Abraham Lincoln - Sixteenth president of the United States (1861-1865); he led the country through a great constitutional, military

and moral crisis - the American Civil War - preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization

American Progress - a painting which was an allegory of Manifest Destiny (giant flying white lady)

Andrew Jackson - Seventh President of the United States (1829 - 1837); Former army general who fought Indians; As president destroyed national bank and relocated Native Americans

Bleeding Kansas - a series of violent events, involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. state of Missouri roughly between 1854 and 1858 (based on whether Kansas should be a free or slave state)

Border Ruffians - Pro-slavery activists infiltrated Kansas Territory from the neighboring slave state of Missouri

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia - a United States Supreme Court case; the Cherokee Nation sought a federal injunction against laws passed by the state of Georgia depriving them of rights within its boundaries; it ruled that it had no original jurisdiction

Compromise of 1850 - A package of bills, passed in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War; The compromise avoided secession or civil war and reduced sectional conflict for four years

Dred Scott - an African-American slave in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom (slaves were property)

Free Soilers - a political party in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections; It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State; Its main purpose was opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories, arguing that free men on free soil comprised a morally and economically superior system to slavery. opposed slavery in the new territories and sometimes worked to remove existing laws that discriminated against freed African Americans in states such as Ohio

George Donner - He was the leader of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound American settlers who became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-1847; half of the party starved to death, and some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism

Henry Ward Beecher - he was accused of having an affair with a married woman was one of the most notorious American trials of the 19th century

Horace Greeley - He was an American newspaper editor, a reformer, and a politician; his "New York Tribune" was the most influential paper during the 1840-70s

Indian Removal Act - Act signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830; this act relocated many Native Americans so US states could access more land

James Gadsden - An American diplomat, soldier and businessman and namesake of the Gadsden Purchase(in which the United States purchased from Mexico the land that became the southern portion of Arizona and New Mexico)

James K. Polk - Eleventh president of the US (1845 -1849); when Mexico rejected American annexation of Texas, he led the nation to victory in the Mexican-American War, which gave the United States most of its present Southwest.

James Reed - was a businessman, soldier and, most notably, an organizing member of the illfated 1846 Donner Party emigration to California; killed another guy, was banished then brought rescue parties

Jefferson Davis - an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil Wa

John Brown - He was a revolutionary abolitionist in the United States, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery; He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859

John C. Calhoun - He was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century; He is best known for hisoriginal defense of slavery as a positive good, for his inventing the theory of minority rights in a democracy, and for pointing the South toward secession from the Union

John C. Fremont - He was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party; lost to Buchanan

John Gast - painter who painted "American Progress" (the picture of a giant flying woman)

John L. O'Sullivan - an American columnist and editor who used the term "Manifest Destiny" in 1845 to promote the annexation of Texas and the Oregon Country to the United States

John Marshall - was the Chief Justice of the United States (1801-35) whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches; helped instate judicial review

John Slidell - He was an American politician, lawyer and businessman; a staunch defender of southern rights as a U.S. Representative and Senator

John Sutter - A pioneer of California known for his association with the California Gold Rush by the discovery of gold by and the mill making team at Sutter's Mill, and for establishing Sutter's Fort; tried to send help to the Donner Party

Kansas-Nebraska Act - 1854; created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands that would help settlement in them, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries and to settle there

Lansford Hastings - He was the developer of Hastings Cutoff, a shortcut across what is now the state of Utah, a factor in the Donner Party disaster of 1846

Louis Keseberg - The last member of the Donner Party to be rescued; he was found in a cabin of half eaten corpses; he later owned a restaurant

Manifest Destiny - 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent; it was used to justify the war with Mexico

Martin Van Buren - Eighth president of the United States (1837-1841); he did pretty chill stuff

Missouri Compromise - 1820; an agreement between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories; it prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 3630' north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri

Nicholas Trist - Pro-Slavery diplomat who became corruptly involved in the creation of false documents designed to mask illegal sales of Africans into bondage

Popular Sovereignty - the political principle that the legitimacy of the state is created by the will or consent of its people, who are the source of all political power

Roger B. Taney - The fifth Chief Justice of the United State who delivered the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), that ruled that African Americans, having been considered inferior at the time the Constitution was drafted, were not part of the original community of citizens and could not be considered citizens of the United States (property)

Sam Houston - a 19th-century American statesman, politician, and soldier; elected as the first and third President of the Republic of Texas, U.S. Senator for Texas after it joined the United States, and finally as governor of the state; refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy

Santa Anna - the Napoleon of the West," a Mexican political leader, general, and president who greatly influenced early Mexican and Spanish politics and government; helped to gain Mexican independence; Alamo

Stephen F. Austin - He led the second, but first legal and ultimately successful colonization of the Texas region by bringing 300 families from the United States; Austin, Texas is named in his honor

Stephen W. Kearny - a frontier officer of the United States Army; contributions in the MexicanAmerican War

Trail of Tears - A forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830; many died on this trip

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo - 1848; the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico City, that ended the Mexican-American War; Mexico ceded all of present-day California, Nevada and Utah as well as most of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado; Mexico relinquished all claims to Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of the United States

Winfield Scott - a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852

Zachary Taylor - Twelfth president of the United States (1849-1850); had a forty year military career; had a moderate stance on slavery; succeeded by Millard Fillmore