Chapter 10 Flashcards
Franchise
Definition: The right to vote.
Significance: This signified the shift to a democracy. Franchise was extended to all adult white males between 1820 and 1860. Black adult men gained the right to vote with the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Women’s suffrage was granted in 1920.
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Notables
Definition: Northern landlords, slave-owning planters, and seaport merchants who dominated the political system of the early nineteenth century.
Significance: This gentry-dominated system kept men who lacked wealth and powerful family connections from seeking office.
Spoils System
Definition: The widespread award of public jobs to political supporters after an electoral victory.
Significance: In 1829, Andrew Jackson instituted the system on the national level, arguing that the rotation of office holders was preferable to a permanent group of bureaucrats. This was argued to be completely Republican because it represented the wishes of the majority.
Caucus
Definition: A meeting held by a political party to choose candidates, make policies, and enforce party discipline.
Significance: This was installed by Martin Van Buren in order for the spoils system to be passed.
American System
Definition: The mercantilist system of national economic development advocated by Henry Clay and adopted by John Quincy Adams, with a national bank to manage the nation’s financial system, protective tariffs to provide revenue and encourage industry, and a nationally funded network of roads, canals, and railroads.
Significance: This won support for Henry Clay in the West, but spurred criticism in the South; they thought a national bank would bankrupt them, and they were against tariffs due to their agriculture-based economy.
Internal Improvements
Definition: Public works such as roads and canals.
Significance: The purpose of the American System was to fund these.
Corrupt Bargain
Definition: A term used by Andrew Jackson’s supporters for the appointment by President John Quincy Adams of Henry Clay as Secretary of State, the traditional stepping-stone to his presidency.
Significance: Jackson’s supporters vowed to oppose Adams’ policies and prevent Clay’s presidency.
Consolidated Government
Definition: A term meaning a powerful and potentially oppressive national government.
Significance: Martin Van Buren was against this, and he helped to defeat Adams’ proposals for roads and canals to avoid a consolidated government.
Tariff of Abominations
Definition: A tariff enacted in 1828 that raised duties significantly on raw materials, textiles, and iron goods.
Significance: Martin Van Buren hoped to win the support of farmers in New York, Ohio, and Kentucky with this tariff. However, the South didn’t like it because it had no tariff protection, and it resented the higher cost of imported duties goods.
Nullification
Definition: The constitutional argument advanced by John C. Calhoun that a state legislature or convention could void a law passed by Congress.
Significance: This was based on the fact that each region had distinct needs, and so protective tariffs could act unequally on the states; this was rejected by Jackson, who, instead, enforced a tariff that over the course of a decade reduce tariff rates.
Indian Removal Act of 1830
Definition: Act that delivered the mandatory relocation of eastern tribes to territory west of the Mississippi.
Significance: Jackson said this was for the preservation of a Native Americans and their culture. Even though Native Americans resisted it, they were forced to comply.
Trail of Tears
Definition: Forced westward journey of Cherokees from their land in Georgia to present-day Oklahoma in 1838.
Significance: Nearly a quarter of the Cherokees died en route.
Classical Liberalism/Laissez-Faire
Definition: The principle that the less government does, the better, particularly in reference to the economy.
Significance: New state constitutions contributed to this idea.
Whigs
Definition: The second national party, the Whig Party, arose in 1834 when a group of Congressmen contested Andrew Jackson’s policies and conduct.
Significance: The Whig Party and the Democratic Party fought for votes. The Whig party identified with the Revolutionary American bad British parties to make a statement about the fairness of Jackson’s presidency.
