US HISTORY TERMS Flashcards

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14th Amendment
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It defined national citizenship to include former slaves and prohibited the state from violating the privileges of citizens without due process of law. It also empowered Congress to reduce the representation of any state that denied suffrage to males over twenty-one. Main Provisions: - Prohibited slavery in the United States - Conferred national citizenship on all persons born or naturalized in the United States - Reduced state representation in Congress proportionally for any state disfranchising male citizens - Denied former Confederates the right to hold state to national office - Repudiated Confederate debt
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American economy, 1800-1850, general
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In 1800, the United States of America was a new and weak country sharing a continent with the potentially hostile colonies of most of the world's great powers. The United States was a producer of raw materials. They couldn't control world commodity prices, so they had difficulties protecting themselves from economic dominance by stronger, more established nations. Crops were grown for home use rather than for sale. Commodes easy to transports provided small and irregular cash incomes or items for bargain. However, in the South, the demand for cotton was growing rapidly because of the boom of textile industrial production in Europe. The essential contribution of cotton to the nation's economy was the most important social and political reality. By 1830, the transportation revolution fostered a great burst of commercial activity and economic growth. Transportation improvements accelerated the commercialization of agriculture by grebe farmers' products to wider, nonlocal market. (The Old Northwest became the export heart of the national economy not the South because of commercial agriculture)
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American system of manufactures
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A technique of production pioneered in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century that relied on precision manufacturing with the use of interchangeable parts.
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Anti-immigrant sentiment, causes
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1.Germans and Irish don't speak English 2.They are poor 3.Most of Irish and half of the Germans were Catholic 4.The idea of immigrant against nativists
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Black Codes
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Laws passed by states and municipalities denying many rights of citizenship to free black people.
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Bleeding Sumner
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In 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was beaten hard by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina with his cane, because Sumner gave an insulting anti-slavery speech which he ridiculed Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, who was Preston Brook's uncle. People from different sections had different attitudes. In northern cities, protest was held and Sumner received hundreds of sympathy letters. However, in the south, most people supported his action.
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Cattle Drives
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The great cattle drives depended on the cowboy, a seasonal or a migrant worker. After the Civil War, cowboys rounded up herds of Texas cattle and drove them as much as 1,500 miles north to grazing ranches or to the stockyards where they were readied for shipping by rail to eastern markets.
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Compromise of 1850
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The four-step compromise which admitted California as a free state, allowed the residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories to decide the slavery issue for themselves, ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and passed a new fugitive law.
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Cotton gin, change in views on slavery
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The invention of cotton gin made cotton growing profitable, so more and more were willing to grow it and as a result they began to expand lands to find fertile lands to grow more cotton. Thus, more and more slaves were needed to work on larger cotton plantation. The cotton gin promoted the expansion of cotton, which meant the expansion of slavery.
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Dred Scott Case
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Dred Scott was taken to Illinois(free state) and Wisconsin Terittory(free territory) by his owner John Emerson. During this time period, Scott married another slave, and their daughter was born in free territory. After they returned to Missouri(slave state), Scott sued for their freedom. It took eleven years for the case to reach the Supreme Court. However, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and asserted that the federal government had no right to interfere with the free movement of property throughout territories. He dismissed the case and said that black people were not citizens, which inflamed the conflict between North and South. Southerners supported this decision, but Northerners condemned it.
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Election of 1824
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It marked a dramatic end to the political truce that James Monroe had established in 1817 and to the idea of leadership by a small nonpartisan political elite. Five candidates from the Republican Party ran for president: William H. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina who ran for vice president instead. Andrew Jackson(43% popular vote 99% electoral votes) and John Quincy Adams(31% popular vote 84% electoral votes) both didn't have an electoral majority, so the House of Representatives had the power to pick the winner. Henry Clay and his followers shifted their votes to Adams, and Clay was named as secretary of state after, which angered Jackson's supporters and accused them of "corrupt bargain." Also in this election, Andrew Jackson was the only one moved beyond the regional support of the Old Southwest to wider appeal.
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Election of 1864
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Lincoln was renominated during a period when the war went badly, but he was opposed by the Radicals, who thought Lincoln was too conciliatory toward the South, and by Republican conservatives, who disapproved of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln had little support in his own party. However, after Sherman captured Atlanta (September 2, 1864), Lincoln gained northern people supports back and won the election. "The election was important evidence of Northern support for Lincoln's policy of unconditional surrender for the South."
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Export crops, Colonial period
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Colonial Exports: - Chesapeake colonies: tobacco - South Carolina: rice and indigo - Middle colonies: wheat The exporting provided northern merchants with the capital that financed commercial growth and development in their cities and the surrounding countryside. The port cities of the North gained the greatest benefits from slave trade. Thus, slavery contributed to the growth of northern ports cities, forming an indirect but essential part of their economies.
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German immigrants
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The typical German immigrant was a small farmer or artisan dislodged by the same market forces at work in America. There was also a small group of middle-class liberal intellectuals who left the German states after 1848 when attempts at revolution had failed. German migrants were not as poor as the Irish, and they could afford to move out of the East Coast seaports to other locations.
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Haitian Rebellion, impact on U.S.
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After the rebellion, Haiti became North America's first independent black nation. Its existence struck fear into the hearts of white slave owners and at the same time it gave enslaved black people hope. The consequences that Haitian Rebellion brought to the British government-revolt, emancipation, economic collapse, loss of local political autonomy-was closely observed by slave owners in the South and made them fear for their own future.
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Homestead Act
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Law passed by Congress in May 1862 providing homesteads with 160 acres of free land in exchange for improving the land within five years of the grant.
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Horizontal Combination, definition
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The merger of competitors in the same industry. (gaining control of the market for a single product)
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Impact of expansion on American sectionalism
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Expansion was deeply tied to national politics. Most Democrats supported it, but many Whigs (especially in the North) opposed it. Whigs feared that expansion would raise the contentious issue of the extension of slavery to new territories. For Democrats, they were willing to follow Thomas Jefferson's vision of establishing agriculture in the new territories in order to counterbalance industrialization. Another factor was that many Democrats were Southerners, for whom the continual expansion of cotton-growing lands was a matter of social faith as well as economic necessity.
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Impact of telegraph, newspapers, mass politics on American life.
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-Thanks to the recently invented telegraph, newspapers could get the latest news from their reporters, who were among the world's first war correspondents. For the first time in American history, accounts by journalists, and not the opinions of politicians, became the major shapers of popular attitudes toward a war. From beginning to end, news of the war stirred unprecedented popular excitement. -The reports from the battlefield united Americans in a new way: they became part of a temporary but highly emotional community linked by newsprint and buttressed by public gatherings.
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Instant cities
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They were cities that gained rapid urban growth very quickly because of new transportation network. - Utica, New York transformed by opening Erie Canal. - Railroad made growth of Chicago possible. - Chicago's population reached 100,000 in 1860.
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Irish immigration, causes
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The first major immigrant wave was caused by the catastrophic Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49. (pg 311)
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John Brown's Raid, responses
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In 1859, Brown proposed a wild scheme to raid the South and start a general slave uprising. However, he was captured. Brown's death on December 2 was marked throughout northern communities with public rites of mourning. Even though not all Northerners supported Brown's action, they increasingly supported the antislavery cause that he represented. However, Brown's raid shocked the South because it aroused the fear of slave rebellion. They knew that Brown had the financial support of half a dozen members of the Northern elite. The Southerners were even more shocked by the extent of Northern mourning of Brown, which deepened the conflict on slavery issue. The South began to think about secession.
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John D. Rockefeller, Horizontal "Combination"
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The most famous case of Horizontal Combination was the Standard Oil Company, which was founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1870. He controlled all aspects of the industry, from the transportation of crude oil to the marketing and distribution of the final products. He managed to control 90 percent the oil-refining industry. He also created the Standard Oil Trust in 1882, which integrating both vertically and horizontally to further consolidate his interests.
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Johnson's views on Reconstruction
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He defined Reconstruction as the province of the executive, not the legislative branch, and he planned to restore the Union as quickly as possible. - Johnson extended pardons to Southerners who swore an oath of allegiance. - He restored property rights to Southerners who swore an oath of allegiance. - His plan had nothing to say about the voting and civil rights of former slaves.
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Lincoln on Reconstruction
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Lincoln based his reconstruction program on bringing the seceded states back into the Union as quickly as possible. He proposed Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction of December 1863, which offered "full pardon" and the restoration of property, except slaves, to white Southerners willing to swear oath of allegiance and laws. However, prominent Confederate military and civil leaders were excluded form Lincoln's offer. Lincoln also proposed that when the number of any Confederate state voters who took oath reached 10% of the number who had voted in 1860 election, this group could establish a legitimate state government, but the reconstructed governments must accept the abolition of slavery.
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Mexican government and Texas
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In 1821, seeking to increase the strength of its buffer zone between the heart of Mexico and the marauding Comanches, the Mexican government granted Moses Austin of Missouri an area of 18,000 square miles within the territory of Texas. The balance among Comanche, Tejano and American was broken in 1828. As the Mexican government restricted American immigration, outlawed slavery, levied customs duties and taxes, and planed other measures, Americans thought of rebellion. On May 14, 1863, Santa Anna sighed a treaty fixing the southern boundary of the newly independent Republic of Texas at the Rio Grande. The Mexican Congress, however, repudiated the treaty and refused to recognize Texan independence. The U.S. Congress refused to grant Texas statehood when in 1837, it applied for admission to the Union.
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Mexican War, impact on slavery debate
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Whig critics accused the president(Polk) of misleading Congress and of maneuvering the country into an unnecessary war. As casualties and costs increased, opposition increased, especially among northern antislavery Whigs. They wondered why Polk was so willing to settler for only a part of Oregon but was so eager to pursue a war for slave territory. Thus, expansionist dreams served to fuel sectional antagonisms. Mexica ceded its northern provinces of California and New Mexico. The president wanted further expansion, but two very different groups opposed it. The first group was northern Whigs, who warned that Mexica was like arsenic, which would poison us. The second group was Southerners, who realized that Mexicans could not be kept as conquered people but would have to be offered territorial government as Louisiana had been offered in 1804. They warned against admitting "colored and mixed-breed"Mexicans "on a equality with people of the United States."
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National Road
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It was first funded in 1808, stretching from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois, almost at the Mississippi River. By 1839, the National Road tied the East and the West together and helped to foster a national community.
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Nullification, Treaty of 1832
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A constitutional doctrine holding that a state has a legal right to declare a national law null and void within its borders.
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Putting-Out System
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Production of goods in private homes under the supervision of a merchant who "put out" raw materials, paid a certain sum per finished piece, and sold the completed item to a distant market.
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Reconstruction Act
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1877 act that divided the South into five military districts subject to martial law.
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Second American Party System
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The basic pattern of American politics of two parties, each with appeal among voters of all social voters and in all sections of the country.
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Trail of Tears
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The forced march in 1838 of the Cherokee Indians from their homelands in Georgia to the Indian territory in the West.
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Transportation Network by 1850, general
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(pg283) 1. National Road 2. Canals and Steamboats:
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Turning point in Civil War
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Robert E. Lee (South) lost the Battle of Gettysburg(July1-3, 1863), and Ulysses S. Grant(North) took over Vicksburg, Mississippi. The combined news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg dissuaded Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy and checked the Northern peace movement. The Union now controlled the entire Mississippi River, so it tightened the North's grip on the South.
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Webster, Clay and Calhoun, general
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(pg 264) They were three strong sectional figures: Southerner John C. Calhoun, Northerner Daniel Webster, and Westerner Henry Clay. - John C. Calhoun of South Carolina: He was identified with southern interests, the preservation and expansion of slavery. As the South's minority position in Congress became clear over years, Calhoun's defense of southern economic interests and slavery became more and more rigid, which helped him earn his nickname the "Cast-Iron Man." - Daniel Webster of Massachusetts: He was the outstanding orator of the age. He became the main spokesman for the new northern commercial interests, supporting a high protective tariff, a national bank and a strong federal government. - Henry Clay of Kentucky: He held the powerful position of Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1811 to 1825 and later served several terms in the Senate. He was well known for his ability to make a deal (known as the Great Pacificator). He worked to incorporate western desires for cheap and good transportation into national politics. He also promoted the American System.
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