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Manifest Destiny
The 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable. Justified americans expanding despite the native americans. -
Treaty Guadalupe Hidalgo
The treaty that ended the Mexican American war and gave Mexicans the right to remain in United States territory or to move to Mexico. It recognized the rights of Mexican land-grant claimants in Texas. -
Free Soil Movement
a political party in the United States until it merged into the Republican Party. The party was focused on opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. -
Gold Rush
The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Spurred California's economic growth and facilitating its transition to statehood. -
Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay attempted to seek a compromise between the north and south and avert a crisis. The Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade was abolished. It allowed the United States to expand its territory by accepting California as a state. -
Fugitive Slave Law
Part of the Compromise of 1850 and allowed for the seizure and return of runaway slaves who escaped from one state into another or into a federal territory. However, many states enacted laws that nullified its effect, making it worthless. -
Gadsden Purchase
Because of the treaty of mesilla, the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. The United States wanted more land to expand the trancontinental railroad. -
Dred Scott v Sandford
Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories by ruling the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional. -
Raid on Harpers Ferry
abolitionist John Brown tried to initiate a slave revolt in the Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. although it failed, it sparked the civil war which ended slavery. -
Crittenden Compromise
unsuccessful proposal to permanently enshrine slavery in the United States Constitution, and thereby make it unconstitutional for future congresses to end slavery. Introduced by Senator John J. Crittenden (Constitutional Unionist of Kentucky) as an attempt to prevent the secession of southern states and avoid the Civil War. -
Anaconda Plan
The Union's strategic plan to defeat the Confederacy at the start of the American Civil War by blockading southern ports and controlling the Mississippi river to cut off and isolate the south from the outside world. It was unsuccessful. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The first battle of the civil war that ended in rebel victory as the union gave up Fort Sumter. the bombardment of Fort Sumter by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
Monitor v. Merrimack
A naval battle in the civil war. History's first naval battle between ironclad warships as part of a Confederate effort to break the Union blockade of Southern ports that had been imposed at the start of the war. -
Homestead Act 1862
It accelerated the settlement of the western territory by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and 5 years of continuous residence on that land. Allowed for blacks and women to find a better life in the West. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free.". It was to encourage rebellious states to rejoin the Union. -
Sherman’s March
A military campaign of the union for the American Civil War to help end the Civil War as quickly as possible. General Sherman and his army destroyed those things that made life comfortable for the citizens of the South and for the Confederate army. -
Black Codes
were laws governing the conduct of African Americans in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work for low wages. Strict local and state laws that detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could work, and for how much compensation. -
Freedmen’s Bureau
Established by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. failed long term results as a result of lack of funding and racial politics. -
Credit Mobilier
The two-part fraud by the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company for a sham construction company chartered to build the Union Pacific Railroad by financing it with unmarketable bonds. It also provided a mechanism to dispense the immense profits from building the railroad to the board of directors and its shareholders. -
Sharecropping
A system of agriculture where a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on land. After the Civil War, sharecropping was a widespread response to the economic upheaval caused by the emancipation of slaves and disenfranchisement of poor whites.
