US History Review

TERMS/IDs(black stars)
• Separatist and Non-Separatist Puritans: The Separatists were Pilgrims that arrived
because they were sick of religious persecution. A separatist believed saints shouldn’t
worship together; they didn’t like how EVERYONE had to go to Church. Non-Separatist
Puritans wanted a purity of worship and doctrine; harassed; lacked the authority to
prevent others from worshipping as they pleased.
• Joint-stock company: Sometimes a number of people invested money in a company
that planned to set up a colony in the New World. Each person who invested money
owned a part of the company. Massachusetts Bay was a joint-stock colony established by
the Massachusetts Bay Company.
• Jamestown: Disorder. Tobacco and trading with England became the economic basis for
the colony. The settlers of Jamestown faced many problems: bad weather, dirty water
(disease), food production was bad, and land wasn’t suited for agriculture. They also
faced moral problems: religious toleration and lack of motivation. Additional colonists
were persuaded to come to Jamestown because they would be freed from religious
persecution, easy wealth, and no debt.
• Plymouth: A harsh setting that was disorganized. Not much of a government. The
Pilgrims founded Plymouth on Dec. 21, 1620, establishing a settlement that became the
seat of Plymouth Colony in 1633 and a part of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691. The
Pilgrims were English Separatists who founded (1620) Plymouth Colony in New England.
In the first years of the 17th century, small numbers of English Puritans broke away from
the Church of England because they felt that it had not completed the work of the
Reformation. They committed themselves to a life based on the Bible. Most of these
Separatists were farmers, poorly educated and without social or political standing
• Mayflower Compact: It was the first governing document of the Plymouth colony. It was
a social contract which instated that people had to follow rules and regulations of the
government.
• John Winthrop, Mass. Bay Colony: Puritan leader. Mass. Bay Colony = utopia. Mass.
Bay Colony = better organized, no starving times, became populated really fast,
organized plans before arriving, and even amount of women & men. The economic
circumstances were that they brought the charter with them and it provided shareholders.
The colonists were organized in a fair cross section. There were different age groups and
social classes. John Winthrop: “We shall be as a city upon a hill.”  that Old England will
realize the Puritan ways. He was also a prominent English Puritan who elected to
emigrate to America rather than live in a country he believed sinful and a target to divine
wrath. He was governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony ten of the colony’s first twenty
years and a major force in shaping the colony’s character.
• Half-Way Covenant: In 1662 a Massachusetts synod agreed that, for all churches, a
"half-way" membership status would be recognized. Adults who had been baptized as
children but who had not yet experienced the conversion necessary for full membership
could nonetheless have their children baptized. The parents in return were to agree to
maintain the church's standards of moral conduct. Until conversion, however, these
parents and their children were ineligible to vote in church affairs or take communion.
• King Philips War: When King Philip realized the dangers of the White colonists, he
persuaded two other chiefs, Ipomham and Canochet, to join with him to attack on colonial
towns. They killed many white people. Soon, debates happened amongst the Indians and
the White colonists attacked the Indians. King Philip was killed with his head mounted on
a stake in Boston.
• House of Burgesses: The King of England could control Virginia. More representative
government. They could make laws and they had a legislative body in Virginia.
• Bacon’s Rebellion: He attacked random Indians and after he died, his rebels spread
around in the forest. They took over Jamestown which symbolized the lack of
infrastructure. The government wasn’t strong enough to take over Bacon.
• Navigation Acts: Parliamentary acts (1660-1663) regulating colonial trade so that it
benefited the mother country. For example, all trade had to be carried in English or
colonial-armed ships manned by English or colonial sailors. Problems: one couldn’t shop
to other places, colonies different climates and landforms caused problems, differing
social structures, and smuggling became common.
• Mercantilism: The name later given to the philosophy that dominated English economic
policy beginning in the Seventeenth Century. Mercantilists held that the government
should closely regulate a nation’s economic activity, particularly in encouraging trade, to
increase the flow of wealth, in the form of gold and silver coin, into the nation.
Basically, to buy things from other countries.
• First Great Awakening: Was inspired by revolutionary ways of looking at the world.
Isaac Newton demonstrated the forces as mysterious as those that determined the paths
of the planets. Passionate preachers called for revival. 1734: Sermons were being
preached. The significance was that it was a great revival of God and religion. It divided
most Protestant denominations into “Old Lights” and “New Lights.” A religious revival
because irrationality shakes faith, reaction to the Enlightenment, drew talks together, and
people searched to rejuvenate more emotional faith. The results were that there were
more Baptists [Presbyterians, Mathodistic] and it was found many colleges and
universities.
• George Whitfield, Jonathon Edwards: Jonathon Edwards: a Congregationalist minister
in Northampton, Mass. Began to preach sermons emphasizing the sinfulness of
humanity, the torment all deserved to suffer in hell, and that salvation could be had only
through divine grace, which God visited on men and women in the form of an intensely
emotional conversion experience. George Whitfield: delivered many lengthy sermons; a
demonstrative preacher.
• French and Indian War: Indians liked the French better. With the threat of the war,
Benjamin Franklin creates the ‘Albany Plan of Union’. Salutary Neglect didn’t really work
then. Brits wanted to reduce their debt created by the war. Indians aided with the French
and they had advantages  controlled access to interior of North America. New France
also had a single colonial government that could act very quickly, whereas the British had
to ask for help from the thirteen separate colonial governments. France sent ships &
professional soldiers to America rather than depend on help. Indians that helped:
Algonquin and Huron.
• Treaty of Paris 1763: Ended the French and Indian War.
• Salutary Neglect: Robert Walpole’s idea on governing—“leave well enough alone.” The
term refers to the colonial policy of British Prime Minister Robert Walpole: so long as the
colonies were profitable to British manufacturers and merchants, it would be folly to
antagonize colonials by close political control and even strict enforcement of trade laws
the colonials violated.
• Stamp Act; Stamp Act Congress: internal tax on all printed materials  Americans
resisted because they weren’t in Parliament: James Otis: “no taxation without
representation” Stamp Act Congress: Americans learn unity, using intellectual reason to
go against the British (John Dickinson hoped to bring pressure to Parliament). They
adopted fourteen resolutions & a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances” addressed to
the king  condemned the Sugar and Stamp Act and other parliamentary policies.
• Sons of Liberty: group that condemned the Stamp Act  broke out into violence. The
group was made up of mostly shopkeepers.
• Boston Massacre: piece of propaganda (before Tea Act). 7 Bostonians were killed. Paul
Revere meant it to be a piece of propaganda, but people misinterpreted the piece. Most
Bostonians blamed the incident on the mob (John Adams was defending red coats).
• Committees of Correspondence: a body organized by the local governments of the
American colonies for the purposes of coordinating written communication outside of the
colony. These served an important role in the American Revolution and the years leading
up to it, disseminating the colonial interpretation of British actions between the colonies
and to foreign governments. The committees of correspondence rallied opposition on
common causes and established plans for collective action, and so the group of
committees was the beginning of what later became a formal political union among the
colonies.
• Tea Act of 1773, Boston Tea Party: lower tax on tea. Parliament wanted to save the
East India Company (a huge corporation invaluable to the Crown because, in return for a
monopoly of trade with India, the company governed much of the subcontinent). Tea Act
of 1773: eliminated import tariffs on tea entering England and allowed the company to
sell directly to consumers rather than through merchants. Parliament planned to use the
profits from tea sales to pay the salaries of the colonial royal governors, a move which
particularly angered colonists. Boston Tea Party: a bunch of members of the ‘Sons of
Liberty’ dressed up as Indians and dumped the tea into the Boston Harbor  Parliament
overreacted.
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense: Common Sense was a pamphlet written by Thomas
Paine and published in January 1776. In splendid prose, Paine vilified George III as a
tyrant and condemned the institution of monarchy. It is generally agreed that the
pamphlet was the single most persuasive propaganda in the debates of the
Revolutionary era. Paine would write several more important works during the late 1700s.
• Battle of Saratoga: On October 17, 1777, after several weeks of battling, British General
John Burgoyne surrendered his entire army of redcoats and Hessians to General Horatio
Gates near what is now the resort town of Saratoga, New York. Armies did not often
surrender in the eighteenth century; they retreated to fight another day. Partly because of
his own bad luck and partly because he was not reinforced as he expected, Burgoyne
was trapped in the wilderness. The American victory was so momentous it brought
France into the war.
• Articles of Confederation: Each state had their own constitution. They could not be
revised.
• Ordinance of 1785, Northwest Ordinance of 1787: establishment of a system for
surveying and subdividing public land outside the states. Passed by the Congress of the
Articles of Confederation, the statute provided for the surveying of blocks of land thirty-six
square miles each, to be known as townships. Each township was to set aside one
section for public education and schools, with each block or section containing 640 acres.
Congress established the prices at which the land was to be sold to the public.
• Alexander Hamilton, James Madison: Alexander Hamilton: secretary of treasury.
Hamilton believed in funding: where the federal government would establish its credit by
repaying the Confederation debt in full at face value. James Madison: Speaker of the
House. He opposed rewarding speculators by paying them on a pat with payments to
patriots who had lent the government money during the Revolution. Yet, Hamilton won in
Congress.
• Shay’s Rebellion: armed uprising of several thousand farmers in western
Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays. They resented the state’s taxation policies, which
favored mercantile interests in Boston, and Boston’s political domination of the state. The
rebellion was easily suppressed; but the fact that it had started at all sufficiently alarmed
Conservatives that they welcomed the proposal to meet and strengthen US government.
It collapsed in December.
• Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, Connecticut Compromise: Virginia Plan: a proposal
by Virginia delegates, drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to
assemble at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. The Virginia Plan was notable for its
role in setting the overall agenda for debate in the convention and, in particular, for
setting forth the idea of population-weighted representation in the proposed National
Legislature. New Jersey Plan: a proposal for the structure of the United States
Government proposed by William Paterson on June 15, 1787. The plan was created in
response to the Virginia Plan's call for two houses of Congress, both elected with
proportional representation. Connecticut Compromise: Ending weeks of stalemate, the
Connecticut Compromise reconciled the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan for
determining legislative representation in Congress. The Connecticut Compromise
established equal representation for all states in the Senate and proportional
representation by population in the House of Representatives.
• Federalists and Anti-Federalists: Federalists: proposed to replace federated
government with a more centralized one. Anti-Federalists: cranks; reasons for favoring
the Articles of Confederation were firmly within tradition of Revolution. Feared centralized
power was an invitation to tyranny. Argued that free republic institutions could survive
only in small countries. Argued U.S. would guarantee liberty.
• Judiciary Act of 1789: This act of the First Congress established the structure of the
federal judiciary, the basic structure of which has remained intact. The 1789 act created
two lower levels of courts. Federal district courts, each with a district judge, composed
the lowest level. Every federal district also fell within the circuit of one of the three
second-level courts, the circuit courts. In addition to creating courts, the 1789 act granted
the Supreme Court a controversial power to order federal officials to carry out their legal
responsibilities.
• Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the Constitution that spells out the rights of
individuals and small groups.
• Report on Public Credit; Report on Manufactures: Report on Public Credit: supported
ideas of war debt assumption, redemption of Confederate securities at face value, and
funding of new national securities as a permanent national debt, in order to enhance the
revenue and fiscal system of the national government, creating a large body to which
many wealthy citizens would belong and support, bringing about its prosperity. Report on
Manufactures: Hamilton supported the notion that a society based on manufacturing or
the production of goods could make it independent and powerful. In addition to national
independence, manufacturing would provide a path to equality in the global market.
Hamilton wanted a dual system of agriculture and manufacturing. To achieve this he
advocated tariffs and duties on foreign goods, inventions, and development of industries.
• Bank of the United States: First Bank of the United States was needed because the
government had a debt from the Revolutionary War, and each state had a different form
of currency. It was built while Philadelphia was still the nation's capital. Alexander
Hamilton conceived of the bank to handle the colossal war debt — and to create a
standard form of currency. Up to the time of the bank's charter, coins and bills issued by
state banks served as the currency of the young country. The First Bank's charter was
drafted in 1791 by the Congress and signed by George Washington. In 1811, Congress
voted to abandon the bank and its charter. The bank was originally housed in Carpenters'
Hall from 1791 to 1795.
• Whiskey Rebellion: Disease explains some drinking. Frontier settlers suffered from
chills and fevers of malaria  medicine? Alcohol! Whiskey was cheap  bought easily.
Hamilton put a tax for seven cents  violent farmers rebelled: got TOO excited 
Washington threatened attacking with an army  scattered mobs. Whiskey was made
out of grain (easy to transport).
• Washington’s Farwell Address: To avoid political parties and avoid entangling
alliances. Nobody listens to avoiding political parties: parties appear immediately
(Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists).
• Alien and Sedition Acts: promoted by Federalists under John Adams. Jefferson
counters this: 5-14 years for citizenship: they can’t vote. Acts prevent any criticism of
current presidency  unconstitutional. Known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts,
the legislation sponsored by the Federalists was also intended to quell any political
opposition from the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson.
• Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions: a reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts 
compacted the theory of government  ultimately means state can overpower federal
government. Since Congress was firmly controlled by the Federalists, the fight against
the Alien and Sedition Acts moved to the state legislatures in late 1798. James Madison
prepared the Virginia Resolutions and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions.
Both followed a similar argument: The states had the duty to nullify within their borders
those laws that were unconstitutional. Nothing concrete resulted from the passage of
these resolutions; no other states followed with similar actions.
• Marbury vs. Madison: significant case for Supreme Court. It established judicial review
(allows Supreme Court to determine constitutionally of Law).
• Louisiana Purchase: During the Jefferson administration. It was easily attainable
because Napoleon Bonaparte was forced to abandon his plan to revive France’s
continental American empire. Yet, his other states didn’t produce much; 1801: Napoleon
forced Spain to return Louisiana to France. Spanish revoked the right of deposit in New
Orleans that Pinckney’s Treaty gained for the US.
• Henry Clay, American System: an economic plan based on the "American School"
ideas of Alexander Hamilton, expanded upon later by Friedrich List, consisting of a high
tariff to support internal improvements such as road-building, and a national bank to
encourage productive enterprise and form a national currency. This program was
intended to allow the United States to grow and prosper, by providing a defense against
the dumping of cheap foreign products, mainly at the time from the British Empire.
• Dartmouth College vs. Woodward: WA wants Dartmouth to be state institution supreme
court says no upholding. Contracts can’t be violated by states  established ‘sanctity of
contracts.’
• McCulloch vs. Maryland: MD wants to tax a branch of national banks (prevented from
doing)  emphasizes supremacy of national government  reinforces the idea that
nation bank can exist through implied power.
• Missouri Compromise: permitted slavery in the West only south of the 36 30 latitude.
Engineered by Henry Clay to end an angry North-South sectional split over the
application for statehood, with slavery, of Missouri Territory. Missouri was admitted as a
slave state, Maine was a free state so that the numbers of slave and free states remained
equal.
• Monroe Doctrine: proclaimed by President Monroe in 1823 (although he did not use that
name), its significant provision was that the United States declared the Western
Hemisphere closed to further colonization and restoration of imperial authority. In
diplomatic but unambivalent language, Monroe stated that any such European actions
would be regarded as an act of war against the U.S.
• Transportation Revolution: Ships were a fast way to move goods.
• Indian Removal Act: in the South. Damages power of Federal government. In 1830, just
a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation called the "Indian
Removal Act" through both houses of Congress. It gave the president power to negotiate
removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the
Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the
 west. Those wishing to remain in the east would become citizens of their home state.
This act affected not only the southeastern nations, but many others further north. The
removal was supposed to be voluntary and peaceful, and it was that way for the tribes
that agreed to the conditions. But the southeastern nations resisted, and Jackson forced
them to leave.
• Trail of Tears: State legislature asserted its authority over Cherokee territory. The state
denied the Indians and Georgia got Cherokee land. BUT, a state was defying federal
power. So, the law ended up saying that the Cherokee nation was a “distinct community,
occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described…which the citizens of
Georgia had no right to enter.” Yet, Georgia voted for Jackson for he was an “Indian
fighter”, so they tried to kick the Indians out. Jackson did nothing to stop Georgia’s
takeover of the Cherokee nation. To the Cherokee, this was known as the “Trail of Tears.”
• Worcester vs. Georgia: Georgia had taken all of the Cherokee land and when Cherokee
said it was unfair, the Supreme Court ignored them. So, financed by the Cherokee,
Worcester sued for his release on the grounds that Georgia was violating Cherokee
treaties with the U.S. (state was defying federal power).
• Gibbons vs. Ogden: R. Fulton & R. Livingston. They have a steamboat company,
exclusive right to carry passengers on Hudson River. [Monopoly: one of the operators
carries passengers from NY to NJ]. Federal government regulates interstate commerce.
• Lowell system and development of textile and other manufacturing industries:
paternalistic textile factory system of the early 19th century that employed mainly young
women [age 15-35] from New England farms to increase efficiency, productivity and
profits in ways different from other methods. Emphasis was placed on mechanization and
standardization; the entire textile industry used this as a model, and machines using this
system were sold to other mills.
• Cotton gin & Cyrus McCormick’s reaper: Cotton Gin: produced by Eli Whitney after
realizing that the work labor was too time consuming. Cyrus McCormick’s reaper:
machine that cuts grain.
• Spoils System: patronage—appointing positions, handing them out as favors.
• John C. Calhoun: vice president that drafted the South Carolina Exposition and Protest.
He was also involved with the Wilmot Proviso.
• South Carolina Exposition and Protest: a federal law created by South Carolina. It
could nullify any federal law. Written secretly by Calhoun. An interpretation of the
relationship of the states to the federal union that provided South Carolina and other
southern states a rationale for defying the federal tariff. Calhoun stated that the United
States had been created not by the people of America but by the people acting through
the states of which they were citizens. The United States was a voluntary compact of
states. Calhoun concluded that nullifying state could choose between “surrender” to the
other states or leaving the Union via succession. States have the right the final say in any
law. Jackson: sending troops. Do states have more power or do federals?
• Tariff of Abominations: a federal statute placing high tariffs on imports. The highest tariff
imposed in America up to that time, it was labeled the "Tariff of Abominations" by
southern leaders, who bitterly opposed the bill and spoke of secession. Henry Clay
worked out the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which reduced tariffs gradually until 1842.
• Second Great Awakening: [1800-1830?] Charles Finney claimed to have been
summoned by God to save souls. They reformed the abolition of slavery; they made
slave states to non slave states. Female rights rose. A religious revival, strong “burned
over district” (tremendous amount of religion) of Southern NY. New versions of
Protestants: Mormonism, Quakers, & Shakers (believed in God; didn’t have sex). Located
geographically in the New York State. Causes of these reforms: economic reasons:
economic fluctuation, social reasons: habits prove disturbing, nature of work was
 changing, drinking problems and cultural reasons: new peoples were coming; old mine;
protestant, trouble adjusting to cultures and conflicts with the Irish.
• Unitarianism: the belief in the single personality of God. It is the philosophy upon which
the modern Unitarian movement was based, and, according to its proponents, is the
original form of Christianity.
• Mormonism: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as
Mormonism, was the most controversial challenge to traditional religion. Its founder,
Joseph Smith, claimed that God and Jesus Christ appeared to him and directed him to a
buried book of revelation.
• Horace Mann: often called the Father of the Common School, began his career as a
lawyer and legislator. When he was elected to act as Secretary of the newly-created
Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837, he used his position to enact major
educational reform. He spearheaded the Common School Movement, ensuring that every
child could receive a basic education funded by local taxes. His influence soon spread
beyond Massachusetts as more states took up the idea of universal schooling.
• William Lloyd Garrison: doesn’t believe in violence and his argument was based upon
Christian beliefs. A Boston evangelical who worked with Benjamin Lundy in publishing
The Genius of Emancipation. He believed slavery to be the most abominable sins. Wasn’t
very popular in the North. Personal abolitionist newspaper: The Liberator.
• Angelina Grimke: With her sister, she became an abolitionist and was harassed
violently, so they moved to the North. Active members of American Anti-Slavery Society.
• Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth: Douglass was killed in the North. Educated
himself. Wrote his biography of the horrors of slavery. Sojourner Truth: name adopted by
Isabella Van Wagenen. She transfixed audiences by accompanying her speeches with
songs she herself had composed.
• Seneca Falls: promoted ‘Declaration of Sentiments’. Women rights: 1842. Model of
‘Declaration of Independence.’ Came up by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Women’s movement
provides ideas of movement.
• Dorothea Dix: an American activist on behalf of the indigent insane who through a
vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created
the first generation of American mental asylums.
• American Temperance Society: established in 1826. Within five years there were 2,220
local chapters in the U.S. with 170,000 members who had taken a pledge to abstain from
drinking alcoholic beverages. Within ten years, there were over 8,000 local groups and
more than 1,500,000 members who had taken the pledge. The society benefited from,
and contributed to, a reform sentiment in much of the country promoting the abolition of
slavery, expanding women’s rights, temperance, and the improvement of society.
Possibly because of its association with the abolitionist movement, the society was most
successful in northern states.
• Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson. intellectual movement. Transcendentalism
began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time, and in
particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church
which was taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among Transcendentalists' core beliefs was
an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized
through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established
religions.
• Nat Turner’s Rebellion: most powerful rebellion: August 21: killed 60 whites and
recruited slaves. Southerners blamed white abolitionists like Garrison for making all the
slaves know they can fight against their owners.
• “Necessary Evil” or “Positive Good”: catchword applied to the aggressive defense of
slavery that was a response to the abolitionist movement during the 1830s. Most white
southerners had considered slavery at best a necessary evil saddled on the South by
 history. After 1830, proslavery Americans ceased to be defensive and maintained that
slavery was a positive good for both whites and blacks.
• Stephen Austin: Catholic who was licensed to bring 300 American families to Texas,
each to receive 177 acres of farmland and 13000 acres of grassland.
• Alamo: The name given to an old, largely abandoned mission compound in San Antonio,
Texas. It became the symbol of Texan independence when, in March 1836, Mexican
president Santa Anna defeated a handful of defenders there and executed the survivors.
Less than two weeks later, Santa Anna massacred other Texas rebels at Goliad, but
somehow they are not so well remembered.
• Manifest Destiny: Americans feeling that they have rights over others (Indian/slaves).
• Mexican War: The Wilmot Proviso was enacted after this.
• Popular sovereignty: democratic solution to the problem of slavery in the territories.
• Compromise of 1850 (Henry Clay’s Omnibus Bill): The compromise was proposed by
the "Great Compromiser" Henry Clay. The measures were the admission of California as
a free state; the organization of New Mexico and Utah territories without mention of
slavery, the status of that institution to be determined by the territories themselves when
they were ready to be admitted as states (this formula came to be known as popular
sovereignty); the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; a more
stringent fugitive slave law; and the settlement of Texas boundary claims by federal
payment of $10 million on the debt contracted by the Republic of Texas.
• Fugitive Slave Act: Provided that runaways be returned to their owners. Law was
evaded in many free states. 1840s: states of upper South had a bad runaway problem.
Northerners became angry because it felt like they were participating in slavery.
• *Uncle Tom’s Cabin: a fiction novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in
1852. A sympathetic portrait of the situation of slaves  made Northerners more
sympathetic to the slaves. Uncle Tom is a kindly, religious slave who, in being passed
from owner to owner, experiences both the worst and the best of southern slave owners.
Stowe based his experiences on actual events she gleaned from newspapers.
Northerners changed their position of slavery before the war.
• American or Know-Nothing Party: derisive name for the American party of the 1850s,
an anti-immigration and anti-Catholic movement that won control of several states
between 1852 and 1854, electing forty-three members of Congress.
• Republican Party: The Republican Party was born in the early 1850's by anti-slavery
activists and individuals who believed that government should grant western lands to
settlers free of charge.
• Kansas-Nebraska Act: Bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S.
Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Stephen A. Douglas, the
Democratic senator from Illinois and chairman of the Committee on Territories, introduced
the bill in early 1854 dealing with these unorganized lands.
• Stephen Douglas: Douglas supported the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision of 1857.
Douglas deeply believed in democracy, arguing the will of the people should always be
decisive. He was largely responsible for the Compromise of 1850 that apparently settled
slavery issues. However, in 1854 he reopened the slavery question by the highly
controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed the people of the new territories to
decide for themselves whether or not to have slavery (which had been prohibited by
earlier compromises). The protest movement against this became the Republican Party.
• John Brown: a white American abolitionist who advocated and practiced armed
insurrection as a means to abolish slavery. He led the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry
in 1859 and the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas.
• Bully Brooks and Charles Sumner: Charles Sumner: an American politician and
statesman from Massachusetts. As a Radical Republican leader in the Senate during
 Reconstruction, 1865-1871, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights
for the freedmen, and to block ex-Confederates from power.
• *Dred Scott vs. Sanford: lawsuit  ruled people of African state, whether slaves or not,
could never be citizens of the U.S.; congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in
federal territories. It was also ruled that slaves could not sue in court, and that slaves
were private property, and, being private property, can't be taken away from their owners
without due process. The decision sided with border ruffians in the Bleeding Kansas
dispute who were afraid a free Kansas would be a haven for runaway slaves from
Missouri. he parts of this decision dealing with the citizenship and rights of African-
Americans were explicitly nullified by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the
Constitution.
• Battle of Antietam: Confederate general Robert E. Lee led his forces on a powerful
march northward from Virginia, aiming to break Union lines. What followed, in September
17, 1862, was the bloodiest single-day battle in the Civil War: the Battle of Antietam, in
which more than 8,000 men died on the field and 18,000 were wounded. Though a
strategic draw, the battle proved a Union victory in that Lee halted his Confederate
advance northward. Lincoln responded to this victory by issuing the Emancipation
Proclamation.
• Battle of Gettysburg: 90,000 Union soldiers battled 75,000 Confederates and secured a
Union victory. The losses were ruinous to both sides: a total of 7,000 soldiers died on the
field and 40,000 were wounded. Although fighting would continue for more than a year
after the Battle of Gettysburg, the battle proved a decisive victory for the Union, and the
war thereafter tilted in the Union’s favor. Later that year, Lincoln delivered his famed
Gettysburg Address, in which he portrayed the war as a test of democracy’s strength.
• New York City draft riots: staged between July 12 and 15, 1863, were a protest against
the Conscription Act, and particularly the "rich man's exemption." Prompted in particular
by the Irish-American community, the riots featured looting, lynching, and pillaging. After
Lincoln sent troops up from Gettysburg to quell the disturbance, hundreds of people were
killed or wounded.
• Emancipation Proclamation: it freed the slaves only in rebel states & the confederacy.
Frees the slaves in the South & it makes the war more about slavery (initially, it was
about state rights). Issued by Lincoln after the Battle of Antietum (battle was barely
victory for the North) It made it look like a gesture of strength Lincoln didn’t want to
issue it. The war took on a moral quality in North.
• Lincoln’s 10 percent plan: It decreed that a state could be reintegrated into the Union
when 10 percent of its voters in the presidential election of 1860 had taken an oath of
allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by emancipation. The next step in the
process would be for the states to formally elect a state government. Also, the states
were able to write a new constitution, but in it had to abolish slavery forever. At that time,
Lincoln would recognize the purified regime. By 1864, Louisiana and Arkansas had
established fully functioning Unionist governments.
• Radical reconstruction: Republicans in Congress took control of Reconstruction
policies after the election of 1866. They passed legislation over President Johnson's
vetoes. They passed constitutional amendments against his wishes. Thaddeus Stevens
and Charles Sumner, and the Republican faction that called themselves "radicals" led
efforts to extend suffrage to freedmen. They were generally in control, although they had
to compromise with the moderate Republicans.
• Black codes: Black Codes was a name given to laws passed by southern governments
established during the presidency of Andrew Johnson. These laws imposed severe
restrictions on freed slaves such as prohibiting their right to vote, forbidding them to sit on
juries, limiting their right to testify against white men, carrying weapons in public places
and working in certain occupations.
• Freedman’s Bureau: federal agency administered by the army, established in March
1865. Its purpose was to provide food, clothing, and medical treatment to former slaves
and white refugees and to supervise the distribution of small farms carved out of
abandoned and confiscated lands. President Johnson’s July 1866 veto of a bill extending
the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau transformed the tension between the president and
congressional Republicans into open political conflict.
• Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments: Thirteen Amendment: abolished
slavery as a legal institution. Fourteenth Amendment: grant citizenship to "All persons
born or naturalized in the United States," thereby granting citizenship to former slaves.
Fifteenth Amendment: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude."
• Scalawags and carpetbaggers: derisive terms applied by southern Democrats to
northerners who came to the South after the war to loot the defeated states
(carpetbaggers) and southerners who betrayed the South and the white race to control
the state governments by manipulating black voters (scalawags).
• Ku Klux Klan: a white supremacy organization that was trying to stop black people from
voting.
• Sharecropping System: system of agriculture or agricultural production where a
landowner allows a sharecropper to use the land in return for a share of the crop
produced on the land.
• Compromise of 1877: The compromise essentially stated that Southern Democrats
would acknowledge Hayes as President, but only if the Republicans acceded to various
parts, specifically: the removal of all Federal troops from the former Confederate States.
(Troops only remained in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, but the Compromise
finalized the process) and the appointment of at least one Southern Democrat to Hayes'
administration. (David M. Key of Tennessee was Postmaster General). Hayes had
already promised this.
• Patronage: the support, encouragement, privilege and often financial aid given by a
person or an organization. It can also refer to the right of bestowing offices or church
benefices, the business given by a regular customer, and the guardianship of saints.
• Pork: at the end of each congressional session, when the House and Senate were tying
up loose ends at top speed, Congress enacted “pork barrel” : usually bipartisan because
the two houses of Congress were controlled by different parties more often than not.
Collected together for a single vote proposals that most members had for government
spending in their districts.
• Political Machine: Political machines were Democratic and Republican Party
organizations that controlled the election and campaigning processes. Machines often
controlled local and state politics in large cities during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Powerful politicians called bosses controlled the machines. Boss Thomas Platt ran the
Republican political machine in New York City at the turn of the century.
• GAR: Great Army Republic, a Union veterans’ association founded in 1866, was a social
organization and officially nonpolitical. In fact, it was a Republican party auxiliary,
promoting pensions for veterans, a Republican issue.
• *Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883: The Pendleton Act classified certain jobs,
removed them from the patronage ranks, and set up a Civil Service Commission to
administer a system based on merit rather than political connections. As the classified list
was expanded over the years, it provided for a competent and permanent government
bureaucracy. In 1883 fewer than 15,000 jobs were classified; by the time McKinley
became president in 1897, 86,000—almost half of all federal employees—were in
classified positions. Today, with the exception of a few thousand policy-level
appointments, nearly all federal jobs are handled within the civil service system.
• Transcontinental Railroad: First company to get really big  set an example. By 1900-
US leads the world in track mileage. Funds were raised by subsidizing from state/local
government, selling bonds, and selling stock. They were forced to organize to a higher
degree than any industry before: telegraph, separate geographical units, elaborate
accounting system, and hierarchical organization.
• *Vertical/horizontal integration: objectives to keeping down costs. Two ways to control
price  Vertical: organizing your company; own everything from raw materials to the
finish product. Allows to keep cost down. Horizontal: own all of type of production, just a
phase. No competition.
• U.S. Steel: was founded by J.P. Morgan and Elbert H. Gary. It combined the steel
operations owned by Andrew Carnegie with their holdings in the Federal Steel Company.
The federal government attempted to use federal anti-trust laws to break up U.S. Steel in
1911. That effort ultimately failed. Time and competitors have, however, accomplished
nearly the same thing. In its first full year of operation, U.S. Steel made 67 percent of all
the steel produced in the United States; it now produces less than ten percent.
• Standard Oil: oil refining organization created by John D. Rockefeller.
• Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan: Carnegie: provides a close
analysis of the costs per tons of steel – allows him to undercut competition-first
steelmaker to actually know what it cost to produce a ton of steel after applying his cost-
analysis procedures. He emphasizes vertical integrations  joins Henry Clay Frick’s
operation to his own and then buys into Mesabi Range. Carnegie sells out to J.P Morgan
who sets up first billion dollar corporation. John D. Rockefeller gets into refining business,
then expands vertically. Dominates industry in part by using his “Reckefellow” techniques.
He believed competition was wasteful, thus established Standard Oil Trust.
• “robber barons” (Matthew Josephson’s phrase): made fortunes and made U.S.
business more leaner/meaner.
• ICC: [Interstate Commerce Commission]: The first permanent federal regulatory
commission, established by Congress in 1887in response to demands for the regulation
of railroads. The ICC was ineffective in its early years not because of lack of authority but
because most commissioners were closely tied to the nation’s great railroad companies.
• *Sherman Anti-Trust Act: [1890] with its loosely defined “trust” and “restraint of trade”
fails to impede Rockefeller, who reorganizes the trust as a holding company. United
States v. E.C. Knight leads to a sympathetic interpretation of the Sherman Act for big
business which finds that “commerce” and “manufacturing” are quite different; the former
involved in interstate commerce, the latter only a local concern. Of course, the Court
ignored the interstate transportation webs used to distribute goods. Prevent a board of
trustees from controlling large companies. Restraint of trade: challenge any company that
did that. It might not help the consumer. Trust could control all of the businesses. Didn’t
get a fair price with their goods  should have competing companies. Didn’t work in the
end because lawyers could find their way around it. Sherman Anti-Trust Act didn’t cover
manufacturing. Government tried to do that and it represents change.
• *Social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer: Philosophy or “ideology” of the late nineteenth
century that justified great wealth, even when made by ruthless and unethical means, by
defining economic life in terms associated with the Darwinian theory of evolution:
“survival of the fittest” and “law of the jungle.” Herbert Spencer: British philosopher and
came up with social Darwinism.
• Conspicuous consumption (Thorstein Veblen): a term used to describe the lavish
spending on goods and services that are acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying
income or wealth.
• Philanthropy: the act of donating money, goods, time, or effort to support a charitable
cause, usually over an extended period of time and in regard to a defined objective.
• Gospel of Success: centered on the claim that any man could achieve wealth through
hard work.
• Knights of Labor: Noble status. It was organized in 1869. The leader was Terrance
Powderly and craft unions were allowed to join. The goals were to make a better society.
The Haymarket Square riot caused the Kings of Labor to go out of business.
• *AFL, Samuel Gompers: AFL (American Federation of Labor) did not have the idea of
reforming the whole society. It was organized in 1886. The leader was Samuel Gompers
 in cigar rolling trade & self educated. Skilled workers were allowed to join. Their small
goals were looking for 8 hr workday and not wanting to reform the society.
• Haymarket Square riot: caused the Knights of Labor to go out of business. Knights of
Labor became associated with anarchists (people were afraid of it; wanted to overthrow
government).
• Pullman Strike: The company cut wages a number of times in the 1880s and '90s, but
failed to reduce the rent in the company owned housing. This double squeeze lead to dire
economic circumstances for the workers. By late June sympathetic railway workers had
agreed to boycott trains carrying Pullman cars nationwide. Federal troops were called in
to keep the trains moving and to break the strike, prompting violence and looting in
Chicago. With the arrest of the leaders in Chicago, the strike collapsed, and workers
returned August 2, 1894. This strike is widely regarded as being pivotal in labor history.
Issues raised included a national rail strike, the use of federal troops and company towns.
• Changes in immigration: Immigrants accomplished unskilled jobs  bad for workers
that would go on strike.