Highlights from Expansionist Era
Terms
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- Alamo
- Mission and fort that was the site of a siege and battle during the Texas Revolution, which resulted in the masscre of all its defenders. The event helped galvanize the Texas rebels and eventually led to their victory at the Battle of San Jacinto and independence from Mexico.
- Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
- Political opportunist and general who served as president of Mexico eleven different times and commanded the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s and the war with the United States in the 1840s.
- Compromise of 1850
- Proposal by Henry Clay to settle the debate over slavery in territories gained from the Mexican War. It was shepherded though Congress by Stephen Douglas. Its elements included admitting California as a free state, ending the buying and selling of slaves in the District of Columbia, a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law, postponed decisions about slavery in the New Mexico and Utah Territories, and settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary and debt issues.
- Franklin Pierce
- Northern Democratic president with southern principles 1853-1857, who signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and sought sectional harmony above all else.
- Free Soil Party
- Formed from the remnants of the Liverty Party in 1848. Adopting the slogan of "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men," it opposed the spread of slavery into territories and supported homesteads, cheap postage, and internal improvements. It ran Martin Van Buren (1848) and John Hale (1852) for president and was absorbed into the Republican Party in 1856.
- Gadsden Purchase (1853)
- U.S. Acquisition of land south of the Gila River from Mexico for $10 million. The land was needed for a possible transcontinental railroad line through the southern United States. However, the route was never used.
- James K. Polk
- Democratic president from 1845 to 1849. Nicknamed "Young Hickory" because of his close political and personal ties to Andrew Jackson, he pursued an agressive foreign policy that led to the Mexican War, settlement of the Oregon issue, and the acquisition of the Mexican Cession.
- John L. O'Sullivan
- Influential editor of the Democratic Review who coined the phrase "manifest destiny" in 1845.
- Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
- Stephen Douglas's bill to open western territories, promote a transcontinental railroad, and boost his presidential ambitions. It divided the Nebraska territory into two territories and used popular sovereignty to decide slavery in the region. Among Douglas's goals in making this proposal was to populate Kansas in order to make more attractive a proposed route for a transcontinental railroad that ended in Chicago, in his home state of Illinois.
- Know-Nothing Party
- Influential third party of the 1840s. It opposed immigrants, especially Catholics, nd supported temperance, a waiting period for citizenship, and literacy tests. Officially the American Party, its more commonly used nickname came from its members' secrecy and refusal to tell strangers angything about the group. When questioned, they would only reply, "I know nothing."
- Lewis Cass
- Democratic senator who proposed popular socereignty to settle the slavery question in the territories. He lost the presidential election in 1848 against Zachary Taylor but continued to advocate his solution to the slavery issue throughout the 1850s.
- Manifest Destiny
- Set of ideas used to justify American expansion in the 1840s. Weaving togther the rhetoric of economic recessity, racial superiority, and national security, the concept implied an inevitability of U.S. continental expansion.
- Mexican Cession
- Region comprising California and all or parts of the states of the present-day American Southwest that Mexico turned over to the United States after the Mexican War.
- Nashville Convention
- Meeting of representatives of nine southern states in the summer of 1850 to monitor the negotiations over the COmpromise of 1850. It called for extensions of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean and a stronger Fugitive Slave law. The convention accepted the Compromise but laid the groundwork for a southern confederacy.
- Ostend Manifesto (1854)
- A statement by American envoys abroad to pressure Spain into selling Cuba to the United STates. The declaration suggested that if Spain would not nsell Cub, the United States would be justified in seizing it. It was quickly repudiated by the U.S. government but it added tot eh belief that a "slave power" existed and was active in Washington.
- Popular Sovereignty
- Political process promoted by Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, and other northern Democrats whereby, when a territory organizes, its residents would vote to decide the future of slavery there. The idea of empowering voters to decide important questions was not new to the 1840s and 1850s or to the slavery issue, however.
- Republican Party
- Political party formed in 1854 in response to the Kansa-Nebraska Act. It combined remnants of Whig, Free Soil, and Know-Nothing Parties as well as disgruntled Democrats. Although not abolitionist, it sought to block the spread of slavery in the territories. It also favored tariffs, homesteads, and a transcontinental railroad.
- Sam Houston
- Leader of the Texas revolutionaries, 1825-1836, first president of the Republic of Texas, and later a U.S. Senator from the state of Texas. He was a close political and personal ally of Andrew Jackson.
- "Slave Power"
- The belief that a slave-holding oligarchy existed to maintain slavery in the South and to spread it throughout the United States, including into the free states. This belief held that a southern cabal championed a closed, aristrocratic way of life that attacked northern capitalism and liberty.
- Stephen Austin
- Leader of American immigration to Texas in the 1820s. He negotiated land grants with MExico and tried to moderate growing Texan rebelliousness in the 1830s. After Texas became an independent nation, he serves as its secretary of state.
- Stephen Douglas
- A leading Democratic senator in the 1850s. Nicknamed the "Little Giant" for his small size and great political power, he steered the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress. Although increasingly alienated from the southern wing of his party, he ran against his political rival Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860 and lost.
- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
- Agreement that ended the Mexican War. Under its terms Mexico gave up all claims to Texas north of the Rio Grande and ceded California and the Utah and New MExico territories to the United States. The United States paid Mexico $15 million for the land, but the land cession amounted to nearly half that nation's territory.
- Wilmost Proviso
- Measure introduced in Congress in 1846 to prohibit slavery in all territory that might be gained by the Mexican War. Southerners blocked its passage in the Senate. Afterward, it became the congressional rallying platform for the antislavery forces in the late 1840s and early 1850s.
- Winfield Scott
- Arguable the finest military figure in America from the War of 1812 to the Civil War. He distinguished himself in the Mexicn War, ran unsuccessfully for president (1852) and briefly commanded the Union armies at the beginning of the Civil War.
- Zachary Taylor
- Military hero of the Mexican War and the last Whig electedd president (1848). His suddent death in July 1850 allowed supporters of the COmpromise of 1850 to get the measures through Congress.