorities for the various parts of the bill and passed it piecemeal. The debate involved some of the greatest and last efforts of the political leaders of the first half of the century including John C. Calhoun's last speech (read for him), Daniel Webster's famous "Seventh of March" speech, and Henry Clay's efforts. Contributing to the bill's passage was the sudden death of President Zachary Taylor on July 9, as his successor, President Millard Fillmore, supported the compromise. Hailed as "a final solution" of all sectional problems, the compromise postponed the Civil War a decade but did not solve the underlying problems. Disciples of Calhoun in the South and abolitionists and members of the Free Soil party in the North denounced the compromise as a betrayal of principle, but for the moment they were in a minority.

Wilmot Proviso

Amendment to the army appropriations bill of 1846 offered by Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman David Wilmot which stipulated that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory" (that is any territory acquired by the US from Mexico). This is significant because it reveals that one of the primary questions raised by the Mexican War was whether slavery would be allowed in any territory acquired from Mexico, thereby allowing for the entry of new slave states into the Union. It is also significant because it framed political debate for the next fifteen years and revealed a growing division between North and South. The amendment passed the House of Representatives with almost all the northern Democrats and northern Whigs voting for it and almost all the southern Democrats and southern Whigs voting against it. The Proviso was then defeated in the Senate, but the vote in Congress suggested that the two-party system might not be able to withstand the convulsions set off by the question of the extension of slavery. Both parties in the 1840s were national parties, deriving support from all parts of the country, but in the 1850s sectional divisions began to become more important. The political parties, as was true of other institutions such as the churches, began to reorganize along sectional lines. The Liberty party was replaced by the Free Soil party which anti-slavery advocates organized in reaction to the failure of the Wilmot Proviso and the acquisition of the Mexican Cession. The Whig party also weakened and died out to be replaced by the Republican party, organized in 1854, which relied almost totally on the North for its support. The Democratic party remained a national organization until the election of 1860.

Gadsden Purchase

An area of southern New Mexico and Arizona which was bought by the U.S. from Mexico in 1854 in order to build a transcontinental railroad linking the Deep South with the Pacific Coast. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican War and set the U.S.-Boundary was based on a faulty land survey and following the signing of the Treaty, a dispute arose between the U.S. and Mexico concerning the exact border. The location of the border was of major concern primarily because the Mesilla Valley appeared to be the best route for a southern transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, and its ownership was in dispute. Therefore, Pierce had the American minister to Mexico, James Gadsden, negotiate the purchase. By the terms of the purchase, the U.S. paid $10 million for approximately 30,000 square miles of land (approximately the size of Pennsylvania) which lies south of the Gila River from El Paso to California, thereby aiding the resolution of the border dispute and paving the way for the construction of a southern railroad to the Pacific.

Gettysburg

Battle fought in southern Pennsylvania between July 1 and July 3, 1863 in which Union forces under Meade turned back an invading Confederate force under Lee, which marked the turn of the military tide in the East. Following his victory at Chancellorsville in May, 1863, General Lee received approval from his government to invade the north. Lee hoped an invasion would fuel the northern peace movement and disrupt the Union war effort. The battle at Gettysburg was the largest ever fought in North America, and is generally considered to be the turning point of the American Civil War. The Confederate army number 75,000, while the combined Federal strength was more than 90,000. As a result of this costly battle (there were some 51,000 casualties in all, killed, wounded, and captured/missing, with more than 7,000 dead on the battlefield), Confederate forces retreated South, there hopes of carrying the war to the North at an end. The Battle of Gettysburg was a decisive engagement in that it arrested the Confederates' second and last major invasion of the North, destroyed their offensive strategy, and forced them to fight a defensive war in which the inadequacies of their manufacturing capacity and transportation facilities doomed them to defeat

Erie Canal

Canal built between 1819 and 1825, running 364 miles from Albany, New York on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York on Lake Erie. Built by the state of New York (for $7.5 million) at the urging of Governor DeWitt Clinton, it is an example of the involvement of the states in encouraging, funding, and constructing internal improvements such as roads, canals, railroads, and harbors which brought about a transportation revolution in the early 19th century in the US. The canal opened the interior of the US, tying the coast to the Great Lakes by a water route which made New York City a major port and upper New York state an area of urban, commercial development, exemplary of the new market revolution sweeping the US and promoting an age of opportunistic materialism, self-reliance, and evangelical Protestantism which promoted moral self-discipline and economic self-reliance (including the identification of wage labor with being a free man) as an act of religious faith. The Erie Canal was immensely successful and profitable and set off a canal boom across the nation which lasted about twenty years. It shows how important transportation was for the US in creating the national market economy and bringing industrialization and how economic growth and the westward movement occurred in the US as a result not of pure laissez faire economics and private investment alone but of government action and expenditure, especially by the states.

Missouri compromise

Congressional agreement of 1820 which provided a settlement (temporarily) of the question of whether slavery would be allowed to expand into the territories, an issue which was central to bringing secession and Civil War in 1861. The compromise was a response to the first major crisis between North and South over whether any more slave states from west of the Mississippi River would be allowed into the Union. The compromise was based on Massachusetts' agreement to allow Maine to apply for admission as a free state and on the Thomas Proviso (of Senator Jesse Thomas of Illinois) which called for the admission of Missouri as a slave state in return for Southern support for banning slavery (with the exception of Missouri) in the Louisiana Territory north of 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude. The compromise thereby kept the number of slave and free states equal, balancing Maine and Missouri. But the debate expressed suspicion and hostility revealing a growing division between North and South over slavery and, hence, sectionalism. The crisis began when in 1819 Missouri applied as a slave state for admission to the Union (as the first state from the Louisiana Territory). The North wanted it to be a free state and proposed the Tallmadge Amendments, but the South managed to defeat them. The South saw the question as one of cultural survival. It was already outvoted in the House of Representatives, so to defend its interests at the national level, it needed to maintain as many slave states as free states in the US Senate. The hostility and bitterness, North and South, are indicated by the fact that the fourteen Northern congressmen who voted for the Missouri Compromise and allowed Missouri to join as a slave state were all defeated in the next election. Thomas Jefferson, dismayed by the strong feeling, referred to the crisis as a "fire bell in the night."

Ordinance of Nullification

Declaration which stated that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 would not be enforced in South Carolina. South Carolina and other southern states were opposed to these tariffs because they believed they protected Northern industry at the expense of Southern agricultural and expanded the powers of the federal government contrary to the Constitution. Although the tariff of 1832 was slightly lower than that of 1828, it was not enough lower to satisfy the South. In response, South Carolina's legislature passed laws nullifying both tariffs (See John C. Calhoun's South Carolina Exposition and Protest for more on nullification theory) and prohibited the collection of these tariffs in South Carolina. Further, she threatened to secede--to withdraw from the United States--if her stand on the tariff was not respected. The resulting nullification crisis found President Jackson as willing to use force to collect the tariff duties as South Carolina was to prevent their collection. Jackson threatened to send in the army to enforce the tariff (and the Force Bill was passed authorizing such action), while Governor Haynes of South Carolina threatened to call out the state militia to resist it.. Blows were averted when the Henry Clay's Compromise Tariff of 1833 was passed, lowering tariff duties to a maximum of 20% over a period of time. The question of the tariff was resolved, at least until the Civil War, but the issues of nullification and secession remained. (South Carolina nullified the Force Bill to assert the right of nullification).

Popular sovereignty

Doctrine (initially called "Squatter Sovereignty") developed in 1848 and attributed to Lewis Cass, US Senator from Michigan and Democratic party candidate for president in 1848. Developed in reaction to the Wilmot Proviso, the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty" stipulated that the people of a territory would decide for themselves whether they would enter the Union as a slave or free state. This was purposefully ambiguous and was used as a compromise to hold the Democrats together because many northern Democrats favored the Wilmot Proviso and southern Democrats supported John C. Calhoun's "southern rights" position which argued that slaveholders have the right to take their property into any territory. Because the doctrine did not stipulate when the decision about slavery would be made--when a territorial legislature first met or later when a state constitution was drafted--both northerners and southerners could interpret it the way they wanted to. It became the principle used for organizing the territories of New Mexico and Utah under the Compromise Act of 1850 and for organizing the territory of Kansas under the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Taken up by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois in order to pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it became an issue in his debates with Abraham Lincoln in their race for the US Senate in 1858. Douglas's use of popular sovereignty suggested to some that he was unprincipled, at best postponing the issue of whether to allow the extension of slavery by arguing that maintaining the democratic process was what was most important.

Manifest Destiny

Doctrine which emerged in the 1830s and 1840s providing a justification for US expansionism. It held that the clear, God-given, and inevitable future of the US was to spread across the whole continent, perhaps around the world. This idea that the US would and should expand and incorporate more territory was the result of Romanticist attitudes and of arguments such as the US had a superior civilization including the best economic and political systems (capitalism and democracy) and the true faith (Protestant Christianity) and as such its enlargement would increase the area of liberty and make proper use of the land. The phrase, Manifest Destiny, was first used in 1845 by John L. O'Sullivan an editor of the journal, Democratic Review. It is significant because it represents an agrarian expansionism which led to the US's acquisition of Texas (1845), Oregon (1846), the Mexican Cession (1848), and the Gadsden Purchase (1853), and unsuccessful efforts to obtain all of Mexico in 1848, Cuba in 1854 (Ostend Manifesto), and parts of Central America by filibuster in the1850s. This expansionism was also identified by some with the South's effort to expand the territory which could enter the Union as slave states, and the subsequent debate over whether slavery would be allowed in the territories contributed to the coming of the Civil War.

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)

Editor and anti-slavery advocate who published his own newspaper, Liberator, beginning January 1, 1831, and called for "immediate emancipation" which became known as abolition. Representative of the extremist attitudes on slavery which emerged in the 1830s in the North and in the South and of the evangelical perfectionism spreading across the North, Garrison saw slavery as sinful and therefore an evil which had to be eliminated without compromise. This did not mean that he thought slavery could be abolished overnight, but he did want people to recognize that its existence was intolerable and therefore gradualism and colonization needed to be replaced with emancipation and legal equality for blacks. A moralist and Christian perfectionist who also made a rational case against slavery, Garrison developed his anti-slavery position after he went to work in 1828 as an assistant editor for Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker who in 1821 began publishing his anti-slavery newspaper, Genius of Universal Emancipation. After starting the Liberator in 1831, Garrison also founded that year the New England Anti-Slavery Society and then in 1833 helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society. The movement soon suffered from

Cotton gin

Eli Whitney's invention which made the rapid separation of short-staple cotton seeds and fiber possible and thus revolutionized the southern economy. Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793 while he was working as a tutor on a South Carolina plantation. Prior to the cotton gin, it took an individual a considerable amount of time to "clean" (remove seeds from) a pound of short-staple cotton. Whitney's simple machine provided a mechanical means of extracting the difficult-to-remove seeds. Short staple cotton, unlike long-staple cotton, could be grown inland. Thus the invention of the cotton gin increased the area where cotton was produced, making it the king of staple crops in the South. With the spread of cotton cultivation, the demand for slaves in the lower South increased, Southern cotton fed the growing cotton textile mills in England and New England, and the South was tied into the dependent position of producer of raw materials for an increasingly industrialized North. Thus Whitney's invention revolutionized cotton production, stimulated the cotton textile industry, and allowed slavery to spread across the South as the US moved westward.

Ft. Sumter

Federal installation in Charleston harbor which Lincoln attempted to resupply in 1861, and, as a result, the Civil War began. On April 10, 1861, in response to a movement of troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, Brig. General P.G.T. Beauregard, who was in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison. Union commander Major Robert Anderson refused. On 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to effectively respond. On April 13, Fort Sumter was surrendered to the Confederacy.

"American System"

Henry Clay's Neo-Federalist, nationalist program to promote US economic growth and tie the country together by government-sponsored protective tariffs, internal improvements, and a national bank. Proposed in 1816, the American System reflected the nationalist fervor of the years after the War of 1812. Congress in 1816 passed the first intentionally protective US tariff (raising duties an average of 25%) and established the 2nd Bank of the US with a 20 year charter (the 1st BUS having been allowed to die when its charter expired in 1811). Federal spending for internal improvements such as roads and canals was often blocked on constitutional grounds, so state governments provided funds to build turnpikes, canals, and railroads. Most of the private money invested came from Britain as private investors in the US did not have the capital needed for such projects. Therefore, without government action, the transportation network and banking system needed for the transportation revolution and the national market economy would not have occurred at that time. The American System is an example of the strong nationalist feeling in the US in the years after the War of 1812--the so-called Era of Good Feelings--and it indicates that in the 19th century the US did not have a laissez faire, free trade economic policy but instead continued with a neo-mercantilist, protectionist economic policy, including a substantial and important government involvement in the economy.

Dorothea Dix (1802-87)

Leader of the effort to improve conditions in asylums and prisons to promote rehabilitation. Dix began her career at 14 as a school teacher, and, by the age of 19, had opened her own school. Ultimately, however, her fragile health intervened, and her school was forced to close. She went to Europe to recuperate, and, while there, met a number of reformers who told her about new theories of caring for the insane. In 1841, Dix, back in Boston, volunteered to teach a Sunday School class of twenty women inmates at the Cambridge, Massachusetts jail. After the lesson, she explored the prison and found the dungeon cells where the insane were jailed. There, she found mentally ill men and women were chained to walls and locked into pens. These individuals were naked, filthy, brutalized, and underfed. They had no heat and were sleeping on stone floors. At this point, Dix decided to make improvement of the conditions of the mentally ill her life's work, at once starting a campaign to have stoves placed in cells and inmates fully clothed. From Massachusetts, she expanded her crusade throughout New England and across the United States, finally, in the 1850s, carrying her work to the British Isles, France, Greece, Russia, Canada, and Japan. During the Civil War, she volunteered to form an Army Nursing Corps and was made Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army. Her duties included organizing hundreds of women volunteers into a nursing corps, establishing and inspecting hospitals, and raising money for medical supplies. After the war, she actively aided in rehabilitating facilities in the South which had been neglected or damaged during the war. Her life illustrates the impact a single individual can have on society. The reforms she initiated have been continued and still profoundly affect the treatment of the mentally ill today.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Legislation sponsored by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and passed in 1854, organizing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska on the basis of popular sovereignty. By using popular sovereignty, the act overturned the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which had banned slavery north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north latitude, except for Missouri, and thereby it opened up the whole question of slavery in the territories again. This led to an influx of pro-slavery and anti-slavery immigrants into Kansas, and by 1855-1856 these groups were engaged in a civil war for control of Kansas, leading to references to "Bleeding Kansas" and to emotional conflicts between and pro- and anti-slavery advocates in Congress. Douglas had adopted the doctrine of popular sovereignty in order obtain the necessary support to organize the territory so that he could sponsor legislation to build a transcontinental railroad west from Chicago to the west coast, but before that happened (a bill was passed in 1863) the conflict in Kansas spread to the rest of the country and the Civil War began in 1861

Vicksburg

Major victory by Union forces under Grant on July 4, 1863 which completed the Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River and to divide the South. In May and June of 1863, Grant's armies converged on Vicksburg, entrapping a Confederate army under Lt. Gen. John Pemberton there. On July 4, Vicksburg surrendered after prolonged siege. With the loss of Pemberton's army and this vital stronghold on the Mississippi, the Confederacy was effectively split in half. Grant's successes in the West boosted his reputation, leading ultimately to his appointment as General-in-Chief of the Union armies.

Horace Mann (1796-1859)

Massachusetts reformer and statesman who fought for universal public education as a means of preserving democracy and instilling American values. In addition to advocating universal, free, non-sectarian public schools, he also supported temperance, abolition, hospitals for the mentally ill, and women's rights. Mann graduated from Brown University and the Litchfield Law School, then set up a legal practice in Dedham, Massachusetts. There, he argued that education, the intelligent use of the vote, and religious freedom were the means by which American liberties were preserved. Mann served in the Massachusetts legislature (1827-32) and for a term in the state senate before becoming Secretary to the Massachusetts Board of education in 1837. Convinced education was essential in the creation of a responsible and moral citizenry, Mann worked to increase the funding available to schools, improved the preparation and pay of teachers, and advocated compassionate discipline. Mann's most controversial stand involved his advocacy of nonsectarian religious education in the schools. He believed public school children should be taught Christian ethnical principles but not doctrines about which sects disagreed. This got him in trouble with both liberals and conservatives. Mann was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1848, where he denounced slavery and worked for abolition while, at the same time, continuing his crusade for universal public education. In 1851, he became the first President of Antioch College in Ohio, where he served until his death

Seneca Falls Convention

Meeting convened in 1848 in New York by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott to discuss problems confronting women which issued the Declaration of Sentiments concerning the treatment of women and inaugurated the women's rights movement. The event which brought Stanton and Mott together and at which they first discussed such a meeting was the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. That convention refused to seat Stanton, Mott, and other women delegates from American because of their sex. Eight years later, while Mott was visiting her sister, Martha C Wright, in Seneca Falls, New York, a social visit which included Mott, Stanton, Wright , Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt led to the calling of the Seneca Falls Convention. These women were discussing, among other things, the recent passage of the New York Married Woman's Property Rights Act, which, while important, was limited in its provisions. The time had come, Stanton argued, for women's wrongs to be laid before the public, and women themselves must shoulder the responsibility. Before the afternoon was out, the women decided on a call for a convention "to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." A crowd of about three hundred people, including forty men, attended the convention which was held at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls on July 19-20, 1848. The 11 resolutions drawn up by Stanton passed unanimously except for the 9th, the one on woman suffrage, which passed after some debate, largely as the results of the efforts of Frederick Douglass. Many also signed Stanton's Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence. The Seneca Falls Convention inaugurated the women's rights movement which culminated 72 years later with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. Only one person who signed the Seneca Falls Declaration lived long enough to cast her ballot.

Transcendentalists

Members of a philosophic movement in the US which argued that truth in the world can best be gained by relying on one's own instincts and intuition because there is in each person a spark of God which is reflected in that intuition. Transcedentalism, which represented the first truly American philosophical and literary movement, included among its proponents Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Interchangeable parts

Multi-part devices like guns and watches were traditionally made by skilled craftsmen, and each item was unique. If a gun, watch, or similar device needed a replacement part it had to either be sent back to the original craftsman for repair or thrown away. A number of individuals at times experimented with making the parts of items such as guns so precisely that they could be interchanged from item to item. Eli Whitney has long been credit in the United States for first introducing this method. Around 1798, Whitney built ten guns, all containing the same parts and mechanisms. He then took them apart before Congress, placed the parts in a pile, and, with help, reassembled the guns. Congress, impressed, ordered a standard for all U.S. equipment. With interchangeable parts, if one mechanism in a product failed, a new piece could be ordered. The principle of interchangeable parts made mass production possible, based on the use of templates by semi-skilled labor to construct parts rather than making them by hand

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe about slavery which popularized the anti-slavery cause in the North. Stowe wrote the novel because she was angry about the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which punished those caught aiding runaway slaves and diminished the rights of free blacks as well as slaves. The novel, published on March 20, 1852 (after first being serialized in the National Era), soon became the best-selling novel of the 19th century and is credited with helping to end slavery in the United States. Nevertheless, it contributed to the creation and spread of stereotypes about African Americans.

Charles G. Finney

One-time lawyer who, after a religious conversion experience in 1821, became a Presbyterian minister and the "father of modern revivalism." Known as the greatest evangelist of the 1820s and 30s, Finney brought the Second Great Awakening (which had begun in Connecticut in the 1790s and then moved to Kentucky ca. 1800) to new heights in upper New York state. One of the principal reasons why Finney was such a success as a religious leader and why his ideas came to dominate evangelical Protestantism was that he developed a theology which reflected the outlook of the Jacksonian era. In a period celebrating the self-made, common man, people wanted to believe that they controlled their own destinies and that anything was possible, and Finney said this was as true of salvation as anything else. He rejected the strict Calvinism of predestination and original sin and instead argued for free will and salvation by good works. According to Finney, once a person undergoes a conversion experience, he or she (and it was important that he included women which had not always been true) became a free moral agent who has a religious duty to reform this world to bring about the kingdom of God. His message was therefore a form of religious perfectionism and soon provided support for social reforms such as temperance and abolitionism. Certain standards of personal behavior (what became known as middle class morality) were identified with religious beliefs so that people would control themselves socially (at work, at home, in the community) for religious reasons.

Spoils system

Popular name in the 19th century for patronage, the practice of office-holders rewarding supporters for their support during campaigns by appointing them to a job in the government. Expanded by Jackson during his presidency, the spoils system became the primary method for filling government positions before the Civil Service Act was passed in 1883. Patronage reflected the new democratic style of politics. Jackson virtually swept out of the government all those people who had been appointed before his election in 1828 and replaced with his own followers. He justified this on the grounds that it would end corruption in government by assuring that no one stayed in any one job too long and by arguing that anyone could do government work regardless of education, experience, or training. This practice soon gave government the reputation for being incompetent (because every four or eight years, new people would have to learn the job anew), for being an employment service (as each party would replace all the workers from the other party), and for being corrupt (because people seemed to be buying positions for themselves). The purpose of the civil service reform in the late 19th century was to remove jobs, especially those which required expertise and long-term understanding, from the realm of politics so that the appointees would be selected on the basis of merit rather than contacts and decisions in these jobs would be based on information and long-term considerations rather than immediate political pay-offs.

Dred Scott Case

Supreme Court decision of 1857 which declared that slaves were not citizens and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The case involved Dred Scott, who was born a slave in Virginia in 1799. In 1830, Scott, who had been taken to Missouri by his master, was sold to Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeon. Over the next twelve years, Scott accompanied Emerson to posts in the free state of Illinois and the free Territory of Wisconsin. During this period, he met and married Harriet Robinson and the couple had two children. In 1843, Dr. Emerson died, and Scott and his family were hired out to other St. Louis families by Mrs. Emerson. In 1846, Harriet and Dred Scott sued Mrs. Emerson (later the Emerson estate) for their freedom. After a long court battle, the case ultimately found its way to the Supreme Court which handed down a decision in 1857. The Court ruled that Scott should remain a slave because as a slave he was not a citizen of the United States and thus not eligible to bring suit in federal court; as a slave, he was personal property and thus had never been free. In addition, the Court said that the provision of the Missouri Compromise that permitted Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories was unconstitutional. This decision alarmed those opposed to slavery and intensified the growing divisions within the United States. Dred Scott was set free shortly before his death from tuberculosis in 1858.

Tariff of Abominations

Tariff of 1828 which continued the neo-mercantilist, protectionist policies of the American System and raised duties on imports and therefore was an abomination to the South. Proposed by Jacksonians for political rather than economic reasons, the tariff was supposed to discredit the administration of John Quincy Adams and assure the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, but it was not supposed to pass because the Jacksonians thought New Englanders would oppose it. When it passed, the South denounced it, and John C. Calhoun secretly wrote his South Carolina Exposition and Protest in December 1828 restating the compact theory of the Union and the nullification doctrine. Although Jackson tried to reduce the tariff rates in 1832, the principle of protectionism remained in place and that, combined with the William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist movement and Nat Turner's slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831, brought the secessionist crisis of 1832-1833. South Carolina nullified the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 and threatened to secede from the Union. Jackson responded with a combination of placating messages and preparations to use force to enforce federal laws (under the Force Bill of 1833). The crisis passed after Congress passed the Compromise Tariff of 1833 which isolated the South Carolinian nullifiers. The Tariff of Abominations is significant in that it shows how political groups were prepared to sacrifice the public good for limited political objectives and how the South felt increasingly alienated and threatened by actions--legislative and otherwise-contrary to their interests as an agrarian, rural, hierarchical society dependent on producing a staple crop for export by slave labor.

Protective Tariff

Tax on imported goods designed to protect American businessmen, wage earners, and farmers from the competition and products of foreign labor. In the years following the War of 1812, Americans who had expanded agricultural and industrial production during the war years, aided by British and French commercial restructions and the Embargo, found the money required for this expansion combined with high labor costs in the United States made it difficult for them to continue compete with European rivals once the war ended. In addition, in an effort to discourage American manufacturers, the country was flooded with English goods which were cheaper and better than those Americans could make for the same price, leading to the ruin of many. Under Henry Clay's American Plan, Congress was urged to remedy this evil and encourage American production, self-sufficiency, and regional specialization. They responded with the Tariff of 1816 and subsequent tariffs, which some argued went beyond protection and created an American monopoly on the domestic market to the disadvantage of farmers, shippers, and the poor. For the next thirty years, the tariff was a major issue in American politics, although controversy was temporarily quelled by the Compromise of 1833. Following the Civil War, the tariff controversy arose again and remained prominent into the twentieth century. Today, controversy over free trade agreements and outsourcing is a continuation of that struggle.

Nat Turner Revolt

The August, 1832, slave rebellion in Southampton, Virginia, led by Nat Turner. Turner, a slave and lay preacher, believed that he had been chosen by God to lead a slave rebellion. A February 1831 eclipse of the sun convinced him that the time for insurrection was near. Thus in August, Turner led seven other slaves in night of rampage resulting in the death of his owners and other whites, approximately 58 in all. Turner hoped that this action would precipitate a massive slave uprising, but only about 75 joined in the rebellion. In response, the militia was sent to quell the rebellion and many innocent slaves were killed. Turner was captured about six weeks later and executed in November, 1831. Nat Turner's rebellion inspired great fear in the South as it seemed to be aimed primarily at killing whites rather than escape from the institution of slavery--there were few plans past the initial stages of violence. It resulted in limitations on individual rights in slave areas, including censorship of the mails, exclusion of "incendiary forms of literature" from the region, harsher slave codes, and the development of a general siege mentality.

Underground railroad

The Underground Railroad was the name given to the network of routes, homes and individuals who helped slaves escape from the South to the North and Canada. By the 1840s, railroad terminology was used to describe various aspects of the operation. For example, fugitives were called passengers, the homes that sheltered them stations, and those that guided them conductors. Stations were usually located about twenty miles apart. Conductors used covered wagons or carts with false bottoms to transport fugitives from one station to another. Fugitives often hid during the day and travelled at night. Conductors also included individuals such as Harriet Tubman who went south to guide slaves to freedom. Estimates of the number of fugitives who escaped to freedom via the Underground Railroad vary widely--from 6000 (the Census figure) to 30,000 to 100,000 people. Regardless of how many slaves actually escaped via the Underground Railroad, it served as a symbol of freedom to fugitives and as a point of contention and mutual accusations between the North and South.

Emancipation Proclamation

The announcement by Lincoln on New Year's Day, 1863, that slaves in states still in rebellion against the Union were forever free. Lincoln had been under pressure from abolitionists and radicals to issue such a proclamation since the beginning of his administration, but, while he approved in principle, he wanted wider support from the American people before freeing the slaves. Following the passage of the Second Confiscation Act (which freed the slaves of everyone in rebellion against the government) by Congress on July 17, 1862, Lincoln believed the time was ripe. In the fall of 1862, after the Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation warning that on January 1, 1863, he would free all slaves in those states still in rebellion. Intended as a war and propaganda measure, Lincoln's Proclamation initially had more symbolic than real impact because the federal government had no means to enforce it at the time. However, the document notified the South, the Union, and the rest of the world that the war was being fought to end slavery as well as to preserve the Union, and, eventually, as more southern territory was occupied by the Union, thousands of slaves were freed as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation.

John Brown's Raid

The attack led by John Brown (1800 - 1859) on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia on October 16, 1859, which was intended to inspire a slave uprising but which ended in the deaths of the attackers and increased tensions between North and South.

Oregon Question

The dispute with Great Britain over the northern boundary of the United States from the Rock Mountains to the Pacific. The issue had been temporarily resolved with the Convention of 1818, which set the U.S. boundary with Canada from the Lake of the Woods to the Continental Divide at the 49th parallel and temporarily provided for joint sovereignty (shared ownership) in Oregon. In 1845, President James K. Polk, who had won election on the slogan "54º40'" or fight (US ownership of all of Oregon), informed the British that he wanted the issue of sovereignty in Oregon resolved. Meanwhile, war with Mexico loomed on the horizon and, as a result, Polk was eager to settle the Oregon question. Great Britain was equally anxious due to internal disputes over the Corn Law and reform. As a result, the two countries compromised and agreed to extend the 49th parallel boundary westward. Great Britain thereby gave up her wish to annex all of Oregon to the Columbia River (the boundary between Washington and Oregon) and the United States gave up her desire to take all of Oregon to the Alaska border.

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

Treaty between the US and Mexico, signed February 2, 1848, ending the Mexican War (May 1846-February 1848). The treaty granted the northern half of Mexico to the US and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas in return for $15 million. Known as the Mexican Cession, this territory included California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Negotiated by Nicholas Trist, the treaty became a matter of dispute even before negotiations were completed because southern Democrats mounted an "all Mexico" campaign while Whigs and others wanted none of Mexico--all because these territories might enter the Union as slave states. When Polk fell under the spell of the "all Mexico" advocates, he tried to recall Trist, but Trist, observing the tenuous position of the US army in Mexico City under General Winfield Scott, ignored the recall and finished the negotiations. Trist's decision and the treaty also corresponded to concerns by John C. Calhoun and others that taking all of Mexico would renew the war and increase the power of the federal government plus raise the problem of absorbing the Mexican population. Calhoun therefore recommended taking only New Mexico and California, the least populated parts of Mexico. The addition of so much territory to the Union made the question of extending slavery into the territories a primary political issue until the Civil War broke out, largely over that issue, in 1861

monroe doctrine

US foreign policy position on Latin America devised by, then, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and declared in President James Monroe's State of the Union Address in December, 1823. It had two primary parts: the non-colonization principle and the non-intervention principle. Non-colonization declared that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization. Non-intervention stated that the US would not intervene in the affairs of Europe if the Europeans stayed out of the Americas. The US, concerned with keeping the Western Hemisphere free of European control, issued the doctrine in response to the threat of the Quadruple Alliance (Austria, France, Prussia, Russia) to return to Spain its former colonies in Latin America which had become independent republics between 1808 and 1821. Rejecting a British suggestion of cooperation, Adams called for an independent US stand, so the doctrine reveals the new nationalism of the period after the War of 1812. The doctrine also shows the two-sided nature of US foreign policy. Initially a statement of isolationism, it also became a justification for expansionism as in the Mexican War (1846-1848). While denying any new European colonization, it left open the possibility of US annexation or indirect control, and the doctrine has come to symbolize the idea that the Western Hemisphere is a US sphere of influence.