APUSH Ch 13

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Kansas- Nebraska Act: created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands for settlement, and allowed the settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery. The initial purpose of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to create opportunities for a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. It wasn't until it became an issue that popular sovereignty was written into the proposal. The new Republican Party, formed in reaction against allowing slavery where it had been forbidden, emerged as the dominant force throughout the North. The act was designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois; it also repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The act established that settlers could decide for themselves whether to allow slavery, in the name of "popular sovereignty" or rule of the people. Opponents denounced the law as a concession to the Slave Power of the South.
Ostend Manifesto: was a secret document written in 1854 by U.S. diplomats at Ostend, Belgium, describing a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain. The document declared that "Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members, and that it belongs naturally to that great family of states of which the Union is the Providential Nursery."
Dred Scott v. Sanford/ Roger Taney: was a black slave who had lived with his master for five years in Illinois and Wisconsin territory. He sued for his freedom on the basis of his long residence in free territory. The Dred Scott court decision was handed down by the Supreme Court on March 6,1857. The Supreme Court, under Chief justice Taney, ruled that Dred Scott was a black slave and not a citizen. Hence, he could not sue in a federal court. ( This part of the ruling denied blacks their citizenship and menaced the position of the South's free blacks.) The Court also ruled that the Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional and that Congress could not ban slavery from the territories regardless of what the territorial legislatures themselves might want. The South was extremely happy about the decision, but Republicans were infuriated.
James K. Polk/ "fifty four forty or fight": when Polk as president, tried to resolve the Oregon question, he offered the plan that the Canadian border would be at the 49th parallel, but the British prime minister rejected it, and Polk angrily, asserted the American claim to all of Oregon. Talk of war existed in both Britain and the United States, where this bellicose slogan was used a s a reference to where Americans hoped to draw the northern boundary of Oregon. Eventually, the British government who did not wish for war accepted Polk's proposal of the 49th parallel border.
Goliad: the location where another Texan garrison suffered substantially, and led to the collapse of the rebellion in 1836.
the Oregon Trail: was the major route west for migrants, 2,000 miles; it stretched from Independence across the Great Plains and through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, from here many migrants either went south along the California trail, or south- west, along the Sante Fe Trail.
Battle of San Jacinto: Houston's men defeated the Mexican army on April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto, and took Santa Anna prisoner, until he signed the treaty that gave Texas its independence.
Squater / Popular soveriegnty: in order to end the sectional debate over slavery, Polk proposed extending the Missouri Compromise line throughout the new territories to the Pacific coast, banning slavery north, and allowing it south of the line, but others supported a plan, which would allow each territory to decide the status of slavery there, causing the debate over these proposals to drag on for months.
Charles Sumner/ Andrew P. Butler/ Preston Brooks: Sumer of Massachusetts rose to give a speech entitled "the crime against Kansas". In it he gave particular attention to Senator Butler of South Carolina an outspoken defender of slavery, as he claimed that South Carolina was the Don Quixote of slaver, having chosen a mistress, who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him". This speech enraged Butler's nephew Brooks, who was member of the House of Representatives for South Carolina, and one day Brooks approached Sumner at his desk and beat him repeatedly with his cane, his injuries were very severe, and Sumner was seen as a martyr in the North.
The compromise of 1850: a series of laws that attempted to resolve the territorial and slavery controversies arising from the Mexican-American War (1846-48). The five laws balanced the interests of the slave states of the South and the free states. California was admitted as a free state; Texas received financial compensation for relinquishing claim to lands west of the Rio Grande in what is now New Mexico; the territory of New Mexico (including present-day Arizona and Utah) was organized without any specific prohibition of slavery; the slave trade (but not slavery itself) was abolished in Washington, D.C.; and the stringent Fugitive Slave Law was passed, requiring all U.S. citizens to assist in the return of runaway slaves regardless of the legality of slavery in the specific states.
Sam Houston: a general who managed to keep a small force together, and they defeated the Mexican army, which led to Texas independence. (victory at San Jacinto)
1860 Election: set the stage for the American Civil War. The political system split four ways and all of them proved unable to hold the nation together as a Union without a violent resolution. The nation had been divided throughout most of the 1850s on questions of states' rights and slavery in the territories. In 1860, this issue finally came to a head, bringing Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to power without the support of a single Southern State, while simultaneously fracturing the formerly dominant Democratic Party into Southern and Northern factions. The immediate result of Lincoln's victory were declarations of secession by South Carolina and other states.
Slave Power Conspiracy: the idea that the South was engaged in a conspiracy to extend slavery throughout the nation and thus to destroy the openness of northern capitalism and replace it with the closed, aristocratic system of the south, and the only solution was to fight the spread of slavery and extend the nation's democratic ideals to all sections of the country.
Penny Press: the ideas of the manifest destiny were spread throughout the nation by the new technology, which made newspapers available to a far greater proportion of the population than ever before.
Tejanos: the Mexican residents of Texas who had fought with the Americans in the revolution, but after Texas one independence, many Americans feared that they were Mexican spies, and drove the many out, those that remained were given a political and economic subordinate status.
Lecompton constitution: part of the compromise that Congress approved on 1858, meant that the Lecompton Constitution would be submitted to the voters of Kansas again, if it was approved hen Kansas would be admitted to the union, but if it was rejected, which it was, state hood would be postponed. Not until the closing months of Buchanan's administration in 1861 did Kansas enter the Union as a free state. (attempt to make Kansas a slave state, failed)
Louis Cass/ Free Soil Party: was the democratic nomination for president, he was a dull, aging party regular from Michigan, and ran against Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican War, but with no political experience. The opponents of slavery found the choice of candidates unsatisfying and created the new Free-Soil party, whose candidate was former president Van Buren (Van Buren lost to Taylor).
Wilmot Proviso: Dispute over whether any Mexican territory that America won during the Mexican War should be free or a slave territory. A representative named David Wilmot introduced an amendment stating that any territory acquired from Mexico would be free. This amendment passed the House twice, but failed to ever pass in Senate. The "Wilmot Proviso", as it became known as, became a symbol of how intense dispute over slavery was in the U.S.
Winifield Scott: Old Fuss and Feathers", led American troops in Mexico City during the Mexican American War Mexicans surrendered to him.
Free Labor: the northern belief that slavery was dangerous not because of its effect on blacks, but because of what it threatened to do to whites, they argued that at the heart of American democracy was the right of all citizens to own property, to control their own labor, and to have access to opportunities for advancement.
Thomas Dew: one of the southerners, professor of the College of William and Marry, provided an intellectual defense of slavery, called The Pro- Slavery Argument, stating that slavery was good for the slaves, because they enjoyed much better working conditions than in the North.
Stephen Kearny/ John C. Fremont/ Bear Flag Revolution: when Polk ordered other offensives against New Mexico and California, a small army under Colonel Kearny captured Santa Fe with no opposition, then he proceeded to California, where he joined a conflict already in progress that was staged by American setters and a well- armed exploring party led by Fremont and the American navy. Kearny united all of the American forces under his command and by the autumn of 1846 he had completed the conquest of California.
Manifest Destiny: an emotional upsurge of certain beliefs in the US in the 1840's and 1850's. Citizens of the US believed they should spread their democratic government over the entire North America and possibly extend into South America. The campaign of 1844 was included in this new surge. James Polk represented the Democrats while Henry Clay was nominated by the Whigs. The campaign and mudslinging was as harsh as ever and spread all over the continent.
Lincoln- Douglass debates: were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat, for an Illinois seat in the United States Senate. At the time, U.S. Senators were elected by state legislatures; thus Lincoln and Douglas were campaigning for their respective parties to win control of the legislature. The debates presaged the issues that Lincoln faced in the 1860 Presidential campaign and are remembered partially for the eloquence of both sides. The main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery. The debates attracted enormous crowds and received wide attention.
Stephen Austin: most successful of the American intermediaries, who received sizable land grants from Mexico in return for promising to bring in new residents; a young immigrant from Missouri who established the first legal American settlement in Texas in 1822.
Bleeding Kansas: sometimes referred to in history as Bloody Kansas or the Border War, was a sequence of violent events involving Free-Staters (anti-slavery) and pro-slavery "Border Ruffians" elements that took place in Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. state of Missouri between roughly 1854 and 1858 attempting to influence whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state. The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune. The events in Bleeding Kansas directly presaged the American Civil War.
Harpers Ferry Raid: Occurred in October of 1859. John Brown of Kansas attempted to create a major revolt among the slaves. He wanted to ride down the river and provide the slaves with arms from the North, but he failed to get the slaves organized. Brown was captured. The effects of Harper's Ferry Raid were as such: the South saw the act as one of treason and were encouraged to separate from the North, and Brown became a martyr to the northern abolitionist cause.
Franklin Pierce/ Young America: one of the ways Pierce hoped to dampen sectional controversy was through his support of a movement in the Democratic Party known as young America. Its adherents saw the expansion of American democracy throughout the world as a way to divert attention from the controversies over slavery.
Santa Anna: was a general that seized power of Mexico as a dictator, he increased the powers of the national government at the expense of the state governments, a measure that Texans from the United States assumed Santa Anna was aiming directly at them.
Republican Party: strongly believed the slave power conspiracy, which strengthen the commitment of Republicans to the Union, since the idea of continued growth and progress was central to the free-labor vision, the prospect of dismemberment of the nation was unthinkable.
joint occupation: both the United States and Britain had claimed sovereignty over Oregon country, and unable to resolve their conflicting claims diplomatically, they agreed in an 1818 treaty to allow citizens of both countries to have equal access to the territory, this lasted for twenty years.
Fugitive Slave Act: northern opposition intensified quickly after 1850, when southerners began appearing in northern states to pursue people they claimed were fugitives. Mobs formed in some northern cities to prevent enforcement of the law, and several northern states also passed their own laws barring the deportation of fugitive slaves.
Davey Crockett: a member of the group of Texas "patriot" fighters , during the Alamo, he was a renowned frontiersman and former Tennessee congressman
James Buchanon: was the Democratic Candidate of the election of 1856, was a minister to England and had been safely out of the country during the recent controversies. After the heated campaign, Buchanan won a narrow victory taking office as one of the oldest presidents. And whether because of age and physical infirmities or because of a more fundamental weakness of character, he became a painfully timid and indecisive president at a critical moment in history.
The Alamo: Santa Anna led a large army into Texas, where the American setters tried to defend in squabbling factions, but Mexican forces annihilated the American Garrison at the Alamo mission in San Antonio after the famous, yet futile, group of Texas "patriots" tried to fight back.
Nicholas Trist/ Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo: Mexico sold the United States all of the southwest for 15 million dollars in agreement that the rights and religion of the Mexican inhabitants of this land would be recognized by the United States government. It was drawn up by Nicholas P. Trist and sent to congress. The anti slavery congressmen passed the treaty and signed it on February 2nd, 1848.
Empire of Liberty: some advocates of the manifest destiny had limited territorial goals, while others envisioned a vast new empire including Canada, Mexico, Caribbean and Pacific Islands, and a few even dreamed the rest of the world. (spread democracy)
John Brown/ Pottawatomie Massacre: among the fervent abolitionists in Kansas, Brown was a grim, fiercely committed zealot who had moved to Kansas with his sons so that they could fight to make it a free state. One night in Lawrence, he and six followers killed five pro- slavery settlers, this massacre led to more civil strife in Kansas.
Jefferson Davis/ Gadsden Purchase: Pierce's secretary of war removed one obstacle to a southern route, as surveys indicated that a railroad with a southern terminus would have to pass through an area in Mexican territory. But in 1853 Davis sent James Gadsen, a southern railroad builder, to Mexico, where he persuaded the Mexican government to accept 10 million dollars in exchange for a strip of land that now comprises part of Arizona and New Mexico.
Stephen A. Douglass: was an American politician from the western state of Illinois, and was the Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860. He was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because he was short but was considered by many a "giant" in politics. He lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed series of debates. Douglas was well-known as a resourceful party leader, and an adroit, ready, skillful tactician in debate and passage of legislation.
California Gold Rush/ John Sutter/ 49ers: In January 1848, a foreman working in a sawmill owned by John Sutter (one of Californias leading ranchers) found traces of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Within months of the discovery, thousands of people began flocking to California in search for gold, some of the Californian migrants threw caution to the winds, abandoned farms, jobs, homes and families, and were known as forty-niners, they created a new male- based society that was unsuccessful.
Zachary Taylor: (old rough and ready)under orders of Polk, in the summer of 1845 he led a small army to Texas to protect the new state against possible Mexican invasion.

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