History Final Exam – Flashcards

Westward expansion. Notion that America was destined by God to stretch from Atlantic to Pacific. Drew upon Thomas Jefferson's vision of an expansive "empire of liberty". Used as a rationale for expansionist foreign policy

A phrase used by extremists in the controversy with Great Britain over the Oregon country. The rights of the United States, they maintained, extended to the whole region, i.e., to lat. 54°40'N, the recognized southern boundary of Russian America. It was used as a campaign slogan in the election of 1844 by James K. Polk , who eventually set the border with Canada at the 49th parallel.

Abolitionism

The Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. captured additional territory extending the nation's borders all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The dispute among Texas, the federal government, and New Mexico Territory was resolved in the Compromise of 1850, when much of these lands became parts of other territories of the United States in exchange for the U.S. federal government assuming the Texas Republic's $10 million in debt.

Bill that would ban slavery in the territories acquired after the War with Mexico

Officially ended Mexican-American War. U.S. annexed California, Arizona, New Mexico, other areas in Southwest. Mexico lost 55% of its territory

Political party dedicated to stopping the expansion of slavery. It stressed protection of white economic opportunity.

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Slavery

Legally protected slavery by the federal government. This Act allowed slave owners to go to court in their home states to reclaim runaway slaves who owed service. Meant that slaves could legally be chased after. There was no statute of limitations, which meant that the law could still be enforced long after an escape. The law was retroactive: it applied to former slaves who ran away before the law was passed. Federal officers were given financial incentives to capture and send suspected fugitives back into bondage. Local officials had to enforce this act as part of their duties. It was considered a legal felony to aid or hide fugitives.

Boosted opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act and to slavery. Conveyed the moral principles of abolitionism in heartrending personal situations.

Was a document written in 1854 that described the rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain while implying that the U.S. should declare war if Spain refused.

This Act set up Kansas and Nebraska as states. Each state would use popular sovereignty to decide what to do about slavery. People who were proslavery and antislavery moved to Kansas, but some antislavery settlers were against the Act. This began guerrilla warfare.

The American Party earned the nickname of "Know-Nothings" because it was a secret patriotic/political organization with initiations, passwords, and closed meetings. Members deflected questions about their party with the set phrase "I know nothing about it" and Know-Nothing became the popular name for the party. Many members of the American Party supported government reform and other progressive causes, but their central goal was to severely restrict the rights of immigrants.

Anti-slavery

Dred Scott was a slave. He was taken by his master from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois and then to the free territory of Wisconsin. He lived on free soil for a long period of time. When the Army ordered his master to go back to Missouri, he took Scott with him back to that slave state, where his master died. In 1846, Scott was helped by Abolitionist lawyers to sue for his freedom in court, claiming he should be free since he had lived on free soil for a long time. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In March of 1857, Scott lost the decision as seven out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen, or ever had been a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, Scott had no rights and could not sue in a Federal Court and must remain a slave.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." That either slavery would be ended altogether or all states would accept it.

That he would set about not only to keep slaves out of the territories but would act to wipe it out in the Southern states where it already existed.

1860 - attempt to prevent Civil War by Senator Crittenden - offered a Constitutional amendment recognizing slavery in the territories south of the 36º30' line, noninterference by Congress with existing slavery, and compensation to the owners of fugitive slaves - defeated by Republicans

The First Battle of Bull Run, at Fort Sumter.

The reestablishment of the union with ironclad guarantees for slavery including the rights of southerners to own slaves anywhere in the United States or its territory and constitutional amendment forbidding the abolition of slavery for 100 years.

Because it was the first war where widespread use of mechanized and electrified devices like railroad trains, aerial observation, telegraph, photography, torpedoes, mines, ironclad ships and rifles occurred.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law.

Disease, mainly dysentery.

Population, manufacturing capabilities, more railroads for better transportation, naval power, superior military leadership.

Anti-slavery Republicans demanded that abolition and emancipation should be certain before fighting stops.

Issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, it declared that all slaves in the confederate states would be free.

Vicksburg and Gettysburg. The loss of Vicksburg split the Confederacy, denying its control of the Mississippi River and preventing supplies from Texas and Arkansas that could sustain the war effort from passing east. Gettysburg was the first major defeat suffered by Lee. It repelled his second invasion of the North and inflicted serious casualties on the Army of Northern Virginia.

They served as musicians, cooks, guards, and soldiers for the army.

The North was refusing to accept the services of black volunteers and freed slaves.

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Outlawed slavery everywhere in the United States, said that no involuntary servitude shall exist unless it is a punishment for a crime.

It was afterwards written into law that no state can leave the Union, the vast majority of slaves were freed (those who were in the Confederate states), blacks were awarded citizenship, the South became more industrialized, and the old antibellum, plantation based South was essentially wiped off the map. The federal government now ranked supreme, put an end to the idea of secession, and could now override southern legislation. It provided an opportunity for the growth of the transcontinental railroad, which united most of the country.

Former confederate states would be readmitted to the union if 10% of their citizens took a loyalty oath and the state agreed to ratify the 13th amendment which outlawed slavery. Not put into effect because Lincoln was assassinated.

Required an oath of allegiance to the Union by a majority of each state's adult white men, new governments formed only by those who had never taken up arms against the North, and permanent disenfranchisement of Confederate leaders.

Granted amnesty and pardon to all persons who directly or indirectly participated in the "rebellion", with a wide range of exceptions. Excepted persons included people with taxable property worth more than $20,000, civil and diplomatic officials, officers above the rank of colonel, anyone who left the U.S. military to fight for the Confederacy, anyone educated in the U.S. military academies, anyone who left homes in the North to go South, and many others.

With the Black Codes, a law designed to drive former slaves back to the plantations.

Agency set up to aid former slaves in adjusting themselves to freedom. it furnished food and clothing to needy blacks and helped them get jobs.

The radicals, led by representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, urged that the civil and military leaders of the confederacy be punished, that large numbers of southern whites be disenfranchised, that the legal rights of blacks be protected, and that the property of wealthy white southerners who had aided the confederacy be confiscated and distributed among the Freedmen.

A loose faction of American politicians within the Republican Party.

Because he refused to cooperate or compromise over black rights and the reconstruction of state governments in the South. He had engaged in misconduct and infringement on the powers of Congress.

One of the most dramatic events in the political life of the United States during Reconstruction.

1870, gave African American men the right to vote.

They played an important part in the Civil Rights Movement. The amendments declared that Blacks were real people and should be treated as equals and not as property. The amendments also gave Blacks the right to vote, making it possible to change things.

Scalawags - a white southerner acting in support of the reconstruction governments after the civil war. Carpetbagger - a northerner in the south working for a reconstruction government.

Divided the conquered South into five military districts. To reenter the Union, each former Confederate state had to grant the vote to freedmen and deny it to leading ex-Confederates. Must register all eligible adult males, blacks as well as whites, supervise new state constitutional conventions, and ensure that new constitutions guaranteed black suffrage. Congress would readmit the state to the Union once these conditions were met and the new state legislature ratified the 14th Amendment.

Original goals were to restore white supremacy but the KKK did oppose the Reconstruction governments also.

The South resisted reconstruction by passing special laws, like the Black Codes and the Jim Crow laws, in order to keep blacks down in a status practically the same as slavery. Blacks still had no rights, and were being forced to work under stiff work contracts. The Ku Klux Klan also emerged in the South specifically to keep blacks down and uphold white supremacy. Southerners charged poll taxes, and had literacy tests as requirements to vote, knowing that most blacks at that time had neither the money to do so, or the ability to read.

Politically, the government did convince southern states to rejoin the Union in a fairly simple process. They also managed to pass the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. But, the Freedmen's Bureau was underfunded and cut short, leaving the vast majority of free slaves uneducated and still in the South. There was no land reform, meaning slaves were forced into a sharecropping system and did not own their own farms, which might have made them more independent, equal and successful. The Black Codes and other laws restricting former slaves, though clearly unconstitutional, were not challenged in court or struck down by local military authorities, leaving African-Americans virtually unprotected and subject once again to working for whites involuntarily. And finally, the effort of Reconstruction was cut off after only 12 years, leaving the economy of the South still in ruins and its population largely in poverty.