Period 5 Essential Vocab

Question 1

Manifest Destiny

Answer 1

Concept of U.S. territorial expansion westward to the Pacific Ocean. The phrase was coined in 1845 by the editor John L. O’Sullivan who described the U.S. annexation of Texas and, by extension, the occupation of the rest of the continent as a divine right of the American people. The term was also used to justify the U.S. annexation of Oregon, New Mexico, and California.

Question 2

Texas Annexation

Answer 2

After being independent from Mexico for almost a decade, the Republic of Texas was added to the U.S. as the 28th state in 1845. This angered Mexico and quickly led to the Mexican-American War over Rio Grande border dispute.

Question 3

James K. Polk

Answer 3

Democratic president (1845-1849) known for promoting Manifest Destiny. Promised to acquire California, settle Northwest boundary dispute (fifty-four-forty-or fight), lower the tariff and re-establish an independent treasury in only one term. Accomplished all. President during Mexican-American War.

Question 4

Fifty-Four-Forty-or-Fight

Answer 4

An aggressive slogan adopted in the Oregon boundary dispute, a dispute over where the border between Canada and Oregon should be drawn, This was also Polk’s campaign slogan - the Democrats wanted the U.S. border drawn at the 54°40’ latitude.

Question 5

Oregon Treaty

Answer 5

Established the U.S./Canadian (British) border along the 49th parallel extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Polk settled for the 49° latitude in 1846 to focus on war against Mexico.

Question 6

Spot Resolutions

Answer 6

Offered in House of Representatives by Abraham Lincoln, requested Polk to provide congress with the exact location “the spot” upon which blood was spilt on American soil, as Polk had claimed in 1846 when asking congress to declare war on Mexico.

Question 7

Mexican American War (1846-1848)

Answer 7

Conflict between U.S. and Mexico over annexation of Texas. U.S. captured Mexico City. Resulted in Mexican cession in exchange for 15 million in Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Polk completed goal of territorial expansion of U.S. to pacific coast.

Question 8

California Gold Rush

Answer 8

1848 gold was discovered in California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 people coming to California. These early gold-seekers were called “forty-niners.” San Francisco grew from a small settlement to a boomtown leading to the admission of California as a state in 1850.

Question 9

Wilmot Proviso

Answer 9

Would have banned slavery in any territory gained by the U.S. from Mexico in the Mexican War. Only passed in the House but not the Senate. Associated with Free Soil Movement.

Question 10

Free Soil Party (1848-1854)

Answer 10

Minor but influential political party in the pre-Civil War period of American history that opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories. Associated with Wilmot Proviso.

Question 11

Compromise of 1850

Answer 11

Called for the admission of California as a free state, organizing Utah and New Mexico without restrictions on slavery (popular sovereignty), adjustment of the Texas/New Mexico border, abolition of slave trade in the District of Columbia, and tougher fugitive slave laws. Its passage was hailed as a solution to the threat of national division but was not.

Question 12

Fugitive Slave Law

Answer 12

Enacted by Congress in 1793 and 1850, these laws provided for the return of escaped slaves to their owners. The North was lax about enforcing the 1793 law, with irritated the South. The 1859 law was tougher and was aimed at eliminating the Underground Railroad.

Question 13

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Answer 13

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the abolitionist book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It helped to crystallize the right between the North and South. It has been called the greatest American propaganda novel ever written, and helped to ring about the Civil War.

Question 14

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Answer 14

Proposed by Stephan Douglas. This act repealed the Missouri Compromise and established that popular sovereignty (vote of the people) would determine whether Kansas and Nebraska would be slave or free states.

Question 15

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 15

Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, pro-slavery forces from Missouri crossed the border into Kansas and terrorized and murdered antislavery settlers. Antislavery sympathizers from Kansas carried out reprisal attacks. The war continued for four years before the antislavery forces won. The violence it generated helped precipitate the Civil War.

Question 16

Republican Party

Answer 16

Founded in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican Party quickly surpassed the Whig Party as the principal opposition to the Democratic Party.

Question 17

Dred Scott v Sandford (1857)

Answer 17

A slave named Dred Scott sued for his freedom, claiming that his four year stay in the northern portion of Louisiana Territory made free land by the Missouri Compromise had made him a free man. The U.S. Supreme Court decided he couldn’t sue in federal court because he was property, not a citizen. Also slaves are property and can be brought anywhere by their owner.

Question 18

John Brown’s Raid

Answer 18

In 1859, the militant abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. He planned to end slavery by massacring slave owners and freeing their slaves. He was captured and executed becoming a martyr for the abolitionist movement.

Question 19

Abraham Lincoln

Answer 19

Republican wins presidential election of 1860. Lincoln is opposed to slavery but determined to preserve the Union. South Carolina secedes from the Union 1st followed by the rest of the South.

Question 20

Fort Sumter

Answer 20

South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and had demanded that all federal property in the state be surrendered to them. Lincoln sent supplies to reinforce the fort so the Confederate Army began bombarding the fort, which surrendered. Congress declared war on the Confederacy the next day.

Question 21

Border States

Answer 21

States bordering the North: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. They were slave states, but did not secede from the Union.

Question 22

Civil War (1861-1865)

Answer 22

The war was precipitated by the secession of eleven Southern states during 1860 and 1861 and their formation of the Confederate States of America under President Jefferson Davis. Though Lincoln did free Southern slaves during the war, he fought primarily to restore the Union.

Question 23

South’s advantages in the Civil War

Answer 23

They were fighting a defensive war and only needed to keep the North out of their states to win. Had the nation’s best military leaders.

Question 24

North’s advantages in the Civil War

Answer 24

Larger numbers of troops, superior navy, better transportation, overwhelming financial and industrial reserves to create munitions and supplies.

Question 25

Monitor vs Merrimac (Virginia)

Answer 25

First engagement ever between two iron-clad naval vessels. The two ships battled for five hours on March 9, 1862, ending in a draw. The South was unable to break the Union blockade of their ports.

Question 26

Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 1862)

Answer 26

Lincoln freed all slaves in the states that had seceded, after the Northern victory at the Battle of Antietam. Lincoln had no power to enforce the law but war was no longer just to preserve the Union.

Question 27

New York City Draft Riot

Answer 27

In 1863, Congress passed a conscription law making all men between 20 and 45 years of age liable for military service. The government’s attempt to enforce the draft in New York City ignited four days of violence. A majority of the rioters were Irish.

Question 28

John Wilkes Booth

Answer 28

April 14, 1865, while sitting in his box at Ford’s Theatre watching “Our American Cousin,” President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. First presidential assassination.

Question 29

Reconstruction (1865-1877)

Answer 29

Period following the Civil War. Radical Republicans battled with President Johnson to control restoration of the Union. Radical Republicans gave military control over the South and divided the South into five military zones, each headed by a general with absolute power to protect African-Americans.

Question 30

Tenure of Office Act

Answer 30

Enacted by radical Congress, it forbade the president from removing Cabinet officers without consent of the Senate. Johnson broke this law when he fired a radical Republican from his cabinet, and he was impeached for this “crime.”

Question 31

13th Amendment

Answer 31

Freed all slaves, abolished slavery.

Question 32

14th Amendment

Answer 32

Full citizenship for African-Americans. All people born in U.S. are American citizens.

Question 33

15th Amendment

Answer 33

African-American Suffrage.

Question 34

Freedmen’s Bureau

Answer 34

Agency set up to aid former slaves in adjusting themselves to freedom. It furnished food and clothing to needy blacks and helped them get jobs. Biggest success is with literacy.

Question 35

Black Codes

Answer 35

Laws passed by Southern states after the Civil War denying ex-slaves the complete civil rights enjoyed by whites and intended to force blacks back to plantations and impoverished lifestyles.

Question 36

Sharecropping

Answer 36

African-Americans who stayed on plantations would do the labor and the owner would provide the tools and land. Most of the time the sharecropper would end up in a serious debt that they cannot get out of.

Question 37

Ku Klux Klan

Answer 37

Post-Civil War terrorist organization. The Ku Klux Klan was founded to fight the growing “influence of blacks, Jews and Catholics in U.S. society. Begun during Reconstruction, it experienced phenomenal growth in the 1920’s.

Question 38

Compromise of 1877

Answer 38

President Hayes promised to show concern for Southern interests and end Military Reconstruction in the South in exchange for the Democrats accepting the fraudulent results of 1876 election. He took Union troops out of the South leaving no protection for African-Americans.

Question 39

The New South

Answer 39

Supported building a more diversified Southern economy; championed the expansion of Southern industry; supported return of White conservatives to power; withdrawal of federal troops and rise of KKK and lynching.