Chapter 13: Expansion, War, and Sectional Crisis

Question 1

Manifest Destiny

Answer 1

The 19th-century belief that it was the destiny of the United States to expand westward and bring American ideals and civilization to the continent.

Question 2

Californios

Answer 2

Mexican residents of California during the Mexican and early American periods of California’s history.

Question 3

“Fifty-four forty or fight!”

Answer 3

A slogan used in the 1844 presidential campaign, referring to the U.S. claim to the Oregon Territory up to the latitude of 54°40’N.

Question 4

conscience Whigs

Answer 4

A faction within the Whig Party that opposed the spread of slavery in newly acquired territories.

Question 5

Wilmot Proviso

Answer 5

A proposal in 1846 to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico during the Mexican-American War, though it was never enacted.

Question 6

free-soil movement

Answer 6

A political movement in the 1840s and 1850s that opposed the expansion of slavery into the Western territories.

Question 7

squatter sovereignty

Answer 7

The idea that settlers in a territory should have the right to determine the status of slavery in that territory through a popular vote.

Question 8

forty-niners

Answer 8

The people who rushed to California in 1849 during the Gold Rush.

Question 9

“slavery follows the flag”

Answer 9

A concept asserting that slavery could exist in the newly acquired territories if the inhabitants wanted it, even if it was prohibited by territorial governments.

Question 10

Compromise of 1850

Answer 10

A series of legislative measures that aimed to settle the debate over the expansion of slavery in the newly acquired territories, including the admission of California as a free state.

Question 11

personal-liberty laws

Answer 11

State laws passed in the North in the 1850s aimed at protecting the rights of free African Americans and resisting the Fugitive Slave Act.

Question 12

Gadsden Purchase

Answer 12

The acquisition of a strip of land in what is now Arizona and New Mexico from Mexico in 1853 to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.

Question 13

Ostend Manifesto

Answer 13

A secret proposal in 1854, primarily by American diplomats in Europe, to purchase or seize Cuba from Spain, which was met with controversy and opposition.

Question 14

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 14

A law passed in 1854 that allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise.

Question 15

American, or Know-Nothing, Party

Answer 15

A political party in the 1850s that was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic and sought to limit the influence of these groups in American society.

Question 16

“Bleeding Kansas”

Answer 16

A term used to describe the violent conflicts between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas in the mid-1850s.

Question 17

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Answer 17

A Supreme Court case in 1857 that ruled that enslaved individuals were not citizens and could not sue in federal courts, and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories.

Question 18

Freeport Doctrine

Answer 18

A position taken by Stephen Douglas during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, stating that settlers could effectively exclude slavery by refusing to pass laws protecting slaveholders’ rights.