National expansion terms

Question 1

Compromise of 1850

Answer 1

a proposal by Henry Clay that California be admitted as a free state in exchange for the passage of a tougher Fugitive Slave Act

Question 2

duress

Answer 2

force

Question 3

Free-Soil Party

Answer 3

a political party founded in 1848 to support and promote abolitionism

Question 4

Fugitive Slave Act

Answer 4

a law passed in 1850 that drastically toughened the regulations dealing with slaves who had escaped to free states or territories

Question 5

Gadsden Purchase

Answer 5

purchase of parts of present-day New Mexico and Arizona

Question 6

Gold Rush of 1849

Answer 6

a massive movement westward in search of gold in California

Question 7

Manifest Destiny

Answer 7

literally meaning “obvious fate”; a phrase used to justify U.S. expansion westward to the Pacific coast; basically, the belief that God meant the United States to have that land

Question 8

Mexican Cession

Answer 8

lands ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

Question 9

secede

Answer 9

withdraw from membership in a group or confederation, in this case the United States

Question 10

Underground Railroad

Answer 10

organization of people who conducted escaping slaves north to freedom

Question 11

wagon trains

Answer 11

large groups of covered wagons drawn by oxen or very strong horses

Question 12

Wilmot Proviso

Answer 12

a defeated amendment to a congressional bill proposing that no slavery be allowed in territory acquired in the Mexican War