APUSH: Chapter 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle – Flashcards

Mexican had been forced to relinquish an enormous tract of real estate, including Texas, California, and all the area between. An area purchased largely with southern blood. California became one of the great cotton producing states of the Union (Pg. 390, 394, & 396)

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The public liked it because it accorded with the democratic tradition of self-determination. Politicos liked it because it seemed a comfortable compromise between the free soilers bid for a ban on slavery in the territories and southern demands that Congress protect slavery in territories. Yet popular sovereignty had one fatal defect: it might serve to spread the blight of slavery (Pg. 391)

Ardent antislavery men in the North, distrusting both Cass and Taylor organized the Free Soil party. The free-soilers made no bones about their own stand. They came out four square for the Wilmot Proviso and against slavery in the territories. Taylor harvested 1,360,967 popular and 163 electoral votes, as compared with Cass's 1,222,342 popular and 127 electoral votes. Free soilers Van Buren although winning no state polled 291,263 ballots and apparently diverted enough Democratic strength from Cass in the crucial state of New York to throw the election to Taylor (Pg. 391 & 392)

A fortunate few of the bearded miners "struck it rich" at the "diggings" but the luckless many who netted blisters instead of nuggets, probably would have been money well ahead if they had stayed home unaffected by "gold fever" which was often followed by more deadly fevers. The most reliable profits were made by those who mined the miners, notably by charging outrageous rates for laundry and often personal services. (Pg. 392-393)

Virtual freedom train consisted of an informal chain of "stations" (antislavery homes) through which scores of "passengers" (runaway slaves) were spirited by "conductors" (usually white and black abolitionists) from the slave states to the free-soil sanctuary of Canada (pg. 395)

She rescued more than three hundred slaves including her aged parents and deservedly earned the title "Moses." (Pg. 395)

The 1850's started the rise of the Republican Party. (pg. 394)

Senator from Kentucky, who ran for president five times until his death in 1852. He was a strong supporter of the American System, a war hawk for the War of 1812, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and known as "The Great Compromiser." Outlined the Compromise of 1850 with five main points but he died before it was passed. (Pg. 396)

Leader of the Fugitive Slave Law. Argued on the floor of the senate that slavery was needed in the south. Argued on the grounds that society is supposed to have an upper ruling class that enjoys the profit of a working lower class. (Pg. 396)

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It helped turn the tide in the North toward compromise (Pg. 396)

the wiry and husky-throated freshman senator from New York, was the able spokesman for many of the younger northern radicals. A strong antislaveryite. (Pg. 397)

President Taylor had allegedly fallen under the influence of men like "Higher Law" (Pg. 397)

Seward argued earnestly that Christrian legislators must obey God's moral law as well as man's mundane law. He therefore appealed, with reference to excluding slavery in the territories, to an even "higher law" than the Constitution. Seward, seemed bent on vetoing any compromise passed by Congress. His military ire was aroused by the threats of texas to seize Santa Fe. He appeared to be doggedly determined to "Jacksonize" the dissenters, if need be, by leadinf an army against the Texans in person and hanging all "damned traitors."(Pg. 397)

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A movement in the South to boycott northern goods gained some headway, but in the end the southern Unionists, assisted by the warm glow of prosperity, prevailed. The delegates not only took a strong position in favor of slavery but condemned the compromise measures then being hammered out in congress. Meeting again in November after the bills had passed, the convention proved to be dud. By that time southern opinion had reluctantly accepted the verdict of Congress. (Pg. 398)

It means that there was nothing more irritating at a consistent rate to both sides. (Pg. 400)

It marked the effective end of the disorganized Whig party and, within a few years, its complete death. They finally choked to death trying to swallow the distasteful Fugitive Slave Law. Their great contribution--- and a noteworthy one indeed --- was to help uphold the ideal of the Union through their electoral strength in the South and through the eloquence of leaders like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. (Pg. 401)

A brazan American adventurer, tried repeatedly to grab control of this Central American country. (He had earlier tried and failed to seize Baja California from Mexico and turn it into a slave state.) (Pg. 402)

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The secretary of state instructed the American ministers in Spain, England, and France to prepare confidential recommendations for the acquisition of Cuba. Meeting initially at Ostend, Belgium, the three envoys drew up a top-secret dispatch,soon known as the Ostend Manifesto. The secret Ostend Manifesto quickly leaked out. Northern free-soilers, already angered by the Fugitive Slave Law and other gains for slavery, rose up in wrath against the "manifesto of brigands." (Pg. 403)

the first formal diplomatic agrrement between the United States and China, on July 3, 1844.

a dashing Massachusetts lawyer-scholar, who secured comparable concessions for the United States. (Pg. 403)

President Millard Filmore dispatched to Japan a fleet of warships commanded by Commodore Matthew C. Perry. Perry had prepared diligently for his mission, voraciously reading about Japan, querying whalers about Pacific Ocean currents, and collectiong specimens of American technology with which to impress the Japanese. (Pg. 404)

The trade from China is important to American trade today as they provide 50% of most things.

Gadson Purchase enabled the South to claim the coveted railroad with even greater insistence. A southern track would be easier to build because the mountains were less high and because the route unlike the proposed northern lines, would not pass through unorganized territory. Texas was already a state at this point, and New Mexico (with the Gadsden Purchase added) was a formally organized territory, with federal troops available to provide protection against marauding tribes of Indians. (Pg. 405)

delivered a counterstroke to offs the Gadsden thrust for southern expansion westward. A squat , bullnecked, and heavy-chested figure, the "Little Giant" radiated the energy and breezy optimism of the self-made man. (Pg. 406)

They would have to repeal the Compromise. The regarded the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as an intolerable breach of faith, and they would henceforth resist to the last trench all future southern demands for slave territory. (Pg. 406 & 407)

The Kansas- Nebraska Act wrecked to compromises: that of 1820, which it repealed specifically, and that of 1850, which northern opinion repealed indirectly. The most durable offsring of the Kansas- Nebraska blunder was the new Republican party. (Pg. 407 & 408)