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Industrial Revolution
Was the transition to new manufactoring processes; included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal. It began in England and within a few decades had spread to Western Europe and the United States. -
Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800, and after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the 1840s. It has been described as a reaction against skepticism, deism, and rational Christianity. -
Tariff of Abominations
Designed to protect industry in the northern United States. It was labeled the Tariff of Abominations by its southern detractors because of the effects it had on the antebellum Southern economy. The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the northern United States by putting a tax on them. The South was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, because reducing the exportation of British goods to the US made it difficult for the British. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson. The act authorized him to negotiate with the Native Americans in the Southern United States for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their homelands. The act was strongly supported by non-native people of the South, who were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the Five Civilized Tribes. Christian missionaries, most notably Jeremiah Evarts, protested against its passage. -
Nullification Crisis
The Nullification Crisis was a sectional crisis during the presidency of Andrew Jackson created by South Carolina's 1832 Ordinance of Nullification. This ordinance declared by the power of the State that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of South Carolina. The controversial and highly protective Tariff of 1828. -
Compromise Tariff of 1833
Proposed by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun as a resolution to the Nullification Crisis. It was adopted to gradually reduce the rates after southerners objected to the protectionism found in the Tariff of 1832 and the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which had prompted South Carolina to threaten secession from the Union. -
Battle of San Jacinto
Was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's Mexican army in a fight that lasted just 18 minutes. -
Panic of 1837
A financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices and wages went down while unemployment went up. Pessimism abounded during the time. The panic had both domestic and foreign origins. Speculative lending practices in western states, a sharp decline in cotton prices, a collapsing land bubble, international specie flows, and restrictive lending policies in Great Britain were all to blame. -
Maine Law of 1851
The Maine law, passed in 1851 in Maine, was one of the first statutory implementations of the developing temperance movement in the United States, which outlawed the sale of alcoholic beverages except for “industrial and medicinal purposes.”
