Week 2 Definitions | Chapters 9 - 18 Flashcards
Erie Canal
Most important and profitable of the barge canals of the 1820s and the 1830s; stretched from Buffalo to Albany, New York, connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast and making New York City the nation’s largest port.
Samuel F. B. Morse (1791 - 1872)
In 1832, he invented the telegraph ad revolutionized the speed of communication.
Eli Whitney (1765 - 1825)
He invented the cotton gin in which could separate cotton from its seeds. One machine operator could separate fifty times more cotton than worker could by hand, which led to an increase in cotton production and prices. These increases gave planters a new profitable use for slavery and a lucrative slave trade emerged from the coastal South to the Southwest.
Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809 - 1884)
In 1831, he invented a mechanical reaper to harvest wheat, which transformed the scale of agriculture. By hand a farmer could only harvest a half an acre a day, while the McCormick reaper allowed two people to harvest twelve acres of wheat a day.
Lowell ‘girls’
Young female factory workers at the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, which in early 1820s provided its employees with prepared meals, dormitories, moral discipline, and educational opportunities.
Cult of domesticity
The belief that woman should stay home to manage the household, educate their children with moral values, and please their husbands.
Irish Potato Famine
In 1845, an epidemic of potato rot brought a famine to rural Ireland that killed over 1 million peasants and instigated a huge increase in the number of Irish immigrating to America. By 1850, the Irish made up 43 percent of the foreign-born population in the United State; and in the 1850s, they made up over half of the population of New York City and Boston.
Coffin ships
Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine had to endure a six-week journey across the Atlantic to reach America. During these voyages, thousands of passengers died of disease and starvation, which led to the ships being called “coffin ships.”
Levi Strauss (1829 - 1902)
A Jewish tailor who followed miners to California during the gold rush and began making durable work pants that were later dubbed blue jeans or Levi’s.
Nativism
Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling in the 1830s through the 1850s; the largest group was New York’s Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American, or Know-Nothing, party in 1854. In the 1920s, there was was a surge in nativism as Americans grew to fear immigrants who might be political radicals. In response, new strict immigration regulations were established.
Second Bank of the United States
In 1816, the Second Bank of the United States was established in order to bring stability to the national economy, serve as the depository for national funds, and provide the government with the means of floating loans and transferring money across the country.
John C. Calhoun (1782 - 1850)
He served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate for South Carolina before becoming secretary of war under President Monroe and then John Quincy Adams’s vice president. He introduced the bill for the second national bank to Congress and led the minority of southerners who voted for the Tariff of 1816. However, he later chose to oppose tariffs. During his time as secretary of war under President Monroe, he authorized the use of federal troops against the Seminoles who were attacking settlers. As John Quincy Adams’s vice president, he supported a new tariffs bill to win presidential candidate Andrew Jackson additional support. Jackson won the election, but the new tariffs bill passed and Calhoun had to explain why he had changed his opinion on tariffs.
Henry Clay (1777 - 1852)
In the first half of the nineteenth century, he was the foremost spokesman for the American system. As speaker of the House in the 1820s, he promoted economic nationalism, “market revolution,” and the rapid development of western states and territories. He formulated the “second” Missouri Compromise, which denied the Missouri state legislature the power to exclude the rights of free blacks and mulattos. In the deadlocked presidential election of 1824, the House of Representatives decided the election. Clay supported John Quincy Adams, who won the presidency and appointed Clay to secretary of state. Andrew Jackson claimed that Clay had entered into a “corrupt bargain” with Adams for his own selfish gains.
Daniel Webster (1782 - 1852)
As a representative from New Hampshire, he led the New Federalists in opposition to the moving of the second national bank from Boston to Philadelphia. Later, he served as representative and a senator for Massachusetts and emerged as a champion of a stronger national government. He also switched from opposing to supporting tariffs because New England had built up its manufactures with the understanding tariffs would protect them from foreign competitors.
Tariff of 1816
First true protective tariff, intended strictly to protect American goods against foreign competition.
American System
Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs promoted by Speaker of the House Henry Clay in his presidential campaign of 1824; his proposals formed the core of Whig ideology in the 1830s and 1840s.
James Monroe (1758 - 1831)
He served as secretary of state and war under President Madison and was elected president. As the latter, he signed the Transcontinental Treaty with Spain which gave the United States Florida and expanded the Louisiana territory’s western border to the Pacific coast. In 1823, he established the Monroe Doctrine. This foreign policy proclaimed the American continents were no longer open to colonization and America would be neutral in European affairs.
Oregon Country
The Convention of 1818 between Britain and the United States established the Oregon Country as being west of the crest of the Rocky Mountains and the two countries were to jointly occupy it. In 1824, the United States and Russia signed a treaty that established the line of 54°40′ as the southern boundary of Russia’s territorial claim in North America. A similar agreement between Britain and Russia finally gave the Oregon Country clearly defined boarders, but it remained under joint British and American control.
Panic of 1819
Financial collapse brought on by sharply falling cotton prices, declining demand for American exports, and reckless western land speculation.
Missouri Compromise
Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri’s admission as a slave state; in the compromise of March 20, 1820, Maine’s admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri.
Monroe Doctrine
President James Monroe’s declaration to Congress on December 2, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to colonization but that the United States would honor existing colonies of European nations.
‘corrupt bargain’
A vote in the House of Representatives decided the deadlocked presidential election of 1824 in favor of John Quincy Adams, who Speaker of the House Henry Clay had supported. Afterward, Adams appointed Clay secretary of state. Andrew Jackson charged Clay with having made a “corrupt bargain” with Adams that gave Adams the presidency and Clay a place in his administration. There was no evidence of such a deal, but it was widely believed.
John Quincy Adams (1767 - 1848)
As secretary of state under President Monroe, he negotiated agreements to define the boundaries of the Oregon country and the Transcontinental Treaty. He urged President Monroe to issue the Monroe Doctrine, which incorporated Adams’s views. As president, Adams envisioned an expanded federal government and a broader use of federal powers. Adams’s nationalism and praise of European leaders caused a split in his party. Some Republicans suspected him of being a closet monarchist and left to form the Democrat party. In the presidential election of 1828, Andrew Jackson claimed that Adams had gained the presidency through a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay, which helped Jackson win the election.
Spoils system
The term—meaning the filling of federal government jobs with persons loyal to the party of the president—originated in Andrew Jackson’s first term; the system was replaced in the Progressive Era by civil service.
Martin Van Buren (1782 - 1862)
During President Jackson’s first term, he served as secretary of state and minister to London. He often politically fought Vice President John C. Calhoun for the position of Jackson’s successor. A rift between Jackson and Calhoun led to Van Buren becoming vice president during Jackson’s second term. In 1836, Van Buren was elected president, and he inherited a financial crisis. He believed that the government should not continue to keep its deposits in state banks and set up an independent Treasury, which was approved by Congress after several years of political maneuvering.
Peggy Eaton (1796 - 1879)
The wife of John Eaton, President Jackson’s secretary of war, was the daughter of a tavern owner with an unsavory past. Supposedly her first husband had committed suicide after learning that she was having an affair with John Eaton. The wives of members of Jackson’s cabinet snubbed her because of her lowly origins and past. The scandal that resulted was called the Eaton Affair.
Webster-Hayne debate
U.S. Senate debate of January 1830 between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina over nullification and states’ rights.
Tariff of 1832
This tariff act reduced the duties on many items, but the tariffs on cloth and iron remained high. South Carolina nullified it along with the tariff of 1828. President Andrew Jackson sent federal troops to the state and asked Congress to grant him the authority to enforce the tariffs. Henry Clay presented a plan of gradually reducing the tariffs until 1842, which Congress passed and ended the crisis.
Force bill
During the nullification crisis between President Andrew Jackson and South Carolina, Jackson asked Congress to pass this bill, which authorized him to use the army to force South Carolina to comply with federal law.
Trail of Tears
Cherokees’ own term for their forced march, 1838–1839, from the southern Appalachians to Indian lands (later Oklahoma); of 15,000 forced to march, 4,000 died on the way.
Nicholas Biddle (1786 - 1844)
He was the president of the second Bank of the United States. In response to President Andrew Jackson’s attacks on the bank, Biddle curtailed the bank’s loans and exchanged its paper currency for gold and silver. He was hoping to provoke an economic crisis to prove the bank’s importance. In response, state banks began printing paper without restraint and lent it to speculators, causing a binge in speculating and an enormous increase in debt.
‘pet banks’
During President Andrew Jackson’s fight with the national bank, Jackson resolved to remove all federal deposits from it. To comply with Jackson’s demands, Secretary of Treasury Taney continued to draw on government’s accounts in the national bank, but deposit all new federal receipts in state banks. The state banks that received these deposits were called “pet banks.”
Whig party
Founded in 1834 to unite factions opposed to President Andrew Jackson, the party favored federal responsibility for internal improvements; the party ceased to exist by the late 1850s, when party members divided over the slavery issue.
‘peculiar institution’
This term was used to describe slavery in America because slavery so fragrantly violated the principle of individual freedom that served as the basis for the Declaration of Independence.
Paternalism
A moral position developed during the first half of the nineteenth century which claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own “good.” Such a rationalization was adopted by some slave owners to justify slavery.
Colonization
Of planting Africans back to Africa.
Yeomen
Small landowners (the majority of white families in the South) who farmed their own land and usually did not own slaves.
Mulattoes
People of mixed racial ancestry, whose status in the Old South was somewhere between that of blacks and whites.
Spirituals
Songs, often encoded, which enslaved peoples used to express their frustration at being kept in bondage and forged their own sense of hope and community.
Nat Turner (1800 - 1831)
He was the leader of the only slave revolt to get past the planning stages. In August of 1831, the revolt began with the slaves killing the members of Turner’s master’s household. Then they attacked other neighboring farmhouses and recruited more slaves until the militia crushed the revolt. At least fifty-five whites were killed during the uprising and seventeen slaves were hanged afterwards.
Second Great Awakening
Religious revival movement of the early decades of the nineteenth century, in reaction to the growth of secularism and rationalist religion; began the predominance of the Baptist and Methodist churches.
Burned-over district
Area of western New York strongly influenced by the revivalist fervor of the Second Great Awakening; Disciples of Christ and Mormons are among the many sects that trace their roots to the phenomenon.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints / Mormons
Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the sect was a product of the intense revivalism of the burned-over district of New York; Smith’s successor Brigham Young led 15,000 followers to Utah in 1847 to escape persecution.
Joseph Smith (1805 - 1844)
In 1823, he claimed that the Angel Moroni showed him the location of several gold tablets on which the Book of Mormon was written. Using the Book of Mormon as his gospel, he founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Joseph and his followers upset non-Mormons living near them so they began looking for a refuge from persecution. In 1839, they settled in Commerce, Illinois, which they renamed Nauvoo. In 1844, Joseph and his brother were arrested and jailed for ordering the destruction of a newspaper that opposed them. While in jail, an anti-Mormon mob stormed the jail and killed both of them.
