W's

Question 1

Wade-Davis Bill

Answer 1

introduced by Radical Republicans in Congress, a bill under whose stringent terms a majority of the number of people in Southern states who had been alive and registered to vote in 1860 would have to swear an “ironclad” oath stating that they were now loyal and had never been disloyal; President Lincoln killed the bill with a pocket veto

Question 2

Walker Tariff

Answer 2

an 1846 law supported by President Polk that established a low, revenue-only tariff rather than a high, protective tariff

Question 3

War Hawks

Answer 3

a strong pro-war group, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, that gained control of both houses of Congress and successfully agitated for war with the British, resulting in a declaration of war approved by Congress and President Madison in 1812

Question 4

War of 1812

Answer 4

a conflict between the United States and Britain, along with its colonists in Canada and Indian allies

Question 5

George Washington

Answer 5

first, the commander of the New England army, then the commander of the American army, and later, in 1789, the first president of the United States

Question 6

Daniel Webster

Answer 6

a Massachusetts representative in the House from 1822 to 1826, a Massachusetts senator from 1827 to 1841, and Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler until he resigned this last post after negotiating the Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Question 7

Noah Webster

Answer 7

the writer of “Blue Backed Speller,” and a dictionary of the “American” language, which reflected the intense desire to promote American patriotism and a feeling of national identity during the post-revolutionary years

Question 8

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Answer 8

the 1842 agreement between the United States and Britain, negotiated by Secretary of State Daniel Webster, that resolved several sources of tension between the two nations and established a relationship of mutual compromise

Question 9

Webster-Hayne Debate

Answer 9

the 1830 argument in which Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina supported lands in the West being made cheaply available to the masses; Senator Daniel Webster, took the side of Northeasterners who opposed this policy because it would lure away their labor supply and drive up wages, moved the debate from the issue of land policy to the nature of the Union’s rights as indissoluble and sovereign over the individual states

Question 10

Parson Mason Weems

Answer 10

the writer of the best seller “Life of Washington” in 1806, which was short on historical accuracy but long on nationalistic hero worship

Question 11

Whig Party

Answer 11

the party that emerged from the ruins of the National Republicans and other groups who opposed President Jackson’s policies

Question 12

Whiskey Rebellion

Answer 12

the terrorization of collectors of federal excise taxes on whiskey by a group of Pennsylvania farmers, in response to which President Washington sent a federal militia force of some 15,000 men, and the rebellion evaporated

Question 13

Whiskey Ring Fraud

Answer 13

a scheme in which distillers and treasury officials conspired to defraud the government of large amounts of money from the excise tax on whiskey; President Grant’s personal secretary was in on the plot, and Grant himself naively accepted gifts of a questionable nature

Question 14

Eli Whitney

Answer 14

an American inventor who, in 1798, developed and applied the principle of interchangeable parts, first https://www.brainscape.com/profiles/2351206used in his firearms factories; best known for the invention of the cotton gin

Question 15

Wilderness Road

Answer 15

a path made by Daniel Boon in 1775 through the Cumberland Gap and on to the Bluegrass region of Kentucky

Question 16

Roger Williams

Answer 16

a Puritan preacher but a dissident whose activities were thought by the Puritans to be so disruptive that they asked him to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whereupon in 1636 he founded the settlement of Providence near Narragansett Bay, which was soon populated by his many followers

Question 17

Wilmot Proviso

Answer 17

a proposed amendment to a war appropriations bill stipulating that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist” in any territory to be acquired from Mexico; the proposal was passed by the House, and though rejected by the Senate, it was reintroduced again and again amid increasingly acrimonious debate

Question 18

“Worcester v. Georgia”

Answer 18

a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court supported the claim of the Cherokee Nation (which occupied northern Georgia) that it was a sovereign political entity within the boundaries of that state, with President Jackson refusing to enforce the court’s decision

Question 19

Writs of Assistance

Answer 19

general search warrants issued to help British royal officials stop the colonists’ evasion of Britain’s mercantilist trade restrictions