S's Flashcards
Salary Grab Act
an 1873 law by which Congress voted a 100 percent pay raise for the president and a 50 percent increase for its members and made both retroactive two years back; public outrage led to a Democratic victory in the next congressional election, and the law was repealed
Salem Witch Trials
trials that were initiated by the claims of several young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, that they were tormented by the occult activities of certain of their neighbors and that resulted in the execution of about twenty people
Sanborn Contract Fraud
a scheme by a politician named Sanborn, who was given a contract to collect $427,000 in unpaid taxes for a 50 perce3nt commission, which found its way into Republican campaign funds
Antonio Lopez de the Santa Anna
dictator of Mexico who, in response to Texas’s proclamation of independence from Mexico, advanced northward an annihilated the Texan garrisons at the Alamo and at Goliad
Santa Fe Trail
a path from New Mexico northeast to Independence, Missouri, that became an active trading corridor, opening up the Spanish territories to American migration and influence, and also providing the basis for future territorial claims, it created a prosperous trade in mules, gold and silver, and furs, which moved north in exchange for manufactured goods that went south, with American settlements springing up all along the route
Saratoga
the site of the 1777 defeat of the British by American forces, under the command of General Benedict Arnold, which convinced the French to join openly in the war against England
Scalawags
the Southern name for Southerners who supported the Reconstruction regimes
General Winfield Scott
the commander of U.S. forces who was ordered by President Polk to march into Mexico and take Mexico City
Secession Crisis
the 1860 vote of a special convention made up of delegates elected by the people of South Carolina that declared South Carolina out of the Union
Second Continental Congress
the 1775 meeting in the Philadelphia of representatives of the colonies who adopted the New England army around Boston, calling on the other colonies to send troops and sending George Washington to command it, adopted a “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking up Arms,” and adopted the Olive Branch Petition
Second Great Awakening
in reaction to the trend toward rationalism, the decline in church membership, and the lack of piety, the renewal of personal, heartfelt evangelicalism that began in 1801 at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, and whose social overtones would go on to spark the great reform movements of the 1830s and 1840s
Secret Si
several prominent Northern abolitionists who supported and bankrolled John Brown and his plans to incite a slave uprising across the South
Sedition Act
a 1798 law that widened the powers of President John Adams’s administration to muzzle its newspaper critics and was aimed at actual or potential Republican opposition, with the result that a number of editors were actually jailed for printing critical editorials
Seneca Falls, New York
the site of the 1848 meeting and its “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” that began the modern feminist movement in the United States with the Grimke sisters, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Beecher Stowe being activists in these early days
Separatists
religious people who fled England first to Holland and then settled in North America because of their belief that the Church of England was beyond saving and that they must separate from it; they became known as the Pilgrims
William Seward
President Lincoln’s Secretary of State, who, along with Ambassador to Great Britain Charles Francis Adams, took a hard line in warning Europeans not to interfere; therefore, Britain remained neutral, and other European countries, France in particular, followed its lead
Seward’s Folly
so called by its critics, the 1867 purchase advocated by Secretary of State William Seward of Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000
Shay’s Rebellion
during economic hard times in 1776 coupled with high taxes intended to pay off the states’ war debt, the revolt in which desperate western Massachusetts farmers, led by war veteran Daniel Shays, shut down courts to prevent judges from seizing property or condemning people to debtors’ prison for failing to pay their taxes
General William Sherman
the union general best known for his 1864 march through Georgia from Atlanta to the sea, arriving at Savannah and turning north into the Carolinas, leaving behind a sixty-mile wide swath of destruction
Slave Codes
Comprehensive restrictions on slaves’ individual freedom that were unevenly applied, resulting in considerably variety in the severity of slaves’ lives
Samuel Slater
an immigrant from Britain who, in 1790, built the first successful cotton-spinning mill in the United States
John Slidell
an ambassador sent by President Polk to Mexico City with a proposal for a peaceful settlement of the differences between the two countries; Slidell was empowered to pay $5,000,000 for disputed land in southern Texas, $25,000,000 for California, and $5,000,000 for other Mexican territory in the far West
Jedediah Smith
an explorer who mapped the vast territory that stretched from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada range and on into California
John Smith
the ruthless leader of the Jamestown colony who kept it from collapsing in 1608 and 1609 through enforcement of his rule, “he who works not, eats not.”
