Unit 5: New Birth of Freedom

Question 1

Mission and fort that was the site of a siege and battle during the Texas Revolution, which resulted in the massacre of all its defenders; the event helped galvanize the Texas rebels and eventually led to their victory at the Battle of San Jacinto and independence from Mexico.

Answer 1

Alamo

Question 2

Political opportunist and general who served as president of Mexico eleven different times and commanded the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s and the war with the United States in the 1840s.

Answer 2

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

Question 3

Proposal by Henry Clay to settle the debate over slavery in territories gained from the Mexican War; it was shepherded through Congress by Stephen Douglas. Its elements included admitting California as a free state, ending the buying and selling of slaves in the District of Columbia (DC), a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law, post-poned decisions about slavery in the New Mexico and Utah Territories, and settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary and debt issues.

Answer 3

Compromise of 1850

Question 4

Northern Democratic president with southern principles, 1853-1857, who signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and sought sectional harmony above all else.

Answer 4

Franklin Pierce

Question 5

Formed from the remnants of the Liberty Party in 1848; adopting a slogan of “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men,” it opposed the spread of slavery into territories and supported home-steads, cheap postage, and internal improvements. It ran Martin Van Buren (1848) and John Hale (1852) for president and was absorbed into the Republican Party by 1856.

Answer 5

Free Soil Party

Question 6

U.S. acquisition of land south of the Gila River from Mexico for $10 million; the land was needed for a possible trans-continental railroad line through the southern United States.
However, the route was never used.

Answer 6

Gadsden Purchase (1853)

Question 7

Democratic president from 1845 to 1849; nicknamed “Young Hickory” because of his
close political and personal ties to Andrew Jackson, he pursued an aggressive foreign policy that led to the Mexican War, settlement of the Oregon issue, and the acquisition of the Mexican Cession.

Answer 7

James K. Polk

Question 8

Influential editor of the Democratic Review who coined the phrase “manifest destiny”
in 1845

Answer 8

John L. O’Sullivan

Question 9

Stephen Douglas’s bill to open western territories, promote a transcontinental railroad, and boost his presidential ambitions; it divided the Nebraska territory into two
territories and used popular sovereignty to decide slavery in the region. Among Douglas’s goals in
making this proposal was to populate Kansas in order to make more attractive a proposed route for a trans-continental railroad that ended in Chicago, in his home state of Illinois.

Answer 9

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Question 10

Influential third party of the 1840s; it opposed immigrants, especially Catholics,
and supported temperance, a waiting period for citizenship, and literacy tests. Officially the American Party, its more commonly used nickname came from its members’ secrecy and refusal to tell strangers anything about the group. When questioned, they would only reply, “I know nothing.”

Answer 10

Know-Nothing Party

Question 11

Democratic senator who proposed popular sovereignty to settle the slavery question in the territories; he lost the presidential election in 1848 against Zachary Taylor but continued to advocate his solution to the slavery issue throughout the 1850s.

Answer 11

Lewis Cass

Question 12

Set of ideas used to justify American expansion in the 1840s, weaving together the rhetoric of economic necessity, racial superiority, and national security, the concept implied an inevitability of U.S. continental expansion.

Answer 12

Manifest Destiny

Question 13

Region comprising California and all or parts of the states of the present-day American
Southwest that Mexico turned over to the United States after the Mexican War.

Answer 13

Mexican Cession

Question 14

Meeting of representatives of nine southern states in the summer of 1850 to monitor the negotiations over the Compromise of 1850; it called for extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean and a stronger Fugitive Slave law. The convention accepted the Compromise but laid the groundwork for a southern confederacy in 1860-1861.

Answer 14

Nashville Convention

Question 15

A statement by American envoys abroad to pressure Spain into selling Cuba to the United States; the declaration suggested that if Spain would not sell Cuba, the United States would be justified in seizing it. It was quickly repudiated by the U.S. government but it added to the belief that a “slave power” existed and was active in Washington.

Answer 15

Ostend Manifesto (1854)

Question 16

Political process promoted by Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, and other northern Democrats whereby, when a territory organized, its residents would vote to decide the future of slavery
there; the idea of empowering voters to decide important questions was not new to the 1840s and 1850s or to the slavery issue, however.

Answer 16

Popular Sovereignty

Question 17

Political party formed in 1854 in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act; it combined
remnants of Whig, Free Soil, and Know-Nothing Parties as well as disgruntled Democrats. Although not abolitionist, it sought to block the spread of slavery in the territories. It also favored tariffs, homesteads, and a transcontinental railroad.

Answer 17

Republican Party

Question 18

Leader of the Texas revolutionaries, 1835-1836, first president of the Republic of Texas, and later a U.S. Senator from the state of Texas; he was a close political and personal ally of Andrew Jackson.

Answer 18

Sam Houston

Question 19

The belief that a slave-holding oligarchy existed to maintain slavery in the South and to spread it throughout the United States, including into the free states; this belief held that a southern cabal championed a closed, aristocratic way of life that attacked northern capitalism and liberty.

Answer 19

“Slave Power”

Question 20

Leader of American immigration to Texas in the 1820s; he negotiated land grants with
Mexico and tried to moderate growing Texan rebelliousness in the 1830s. After Texas became an independent nation, he served as its secretary of state.

Answer 20

Stephen Austin

Question 21

A leading Democratic senator in the 1850s; nicknamed the “Little Giant” for his small
size and great political power, he steered the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress. Although increasingly alienated from the southern wing of his party, he ran against his political rival Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860 and lost.

Answer 21

Stephen Douglas

Question 22

Agreement that ended the Mexican War; under its terms Mexico gave up all claims to Texas north of the Rio Grande and ceded California and the Utah and New Mexico territories to the United States. The United States paid Mexico fifteen million dollars for the land, but the land cession amounted to nearly half that nation’s territory.

Answer 22

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Question 23

Measure introduced in Congress in 1846 to prohibit slavery in all territory that might be
gained by the Mexican War; southerners blocked its passage in the Senate. Afterward, it became the
congressional rallying platform for the antislavery forces in the late 1840s and early 1850s.

Answer 23

Wilmot Proviso

Question 24

Arguably the finest military figure in America from the War of 1812 to the Civil War; he
distinguished himself in the Mexican War, ran unsuccessfully for president (1852), and briefly commanded the Union armies at the beginning of the Civil War.

Answer 24

Winfield Scott

Question 25

Military hero of Mexican War and the last Whig elected president (1848); his sudden
death in July 1850 allowed supporters of the Compromise of 1850 to get the measures through Congress.

Answer 25

Zachary Taylor

Question 26

President of the United States, 1861-1865; he is generally rated among America’s
greatest presidents for his leadership in restoring the Union. Lincoln was assassinated April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth before he could implement his Reconstruction program.

Answer 26

Abraham Lincoln

Question 27

Vice president who took over after Lincoln’s assas-sination; an ex-Democrat with little
sympathy for former slaves, his battles with Radical Republicans resulted in his impeachment in 1868. He avoided conviction and removal from office by one vote.

Answer 27

Andrew Johnson

Question 28

Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri; these slave states stayed in the Union and were crucial to Lincoln’s political and military strategy. He feared alienating them with emancipation of slaves and adding them to the Confederate cause.

Answer 28

Border States

Question 29

Northerners who went South to participate in Reconstruction governments; although they possessed a variety of motives, southerners often viewed them as opportunistic, poor whites—a carpetbag was cheap luggage—hoping to exploit the South.

Answer 29

Carpetbaggers

Question 30

Senator from Massachusetts who was attacked on the floor of the Senate (1856) for antislavery speech; he required three years to recover but returned to the Senate to lead the Radical Republicans and to fight for racial equality. Sumner authored Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Answer 30

Charles Sumner

Question 31

Agreement that ended the disputed election of 1876 between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden; under its terms, the South accepted Hayes’s election. In return, the North agreed to remove the last troops from the South, support southern railroads, and accept a southerner into the Cabinet. The Compromise of 1877 is generally considered to mark the end of Reconstruction.

Answer 31

Compromise of 1877

Question 32

Northerners (mostly Democrats) who supported the southern cause; they were strongest in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Former Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham was the most notorious Copperhead. Many of Lincoln’s arbitrary arrests were directed against this group.

Answer 32

Copperheads

Question 33

A failed southern strategy to embargo cotton from England until Great Britain
recognized and assisted the Confederacy; southerners hoped the economic pressure resulting from Britain’s need for cotton for its textile factories would force Britain to aid the South. But direct aid was never

Answer 33

Cotton Diplomacy

Question 34

Chief Justice Roger Taney led a pro-slavery Supreme Court to uphold the extreme southern position on slavery; his ruling held that Scott was not a citizen (nor were any African Ameri-cans), that slavery was protected by the Fifth Amendment and could expand into all territories, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

Answer 34

Dred Scott decision (1857)

Question 35

Executive order issued January 1, 1863, granting freedom to all slaves in states that were in rebellion; Lincoln issued it using his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief; as a military measure to weaken the South’s ability to continue the war. It did not affect the Border States or any region under northern control on January 1. However, it was a stepping stone to the Thirteenth

Answer 35

Emancipation Proclomation

Question 36

Granted black males the right to vote and split former abolitionists and women’s rights supporters, who wanted women included as well.

Answer 36

Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

Question 37

Granted citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States; this amendment protects citizens from abuses by state governments, and ensures due process and equal protection of the law. It overrode the Dred Scott decision.

Answer 37

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

Question 38

A U.S. government-sponsored agency that provided food, established schools, and
tried to redistribute land to former slaves as part of Radical Reconstruction; it was most effective in
education, where it created over 4,000 schools in the South.

Answer 38

Freedmen’s Bureau

Question 39

Union general who was reluctant to attack Lee because of military/political reasons;
his timidity prompted Lincoln to fire him twice during the war. He ran unsuccessfully for president against Lincoln in 1864 on an antiwar platform.

Answer 39

George McClellan

Question 40

Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a best-selling novel about the cruelty of slavery;
often called the greatest propaganda novel in United States history, the book increased tension between sections and helped bring on the Civil War.

Answer 40

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Question 41

Weak, vacillating president of the United States, 1857-1861; historians rate him as a
failure for his ineffective response to secession and the formation of the Confederacy in 1860 and 186l.

Answer 41

James Buchanan

Question 42

President of the Confederate States of America; a leading southern politician of the
1850s, he believed slavery essential to the South and held that it should expand into the territories without restriction. He served as U.S. senator from Mississippi (1847-1851, 1857-1861) and secretary of war (1853-1857) before becoming president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865). After the war, he served two years in prison for his role in the rebellion.

Answer 42

Jefferson Davis

Question 43

Vice president under James Buchanan and Democratic presidential nominee in 1860
who supported slavery and states’ rights; he split the Democratic vote with Stephen Douglas and lost the election to Lincoln. He served in Confederate army and as secretary of war.

Answer 43

John Breckinridge

Question 44

Violent abolitionist who murdered slaveholders in Kansas and Missouri (1856-1858) before his raid at Harpers Ferry (1859), hoping to incite a slave rebellion; he failed and was executed, but his martyrdom by northern abolitionists frightened the South.

Answer 44

John Brown

Question 45

Explorer, soldier, politician, and first presidential nominee of the Republican Party (1856); his erratic personal behavior and his radical views on slavery made him controversial and
explorer, soldier, politician, and first presidential nominee of the Republican Party (1856); his erratic personal behavior and his radical views on slavery made him controversial and unelectable.

Answer 45

John Fremont

Question 46

Terrorist organization active throughout the South during Reconstruction and after,
dedicated to maintaining white supremacy; through violence and intimidation, it tried to stop freedmen from exercising their rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

Answer 46

Ku Klux Klan

Question 47

Republican faction in Congress who demanded immediate emancipation of the
slaves at the war’s beginning; after the war, they favored racial equality, voting rights, and land
distribution for the former slaves. Lincoln and Johnson opposed their ideas as too extreme.

Answer 47

Radical Republicans

Question 48

Highly regarded Confederate general who was first offered command of the Union armies but declined; Lee was very successful until he fought against Ulysses S. Grant in 1864 and 1865. He surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865, to end major fighting in the war.

Answer 48

Robert E. Lee

Question 49

White southerners who cooperated with and served in Reconstruction governments;
generally eligible to vote, they were usually considered traitors to their states.

Answer 49

Scalawags

Question 50

Reconstruction plan of Lincoln and Johnson; when 10 percent of the number of voters
in 1860 took an oath of allegiance, renounced secession, and approved the Thirteenth Amendment, a southern state could form a government and elect congressional representatives. The plan involved no military occupation and provided no help for freedmen. It was rejected by Radical Republicans in

Answer 50

Ten-Percent Plan

Question 51

Radical attempt to further diminish Andrew Johnson’s authority by providing that the president could not remove any civilian official without Senate approval; Johnson violated the law by removing Edwin Stanton as secretary of war, and the House of Representatives impeached him over his actions.

Answer 51

Tenure of Office Act (1867)

Question 52

Uncompromising Radical Republican who wanted to revolutionize the South by giving
equality to blacks; a leader in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, he hoped for widespread land
distribution to former slaves.

Answer 52

Thaddeus Stevens

Question 53

Abolished slavery everywhere in the United States.

Answer 53

Thirteenth Amendment (1865)

Question 54

Hard-fighting Union general whose relentless pursuit of Robert E. Lee finally brought the war to an end in April 1865; elected president in 1868, he presided over two disappointing and corrupt terms and is considered a failure as president.

Answer 54

Ulysses S. Grant

Question 55

Harsh Congressional Reconstruction bill that provided the president would appoint provisional governments for conquered states until a majority of voters took an oath of loyalty to the Union; it required the abolition of slavery by new state constitutions, the disenfranchisement of Confederate officials, and the repudiation of Confederate debt. Lincoln killed the bill with a pocket veto.

Answer 55

Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

Question 56

Lincoln’s secretary of state and previously his chief rival for the Republican nomination
in 1860; however, his comments about the Fugitive Slave Law and “irrepressible conflict” made him too controversial for the nomination. As secretary of state, he worked to buy Alaska from Russia.

Answer 56

William Seward