-
Declaration of Independance
The movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. A five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies’ intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence. -
Second Great Awakening
A Protestant religious revival movement in the United States. It reflected Romanticism characterized by enthusiasm, emotion, and an appeal to the super-natural. It rejected the skeptical rationalism and deism of the Enlightenment. -
Whiskey Rebellion
The first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. It was intended to generate revenue to help reduce the national debt. Although the tax was applied to all liquor, whiskey was by far the most popular liquor beverage in the 18th-century U.S. -
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
The convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention. The result of the Convention was the creation of the United States Constitution. -
The Louisiana Purchase
Thomas Jefferson purchased territory from France for the United States. Eventually, 15 states were created from the land deal. -
War of 1812
The United States took on Great Britain, the greatest naval power in the world, the war included British attempts to restrict U.S. trade, the Royal Navy’s impressment of American seamen and America’s desire to expand its territory. -
The Missouri Compromise
an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. -
Monroe Doctrine
A United States foreign policy regarding domination of the Americas. It stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as "unfriendly". -
Indian Removal Act
The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern Indian tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their ancestral homelands. -
Mexican-American War
This war marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired as a result of the Mexican War. Fearing the addition of a pro-slave territory, David Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Congressman, proposed his amendment to the bill. Although the measure was blocked in the southern-dominated Senate, it inflamed the growing controversy over slavery. -
California Gold Rush
The discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley sparked the Gold Rush. As news spread of the discovery, thousands of prospective gold miners traveled by sea or overland to San Francisco and the surrounding area. A total of $2 billion worth of precious metal was extracted from the area during the Gold Rush. -
Seneca Falls Convention
The convention was the first women's rights convention in the United States at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y. with almost 200 women attendees. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. -
The Compromise of 1850
Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American War were resolved during The Compromise. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. -
The Gadsen Purchase
An agreement between the United States and Mexico, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico for a portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. This purchase provided the land necessary for a southern transcontinental railroad. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
This Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. -
Dred Scott Decision
The United States Supreme Court issues a decision in the Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, thereby negating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican Party. -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
The Debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Even though Illinios was a slavery free state, he main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery in the United States. -
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry
The raid was intended to be the first stage in an elaborate plan to establish an independent stronghold of freed slaves in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia. -
Forming of the Confederate States of America
In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana convene to establish the Confederate States of America.
