Unit 5 Fluency Facts Flashcards
Manifest Destiny:
Who: American settlers, John O’Sullivan (writer), James K. Polk (expansionist president)
What: Belief that U.S is destined to expand from coast to coast
Where: Western United States
When: 1845-900
Why: Justified aggressive expansion, NAI removal, Mexican American War prompting
Mexican-American War:
Who: James. K Polk (president)
What: War of expansion between Mexico and the U.S. U.S. gains the American Southwestern territories, including California.
Where: California, Texas, New Mexico, Mexico Original Flavor v. US
When: 1846-8
Why: New piece of foreign policy. Aggressive and controversial - reignites slavery issue + war. Precedent for territory acquisitions.
Compromise of 1850:
Who: Millard Fillmore(13th Whig pres), Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas (Democrat Senator, the Little Giant)
What: Set Texas’s northern and western borders. California admitted. Popular sovereignty in acquired territories. Stringent Fugitive Slave Law. Banned slave trade in D.C.
Where: United States, Territories acquired from the Mexican-American War
When: September 1850
Why: Defuses confrontation between slave and free states. Free State Majority in Congress. Effectively postpones Civil War.
Republican Party
Who: Anti-slavery Conscience Whigs and Free Soil Democrats, Lincoln
What: Founded by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Opposed the expansion of slavery. Promoted the modernization of the U.S.
Where: Wisconsin, Northern US
When: 1854
Why: Party of Lincoln. Main opposition to the Democratic party. Dominant throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction
Kansas-Nebraska Act:
Who: Stephen Douglas(Senator), Franklin Pierce(Lincoln)
What: Act that created and organized Kansas and Nebraska. Established popular sovereignty in those territories.
Where: Kansas and Nebraska territories
When: 1854
Why: Repealed Missouri Compromise. Led to a series of conflicts over the issue of slavery known as “Bleeding Kansas” (Rival state governments, John Brown)
Know-Nothing Party:
Who: Whigs, Disaffected Northern Democrats
What: Nativist; anti-Catholic, anti-immigration, populist, and xenophobic party. Participates in Bloody Kansas. Later split due to the slavery issue. Many members joined the rapidly emerging Republican Party.
Where: United States
When: 1854
Why: Intense nativist anti-immigrant sentiment due to increased immigration of the 1840s and 1850s.
Homestead Act:
Who: Lincoln
What: Congressional act offering 160-acre plots of land in the west for a small fee and the promise to improve land.
Where: Western Untied States
When: 1862
Why: Led to Western Expansion. Allowed for all citizens — including former slaves, women, and immigrants — to become landowners; however, most of land went to speculators, cattlemen, miners, lumbermen, and the railroads. Native Americans were forced off of their ancestral lands.
Emancipation Proclamation
Who: Lincoln
What: Precedential executive order freeing slaves only in rebelling Confederate states
Where: United States, Confederate States
When: September 22, 1862
Why: Changed the focus of Civil War; prevented foreign involvement; crippled the Confederacy’s use of slaves in the war effort.
Gettysburg Address
Who: Lincoln
What: At a dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg ceremony and to honor those who died at Gettysburg, Lincoln gives speech to rally morale in the Union to preserve the union and its freedoms.
Where: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
When: 1863
Why: First time that Lincoln relates the Civil War to the fight for freedom and equality, rather than simply a conflict to preserve the Union. Invokes connections to the Declaration of Independence, and that “all men are created equal”
